SECTION G.— ENGINEERING. 



INVENTION AS A LINK IN SCIENTIFIC 

 AND ECONOMIC PROGRESS. 



ADDRESS BY 



PROF. SIR JAMES B. HENDERSON, D.Sc, 



PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION. 



Introduction. 



I desire in the first plaoe to thank the Engineering Section of the British 

 Association for the great honour they have done me in nominating me as 

 their President. Situated as I have been for many years as Professor of 

 Applied Mechanics at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich, engaged in 

 Naval Research work of a confidential type and lecturing upon confidential 

 matters, then more recently acting as Adviser to the Admiralty, it has 

 been very difficult for me to take as great a part as I would have liked in 

 many of the proceedings of the Engineering Technical .Societies to which 

 I belong, because the line of demarcation between confidential and non- 

 confidential matters is very indistinct, and anyone dealing constantly and 

 indiscriminately with confidential topics and problems as part of his 

 ordinary everyday life, particularly as a teacher, may very easily overlook 

 in public the position of this line. To such a man safety lies in silence. 



The British Association, by the width of its scope, the diversified 

 nature of the papers read at its meetings and the broad line of treatment 

 of the subjects dealt with, has provided me with an opportunity for con- 

 tact with problems in many branches of science and an opportunity which 

 I have greatly valued to meet scientific colleagues in a social or technical 

 manner. I appreciate very deeply the kindly feeling which has suggested 

 my term of office as President in spite of the fact that I have had little or 

 no training for such an office, a defect which makes it necessary for me 

 to rely upon the indulgence of the Section to overlook my shortcomings. 

 To my good friend Professor Lee, the Recorder, I am greatly indebted 

 for valuable assistance and guidance. 



It is a matter of particular personal pleasure that my term of office 

 should occur at the Leeds Meeting, and more especially that it should be 

 associated with the buildings of Leeds University, because it is just 33 

 years ago since I first entered these buildings, which were then the 

 Yorkshire College of the Victoria University, as assistant to Professor 

 William Stroud in the Department of Physics and Electrical Engineering. 

 I had finished my graduate Engineering course at Glasgow University 

 two years before, had spent one year doing research work with Lord 

 Kelvin and another year in Berlin University under Helmholtz, Planck, 

 and the coterie of distinguished physicists at the Physical Institute at 



