August 29, 1901] 



NA TURE 



439 



spectrum analysis, and, later on, several of such elements have 

 been actually identified by the use of the electric current in 

 creating vibrations in the ether. The limit is probably not 

 reached yet, but as each new element is discovered its affinities 

 are sought by the chemist, its sensibility to various forms of 

 vibratory motion are investigated by the dynamist, as we may 

 term the physicist who is seeking the laws of either heat or light 

 or electricity, and then it is the function of the civil engineer to 

 study how it can best be applied to the use and convenience of 

 man. For, ever since the beginning of the nineteenth century, 

 the evidence has been cumulative that matter in motion accounts 

 for all physical phenomena, that motion produces energy, that 

 energy is never wasted but is simply transformed, and that it 

 manifests itself to the senses of man in various modes which are 

 appreciable by the several organs of sense. 



What our senses recognise as chemical affinity, heat, light and 

 electricity are simply conditions of matter induced by vibrations 

 or quivers or waves or strains, whatever we may call them, of 

 different kinds and at different velocities. Neither matter nor 

 motion can be originated by man, but, by a careful study of the 

 sequence of events, control can be acquired of their modes of 

 interaction, and natural phenomena can be artificially reproduced 

 and other phenomena be produced. The intelligent application 

 and direction of such means of control is the function of the 

 civil engineer. 



In considering the means of directing the great sources of 

 power, the psychological element must not be forgotten. A 

 mere intellectual application of the laws discovered by physical 

 research is not enough to make a civil engineer. Breadth of 

 view, the faculty of analysing what has been done so as to dis- 

 cover how and why some enterprises have been successful and 

 others have not, and the ability to forecast the future, are essen- 

 tial. These qualities are largely natural, but may be cultivated 

 to a great extent by study and experience. That there has been 

 a wonderful advance in this direction during the nineteenth cen- 

 tury is shown by the great number of civil engineers who hold 

 positions of prominence in the management and control of large 

 enterprises which require the exercise of faculties which cannot 

 be acquired in any other way than by experience in the 

 designing, construction and management of engineering works. 



A prominent factor in causing this advance in engineering 

 science which has occurred simultaneously on the Continent of 

 Europe, in Great Britain and in America, has been the colla- 

 boration of men of science. Early in the century it became 

 evident that the multiplication of lines of research demanded 

 a differentiation of the labour of their prosecution and a close 

 cooperation of the workers in any special line, and various 

 associations of specialists were formed to promote various 

 branches of scientific research. By the middle of the century 

 it had become apparent that civil engineering was not the prose- 

 cution of a speciality, but was the coordination and direction of 

 the work of all specialities in science and its applications. 



Recognising, then, that progress is a law of Nature, the 

 acceleration of progress is the aim of civil engineering. It 

 strives to simulate the results of the slow processes of Nature 

 by causing the sources of power to act rapidly in any desired direc- 

 tion. Appreciating, too, the fact that there is constant progress 

 and that what now seems admirably adapted to our needs may 

 in a short time require to be superseded by improved structures 

 and processes, the tendency of the time is toward the produc- 

 tion of works which will have a definite term of life, rather 

 than towards the construction of everlasting monuments. We 

 see that in the old nations, where the eftort to build for eternity 

 was made, time has outstripped the intent of the builders and 

 what is antiquated is useless, and we see the same thing in our 

 own streets to-day. The idea of building a monumental structure 

 which will hand one's name down to future ages is a fascinating 

 one, but it is simply a survival of the engineering of the 

 Pharaohs. 



The most thorough exemplar of the condition of civil 

 engineering at the beginning of the twentieth century is the 

 modern office building in a great city. One hundred years 

 ago, the man of enterprise who resided fifty miles from a large 

 city and wished to consult an engineer regarding a project for a 

 new canal, arose before daylight, struck a spark from his flint 

 and steel, which falling on a scrap of tinder was blown by him 

 into flame and from that a tallow dip was lighted. In the 

 same primitive manner, the wood fire was kindled on the 

 kitchen hearth and his breakfast was cooked in a pot and kettle 

 suspended from the iron crane in the fireplace. Entering the 



NO. I 66 I, VOL. 64] 



cumbrous stage coach, hung on leather springs, which passed 

 his door, he was driven over muddy roads, crossing the narrow ' 

 streams on wooden trestle bridges and the navigable rivers on a 

 ferry boat, the paddle wheels of which were turned by a mule 

 on a treadmill. At last he was landed in the city, where he 

 walked through dirty streets paved with cobble stones until he 

 reached his destination, a plain three-story brick building 

 founded on sand, with a damp cellar and a cesspool in the back 

 yard. Entering a dark hall he climbed a wooden staircase and 

 was ushered into a neat room, rag-carpeted, warmed by a wood 

 fire on the open hearth and lighted by a sperm oil lamp with 

 one wick, for it was dark by this time. 



