ROTARY CLUB.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 18, 23 January 1933, Page 8

ROTARY CLUB.

TO-DAY'S LUNCHEON MEETING OREWA FORUM POSTPONED. President T. U. Wells occupied the chair at to-day's weekly lunch meetrng of the 'Auckland Rotary Club, lield in Milne and Choyce's reception hall. Ihere was a fair attendance, and. among the visitors were Messrs. Lance r * lla (Sydney), J. Teloar (Hamilton) and M. Roland (Rotorua). The president reported that the response in regard to tlie forum which it had been intended to bold at Orewa had been disappointing, and accordingly that feature hda been cancelled in the meantime. He reminded members of the District Conference to be held at Palmerston North on February 27 and 28 of March 1, and urged all who were able to make the necessary arrangements to attend. The president briefly reported upon a visit he had' paid in company with Rotarian C. J. Tunks to the fruit orchard at Te Kauwhata, where boys had been assisted partly by donations from the Rotary Club. The lads, he said, were doing excellent work, and expected to harvest 20 tons of grapes. Rotarian Wells-also reported from the Auckland Community Sunshine League, expressing thanks: for the assistance of Rotarians as a result of which a further contingent of 100 children would be able to go to camp'at Motuihi on February 4. The committee of the league offered to make arrangements whereby a Rotarian and his wife might be present at tjie camp for a month in the capacity of assistant supervisors. Romance of Steam. The speaker of the day was Rotarian James Treloar, whose subject was the "Romance of Steam." Mr. Treloar traced the origin of steam used for power purposes from early times, and touched upon the most notable developments since that period, emphasising throughout the personal element in his theme. He stated that- as far back as 130 years before Christ a worker in Alexandra utilised tlie reaction principle m steam power, and in 1029 an Italian painter utilised the impulse process. Forty-eight years ago Parsons continued these two processes in his turbines. Among names associated with the development of steam, the speaker paid a warm tribute to a Cornisliman, Richard Trevithick, whom he described as one of the most brilliant mechanical geniuses the world had known. Threatened by James Walls for using his patents, Trevithick left them severely alone and still went ahead with bis inventions, and was the real inventor of the locomotive. He drove one through the streets of London. However, he could not make it a commercial success; men of the inventive type were not sufficiently commercially minded for that. Chequered Career. . Trevithick, the speaker said, had a chequered career inventing many other steam - propelled machines. George Stephenson was not an inventor; in the way that Trevithick was. He was certainly a brilliant engineer, with the capacity to concentrate on one main theme, namely the locomotive and the railway. Interesting sidelights on the early history of railway engines were mtroduced. The vote of thanks was moved by Rotarian T. Lowe.