G.—ENGINEERING. 127 
possible to increase the efficiency of the actual gas-engine two and 
even three-fold, the conclusion seems irresistible that gas-engines 
will ultimately supplant the steam-engine. The steam-engine 
has been improved nearly as far as possible, but the internal-com- 
bustion gas-engine can undoubtedly be greatly improved, and must 
command a brilliant future.’ 
Bramwell himself returned to the question when President of the 
Association in 1888. In his address from the Chair he repeated the forecast 
of 1881 with a qualifying phrase or two :— 
“At the York meeting of our Association I ventured to predict 
that unless some substantive improvement were made in the steam- 
engine (of which improvement, as yet, we have no notion) I believed 
its days, for small powers, were numbered, and that those who 
attended the Centenary of the British Association in 1931 would 
see the present steam-engines in museums, treated as things to 
be respected, and of antiquarian interest to the engineers of those 
days, such as are the open-topped steam cylinders of Newcomen 
and Smeaton to ourselves. I must say I see no reason after the seven 
; years which have elapsed since the York meeting, to regret having 
made that prophecy, or to desire to withdraw it.’ 
It is evident that Bramwell took his ‘ prophecy’ very seriously. 
_ He was the acknowledged sage and spokesman of the engineering 
profession, occupying, in that regard, a unique position, such as no one 
_ could possibly hold in the more complex conditions of to-day. He was 
a humourist, and doubtless there was a conscious touch of humorous 
_ exaggeration in what he said. But for all that it was an engineering 
_ judgment delivered ex cathedra, and his judgments were accustomed to 
- command respect. 
Finally, in July, 1903, when within a few months of his death at the 
age of 85, he wrote as follows to the President of this Association. After 
quoting the words he had used at York twenty-two years before, he 
proceeded thus :— : 
“In saying this, no doubt, I then thought I was speaking somewhat 
hyperbolically, but from the close attention I have paid to the subject 
of internal-combustion engines, and from the way in which that 
attention has revealed a continuous and, year by year, a largely 
increasing development of such engines, I feel assured that although 
there may still be steam-engines remaining in work in 1931, the 
output of steam-engines in that year will be but small as compared 
with the output of internal-combustion engines.’ 
He added that he wished to keep alive the interest of the Association 
on this subject, and for that purpose offered a sum, which was to be 
invested in Consols, and in 1931 was to be paid as honorarium 
“to a gentleman to be selected by the Council to prepare a paper 
having my utterances in 1881 as a sort of text, and dealing with the 
whole question of the prime-movers of 1931, and especially with 
the then relation between steam-engines and internal-combustion 
engines.’ 
: That is the task I am now attempting to discharge. You do not need 
_ to be told that the prediction has, in great measure, failed to come true. 
