SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XIV. No. 342. 



a prominent leader, he was chosen its pres- 

 ident, and held that office until his death 

 in 1834. He does not appear to have con- 

 tributed to the Institution any papers or 

 discussions on engineering subjects. 



Among the members of the Institution 

 at that time was a man thirty years the 

 junior of the president, who, like him, had 

 risen from humble origin, and by his own 

 exertions attained a high rank in the pro- 

 fession, and who, rather oddly, had the 

 same forename, and a surname of two 

 syllables, the initial and final letters of 

 which and the vowel sounds of which were 

 the same as Telford's. This similarity of 

 name has led to some confusion and some- 

 times to the attributing to one of these men 

 the sayings and doings of the other. 



Thomas Tredgold, born in 1788, began 

 life as a carpenter, but soon devoted him- 

 self to the study of engineering science and 

 its practice in the office of the Chief Engi- 

 neer of the Ordnance Bureau. He early 

 recognized the deficiency of the knowledge 

 then existing as to the nature and strength 

 of the materials used in construction, and 

 he studied, experimented and reasoned 

 systematically, and published the results of 

 his labors. His 'Treatise on Carpentry,' in 

 1820, was the first published attempt to de- 

 termine scientifically and practically the 

 data of resistance of beams to transverse 

 flexure. During the next seven years he 

 contributed to the Transactions of the Insti- 

 tution of Civil Engineers papers showing 

 the mode of application of science to engi- 

 neering problems, and he also published 

 treatises on Warming and Ventilation, on 

 Steam Navigation, on Railroads and Car- 

 riages, and on the Steam Engine. It was 

 to him that the Institution turned when it 

 wished to apply for a royal charter, in 

 1828, and requested him to prepare a defi- 

 nition of civil engineering. 



As we look back upon the history of sci- 

 ence, theoretical and applied, during the 



first quarter of the nineteenth century, we 

 can see how a new definition of the profes- 

 sion of civil engineering was needed at that 

 date. 



At the very beginning of the century 

 there had occurred a marvelous revolution 

 in the conception of the nature and opera- 

 tion of the laws governing matter and its 

 motion. Lavoisier had revolutionized chem- 

 ical science and Dalton had propounded a 

 theory of atomic constitution of matter 

 which has been sustained by observation 

 and reason. All matter is composed of a 

 few primal elements in an atomic or 

 minutely subdivided form. These atoms 

 have varying chemical affinity for each 

 other, and, combining in certain propor- 

 tions, form molecules of matter of various 

 kinds. The study of these combinations 

 has been the business of chemists for the 

 last hundred years, and the laws of combi- 

 nation have been so successfully elucidated 

 that many forms of matter which before 

 were found only in a state of nature can 

 now be artificially produced, and many 

 other forms have been produced which are 

 never found in nature and which are useful 

 for purposes and under conditions where no 

 natural product can be used to advantage. 

 The impetus given to chemical research by 

 the formulation of Dal ton's theory was 

 sufficient to establish the fact, early in the 

 century, that chemical affinity was a source 

 of power which could be directed by man 

 intelligently and with prospect of advan- 

 tage. 



Just with the incoming of the century, 

 too, came Rumford's demonstration of the 

 fact that heat was not a material substance, 

 but only a mode of motion. Almost simul- 

 taneously was propounded the theory of 

 Thomas Young, that light, too, was not 

 material, but was simply due to vibratory 

 motion in an all-pervading medium to which 

 he gave the name of the luminiferous ether. 



It was in 1800, too, that Volta demon- 



