472 



NA TURE 



\_Sept. ii, i < 



I have now touched lightly upon alkhe points which appear to 

 me to be most noticeable in the recent progress of geographical 

 science ; but before I resume my seat I cannot deny myself the 

 pleasure of alluding to that important measure of social reform, 

 so simple in its application, so scientific in its basis, for which 

 you are indebted to the perseverance and enthusiasm of my 

 friend Mr. Sandford Fleming, C.E. I mean, of course, the 

 agreement to refer local time on this continent to a succession of 

 first meridians, one hour apart. There are many red-letter days 

 in the almanac of less importance than that memorable Novem- 

 ber 18, 1883, which saw this system adopted, whether we con- 

 sider its educational tendency or its influence on the future 

 intercourse of unborn millions. It is a somewhat memorable 

 evidence also that agreement upon questions of general concern 

 is not that unattainable thing which we are apt to consider it. The 

 next step will not be long delayed ; that is the agreement of the 

 civilised world to use one first meridian — Paris, Ferrol, Wash- 

 ington, Rio de Janeiro, gracefully, as I venture to hope, giving 

 that precedency to Greenwich which is demanded by the fact 

 that an overwhelming proportion of the existing nautical charts 

 of all nations, and of maps and atlases in most of them, already 

 refer their longitudes to that meridian ; no other change would 

 be so easy or so little felt. 



SECTION G 

 MECHANICAL SCIENCE 



Opening Address by Sir F. J. Bramwell, F.R.S., 

 V.P.Inst.C.E., President of the Section 



In a family of seven children there are two who are of para- 

 mount importance : the eldest, at the one end of the .scale, 

 important because he is the heir, the first-born ; and at the other 

 end of the scale, the little Benjamin, important because he is the 

 last, the youngest, and the dearest. The position of little 

 Benjamin is not, perhaps, quite as honourable as that of the 

 heir, and not, when the family breaks up, by any means as 

 good ; but while the family holds together, Benjamin receive;, 

 an amount of attention and consideration that does not fall to 

 the lot of any one of the intermediates, not even to the heir 

 himself. But there is one risk about Benjamin's position, a risk 

 that cannot appertain to the post of the first-born ; little Benja- 

 min may be deposed by the advent of a lesser Benjamin than 

 himself, whereas the first-born becomes (if possible) still more 

 the first-born for each addition to the family. Perhaps some of 

 you may say, Be it so ; but what has this to do with the address 

 of the President of Section G? Those who make this inquiry, 

 however, certainly have not present to their minds the change 

 that has this year taken place. Up to and including the South- 

 port meeting, Section G was the little Benjamin among the 

 seven sons of the B. A. (I will not waste your time by giving the 

 name of the Association in full, nor will I affront you by using 

 an abbreviation which is occasionally improperly applied), but at 

 Montreal appears Section II, audi; becomes relegated among 

 those uninteresting members of the family who are neither the 

 important head nor the cherished tail. I grieve for Benjamin, 

 and I think the present occasion an apt one for magnifying Sec- 

 tion G. Apt for two reasons : the foregoing one, that H has 

 deposed it from its position ; the other, that we are meeting in 

 Montreal— and in reference to this latter reason let me ask, Is 

 it not the fact that to the labours of the men who have been, or 

 are (or ought to be) members of Section G is due the possibility 

 of the meeting taking place on this side of the Atlantic? 



