NATURE 



THURSDAY, JUNE 9, 1904. 



.4.\' AMERICA'S TREATISE ON NAVAL 

 ARCHITECTURE. 

 Naval Architecture. By Prof. C. H. Peabody. Pp. 

 V + 616. (New York: Wiley and Sons; London: 

 Chapman and Hal!, Ltd., 1904.) Price 31s. 6d. net. 



SINCE the revival of shipbuilding in the United 

 States and the construction of the " New Navy," 

 courses of instruction in naval architecture have been 

 arranged at several of the universities and technical 

 institutes. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology 

 has taken a leading position in this matter, and has 

 provided classes for those intending to enter the pro- 

 fession of shipbuilding, as well as a post-graduate 

 course in naval architecture especially arranged for 

 assistant constructors whose preliminary training is at 

 the Naval College, Annapolis. For many years the 

 Navy Department of the L'nited States had to send 

 their assistant constrnctors to Europe for instruction. 

 The first students who so came were entered at the 

 Royal Naval College at Greenwich ; in later years 

 many young American naval architects have been 

 students at Glasgow University. Others have been 

 sent to the French School of Naval Architecture. For 

 the future, it would appear that the United States 

 intend to supply their own educational wants in this 

 as in other branches. 



The author of the book under review is the professor 

 of naval architecture and marine engineering in the 

 Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and it is 

 obvious that the book has grown largely out of his 

 professorial work. It is also apparent that Prof. 

 Peabody has considerable sympathy with French 

 methods. Indeed, he adopts several French technical 

 terms instead of their usual English equivalents, and 

 in certain sections of the book he gives prominence 

 to French methods as distinguished from English. 

 While this comprehensive treatment is praiseworthy, 

 no sufficient reason is seen for departure from the 

 accepted terminology of English treatises on the 

 subject. 



The book is intended " to give, in a consistent and 

 connected form, the commonly accepted theory of 

 Naval Architecture," and it is added, " while this 

 work is intended primarily for students, it is hoped 

 that it may be found useful by Naval Architects and 

 Shipbuilders in general." It is probable that this hope 

 will be realised, so far as those sections of the book 

 are concerned which deal with ordinary ship calcu- 

 lations for displacement and stability, or those illustrat- 

 ing many practical operations connected with the addi- 

 tion, removal, or transfer of weights carried by ships. 

 Herein Prof. Peabody bases his treatment upon the 

 frank adoption, in practice, of mechanical aids to 

 calculation which have been introduced during the last 

 twenty-five years, chiefly by Amsler. Naval architects 

 owe much to that great instrument maker, and can 

 effect with his integrators an enormous economy of 

 labour and a great increase of speed in obtaining im- 

 NO. 1 806, VOL. 70] 



portant results. The planimeter for many years stood 

 alone, but when Amsler learned that, in addition to 

 the determination of areas, it was important in the 

 designing of ships to obtain also inoynents, and 

 moments of inertia, of areas about assigned axes, he 

 speedily produced ingenious machines which could be 

 used by ordinary draughtsmen. These instruments 

 were first adopted in this country, and are now 

 generally employed. 



Prof. Peabody gives a clear account of the principles 

 and methods of use of integrators. Moreover, he 

 furnishes an excellent summary of the latest modes 

 of arranging the actual details of work for ships' 

 calculations. In this department very considerable 

 advances have been made during the last thirty years 

 since calculations for the stability of ships became 

 general. But while, from the draughtsman's point of 

 view, the book is, for the most part, admirable, it does 

 not treat with equal fulness some calculations of con- 

 siderable importance, particularly those relating to 

 weight and strength. For these his treatment can 

 hardly be described as " up to date," or as giving full 

 and complete information to students or calculators. 

 There is, in fact, a want of due proportion in the space 

 and attention devoted to the various sections. Prof. 

 Peabody, while aiming at giving a consistent and con- 

 nected account of the whole accepted theory of naval 

 architecture, devotes particular attention to certain 

 portions of the subject, and unduly compresses his 

 treatment of others. Some of his longest chapters, 

 while they are undoubtedly interesting and valuable as 

 compilations of existing treatises on special branches 

 of the science of shipbuilding, have not, as a matter 

 of fact, great practical value. The theory of waves, 

 for example, including an outline of the stream-line 

 theory of resistance, occupies nearly one-eighth of the 

 book, and is treated in some portions with a mathe- 

 matical detail that appears inappropriate in this work, 

 where the principal conclusions might have been given 

 and reference made to the original authorities for the 

 mathematical proofs. 



Again, in dealing with the propulsion of ships, much 

 space is devoted to the practical reproduction of parts 

 of well known books dealing with the design and 

 efficiency of screw-propellers, such as that published in 

 England by Mr. Sidney Barnaby, and that first issued 

 in the United States by Naval Constructor Taylor, who 

 was a graduate of our Royal Naval College. Both 

 these gentlemen based their work chiefly on experi- 

 ments made, or on methods suggested, by the late 

 Mr. William Froude and Mr. R. E. Froude, and 

 furnished valuable rules for guidance in practice; but 

 as their books are accessible, they need not have been 

 so largely drawn upon. Having done this. Prof. Pea- 

 body was practically compelled to abridge very greatly 

 his treatment of other sections of great importance in 

 the current work of ship designing, wherein students 

 might have been greatly assisted if more extended de- 

 scriptions and investigations had been given. 



Another feature in which the volume is not entirely 

 satisfactory is in some of its illustrations of actual 

 practice, and in its allusion to broad general rules 



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