Dec. 1st, 1887.] 



SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



237 



ignorant, and so rapidly losing favonr among the conscientious 

 and scholarly, may find its partial, if not complete, explanation 

 in the exhausted condition of his brain." 



Professor Le Conte, however, takes a very different view. 

 The main purport of his memoir is to palliate, if not to justify, 

 the error of Louis Agassiz, to whom, he thinks, scant justice 

 has been done, " especially by the English and the Germans." 

 He refused to accept evolution " because his religious intuitions 

 forbade." Now this plea, if it be accepted on behalf of Louis 

 Agassiz, must be equally valid in defence of the opponents 

 of Roger Bacon, of Bruno and Galileo. At the same time 

 Professor Le Conte admits that Agassiz was wrong in sup- 

 posing that there was any conflict between evolution and the 

 theistic conception of the universe. 



The relation of Agassiz to Darwin he likens to that of Kepler 

 to Newton. But would Kepler, had he been still living, have 

 opposed Newton ? We trow not. The position of Agassiz re- 

 sembles rather that of Priestley, who, having discovered oxygen, 

 remained the champion of the phlogistic system, thus still seek- 

 ing to defend the fort whose ramparts he had breached. 



We regret that Professor Le Conte should speak of Cuvier 

 as " the greatest naturalist of that or perhaps of any time.'' 

 Cuvier, though a diligent and successful discoverer of details, 

 was incapable of any true philosophic generalisation. We can- 

 not call him " the great founder ot comparative anatomy ' with- 

 out doing injustice to John Hunter. 



Here, however, we regret that we must abruptly close our 

 notice of Professor Le Conte's most important memoir. 



Transactions of the Institution of Naval Arciutccts. Vol. 2S. 



Edited by George Holmes, Secretary of the Institution. 



1887. Office: 5, Adelphi-terrace, London, W.C. Sold 



by Henry Sotheran and Co., 36, Piccadilly, London, W. ; 



J. Barr and Co., Paris, and Frankfort-on-the-Main. 

 The transactions are of the proceedings at Liverpool in 

 July, 1886, and in London in March, 1887. The Liverpool 

 proceedings cover the President's address ; a paper on 

 the carriage of petroleum in bulk on over-sea voyages, by B. 

 Martell, Esq., Chief .Surveyor to Lloyd's Register of British 

 and Foreign Shipping, member of Council ; a paper describing 

 the river Mersey and the port of Liverpool, by G. Fosbery Lyster, 

 Esq., Chief Engineer Mersey Dock and Harbour Board, asso- 

 ciate ; notes upon losses at sea, by F. Elgar, Esq., LL.D., F.R.S.E., 

 Director of Royal Dockyards, member of Council ; a paper on 

 the progress and development of marine engineering, by W. 

 Parker, Esq., Chief Engineer, Surveyor to Lloyd's Register of 

 British and Foreign .Shipping, member of Council ; and a paper 

 on Atlantic steamers, by 'W. John, Esq., member of Council. 

 The discussion which followed each paper is given, and a report 

 of the preliminary proceedings closes the transactions. The 

 London proceedings contain the President's address ; a paper on 

 the Merchant Service and the Royal Navy, by .Sir Nathaniel 

 Barnaby, K.C.B., Vice-President ; a communication relating to 

 the results of a series of progressive trials carried out at Cher- 

 bourg on a torpedo boat, by Mons. L. de Bussy, honorary mem- 

 ber ; a paper on the twin-screw torpedo vessels W'iborg and 

 Destructor, by J. H. Biles, Esq., member ; a paper on fifty 

 years of yacht building, by Dixon Kemp, Esq., associate mem- 

 ber of Council ; a paper on the corrosion ot iron and steel ships, 

 by Vivian B. Lewes, Esq., associate ; a paper on fuel supply in 

 ships of war, by Sir Nathaniel Barnaby, K.C.B., Vice-President ; 

 a paper on the changes of level in the surface of the water sur- 

 rounding a vessel, produced by the action of a propeller and by 

 skin friction, by Professor J. H. Cotterill, F.R.S., associate 

 member of Council ; a paper on the forces acting upon the 

 blade of a screw propeller, by G. A. Calvert, Esq., member ; a 

 paper on the machinery of small boats for ships of war, by A. 

 Spyer, Esq., member ; a paper on the comparative effects of 

 belted and internal protection upon the other elements of design 

 of a cruiser, by J. H. Biles, Esq., member ; a paper on the 

 shifting of cargoes, by Professor P. Jenkins, member ; a paper 

 on the practical application of stability calculations, by Archibald 

 Denny, Esq., member ; a paper on the principle of an hydraulic 

 apparatus for transmitting signals and power, and controlling all 

 sorts of distant mechanism, by Mons. Marc Berrier Fontaine, mem- 

 ber ; a paper on some recent high-speed twin-screws, by E. A. 