To-day, his grandson, living at the old homestead, while com- 

 fortably eating his breakfast, which has been cooked over a gas 

 range, reads in his morning paper that the high dam of the 

 irrigation reservoir in Arizona, in which he is interested, sprang 

 a leak the day before, and he telegraphs to his engineer in 

 the city that he will meet him at his oftice at noon. Then, 

 striking a match, he lights the lamp of his automobile, which 

 is fed by petroleum brought 200 miles underground in pipes 

 from the wells, rolls over macadamised roads to the railroad 

 station, where he enters a luxuriously appointed train, by which 

 he is carried above all highways, through tunnels, under rivers, 

 or across them on long-span steel bridges, and in an hour is 

 deposited in the heart of the city, where he has his choice of 

 proceeding to his destination through clean and asphalt-paved 

 streets in electric surface cars at nine miles an hour, elevated 

 steam cars at twelve miles an hour, or through well-lighted 

 and ventilated tunnels at fifteen miles an hour. Reaching the 

 spot his grandfather had visited, he finds there a huge and 

 highly decorated building, twenty or more stories high. Founded 

 on the primeval rock, far below the surface of the natural 

 ground, the superjacent strata of compressible material having 

 been penetrated by caissons of sheet metal sunk by the use of 

 air, compressed by powerful pumps driven by steam or electri- 

 city generated at a power station half a mile or more away, and 

 these caissons filled with a manufactured rock such as the ordinary 

 processes of Nature would require millions of years to produce, 

 there is erected a cage of steel, the composition of which has 

 been specified, and the form and mode of construction of 

 which have been so computed that the force of the elements 

 cannot overthrow the structure or even cause it to sway 

 perceptibly. The meshes of this mighty cage are filled 

 with products of the earth, the mine and the forest, transformed 

 so as to be strong and light and incombustible, and all interwoven 

 with pipes and wires, each in its proper place and noted on the 

 plans. In one set of these pipes there is pure water, which has 

 been collected from a mountain area of igneous geological for- 

 mation, depopulated and free from swamps, on which a record 

 of the daily rainfall is kept, and in which impounding reservoirs 

 have been constructed by masonry dams across its valleys. 

 From these reservoirs, the water, after filtration through clean 

 sand, is conveyed thirty or forty miles through steel or masonry 

 conduits to covered reservoirs, whence it is drawn as needed 

 through cast-iron pipes to the building where it is to be used, 

 and there distributed to all parts of it, chilled nearly to the 

 freezing point through one system of pipes or heated nearly to 

 the boiling point through another system. Another set of pipes 

 carries steam which, passing through radiators, keeps the 

 temperature of the air throughout the building at the proper 

 standard for comfort. Sanitary conveniences are provided every- 

 where, and all wastes are consumed within the building by the 

 surplus heat generated, leaving only ashes to be removed. 

 Wires convey electric currents to all points, so that the 

 occupant of a room, sitting at his desk, can by the touch of a 

 button ventilate his apartment, illuminate it, call a messenger, 

 be kept informed of every fluctuation in the markets, converse 

 with anybody who is not " busy " within forty miles of where 

 he sits and if entirely " up to date " can require his autograph 

 and portrait to be reproduced before his eyes for identification. 

 He dictates his correspondence and his memoranda, and "takes 

 his pen in hand " only to sign his name. He need not leave 

 his seat except to consult the photograph hanging on his wall, 

 which shows to him the latest condition of the mine, the rail- 

 road, the arid lands irrigated, the swamps reclaimed, the bridge 

 in progress, the steamship, the water-works, the tunnel or the 

 railroad, the dam, the filter or the sewage works, the town, the 

 machine, the power plant or the manufacturing establishment in 

 which he is most interested. 



Entering the brilliantly lighted hallway of this building, the 