At our jubilee meeting at York, I called the attention of the 

 Section to the fact that in 1831, when the Association first met 

 in that city, they arrived there laboriously by the stage-coach, 

 and that practically the Manchester and Liverpool, the Stockton 

 and Darlington, and some few others, were the only railways 

 then in existence. I also called their attention to the fact that 

 in 1831 there were but very few steamers. I find the total 

 number registered in the United Kingdom in that year was only 

 447. If under this condition of things the proposition had been 

 made in 1S32 at Oxford, as it was made in 1882 at Southampton, 

 that the next meeting but one of the Association should take place 

 in Montreal, the extreme probability is that the proposer would 

 have been safely lodged in a lunatic asylum for suggesting that that 

 which might have involved a six-weeks' voyage out, and a four- 

 weeks' voyage back, could ever be seriously entertained. Further, 

 to give once more the hackneyed quotation, some few years after 

 tins, if. in 1S36, Dr. Lardner established, to his own satisfaction 



conclusively, that no vessel could ever steam across the Atlantic 

 the whole way — a striking instance of the mistakes made by 

 scientific speculation — a branch of science widely differing in the 

 value of its results from those branches which deal with absolute 

 demonstration. Undeterred, however, by such adverse opinion, 

 the engineers "kept on pegging away," experimenting, im- 

 proving, and progressing, until the scientific speculation was 

 met with the hard fact of the Atlantic voyage steamed the whole 

 way by the Si'ius and by the Great Western in 1838. The im- 

 possible was proved to be the possible, and from that day to this 

 the advancement of steam ocean navigation has continued. The 

 six-weeks' voyage, sailing westward, of the year 1831, has be- 

 come converted into but little over six days. And thus it is that 

 that which would have been a mad proposition in the year 1832 

 became a perfectly rational one in 1882 ; and the deliberations 

 of the General Committee on the proposition were not directed 

 as to whether it would be possible to convey the members with 

 certainty, expedition, and economy across the Atlantic, but as to 

 whether it was expedient or not on general grounds to hold for 

 the first time a meeting of the British Association elsewhere than 

 in some city of the United Kingdom. I say again that the 

 possibility of such a meeting is absolutely due to the engineer, 

 and that therefore, on this ground, the present is an appropriate 

 occasion to magnify G, the Mechanical Section of this Asso- 

 ciation. 



It is true that the man who looks only at that which is on the 

 surface may say, " You arrogate too much to yourselves. You 

 ignore (to which I say, Heaven forbid !) the skill and daring of 

 your sailors. You ignore commercial enterprise. You ignore 

 the development of iron and steel manufacture, which have 

 enabled you to build the steamers of the present day. You 

 ignore the increased output of the best steam coal in the 

 world, and you attribute the whole result to the engi- 

 neer." Such an objector would be in the condition of that 

 man who, in answer to George Stephenson's question, " What is 

 causing that railway train to move?" said, " Why, I suppose the 

 coal that is burning in the locomotive ; " and who was met by 

 that grand and comprehensive answer, that it was the " Sun," 

 for the coals were a consequence, and not a first cause. Simi- 

 larly I venture to say that the mechanical engineer may lay claim 

 to be the central source which has vivified and given rise to the 

 improvements in the manufacture of iron and steel, in the con- 

 struction of engines, and in the development of our collieries. 



There are those I know who object that Section G deals too little 

 with pure science, too much with its applications. It may be, as the 

 members of Section G might retort, that it is possible to attend 

 so much to pure science as to get into the unchecked region of 

 scientific speculation, and that, had the members of Section G 

 been debarred from the application of science, the speculation of 

 Dr. Lardner might to the present day have been accepted as 

 fact. 



I have quoted it before, but it has so important a bearing on 

 this point, and comes from a man of such high authority, that I 

 cannot refrain from once more giving you Dr. Tyndall's views 

 on this question : — 



"The knowledge of Nature and the progressive mastery over 

 the powers of Nature imply the interaction of two things — 

 namely, thought conceived and thought executed ; the concep- 

 tions of the brain, and the realisation of those conceptions by 

 the hand. The history of the human intellect hardly furnishes 

 a more striking illustration of this interaction of thought and 

 fact than that furnished by the Association of Physics and 

 Engineering. Take for instance the case of steam. Without 

 knowing its properties, the thought of applying steam could not 

 have arisen, hence the first step was physical examination. But 

 that examination suggested practice, and the steam-engine at 

 last saw the light ; thus experimental physics was the seedling 

 from which the steam-engine sprang. But the matter did not 

 end here ; the positions of debtor and creditor were soon re- 

 versed, for the stupendous operations of the steam-engine forced 

 men of thoughtful philosophic minds to inquire into the origin 

 of the power of steam. Guess succeeded guess, inspiration suc- 

 ceeded inspiration ; the ever-present fact of our railways, and 

 our power-looms, and our steamships gave the mind no rest 

 until it had answered the question, How are heat and steam, its 

 instruments, related to mechanical power ? Had the works of 

 the engineer not preceded the work of the natural philosopher, 

 this question would never have been asked with the emphasis, 

 noi pursued with the vigour, nor answered with the success, 

 which have attended it. It was the intellectual activity excited 

 by the work which the civil engineers of England had accom- 



