786 REPORT— 1886. 



Section G.— MECHANICAL SCIENCE. 



President of the Section — Sir James N. Douglass, M.Inst.C.E. 



THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 2. 



The President delivered the following Address :— 



The present occasion is one of special interest to the members of this great 

 Association, this being the first instance of their holding a fourth meeting in any 

 town. An opportunity is thus afforded me of referring briefly to the principal 

 subjects dealt with at the previous meetings of Section G in this important centre 

 of mechanical industry, and the good work done in their advancement. 



At the Birmingham meetings in 1839, 184-5, and 1805 the following papers, 

 special to this Section, were read and discussed, viz., 1839, Testing Iron by long- 

 continued strains ; Proportion of Power to Tonnage in Steam Vessels ; and Wood 

 Paving with Vertical Blocks. In 1845, Machine Ventilation for Coal Mines ; 

 Centrifugal Pump (improved principle) ; Balancing Locomotive Wheels ; Oil 

 Testin"- by Mechanical Means ; Chemical Copying Telegraphs ; and Macadamised 

 Roads (superiority). In 1865, Bessemer Steel Manufacture as substituted for that 

 of Wrought Iron; Siemens' Regenerative Furnace and Gas Producer; Hot Blast 

 for Furnaces at very High Temperatures ; Compressed Air Machinery for Trans- 

 mitting Power; Weldless Tyres; Gitfard's Injector; Covering of Deep-Sea 

 Telegraph Cables. I need not remind the members of Section G of how great 

 value in the progress of mechanical science these subjects generally have proved, 

 and how their beneficial influence is now being felt throughout the whole world. 

 With these preliminary remarks on the past good work of Section G at Birming- 

 ham, and which I have no doubt will be ful]y maintained at this meeting, I pro- 

 pose to address you on a subject with which I have been practically connected for 

 nearly half a century, that is, the development of lighthouses, light-vessels, buoys 

 and beacons, together with their mechanical and optical apparatus. 



Such a subject being of the first importance to this great maritime country, her 

 colonies, and generally to the whole world, appears to be particularly fitting on this 

 occasion, when we are favoured with the visit of so many eminent Colonial and 

 Indian brethren from various portions of this great Empire. 



It is also to be remembered that in the immediate neighbourhood of Birming- 

 ham are situated probably the largest works in the world for the manufacture of 

 lio-bthouse apparatus ; indeed, the only establishment in which the glass portions are 

 cast, ground, polished, and finished on the same premises, and where many of the 

 most perfect optical apparatus for lighthouse illumination have been produced. 



Samuel Srniles, in his * Lives of the Engineers,' writes : ' Our lighthouses are 

 among the youngest triumphs of modern engineering.' Ancient lighthouses were 

 erected on prominent parts of coasts beyond actual attack by the sea, and in many 

 instances they were at considerable distances from navigable water, and thus, with 

 their feeble and uncertain wood or coal fires, they were far from efliicient as aids to 

 mariners. So slow was the development in lighthouse illumination for many 

 centuries that, so recently as 1822, the last beacon coal fire in this country was 



