782 KEPORT— 1895. 



Section G.— MECHANICAL SCIENCE. 



President of the Section — Professor L. F. VERNOif Haecotjet, 

 M.A., M.Inst.C.E. 



THUJISBAY, SEPTEMBER 12. 

 The President delivered the following Address : — 



The Relation of Engineering to Science. 



The selection of a subject for an inaiifrural address, necessitated by the honour 

 conferred upon me of presiding over this Section, has been rendered peculiarly- 

 difficult, both on account of the numerous able addresses delivered in past years by 

 my eminent predecessors in this ottice, and also by the circumstance that the 

 branches of engineering to which most of my professional life has been devoted 

 have not as intimate a connection with mechanical science as some others. 

 Moreover, whilst former Presidents of Section G have frequently dealt, in their 

 addresses, with the progress of those special branches of engineering in which 

 they have had most practical experience, such a course, in the present instance, 

 would have exposed mo to the danger of merely repeating information and 

 reiterating opinions already recorded in the ' Pi-oceedings of the Institution of Civil 

 Engineers,' and in other publications, with reference to maritime and hydraulic 

 engineering. It has, accordingly, appeared to me that the exceptional occasion of 

 addressing a gathering of scientific persons, and of engineers who testify their 

 interest in science by attending these meetings, would l)e best utilised by con- 

 sidering the relation that engineering in general, and maritime and hydraulic 

 engineering in particular, bear to pure science, and the means by which pi-ogress 

 in engineering science might be best promoted, and its scope and utility in- 

 creased. 



In addition to the oft-quoted definition of civil engineering as 'the art of 

 directing the great sources of power in nature for the use and convenience of man,' 

 Thomas Tredgold also defined it, in 1828, as ' that practical application of the 

 most important principles of natural philosophy which has, in a considerable 

 degree, realised the anticipations of Bacon and changed the aspect and state of 

 affairs in the whole world.' If the influence of engineering could be thus de- 

 scribed in 1828, when railways and steamships were in their infancy, and the 

 electric telegraph and the various modern applications of electricity and magnetism 

 had not come into existence, how far more true is it at the present day, when the 

 various branches of engineering have attained such a marvellous development ! 

 Tredgold also realised, at that early date, that the resources of the engineer must 

 be further directed so as to cope with the injurious forces of nature, such as floods, 

 storms, and unsanitary conditions, and thus protect men from harm as well as 

 promote their well-being. Moreover, he foresaw the great capabilities of develop- 

 ment possessed by engineering, and its dependence on science ; for he stated that 

 * the real extent to which civil engineering may be applied, is limited only by the 

 progress of science ; its scope and utility will be increased with every discovery in 

 philosophy, and its resources with every invention in mechanical or chemical art, 



