September 19, 1912J 



NATURE 



83 



himself by a good rest for the next day's journey. 

 In fact, it would be better if an explorer never looked 

 at tlie figures of an observation after he had recorded 

 them, or read over the notes of his past work, con- 

 fining himself to recording what he has actually seen 

 day by day as accurately as circumstances permitted, 

 and carefully distinguishing what he really saw from 

 what he thought he had seen, or what he had heard. 



It would be easy to adduce instances of the errors 

 which have arisen from the neglect of such pre- 

 cautions. Perhaps one of tlie best linown is that I 

 have already alluded to, when James Bruce, a careful 

 explorer, because he had made up his mind that the 

 Blue Nile was the real Nile, passed the White Nile 

 without taking the trouble to examine it, and recorded 

 it as being a comparatively insignificant river. Then 

 there was the case of Sir Samuel Baker, who, having 

 reached the shores of tlie Albert Nyanza with great 

 difficulty, depended too much on what he was told by the 

 natives, and showed it on his map as extending many 

 miles to the south of the equator. But great respon- 

 sibility rests also upon those who have the task of 

 compiling a map from the notes of an explorer, and 

 the greatest care has to be taken to show only what 

 is really known, and not what is uncertain. Geo- 

 graphers, whether in the field or in the drawing 

 office, should always hold up before themselves a 

 standard of accuracy higher than it is always easy 

 to live up to. 



Geography under its more ancient name of 

 geometry is, of course, the mother of all sciences, 

 although at the present time geometry has got a 

 more narrow meaning, and is perhaps regarded by 

 some as independent of geography, although really 

 only a branch of it. The study of the earth upon 

 which they lived was, to the ancient nations, the most 

 important of all studies, and it is interesting to trace 

 how astronomy, mathematics, geology, and ethnology 

 are all so interspersed with geography that it is diffi- 

 cut to separate them. It is satisfactory to note how 

 from the very first the British Association has always 

 recognised the great importance of geography, since 

 the first meeting of the Association at Oxford in 

 1832, when .Sir Roderick Murchison, so well known 

 to fame, acted as president of the Geographical and 

 Geological Section. These two sciences remained 

 united in the same section until the meeting at Edin- 

 burgh in 1850, when Sir R. Murchison was again the 

 president. I3ut, at the next meeting at Ipswich in 

 185 1, they were separated, and while geology re- 

 mained as the subject of Section C, geography, on 

 account of its great importance, was made the sub- 

 ject of Section E, and the science of ethnology was 

 united with it. Sir R. Murchison was the first presi- 

 dent of the new Geographical Section, and was after- 

 wards president no fewer than six times of Section E, 

 showing the great importance attached bv him to the 

 study of the science of geography. May I express the 

 hope that the presidents of the section will endeavour 

 in future to follow, however humbly, in the footsteps 

 of that leader of science. 



SECTION G. 



Engineering. 

 Opening Address by Prof. Archibald Barr, D.Sc, 

 President of the Section. 

 One of the great engineers of the past, Leonardo 

 da Vinci, prefaced a collection of observations on 

 various themes, including the mechanical arts, with 

 the remark : — " Seeing that I cannot choose any sub- 

 ject of great utility or pleasure, because my prede- 

 cessors have already taken as their own all useful and 

 NO. 2238, VOL. 90] 



necessary themes, 1 will do like one who, because of 

 his poverty, _is the last to arrive at the fair, and not 

 being able otherwise to provide himself, chooses all 

 the things that others have already looked over and 

 not taken, but refused as being of little value. With 

 these despised and rejected wares — the leavings of 

 many buyers — I will load my modest pack, and there- 

 with take my course." These words describe, with 

 some approach to e.xactitude, the position in which I 

 find myself, and may form a fitting introduction to 

 an address that will be discursive rather than 

 systematic, and perhaps more critical than con- 

 structive. 



It may be less true to-day than it was four hundred 

 years ago to say that all important matters concern- 

 ing the existing state of the mechanical arts have 

 been dealt with in spoken or written addresses. Each 

 year there might be found sufficient subject-matter 

 for a general survey of the ground that has been 

 covered or a sketch of what lies before us. But each 

 important advance is nowadays recorded as soon as 

 it is made, and I do not feel that I have any special 

 call to assume the role of the historian, nor can I 

 claim any right to don the mantle of the prophet. 



A president of this section who is not disposed to 

 deal with the general aspects of the progress being 

 made in the department of science allotted to us can 

 usually find a large enough subject for his address 

 within the limits of that part of our wide field with 

 which his own work has been more particularly 

 identified, and it might be expected that I would 

 devote my address to a discussion of the conclusions 

 at which I have arrived during thirty-si.x years of 

 practice and experience in the teaching of mechanical 

 science. But so much has been said of late on the' 

 training of engineers, and so many divergent and even 

 irreconcilable opinions have been expressed regarding 

 the lines such training should follow, that I feel sure 

 I shall be relieving the apprehensions of'some of my 

 audience if I begin by stating that I do not propose 

 to inflict upon you a discourse on that threadbare 

 theme. There are limits to the endurance even of 

 those who practise a profession well calculated to 

 inculcate the virtues of patience and forbearance. 



When we have as president of the section one who 

 has broken new paths in the exploration of the terri- 

 tory assigned to us, or to whose labours the fruitful- 

 ness of some corner of the domain may be chiefly 

 attributed, we would scarcely be disposed to tolerate 

 the omission from his address of an account of his 

 own special work, in investigation or in practice, and 

 the developments to which it is leading. But while, 

 no doubt, every worker is the chief authority on 

 something or other, the plot he cultivates may be so 

 restricted in area, and its products may bulk so little 

 in the general harvest, as to form no suitable topic 

 to engage the attention of his fellow- workers on such 

 an occasion as this. 



When an engineer leaves practice in the great, and 

 takes to the devising and production of what are 

 usually referred to specifically as " scientific instru- 

 ments " (though all machines and mechanical appli- 

 ances mav properly be classed as such), his colleagues 

 in the profession may be disposed to look upon the 

 change as a degeneration qf species. Naturally I am 

 not disposed to accept such a verdict. Remembering 

 the careers of those who did most in the founding 

 of the various branches of present-dav practice, I am 

 quite prepared to accept as applicable another phase 

 borrowed from the language of the biologist, and to 

 let it be called a "reversion to a more primitive type." 

 But instead of dealine with the narrow branch of 

 applied science with which my own practice is chieflv 

 connected, I prefer to utilise the short time at mv 



