508 



RESEARCH 



Association. 5 At the previous Dublin meeting (1835), 

 he stated, he had ( laid before the Mechanical Section 

 a form of construction which had since become well 

 known as the " wave-line/' The section received the 

 idea so well that it appointed a committee to examine 

 into the matter, with the intention, if they found the 

 wave principle to be the true principle, to proclaim 

 it to the world. The committee pursued its investi- 

 gations, publishing the results in the account of their 

 transactions ; and from that time to the present he 

 had continued to make large and small vessels on the 

 wave principle ; and the diffusion of the knowledge of 

 this system through the " Transactions of the British 

 Association" had led to its almost universal adop- 

 tion.' The work of this committee (of which Sir John 

 Robison was chairman) constitutes, then, one of the 

 most important inquiries in applied science ever 

 undertaken by the Association, and its expenditure 

 of nearly 1000 in this connexion must be regarded 

 as a very noteworthy investment. Subsequently the 

 Association took part in many investigations into the 

 use of iron for shipbuilding and other construction, 

 its resistance to projectiles (Fairbairn, 1861), etc. 



In regard to the studies upon the strength of 

 engineering materials and changes in the internal 

 constitution of metals under varying conditions of 

 use, which were carried out by Fairbairn and others 

 about 1843-46, it has been stated that Stephenson 

 relied upon these results when designing the Menai 

 Strait tubular railway bridge, and could, indeed, 

 hardly have succeeded without them. Various in- 

 quiries, about the same period, into the duties and 

 work of steam engines were found to provide the most 

 valuable data in later years, when it was sought to 



