July 5, 1901.] 



SCIENCE. 



35 



the year 1759 to the subject of steam eugiues 

 by the late Dr. Robisou, then a student in the 

 University of Glasgow and nearlj^ of his own 

 age. He at that time threw out an idea of ap- 

 plying the power of the steam engine to the 

 moving of wheel carriages and to other pur- 

 poses, but the scheme was not matured^ and 

 was soon abandoned. On his going abroad 

 about the year 1761 or 1762, Watt tried some 

 experiments on the force of steam in a 

 Papin's digester, and formed a species of steam 

 engine by fixing upon it a syringe one-third 

 of an inch in diameter with a solid piston, 

 and furnished also with a cock to admit the 

 steam from the digester or shut if off at pleasure, 

 as well as to open a communication from the 

 inside of the syringe to the open air, by which 

 the steam contained in the syringe might 

 escape. That single-acting, high-pressure 

 syringe engine, made and experimented on by 

 James Watt 140 years ago in his Glasgow Col- 

 lege woi'kshop, now in 1901, with the addi- 

 tion of a surface condenser cooled by air to re- 

 ceive the waste steam and a pump to return the 

 water thence to the boiler, constituted the com- 

 mon road motor, which, in the opinion of many 

 good judges, was the most successful of all the 

 different forms tried within the last few years. 

 Watt left Glasgow in 1774 to live in the neigh- 

 borhood of Dr. Erasmus Darwin, grandfather 

 of Charles Darwin. But Greenock and the 

 University and city of Glasgow never lost 

 James Watt. The University conferred the 

 honorary degree of LL.D, upon him in 1806. 

 In 1808 he founded the Watt Prize in Glas- 

 gow College. He became Fellow of the Royal 

 Society of Edinburgh in 1784, Fellow of the 

 Royal Society of Loudon in 1785, corresj)Oudent 

 of the French Academy of Sciences in 1808, 

 one of the eight ' Associes Etrangers ' of the 

 French Academy of Sciences in 1814. He did 

 not know if any university in the world ever 

 had a tradesman's workshop and saleshop 

 within its walls, even for the making and sell- 

 ing of mathematical instruments prior to 1757. 

 But whether the University of Glasgow was or 

 was not unique in its beneficent infraction of 

 usage in this respect, it was certainly unique 

 in being the first British University — perhaps the 

 first university in the world — to have an engi- 



neering school and professorship of engineering. 

 This began under Professor Lewis Gordon about 

 1843. Glasgow was certainly the first univer- 

 sity to have a chemical teaching laboratorj' for 

 students started by its first professor of chem- 

 istrj', Thomas Thomson, some time between 

 1818 and 1830. Glasgow was also certainly the 

 first university to have a physical laboratory 

 for the exercise and instruction of students' ex- 

 perimental work, which grew up with very im- 

 perfect appliances between 1846 and 1856. 

 Pioneer though it was in those three depart- 

 ments, it had been outstripped within the last 

 ten or fifteen years by other universities and 

 colleges in the elaborate buildings and instru- 

 ments now needed to work effectively for the 

 increase of knowledge by experimental research 

 and the practical instruction of students. But 

 there was no lagging to-day in the resolution to 

 improve to the utmost in all affairs of practical 

 importance, and they almost saw attainment of 

 the further aspirations to excel over all others 

 in the magnificent James Watt Engineering 

 Laboratory of the Universitj^ of Glasgow to be 

 ready for work before the expected meeting of 

 the Engineering Congress next September. 

 ISTow, through the magnificently generous kind- 

 ness of Mr. Andrew Carnegie to the people 

 among whom he has made for himself a sum- 

 mer home in the land of his birth, all the four 

 Scottish universities could look forward to a 

 largeljr increased power of benefiting the world 

 by scientific research and by extending their 

 teaching to young people chosen from every 

 class of society as likely to be made better and 

 happier and more useful to our country by uni- 

 versity education." 



In the course of his address Sir Joseph 

 Hooker said : 



"The audience might imagine themselves 

 carried back to the first quarter of the last 

 centurj' when his father was professor of 

 botany. He had not been educated for the 

 medical, or, indeed, any other learned profes- 

 sion. Having inherited ample means and hav- 

 ing been from childhood devoted to the study 

 and collection of objects of natural historj-, he 

 determined to devote his life and his fortune to 

 travel and scientific pursuits. Early in 1820, 

 reduced circumstances requiring him to turn 



