ADDEESS 



BY 



SIE FEEDEEICK BEAMWELL, 



D.C.L., F.R.S., M.Inst.C.E., 



PRESIDENT. 



The iate Lord Iddesleigh delighted an audience, for a whole evening, 

 by an address on * Nothing.' Would that I had his talents, and could 

 discourse to you as charmingly as he did to his audience, but I dare not 

 try to talk about ' Nothing.' I do however propose, as one of the two 

 sections of my Address, to discourse to you on the importance of the 

 ' Next-to-Nothing.' The other section is far removed from this micro- 

 scopic quantity, as it will embrace the ' Eulogy of the Civil Engineer 

 and will point out the value to science of his works.' 



I do not intend to follow any system in dealing with these two 

 sections. I shall not even do as Mr. Dick, in ' David Copperfield,' did — 

 have two papers, to one of which it was suggested he should confine his 

 Memorial and his observations as to King Charles's head. The result is, 

 you will find, that the importance of the next-to-nothing, and the lauda- 

 tion of the Civil Engineer, will be mixed up in the most illogical and 

 haphazard way, throughout my Address. I will leave to such of you as 

 are of orderly minds, the task of rearranging the subjects as you see fit, 

 but I trust — arrangement or no arrangement — that by the time I have 

 brought my Address to a conclusion, I shall have convinced you that 

 there is no man who more thoroughly appreciates the high importance 

 of the ' next-to-nothing,' than the Civil Engineer of the present day, the 

 object of my eulogy this evening. 



If I may be allowed to express the scheme of this Address in modern 

 musical language, I will say that the ' next-to-nothing ' ' motive ' will 

 commonly usher in the ' praise-song ' of the Civil Engineer ; and it seems 

 to me will do this very fitly, for in many cases it is by the patient and 

 discriminating attention paid to the effect of the ' next-to-nothing ' that 



