TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION Q. 861 



the etibrts made to render the engines for the laboratory as perfectly adapted as 

 possible to the very novel and numerous requirements. Taking this particular 

 instance as evidence not only of the general feeling in favour of this movement, 

 but also of the solid support it is to receive, one cannot help concluding that there 

 is a great future before it, and that at last a method has been found of extending 

 and spreading the higher knowledge of mechanical science which commends itself 

 alike to the practical and theoretical. 



Everyone who has paid attention to the history of mechanical progress must 

 have been impressed by the smallness in number of recorded attempts to decide 

 the broader questions in engineering by systematic experiments, as well as by the 

 great results which in the long run have apparently followed as the efi'ect of these 

 few researches. I say apparently, because it is certain that there have been other 

 researches which probably, on account of failure to attain some immediate object, 

 have not been recorded, although they may have yielded valuable experience 

 which, though not put on record, has, before it was forgotten, led to other 

 attempts. But even discounting such lost researches, it is very evident that 

 mechanical science was in the past very much hampered by the want of sufHcient 

 inducement to the undertaking of experiments to settle questions of the utmost 

 importance to general advance, but which have not promised pecuniary returns — 

 scientific questions which mvolved a greater sacrifice of time and money than 

 individuals could aftbrd. In recent periods the aid and encouragement which it 

 has been one of the first objects of the British Association to aftbrd such researches 

 lias led to manv results of the greatest importance, both directly and indirectly, 

 by the effect of example in calling forth aid from other institutions — that of 

 mechanical engineers, for instance, which recently induced I\Ir. Tower to carry 

 out his already celebrated research on ' The Friction of Lubricated Journals,' the 

 results of which research certainly claim notice as constituting one of the most 

 important of recent steps in mechanical science. Such investigations it is now the 

 function as well as the interest of mechanical laboratories to undertake, and thus 

 what has hitherto been a great obstacle in the path of mechanical progress seems 

 in a fair way to be removed and steady advance to be insured. 



To what all this may lead us it is no part of my undertalcing to consider, but I 

 venture to end this imperfect address on the progress of mechanical science during- 

 the past twenty-six years by what appears to me the most satisfactory conclusion — 

 viz. that to such mechanical progress there is apparently no end : for, as in the 

 past so in the future, each step in any direction will remove limits and carry us 

 past barriers which have till then blocked the way in other directions ; and so 

 what for the time may appear to be a visible end or practical limit will turn out 

 but a bend in the road. 



The following Papers were read : — 



1. The Iron Mines of Bilbao.^ By Jeremiah Head, M.Inst.C.E. 



The author introduces his subject by calling attention to the fact that only one- 

 sixth of the iron ore produced in Great Britain is sufliciently pure to admit of 

 its being used in the manufacture of steel, except by processes involving extra 

 expense. 



The steel now annually produced requires the importation of between two and 

 three million tons of hematite ore, in addition to a similar quantity yielded b}- 

 British mines. The bulk of the imported ore comes from Bilbao in Spain. This 

 trade has grown enormously during recent years, owing to steel having so largely 

 superseded iron. Many British mines are idle, whilst those of Spain continue to 

 increase their production, and blast furnaces in England are now largely occupied 

 in smelting foreign in preference to native mineral. 



After referring to previous papers on the Bilbao iron mining industry, the 

 physical features of the district, river, and port are described, and allusion is 



' Piinted in extenso in Industries for September 16 and 23, 1887 ; also in Iron 

 and Iron and Coal Trades Review of September 9 and 16. 



