August 15, 1907] 



NA TURE 



39T 



Grant, Proposed 

 College. 1Q06-7. Grant. 



-i ^ 



\ ictoria University of Manchester 12,000 ... 10,000 



Uni\ersity of Liverpool lo.ono ... 10,000 



University College, London 10,000 ... 10,000 



I'nivcrsity of Birmingham 9,000 ... 9,000 



L'niversity of Leeds 8,000 ... 8,000 



King's College, London 7, 800 ... 7,800 



Armstrong College, \ewcastIe-on-Tyne... b,ooo ... 6,000 



I'niversity College, Nottingham S.Soo ... 5,000 



I niversity of Sheffield 4,600 ... 5,000 



Bedford College for Women, London ... 4,000 ... 4,000 



I'niversity College, Bristol 4,000 ... 4,000 



University College, Reading 3i4oo ... 3,400 



Hartley University College. Southampton 3,400 ... 2,250 



London School of Economics — ... 500 



1 he report gives the committee's reasons for the diminu- 

 tion of the grant in the case of Manchester, Nottingham, 

 and Southampton, and for the grant to the London School 

 of Economics. 



.After a consideration of the reports of the inspectors who 

 visited the institution? .nnd of the statistics provided bv 

 Iheni, the committee decided not to recommend a grant 

 in the case of the Birkbeck College, the East London 

 College, and the Royal Albert Memorial College, Exeter. 



The grants enumerated in the table above amount lo 

 84,950/., leaving, if the grant of 1000/. to Dundee Uni- 

 versity College is continued, a balance of 14,050/. available 

 for grants for special purposes. 



THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION. 

 SECTION G. 



ENGINEERING. 



Opening Address by Silv.\nus P. Thompson, D.Sc, 

 F.R.S., P.AST President of the Institction of 

 Electrical Engineers, President of the Section. 



It would be impossible for any assembly of engineers 

 lo meet in annual gathering at the present tiine without 

 reference to the severe loss which the profession has so 

 recently sustained by the death of Sir Benjamin Bal;cr. 

 Born in 1840, he had attained while still a comparatively 

 young man to a position in the front rank of constructive 

 engineers. His contributions to science cover a consider- 

 able range, but were chiefly concerned with the strength 

 of materials, into which he made valuable investigations, 

 and with engineering structures generally. His name will 

 doubtless be chiefly associated wMth the building of great 

 bridges, to the theory of which he contributed an important 

 memoir entitled " A Theoretical Investigation into the 

 Most Advantageous System of Constructing Bridges of 

 Great Span." In this work he set forth the theory of the 

 cantilever bridge. Upon the plan there laid down he 

 built the Forth Bridge, besides many other large bridges 

 in various parts of the world. With that memorable 

 structure, completed in 1S90, his name will ever be 

 associated ; but he will be remembered henceforth also as 

 the engineer who w-as responsible for the great dam across 

 the Nile at Assouan, a work which promises to have an 

 influence for all time upon the fortunes of Egypt and 

 upon the prosperitv of its population. Sir Benjamin 

 Bal-cer was, moreover, closely associated with the internal 

 railways of London, bolh in the early days of the Metro- 

 politan Railway and in the later developments of the deep- 

 level tubes. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal .Society 

 in iSqo, became President of the Institution of Civil 

 Engineers in 1895, and was a member of Council of the 

 Institution of Mechanical Engineers, besides being an 

 active member of the Royal Institution and of the British 

 .'\s3ociation. He was also a member of the Council of 

 the Royal Society at the time of his death. 



He enjoyed many honorary distinctions, including degrees 

 conferred by the L'niversitlcs of Cambridge and Edin- 

 burgh. In 1890 there was conferred upon him the title 

 of k.C.M.G., and in 1902 that of K.C.B. 



