xlii. ABSTRACT OF PROCEEDINGS. 



that engineering, and above all the material indispensable to 

 engineering work, viz., iron, has supplied the Nineteenth 

 Century with the material foundation for its progress. In 

 ancient times iron was mainly prized on account of its 

 manifold applications in warfare. It was rarely met with 

 in architecture and bridge building until the close of the 

 Eighteenth Century. At the beginning of the Sixteenth 

 Century the idea of casting bridges, roofs and floors entirely 

 of bell-metal appears in the writings of the Venetian 

 engineer, Faustus Verantius of Dalmatia. Lantern slides 

 were shown illustrating Verantius' proposals for an arched 

 bridge, also for a suspension bridge. The first real iron 

 bridge ever built was of cast iron over the river Severn at 

 Coalbrookdale in 1776, which stood until this year, when 

 it collapsed. Many bridges were cast in England after 

 this model during the last twenty years of the Eighteenth 

 Century. The use of cast iron as a constructive material 

 was limited by its comparatively small resistance to a 

 tensile or pulling stress, and in the second quarter of the 

 Nineteenth Century wrought iron began its upward 

 career, competing successfully with wood and stone. The 

 systematic testing of the materials of construction was 

 commenced about this time, with a view to determine the 

 behaviour of materials when subjected to stresses of var- 

 ious kinds, and in the meantime the incessant reciprocal 

 action between the development of railways and the manu- 

 facture of iron urged forward further facilities for bulk 

 production, as well as the attainment of a higher standard 

 of excellence. In 1851 Krupp of Essen, Germany, first 

 demonstrated how to make crucible steel in large quantities, 

 and in 1855 Henry Bessemer succeeded in producing ingot 

 steel in bulk without the necessity of using either crucible 

 or hearth. These inventions were followed by those of 

 Martin and Frederick Siemens, and resulted in the pro- 