 Linnington, Esq., member ; a paper on the forms of fish and 

 ships, by Professor R. H. Thurston, associate ; a paper on a 

 new method of using paper sections for the determination of 



cross curves of stability, by J. H. Heck, Esq., member; and last, 

 a paper on stability calculations by means of the planimeter, by 

 L. Benjamin, Esq., member. As before, the discussion which 

 followed each paper is given. The concluding matter is made 

 up of sundry speeches. 



Such are the transactions. From a scientific point of view the 

 mass is formidable. 'Were it within the present space means ot 

 this journal to furnish comprehensive abstracts of the matter 01 

 the series, an undoubted service would be rendered to the 

 general scientific public. An attempt in this direction may be 

 shortly made. It is an acknowledged want with a variety of 

 subjects of permanent interest which are constantly being sub- 

 merged to the retardation of that dissemination of fact and 

 theory which is so much longed for. A like remark applies to 

 the matter of scientific books generally, the desire for which is 

 universal, especially in a form at once readable and concise. 

 Meanwhile we take leave of the transactions, which are in a 

 high degree creditable to the contributors and their editor. 



Civil and Mechanical Engineering, Popularly and Socially Con- 

 sidered. By J. W. C. Haldane, C.E. and M.E. With nine 

 plates. London: E. and F. N. Spon, 125, Strand; New 

 York: 35, Murray Street. 1887. 

 This is a book which should be read by those on whom rests 

 the responsibility of suggesting or providing occupations or pro- 

 fessions for boys. It is a book also for those who seek pleasure 

 in the stories and experiences of a long life spent in civil and 

 mechanical engineering. On the other hand, it is not a scholarly 

 book, and sometimes it sins against taste. The personality of 

 the author is too frequently brought out ; and it would almost 

 seem, from the rather loose style of some pages, and the close, 

 exact style of others, that more than one hand has been engaged 

 upon the text. This, while a literary blemish, is not likely to 

 interfere with the general appreciation which the volume 

 merits, and which doubtless it will receive. Steam Navigation 

 and Canals and Railways is the heading of the first chapter, 

 and its information is typical of the treatment of the various 

 subjects throughout the volume. Mr. Miller, of Dalswinton, 

 introduced steam navigation in miniature form in 1788. The 

 Cornet navigated the Clyde by steam in 1812. In 1825 the 

 merchants of Calcutta offered the premium of a lac of rupees 

 to whomsoever would make, by steam, the out and home 

 Indian voyage, the time to "average" seventy days each way. 

 Maudslay, as the result of this temptation, proceeded to fit out 

 the paddle steamer Enterprise, of 470 tons and engines of 120 

 horse-power, and eventually the ship sailed, but with so many 

 vital defects in machinery and arrangement that it is a marvel 

 that the passage was ever made. The cylinders and boiler were 

 unprotected, and so intense at times became the heat of the 

 stoke-hole, that neither stokers nor engineers could withstand 

 it. The entire cargo consisted of coal and stores for an ex- 

 pected run of thirty-five days to the Cape, and some ol the coal 

 in bags being stowed upon the boiler, it caught fire and was 

 with difficulty extinguished. The average speed on the voyage 

 was five knots an hour, and the time occupied was one hundred 

 and fourteen days, forty of which were under sail and eleven at 

 anchor. The commander. Lieutenant Johnston, R.N., received 

 _^lo,ooo for his arduous services. This was in 1825, and taking 

 this as the first advance in steam navigation, the author follows 

 on with the gradual development of steam navigation to the 

 present time, the subject being spread over several chapters, 

 each of which is stored with fact, comment, and story. 



Apprentices gain admission into shipbuilding and engineering 

 works in one of three ways — first by influence, second by money, 

 and third by both. Examples of the working of the three 

 methods are one of the excellent features of the volume. Gene- 

 rally, in England, money payments are required, but in Scotland 

 lads generally are received without payment. It is not stated 

 whether this difference is of recent origin, but presumably it is, 

 and probably the present concentration of shipbuilding on the 

 Clyde accounts for a rule in Scotland which hereafter may be 

 acted upon in England. The Scotch shipbuilder and engineer 

 has found the gentleman apprentice, with even his _^i,ooo pre- 

 mium, to be a nuisance, and accordingly he will have no more of 

 him. He receives a lad willing and able to work, whom he will 

 help forward for his own sake, should the lad show " that he 

 has grit in him.' Nasmyth's life is a case in point. His father, 

 taking the boy with him, left Leith in a sailing smack for 

 London in 1829, and the voyage was made in four days. Mr. 