He had but just returned from Egypt, whither he had 

 gone in connection with the project for raising the height 



NO. 1972, VOL. 76] 



of the Assouan dam, so as to increase its storage to more 

 than double the present volume, when he "died very 

 suddenly on May 19, in his sixty-seventh year. 



'The Development of Enginceriitg and its Foundation on 



Science. 

 We live in an age when the development of the material 

 resources of civilisation is progressing in a ratio without 

 parallel. International commerce spreads apace. Ocean 

 transport is demanding greater facilities. Steamships of 

 vaster size and swifter speed than any heretofore in use 

 are being built every year. Not only are railways extend- 

 ing in all outlying parts of the world, but at home, where 

 the territory is already everywhere intersected with lines, 

 larger and heavier locomotives are being used, and longer 

 runs without stopping are being made by our express 

 trains. The horsed cars on our tramways are now being 

 mostly superseded by larger cars, electrically propelled and 

 travelling with greatly increased speeds. For the handling 

 of the ever-increasing passenger traffic in our great cities 

 electric propulsion has shown itself a necessity of the 

 time ; witness the electric railways in Liverpool and the 

 network of electrically worked tube railways throughout 

 London. In ten years the manufacture of automobile 

 carriages of all sorts has sprung up into a great industrv. 

 Every year sees a greater demand for the raw materials 

 and products, out of which the manufacturer will in turn 

 produce the articles demanded by our complex modern 

 life. We live and work in larger buildings ; we make 

 more use of mechanical appliances : we travel more, and 

 our travelling is more expeditious than formerly ; and not 

 we alone but all the progressive nations. The world uses 

 more steel, more copper, more aluminium, more paper; 

 therefore requires more coal, more petroleum, more timber, 

 more ores, more machinery for the getting and working 

 of them, more trains and steamships for their transport. 

 It requires machines that will work faster or more cheaply 

 than the old ones to meet the increasing demands of 

 manufacture; new fabrics; new dyes; even new foods; 

 new and more powerful means of illumination ; new 

 methods of speaking to the ends of the earth. 



We must not delude ourselves with imagining that the 

 happiness and welfare of mankind depend only on Its 

 m.itorlal advancement ; or that moral, intellectual, and 

 spiritual forces are not in the ultimate resort of greater 

 moment. But if the inquiry be propounded what it is 

 that has made possible this amazing material progress, 

 there is but one answer that can be given — science. 

 Chemistry, physics, mechanics, mathematics, it is these 

 that have given to man the possibility of organising this 

 tremendous development. And the great profession which 

 has been most potent in applying these branches of science 

 to wield the energies of Nature and direct them to the 

 service of man has been that of the engineer. Without 

 the engineer how little of all this 'activity could there 

 have been ; and without mathematics, mechanics, physics, 

 and chemistry, where was the engineer? 



If looking over this England of Edward the Seventh 

 we try to put ourselves back Into the England of Edward 

 the Sixth — or for that matter of any pre-Victorian monarch 

 — we must admit that the differences to be found in the 

 social and industrial conditions around us are due not in 

 any appreciable degree to any changes in politics, philo- 

 sophy, religion, or law, but to science and its applications. 

 If we look abroad, and contrast the Germanv of \Vnheltn 

 the .Second with the Germany of Charles the Fifth, we 

 shall come to the like conclusion. So also in Italy, in 

 .SwUzc-rland, in every one indeed of the progressive nations. 

 .'\nd it is precisely in the stagnant nations, such as Spain, 

 or .Srrvia, where the cultivation of science has scarcely 

 begun, that the social conditions remain in the backward 

 slate of the Middle Ages. 



Interaction of Abstract Science and its Applications. 

 In engineering, above all other branches of human effort, 

 we are able to trace the close interaction between abstract 

 science and its practical applications. Often as the con- 

 nection between pure science and its applications has been 

 emphasised in addresses upon engineering, the emphasis 

 has almost always been laid upon the influence of the 

 abstract upon the concrete. We are all familiar with the 



