xiv President's Address 



scientific worker, arid having conceived the idea that part of 

 the wave force could be made subservient to man, he has 

 worked steadily at the subject for years, and in order to 

 master it has acquired by hard study a sound knowledge of 

 those branches of physics in which the subject is involved.. 

 Some months ago he devised an apparatus by which the 

 movements of a ship at sea could be registered ; this was- 

 placed in charge of his brother, who went to England in the 

 ship Norfolk, for the purpose of making observations with it 

 on the voyage ; from the results of these, which are most 

 valuable and interesting, Mr. Deverell deduces the following : 

 " The duration of the voyage was 2,026 hours, during that 

 time the ship made 1,764,088 beam oscillations Or rolls, and 

 1,041,1 37 fore and aft oscillations or pitches. The average 

 number of oscillations in both directions per minute were 14. 

 The aggregate arc of pendulum registering beam movements 

 was over 15 million degrees, while that of the fore and aft 

 movements was nearly 5 million degrees." Mr. Deverell also 

 considers he has definitely established from these observa- 

 tions the following propositions : 



1st. That between ocean limits the swell of the ocean is 

 unceasing. 



2nd. That the oscillation of a vessel in an ocean fetch is 

 unceasing. 



3rd. That the motion of an independent body within a 

 ship on the ocean is unceasing. 



Here then is represented an immense amount of con- 

 servable energy, and the question remains, can a practicable 

 method be found for conserving it for use on board ship I 

 Mr. Deverell believes it can, and to a sufficient extent to be 

 useful in auxiliary propulsion. We know from his papers 

 that the power to be obtained is to be derived from the 

 conserved aggregate motion of a freely suspended mass 

 within the ship, and an idea of the extent of this possible 



