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are intimately bound up with the professional and scientific 
career of Professor Rankine, and therefore our sketch, at 
the best, can only be of the most cursory sort. In due 
time, doubtless, a suitable tribute will be paid to his 
memory and his scientific genius by the hand of one of 
his literary executors. 
- Professor Rankine was born in Edinburgh, and re- 
ceived most of his ordinary school education in the 
Burgh Academy of the town of Ayr, and in the High 
School of Glasgow ; but he received the most valuable part 
of his education, doubtless, from his father, who was a 
retired lieutenant of the Rifle Brigade, during the resi- 
dence of the family at Edinburgh. At a very early age 
young Rankine entered himself as a student in the Uni- 
versity of Edinburgh, where he enjoyed the invaluable 
benefit of instruction in chemistry from. Dr, D. B. Reid; 
in natural history (including zoology, geology, and mine- 
ralogy) from Prof. Jameson, a man of European reputa- 
tion as a naturalist ; in botany from Prof. Graham; and 
in natural philosophy from Prof, James D. Forbes. The 
extraordinary genius which he displayed in after life in 
pure and applied mathematics seems to have owed little 
or nothing to any external or adventitious aid in the 
shape of professional instruction!: he was a born mathe- 
matician. 
‘The bent of his mind began very early to show itself, 
for before he was out of his “teens” he had written two 
essays on purely physical subjects—“ The ‘Undulatory 
Theory of Light,” and “ Methods of Physical Investiga- 
tion.” When he was about eighteen years of age he be- 
took himself to the profession of civil engineering, and 
served as a pupil under an eminent master, Sir John 
-Macne for three or four years, a large portion of which 
“was spent on engineering works in Ireland. He was 
afterwards employed for several years on railway and 
other engineering works in Scotland, and in 1850 or 1851 
he settled down in Glasgow to pursue his profession in 
partnership with Mr. John Thomson, C.E. 
Meanwhile, Mr. Rankine had been prosecuting inquiry 
in reference to several purely scientific subjects, as well 
as those that more immediately pertained to his profession 
as a civil engineer ; and he did not fail to put on record 
the results of his investigations, almost all of which he 
gave to the world through the medium of one of the 
learned societies. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal 
Scottish Society of Arts in 1842, an Associate of the In- 
stitution of Civil Engineers in 1843,a Fellow of the Royal 
Society of Edinburgh in 1849, a Member of the Philo- 
sophical Society of Glasgow in 1853, and a Fellow of the 
Royal Society of London in the same year. In the year 
1850 he first cast in his lot with the British Association, 
and at the meeting held in Edinburgh that year he was 
the Secretary of the Physical and Mathematical Section. 
He afterwards occupied still more prominent positions 
_both in Section A and Section G, and many of his ad- 
mirers looked forward with pleasure to an early meeting 
of the Association being held in Glasgow, when they 
hoped to see him filling the presidential chair. 
In the year 1855 he was appointed by the Crown to the 
Regius Professorship of Civil Engineering and Mechanics 
in the University of Glasgow, in succession to Prof. 
Lewis Gordon, and in that highly honourable position he 
laboured with unexampled distinction for seventeen years. 
The spirit in which he conducted his class may be judged 
of by the following extract from the introductory lecture 
which he delivered on the occasion of taking possession of 
his chair ; the subject of the lecture was, “The Harmony 
of Theory and Practice in Mechanics,” in the course of 
which he said: “The objects of instruction in purely 
scientific mechanics and physics are, first, to produce in 
the student that improvement of the understanding 
which results from the cultivation of natural know- 
ledge, and that elevation of mind which flows from 
the contemplation of the order of the universe ; 
oe TER Oo LT hm Pe ete 
deck, aed: ‘ 
NATURE 
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and, secondly, if possible, to qualify him to become 
a scientific discoverer. In this branch of study ex- 
actness is an essential feature, and mathematical diffi- 
culties must not be shrunk from when the nature of the 
subject leads tothem. The ascertainment and illustra- 
tion of truth are the objects ; and structures and machines 
are looked upon merely as natural bodies are, namely, as 
furnishing experimental data for the ascertaining of prin- 
ciples and examples for their illustration.” Wat FOE 
When the British Association meeting was held in 
Dublin in 1857 Prof. Rankine had the honorary degree 
of LL.D. conferred upon him as a mark of the eminence 
which he had then attained as a physical investigator, al- 
though only thirty-seven years of age; and in the same 
year he was chosen as the first president of the Institution 
of Engineers in Scotland, an organisation which he mate- 
rially helped to bring into existence. In November 1861 
he also became President of the Philosophical Society of 
Glasgow, and during his term of office he con- 
ducted the business of the society with great tact and 
superlative ability; he delivered two addresses from 
the presidential chair and contributed several other 
papers, all of which were valuable contributions to 
science. We would only mention his first presidential 
address, the subject of which was “On the Use of 
Mechanical Hypotheses in Science, especially in the 
Theory of Heat.” In it he gave a short account of the 
results which had been derived from that hypothesis 
which ascribes the mechanical action of heat to the cen- 
trifugal force of certain supposed molecular motions, a 
hypothesis which, like the wave theory of light, the hypo- 
thesis of atoms in chemistry, and all other physical hypo- 
theses whatsoever, substitutes a supposed for a real 
phenomenon, namely, invisible motion for tangible heat ; 
the object being to deduce the laws of the real pheno- 
menon from those of the supposed one. Another of the 
most remarkable of his Philosophical Society papers was 
one which he read in}January 1867, the subject being 
On the Phrase ‘ Potential Energy, and on the Defini- 
tions of Physical Quantities.” This was suggested by a 
paper, entitled “ On the Origin of Force,” which Sir John 
Herschel contributed to the Fortnightly Review, and in 
which he expressed the opinion that the phrase in 
question was unfortunate, inasmuch as it went to sub- 
stitute a truism for the announcement of a great dyna- 
mical fact. ¢ 
Prof. Rankine did not content himself with being a 
“ star of the first magnitude” in respect of the science of 
thermodynamics ; he also plunged into, and won distinction 
in, the science of naval architecture, being impelled in 
that direction, doubtless, through the intimate friendly 
intercourse which he had with Mr. James R. Napier, 
F.R.S., one of the most original-minded naval architects 
and marine engineers that the Clyde has yet produced. 
The degeased professor’s writings are exceedingly nume- 
rous. He wrote and published, up to and including the 
year 1863, no fewer than eighty papers which were found 
to be worthy of mention in the Royal Society’s catalogue ; 
and between that and his death he had probably written 
as many more, in addition to the various treatises which 
he wrote upon “Civil. Engineering,” “Applied Me- 
chanics,” &c., all of which are of the very highest scien- 
tific and practical value. Whatever he wrote he executed 
with almost matchless perfection, whether we regard the 
elegance of his diction, the scientific order of his exposi- 
tion, or the lucid methods of illustration whic he 
adopted. His mind was of the very first order, and his 
death creates such a profound void in pure physics and 
scientific engineering that we could easily have afforded 
to give half-a-dozen of our most eminent practical engi- 
neers, civil or mechanical, that he might have been 
retained among us to pursue his original investigations 
and mould the minds of the engineers of the future. 
JouHN MAYER 
