120 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 



character he had ! I had the great good fortune to study under him and 

 imder Vernon Harcourt, another great personality, for whom I acted as 

 demonstrator in his surveying class at University College, London. His 

 work was mostly to collect and collate in his books the works of others on 

 harbours and docks — very useful work to those who come after. Alexander 

 Binnie has also given you a masterly address on the ancient scientific lore 

 of the Koman Lucretius, who appears to have known so much more about 

 atomic theories and the basis of matter than was known for many genera- 

 tions after his time. Among those still living there are many who have 

 done honour to the judgment of this Association and whose memory and 

 achievements will leave their mark, and whose names will resound down 

 the centuries. Prominent among these are Sir Charles Parsons, of turbine 

 fame, and Sir Dugald Clark. To follow after such men and do justice in 

 your judgment to the theme of the application of science to engineering 

 will be a great satisfaction to me, if I can fulfil the requirements, but it is 

 with some misgiving, I repeat, that I attempt this task. It will be for 

 you to judge whether I have succeeded when I have finished, and I hope 

 you will bear with me in shortcomings if I do not live up to the high 

 standard set by the men I have mentioned. 



It has been my privilege and good fortune to have worked with and for 

 many of those who have presided over Section G on some of the largest 

 works during the last forty-eight years. You may gather from this that 

 I began very young. Dr. Kirk was one of my early chiefs, the inventor 

 of the block model for determining the resistance of ships. He also was 

 the designer of the first triple expansion engine that propelled a ship to the 

 Antipodes on a fuel consumption of L6 lb. of coal per|h.p. hour, and as 

 an apprentice engineer I worked upon her engines, both in the pattern and 

 fitting shops. Here was an example of physical aiid mechanical science 

 applied to engineering in a very special way, though the scientist may have 

 lagged behind the engineer in this case. During my apprenticeship in 

 Glasgow, I got in touch with Lord Kelvin, or Sir William Thomson, as 

 he was then. I conceived an idea for doing away with the piston rod in 

 steam engines, much as is done to-day in the internal combustion engine 

 as we all know it in the motor car, while at the same time closing the lower 

 end of the cylinder so that a two-stroke scheme could be employed without 

 having to put pressure in the crank casing. I made a rough model and 

 took it up one evening, after my ten-hour day was finished, to show my 

 idea to the famous man. I was told by the butler that Sir William had a 

 dinner party, so I hastily said I would call some other time. The butler 

 insisted, however, that Sir William would be annoyed if he did not make 

 me come in, so in spite of my protests I was ushered into the great scien- 

 tist's study, and Sir William came in, having left his guests, and went 

 through my idea critically for nearly an hour. I mention this to show 

 what a great man Lord Kelvin was, quite apart from his inventive and 

 scientific attainments, and kindly actions such as this no doubt encouraged 

 every one who came in contact with him. What his dinner guests thought 

 about it I do not know, but he did not seem to mind. 



Some branches of engineering are more dependent on exact science 

 than are others, but all must admit dependence on all or nearly all 

 branches of science. I might say, on the other hand, that science in many 



