Januaby 21, 1910] 



SCIENCE 



85 



engines or water wheels, producing power 

 to be used on the spot. Steam or other 

 engines, and water wheels, now drive elec- 

 tric generators, the currents from which 

 are transmitted long distances, sometimes 

 as great as 200 or even 300 miles, by means 

 of transmission wires, to be again trans- 

 formed by electric machinery and used for 

 the production of light or for other 

 purposes. The telephone and the tele- 

 graph have been discovered, electric cars 

 have replaced the horse cars, and the pas- 

 senger trafSc of our steam railroads is in 

 some cases being carried on by electric 

 locomotives. Almost everything now-a- 

 days is done or can he done by electricity, 

 even to preparing our food and heating our 

 houses. The electrical engineer, with a 

 field already so wide that it is divided into 

 specialties, is a product of the last twenty- 

 five years. 



Notwithstanding all these differentia- 

 tions, even the field of the civil engineer 

 keeps on increasing in scope. Coasts have 

 to be protected from the sea, swamp and 

 marsh lands reclaimed, large areas irri- 

 gated by artificial means, requiring the 

 construction of great dams, the storing of 

 immense quantities of water and the dis- 

 tribution of that water by means of canals 

 into the uplands. Problems of urban 

 transportation present themselves and 

 must be solved by the construction of 

 subways and tunnels, great railroad ter- 

 minals have to be provided, and skyscrapers 

 constructed. 



Also, the development of electrical 

 power, and the increasing scarcity and 

 waste of fuel, has increased enormously 

 the importance and value of water powers. 

 The question of the discharge of rivers, 

 the means of increasing it, of storing it so 

 as to make it more regular from month to 

 month, thus avoiding the damage due to 

 floods, and increasing the power during 



dry seasons, the construction of dams and 

 of the various works incident to the de- 

 velopment of water powers, all these to- 

 gether with other problems now constitute 

 a separate field, that of the hydraulic engi- 

 neer. Water, at once the most valuable 

 and necessary of the gifts of nature, and 

 at the same time an enemy to be dreaded 

 and feared, must be controlled and gov- 

 erned, so that communities may be sup- 

 plied adequately with this necessity of life 

 and the power generated by the rivers 

 turned to the service of man. The laws of 

 water flowing in conduits, through pipes 

 and in open channels, must be studied and 

 experimented upon, and the science of the 

 laws of water— hydraulics— is steadily in- 

 creasing in value and in importance. 



But the field of the engineer is not yet 

 exhausted. The increase in transportation 

 by sea, the use of steel for ships, and the 

 ever-increasing size of vessels, led to the 

 profession of the naval architect, itself a 

 large field, dealing with the applications 

 of steel and other materials to the construc- 

 tion of vessels, and the proper equipment 

 of these vessels. The naval architect builds 

 the vessels, the marine engineer equips 

 them with machinery and provides them 

 with ventilating and other apparatus nec- 

 essary to fit them for their use. 



Finally, investigations in the various 

 fields of applied chemistry, as for instance 

 in the production of gas, in the manufac- 

 ture of rubber, soap, glue and other mater- 

 ials too numerous to mention, have led in 

 recent years to the formation of still 

 another branch of the profession, namely, 

 that of the chemical engineer, who deals 

 with the applications of chemistry to the 

 useful arts. To even enumerate the appli- 

 cation of this science would tax your 

 patience. 



It will be evident from the foregoing 

 brief review, that the field of engineering 



