168 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 
up, most of them now are geared down to the screw. Scientific methods 
have been applied to all those details of measurement and experiment 
that have led to transport by sea bemg carried on at increased speed 
and with decreased cost per ton carried. The application of liquid fuel 
and the introduction of Diesel engines, both with the object of increasing 
the space available for cargo, have been carried out on true scientific 
lines. 
Of transport by road it may be said that its commercial inception 
came at a time when scientific knowledge was well advanced, and its 
progress was in consequence more rapid. It must not be forgotten that 
in the fairly early part of last century considerable work was done on 
scientific lines with steam-cars, only to be abandoned when legislation 
made its continuance impossible. The development of the motor-car 
engine from the small unit of Daimler to the present car is undeniably 
due to the use of ‘ ordered knowledge’ of the gaseous mixture, of its 
ignition, of the fuel itself, and of the compression that should be 
employed. Here again we have a case of the careful application of the 
principle developed with ever-increasing care until we get engines as 
noiseless, as efficient, as reliable, and as flexible as we have them to-day. 
It is a case, too, where the development is so recent that many of us can 
remember the scorn and distrust that this method of traction excited 
even here in this city that was so prominent in its inception twenty-five 
years ago. 
Very much more could be said as to the indebtedness of aeronautics 
to science, but the fact that this indebtedness is so self-evident, as well 
as the question of space at my disposal to deal with a subject of such a 
size, make it impossible to attempt to do justice to this part of my 
subject. I will speak only of the aeroplane, and its development has been 
even more rapid than that of the motor-car. J personally feel this when 
I remember that Mr. A. V. Roe was one of my students here in 
Lancashire in the ‘nineties. 
It was not until the development of the internal-combustion engine 
that the matter became a really practical one. The early work of Santos 
Dumont, Henry and Maurice Farman, Wilbur and Orville Wright, 
A. Vernon Roe, Cody, Rolls, Blériot, Paulhan, and others led to the 
close scientific consideration of the whole problem. 
Step-by-step investigations have led towards the perfecting of this 
type of transport. In all cases the developments have followed careful 
scientific research. Amongst our fellow-countrymen the work of Rolls, 
Godden, Cody, Busk, Keith-Lucas, Hopkinson, Pinsent, and others 
has unfortunately been terminated by thei deaths in the cause to which 
they were devoting their lives. In no other field has scientific work 
demanded so great 2 toll. This must be so when one is dealing with 
transport in such a medium as air. The work of others, such as—to 
name but a few—Bairstow, De Havilland, Sopwith, Barnwell, Handley 
Page, B. M. Jones, and O’Gorman, has fortunately continued. The 
War was naturally a great incentive to the advancement of our know- 
ledge of aeronautics, and [ feel proud that at Farnborough, at the Royal 
Aircraft Factory, I was allowed to be associated with such men as 
Aston, Dobson, Farren, Gibson, Green, Grinstead, Hill, Irving, Linder- 
man, Thompson, and McKinnon Wood. 
