SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1321, 24 June 1897, Page 34

SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING.

By far the most remarkable achievements of the golden age of Victoria have been won in the domain of science. One is amazed as he scans the history o£ scientific investigation and progress within the past sixty years. It is ono long record of discovery and brilliant triumph. The researches of chemists and pathologists like Pasteur and his illustrious master Dumas, of surgeons like Lister, Cooper, Bell and Koch, of anatomists like Owen and Cuvier, of electricians like Faraday and Edison, of engineers like Stephenson and Brunei, have promoted the material progress of mankind during the reign of Victoria in a degree never previously witnessed in the history of the world.

MEDICAL SCIENCE. If we examine the records of the work done in this branch of industry in the course of the reign, we have a fascinating story. The turning-point in medical surgery in England dates with the experiments of Sir Astley Cooper, who was almost at the close of his distinguished career when Queen Victoria ascended the throne. The famous doctor by his researches led the way for his successors. He was not so much a discoverer himself as he was the pioneer of discoverers. He stepped out of the beaten track, and, in doing so, proved the existence of factors capable of utilisation which hitherto had been undreamed of. Surgery before his time was a series of "frightful alternatives or hazardous compromises." He elevated it to the rank of a science. Hie contributions to medical literature show a research and originality which have constituted them standard works, and these and his practical work in the course of his profession brought him honours in abundance. He was tho first to attempt the tying of the carotid artery, and though his experiment was not successful, Cooper paved the way for other practitioners who have made it effectual. Contemporaneously with the work of Sir Astley Cooper proceeded that of the brilliant Scotsman Sir Charles Bell, who just a year before the Queen came to the throne was elected Professor of Surgery in the University of Edinburgh, after an exceptionally distinguished career. He was the most notable of British physiologists of the period of GO years ago, for lie had followed up his investigations in the nervous system by a series of discoveries which have been described as the greatest since Harvey demonstrated the circulation of the blood. Bell established the existence of sensory and motor nerves in the brain, and thus opened a great field of research, and gave an entirely new trend to medical science. Dr lire, who in 1b37 was analytical chemist m London for the Board of Customs, did much by his investigations of caloric, and two other British contemporaries, Sir Benjamin Broclie (father of the Sir B. C. Brodio who discovered ft rap hi tic acid), and Sir William Lawrence (for 'isome time one ox tho Professors of Anatomy to the Eoyal College of Sur-

geons) enriched medical literature by valuable contributions.

THE ACTIVE LITTLE MICROBE. About this time, however, a movement ■was in progress which was destined to entirely revolutionise the science of medicine. It really began with the work of the German chemist Ehrenberg, who from 1827 had devoted himself with the patience and ardour characteristic of the savant, to the study of microscopic organisms, About 1838 he and Dujardin included bacteria in their investigations, and these men and Schwann (the eminent founder of the cell theory, who in the year named was Professor of Anatomy at Louvain) were able to give the world information of immense importance concerning bacteriology. It may indeed be said that Ehrenberg was really the founder of this branch of science, for though as far back as the 17th century Leeuwenhoek was able, with the comparatively imperfect microscope of those days, to describe some of the low organisms, it was not until the latter half of the 19th century was almost xipon the world that any accurate knowledge on the subject was obtained. Between IS2S and 1576 Ehrenberg published twenty-four works in which he described the results of his investigations. The field in which he laboured was also the centre of operation for numbers of kindred spirits, who by their masterly research have shed abundant light upon the life-history of organisms. The value to mankind of the experiments in fermentation conducted by Gay-Lussac and the illustrious Liebig, and of the work of Cagniard-Latour, Conn, Mitscherlich, Helmhoitz, Lister, Pasteur and Koch, cannot be over-estimated. Cagniard-Latour was first to describe the organism of the yeast-plant, and showed it to be constantly present in the fermenting fluid. Schwann, and later on Helmhoitz, held that the process of fermentation, instead of being a mere decomposition, was vital, and depended on the presence of an organism which they described, and this view was elaborated by Pasteur, Lister, Tyndall and others. As I)r J. A. Thomson summarises it, in 1838 Ehrenberg distinguished four genera of bacteria ; in 1872 Colin, to whom so much progress in bacteriology has been due, distinguished four distinct tribes, but this classification was afterwards abandoned, and in 1873 Lister was the first to hint at the fact of pleomorphism. The knowledge gained through the discoveries of Lister was supplemented and developed by those of Lankester, Billroth, Klebs, De Bary, Nageli, Warming, Zopf, and recently of Pasteur and Koch.

