110 
NATURE 
[DECEMBER 3. 1903 
ated C.E., Ph.B., in 1859, and a practical training 
during the 
firm. 
In 1861 he entered the United States Navy, serving 
from 1861-1865 first as assistant engineer and then 
as engineer in charge of vessels; this period covered 
the great Civil War, and the unique experience which 
Thurston then enjoyed no doubt did much towards 
turning his mind to experimental research, and prob- 
ably altered the whole course of his life’s work. 
In 1865 he was appointed assistant professor of 
natural philosophy in the United States Naval 
Academy at Annapolis, and as his chief died a few 
weeks afterwards, Thurston had entire charge of the 
department until he resigned the post, in r871, in 
order to take up the duties of professor of mechanical 
engineering in the Stevens Institute of Technology, 
an office he held until 1885. 
It was while he held this chair that Thurston began 
to make his name known, not only in America, but 
in Europe; he was a prolific writer on technical sub- 
jects, and did much valuable research work in con- 
nection with the U.S. Board appointed to deal with 
the subject of testing metals, notably in the in- 
vestigation of the properties of the various alloys of 
copper, tin, and zinc. During this period he also 
visited Europe as the U.S. Commissioner to the 
Vienna Exposition of 1873, and on his return pub- 
lished a valuable report. 
In 1885 he took up the post which he held until 
his death, that of director of Sibley College; here he 
had full scope for his remarkable powers as a teacher 
and an organiser of scientific education of the most 
advanced character, and the most eloquent testimony 
to his success is the extraordinarily rapid growth in 
the number of students; from a mere handful in 1885, 
same time in the workshops of his father’s | 
in eighteen years they have increased to nearly rooo, | 
and Sibley College to-day stands in the very front rank 
of the great technical colleges of the world devoted 
to the scientific training of the men who are to be the 
leaders of the engineering profession in all its 
branches. Much of its success is due to the fact that 
he was from the first able to win the sympathy and 
support of the leading engineers of the States, with 
the result that the Sibley College graduates never find 
the least difficulty in securing paid posts as soon as 
they finish their college training. 
Thurston altogether wrote some 20 volumes and 
more than 300 separate scientific papers; his fertility 
went through as a teacher and director, is amazing, 
and some of his books bear traces of the haste and 
pressure under which they were produced. 
Of his books, the most noteworthy are the follow- 
ing :—‘‘ Friction and Lost Work,” ‘The Materials | 
of Engineering,” “‘ A Manual of the Steam Engine,’’ 
“Steam Boiler Construction,’ and ‘A History 
of the Steam Engine ”’; these are all in America re- 
cognised as standard works, and have found a ready 
sale also in this country. In fact, Thurston almost 
attained the same position as was held by Rankine for 
so many years in this country, and his books were 
consulted and used by thousands of young engineers 
scattered throughout the length and breadth of the 
great Republic. 
Thurston was naturally the recipient of many 
honours; he was the first president of the American 
Society of Mechanical Engineers, holding office from 
1880 to 1883, vice-president of the American Associa- 
tion for the Advancement of Science in 1877, 1878, and 
1884, an LL.D. of the Brown University in 188q, 
&c.; he was twice married, in 1865 to Susan Taylor 
Gladding (she died in 1878) and in 1880 to Leonora 
Boughton, 
NO. 1779, VOL. 69] 
| years of age. 
| 
Though Thurston devised several special forms of 
testing machines, he was not an inventive genius, 
and he did no work as a constructive engineer. It was 
as a writer and speaker that he made his influence 
felt, and how great that influence was will only be 
fully realised now that he has gone. T. HEB: 
SIR FREDERICK BRAMWELL, F.R.S. 
HE death of Sir Frederick Bramwell on Monday 
deprives engineering of one of its most energetic 
workers, and pure science of one who did much to pro- 
mote its interests. 
Sir Frederick Bramwell was born in London on 
March 7, 1818, and was apprenticed to one of the old 
school of mechanical engineers when he was sixteen 
After a varied experience he commenced. 
practice on his own account as a civil engineer in 1853, 
and the following year became a member of the Insti- 
tution of Mechanical Engineers. He was elected an 
associate of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1856; 
| and in 1862 attained full membership. 
In 1874 Bramwell was chosen president of the Insti- 
tution of Mechanical Engineers, and delivered an 
address in which he appealed to engineers to use to their 
utmost, and to use fairly, the natural resources at 
their command. As president of the Institution of 
Civil Engineers in 1884, he described in his address the 
chief factors of past progress, and advocated the treat- 
ment of large steel forgings by hydraulic pressure in 
place of steam hammers. He was president of the 
Mechanical Science Section of the British Association 
in 1872, and again at Montreal in 1884. He was elected 
| president of the Association for the Bath meeting in 
| 1888, when he delivered an address on the greatness of 
the works which the engineer creates out of minute 
beginnings. 
Sir Frederick Bramwell received many marks of re- 
_ cognition from public bodies and learned societies. In 
1873 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. In 
| 
1881, the Times relates, he was appointed member of 
the Ordnance Committee, and in that capacity assisted 
in the framing of the rules under which iron and steel 
for the construction of large ordnance are tested before 
acceptance. After serving on the council and as a 
member of the board of management he was, on the 
_retirement of Sir William Bowman in 1885, made 
: | honorary secretary of the Royal Institution. 
with the pen, when one considers the labours he daily | 
Always 
cordially lamenting the lack of facilities for technical 
_ education in his youth, he was a warm supporter of 
the movement for its advancement in this country. On 
| the foundation of the City and Guilds of London Insti- 
tute he was appointed by the Goldsmiths’ Company 
one of its representatives on the governing body. A 
knighthood was conferred upon him in 1881, and a 
baronetcy in 1889. He received the honorary degree 
of D.C.L. from the Universities of Oxford and 
Durham, and that of LL.D. from Cambridge and 
McGill. 
NOTES. 
Pror. LupwiG BortzMANN has been elected honorary 
member of the Moscow Academy of Sciences. 
Tue deaths are announced of Prof. Heinrich Moehl, 
director of the meteorological station at Cassel, at the age 
of seventy-one, and Dr. Nagel, formerly professor of geodesy 
in the technical high school at Dresden. 
THE next meeting of the American Association for the 
Advancement of Science, and affiliated societies, will be held 
at St. Louis during convocation week beginning on 
