292 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



Egypt and Chaldea. Some of them exceeded in magnitude anything that has- 

 been made since. What makes it more strange is, that the force that produced 

 them was almost entirely human muscle, while now the work is done largely by 

 steam directed by human brain. Two contrasts strike us as we look at the an- 

 cient and modern : the one was executed by slaves and conscripts, with little or 

 no compensation ; the other by free men, glad to work for the compensation of- 

 fered. The old was for the glorification of the few ; the modern for the use of 

 the many. 



The stagnation that followed the breakdown of 1873, ^^d the consequent low 

 rates of transportation, compelled the managers of railroads to reduce the cost to 

 a point previously thought unattainable, by increasing the power of the engines 

 and the weight of trains, by more convenient arrangements, by more service of 

 the machinery, by cheaper construction and repairs, by better machinery and or- 

 ganizations of labor, and many improved appliances for handling, and by the 

 stoppage of leaks generally. 



American engineers and managers have often shown XhsX -poverty is the moth- 

 er of invention. For example, they used cross-ties as a temporary substitute be- 

 cause too poor to buy stone blocks, and so made good roads because they were 

 not rich enough to make bad ones. American engineers are, or at any rate, 

 were trained on short allowance of money. As that is the best engineering 

 which accomplishes the purpose at the least cost in the long run, American en- 

 gineering ought to be of the best. 



It is doubtless the fertility of resource coming from the necessity of effecting 

 much with little means, which has created a demand for American engineers in 

 other parts of the world. A few years ago the Government of British India sent 

 for an American engineer, and the first thing they asked him to do was to report 

 on their railroads from the American point of view. Our lamented past presi- 

 dent, W. Milnor Roberts, was employed by the Government of Brazil, as I judge 

 from what happened after he went there, to train their engineers, educated in Eu- 

 ropean schools, in American modes and ideas. 



■^ -^ % * ^ >ic 



Though canal engineering is a thing of the past, its history is instructive. In 

 England it commenced 120 years ago, the first engineer being James Brindley, a 

 millwright. He seems to have known little of what had been done before, and 

 his plans were evidently original. When he proposed to build an aqueduct across 

 the Irwell for the Duke of Bridgewater's canal, his critics said they had often 

 heard of castles in the air, but they never heard before where they were to be 

 put. Brindley built several canals, on one of which was a tunnel a mile and a 

 third in length. 



He was succeeded in canal making by such men as Telford and Smeaton and 

 Rennie. Though uneducated, he gained the admiration of scientific as well as 

 practical men. When he wished to study a subject thoroughly, he "laid in bed 

 to contrive," as he expressed it. The secret of his success, therefore, evidently 