THE ANTISEPTIC TREATMENT. The frecpuent mention of Lister's name reminds us that this is the proper place to review the great discovery which will hand his name down to posterity. One cannot exaggerate the benefit which medical science has derived from Sir Josexm Lister's system of antiseptic surgery. It was the crowning-point in that science, so far as to render absolutely safe operations which before that time were exceedingly hazardous. Lister recognised that putrefactive processes constitute the chief danger which the surgeon has to combat in dealing with accidental and operation wounds. Upon this fact is based the system. Antiseptics are substances which destroy the microbes by which fermentative processes are induced, and the system consists essentially in the use of these germicide substances. Before Lister's treatment was adopted, as it was immediately, pyasmia, septicaemia, erysipelas and gangrene were the scourge of surgical hospitals. Now such diseases are of rare occurrence. Mortality from injuries and operations has been greatly diminished; operations which formerly wore not attempted—or, if attempted, were frequently followed by disastrous results —are now performed fearlessly and in safety, and in many cases of injury limbs may now be preserved where amputation was formerly considered necessary. After Lister's method was introduced the death-rate from major amputations fell from 45 per cent, to about 6 per cent. Sir Joseph Lister, who graduated at London University in arts in 184-7 and in medicine in 1852, has become one of the most eminent of surgeons. In addition to his system of antiseptic surgery, introduced in 18G7, he has made important researches concerning the coagulation of the blood and the early stages of inflammation. Apropos of the great discovery with which his name is identified, one finds it deeply interesting to contrast the condition of surgery at the present day with its condition in the days before the tourniquet. Amputation in ancient times was a terrible operation. It was almost invariably fatal. As surgeons had no efficient means of restraining the bleeding, they rarely ventured to remove a large portion of a limb, and when they did so they cut in the gangrened parts, because they knew there would be no bleeding if they did so. Smaller limbs were chopped eff with a mallet and chisel, and hot irons were always at hand for uso in the searing of the raw surfaces. Altogether the lot of the patient who fell into the hands of the practised surgeon in those days was not entirely beer and skittles. ANESTHETICS,' AND THEIR U.SE IN * SURGERY. Modern surgery has also a valuable helper in the aiunsthetic. The study of anaesthesia is by no means new, for the Chinese, more than 1500 years ago, used a preparation of hemp to annul pain. One of the earliest Englishmen to develop the use of anaesthetics was the great chemist Sir Humphrey Davy, who in 1800, while conducting a series of experiments at the Pneumatic Institute established by Dr Beddoes at Clifton, discovered the exhilarating effect of nitrous oxide, or laughing gas, when it is breathed. Sulphuric ether was suggested hy Dv Pearson in 1795, but it was not until 184(5 that it was used to prevent the pain of an operation. This was in Boston, Avhen Dr Morton

