GREAT ENGINEERS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 40, 17 February 1937, Page 6

GREAT ENGINEERS.

Although 1037 will not «ee the commemoration of any centenaries of *o much interest to the engineering world as the celebration of the bicentenary of the birth of Watt last year, and the recognition of the centenaries of the death of Telford and Tievithick in 1!>."!4 and I0:?3. respectively, vet a glance backwards to the yearn 17.'}7 and 1837 recalls either the birth or the death of several men who. in their own sphere, made contril> lit ion* of note to scientific and engineering progress and to industrial enterprise (says "Engineering"). Of Mich men the Italian doctor and experimentalist Oalvani. who was !>orn in 1737. is one of the best known. Working in an age when electrical phenomena were engaging the mind* of many men of science, he made, in 1780. hie discovery of animal electricity, which Vofta described as "a great and luminous discovery which forma nil epoch in the annals of physical and medical science." Oalvani was one of those who prepared the way for the work of Oernted and Faraday. Two contemporaries of Galvani who laboured in very different fields were Dr. Charles Hutton (1737-1823) and Colonel Hettry, Wat«on (173"-178 li). Hutton, an almost self-* taught man, was for thirty year* profeeeor of mathematics at the Royal Military Acadcmy, Woolwich. Hi* industry wae unceasing, and from the time he> wrote his "Principle of Bridges and the Mathematical Demonstration of the Laws of Arches," to the end of hi* long career, he was either adding to or furthering the spread of knowledge. Watson was a student at Woolwich when Hutton nas a school teacher in Vewcaetle. Entering the Army, he went to India and was appointed by Olive as chief engineer of Bengal, building fortifications ami docks at Calcutta. When the work of the Continental mathematician* was little known in England he translated Filler's work on the construction and propulsion of ve-;*e]>«. and h'mwelf practised the art of naval architecture with considerable «iicee*="<.

Tiiniiiiii to tlip livp» of pTijf'npor* ami other* l.Miii in |,s:!7. (ieorjjp .Tame* Snelni (1837-lOOfl). the niPtallnvjrUt, will ninny* lip reniPmberpd fni- liis \«ork in ((iniio.tion with the problem i'f tin- cliiiiiiuitioii of |>lio<|ilioni« in tln> R<-s----«<-n;i>r procos. fur \\lii:-li in ISS.S. like Sidnoy Tlimnti , *. be r«'<-civc<l a iue<lill: Heinlicli Sii|/.ci-St«'ilicr ( lS:t"-I!MMn whs one of the hviitliiM'x who made the Swi-i-« firm of Siiizor HnithiM* f;«111' •11 -t for it* steam cnuint's; »n<l lfol.cit M, Alpine f 1I«7-T!»11). »>orn nt'jir Kttinliiirjrli. lint lonsr a resident of 11ip Utiitcil State , !*, was tin , fir»t to prinliicp a s)u>ct of paper from jjrouml woihl pulp. Coloirel WasliiiiL'toii All'ZllxtlK Koel.lin; (ISM - l!)2tl) whs rcsDoiinihle for tlio erection of tlie Brooklyn Briilure. an niKlertakinp which c«t!tl«li*lio<l ii record in liriilye pnnstrilftion at tin , timo.