ON GRAPHIC METHODS IN MECHANICAL SCIENCE, 421 



Returning to Calmann's words, it will be seen (1) that he is satisfied 

 as to the engineer's innate preference for the use of geometrical construc- 

 tion ; (2) that he is perfectly convinced that geometrical methods of 

 solution of such problems are the best ; and (3) that he regards the 

 work of Poncelet in using so much the analytical method chiefly as 

 resulting from the want of sufficient geometrical machinery at his 

 disposal. 



Now Culmann himself, satisfied not only of the natural readiness of 

 the engineer to use geometrical methods, but of the inherent benefit of 

 purely geometric solutions, found in the growth and development of pro- 

 jective geometry the very machinery he could avail himself of, and which 

 he did, with results best described iu the language of a great thinker, 

 whose impartiality is undoubted. Cremona, in a preface to the Italian 

 treatise of Sairiotti on graphical statics, writes : — ' 



' Little more than twenty years have elapsed since Culmann published 

 the first edition of his immortal work, " Graphic Statics," and the 

 treatises and articles which have successively appeared in various parts 

 of the civilised world on the same subject are innumerable. By that 

 work, complete in its kind, the learned professor created a wonderful 

 combination of graphic methods based on projective geometry, and 

 demonstrated that by them the most varied problems of engineering 

 could be solved more simply and rapidly than appeared possible by the 

 use of mathematical analysis. 



' For some time both professors and engineers were cool and sceptical 

 as to the promises held out by the new doctrine ; either on account of 

 their inveterate faith in the omnipotence of (Calculation, or because the 

 constructions of projective geometry had not yet become familiar, or, 

 finally, because the work of Culmann itself was not written in a style and 

 form susceptible of superficial study. . . . 



' Germany, England, France, Scandinavia, and America were not 

 long in recognising the great efficacy of Culmann's studies. Books more 

 or less elementary were compiled, and courses of graphic statics were 

 established in the polytechnic schools and in other institutions for the 

 education of engineers.' 



The views above quoted of Cremona fairly represent those held in 

 Germany, Italy, Switzerland, and perhaps, to a less extent, in France. 

 That they have not taken root in England may be well illustrated by the 

 following extracts from English writers : — 



Professor Sydenham Clarke, in the preface of his book on graphic 

 statics,^ says : — 



' The study of graphic statics, as a subject sui generis, has made but 

 little progress in England, though the great value of numerous graphic 

 methods has long been fully acknowledged. While in many of the great 

 engineering schools of the Continent the subject is deemed worthy of a 

 professorial chair, in England it is left to be gleaned almost haphazard. 

 A method, more or less, is thrown into a course of teaching, according to 

 the predilection or dislike of the teacher for graphic modes of procedure.* 



' La Statiea Grafica. Lezioni dell' ingegnere Carlo Sairiotti, 1888. TTlricot 

 Hoepli, Milan. 



- The Principles of Grcuphic Statics, by George Sydenham Clarke, R.E,, 1880. 

 E. & F. N. Spon, London. 