applied the ether with great success. His example was followed by English surgeons, and sulphuric ether came into extensive use, until in 1847 chloroform, which up to that time had been merely a chemical curiosity, was brought into prominent notice as an anaesthetic in Edinburgh by the eminent Scottish physician, Sir James Y. Simpson. Simpson, a baker's son, was a man of exceptionally brilliant attainments, who took his M.D. degree when he was only 21 years of age, and at 24 years of age was elected president of the Royal Medical Society. Discovering the value of chloroform, he introduced it in 1817 into his own special department of work, midwifery. Prom that date it has been universally employed as an anaesthetic. It has diminished, if not absolutely removed, the terrors of the surgeon's knife. Ether is, of course, still used, and is preferred in some cases to chloroform, which cannot be administered where weak action of\the heart is known to exist. Nitrous oxide gas is a common anaesthetic in the extraction of teeth, an operation lasting only a minute or two, and in this work, and in minor operations of a local character, the ether spray, which produces such intense cold that the part is completely numbed, is very often used. Cocaine has come into regular use as an anaesthetic within the past 60 years, and is a valuable substitute tor chloroform in some operations. It is of special value to the oculist. THE WORK OF FASTEUIt. A medical history of the past sixty years, even of the briefest character, would oe poor indeed if no mention were made of the great work done by the renowned Frenchman M. Louis Pasteur. In one direction alone—his study of the terrible malady of hydrophobia—his work and its results, even if he had no other claim to the gratitude of humanity, should keep his name in perpetual remembrance. Until he began to investigate hydrophobia in 1880, the most contradictory opinions were held as to the character of the malady. Pasteur, after long and minute research, not only demonstrated its character, but provided a remedy. The process of this remedy is that the patient is inoculated with the virus of hydrophobia in an attenuated form during the period of incubation after the bite of the mad dog, and thus rendored refractory to the true rabies by the time that period expires. It will be seen that the principle on which the remedy is founded is similar to that of vaccination as a preventive of small-pox. The news of Pasteur's discovery delighted England and the Continent. Prom all parts of Europe patients flocked to the Pasteur Institute in Paris for treatment, and many honours were awarded the eminent doctor. One of Pasteur's last triumphs was the discovery of a remedy for snakebite. Prom his institute also it was lately announced that a remedy had been found by one of the members for puerperal fever. Pasteur's work in other directions than that which is, strictly speaking, pertaining to medical science has immensely benefited humanity and saved enormous sums to the French nation. His researches in bacteriology were of the most minute and successful character. In attacking the problem of splenic fever, or anthrax ; in studying and combating the diseases which had well nigh ruined the wine and silk industries in Prance, Pasteur investigated in a most searching and conclusive manner the life-history of bacteria, and enriched science in a very marked degree THE BACILLI OF CONSUMPTION AND CHOLERA. Science likewise owes much to Professor Robert Koch, of Berlin, who has already been mentioned more than once in the course of this article. Koch has been an able exponent of the German school, founded by Schonlein. One of his most notable services to medicine was his discovery in 1882 of the bacillus tuberculosis as the organism responsible for the scourge of consumption, his researches in microscopy and bacteriology leading him to another great discovery in the following year—that of the cholera bacillus, a service for which he was rewarded with a gift of .£SOOO by the German Government. In 1885 he was appointed professor in the University of Berlin, and director of the hygienic institute. About seven or eight years ago it was believed that the efforts of Koch to obtain a cure for consumption had been rewarded with success. Enterprising pressmen and hopeful patients published the discovery before Koch was ready, and those who were thus led to anticipate a euro for the disease under which they are doomed to early death were fated to sad disappointment. But though Koch has been unsuccessful up to the present in finding a remedy for consumption, who will say that he will not gain the victory before long? It is never safe to prophesy, but in view of the extraordinary achievements of science within the latter half of the nineteenth century, one may be forgiven for hoping that the dawn of the twentieth century will see mankind in possession of secrets which will enable him to defy the two great scourges of the race at the present day —consumption and cancer. The advances of surgery, the improved methods in the treatment of fevers, the revolution in the art of the physician, the repeated successes which have crowned the efforts of scientists within the past 60 years, all point to this conclusion. The most startling discovery of all, one which means a still greater revolution in surgical rnothoevs than any which has yet occurred, is that which Professor Eontgen was able to announce to the world at the beginning of last year, or at the end of 1895. THE X EATS. A man unknown to the world, Konrad Eontgen, stood before a learned society in an obscure Bavarian University, and made a simple modest statement of his discovery. The particulars were published in a German newspaper, an enterprising press correspondent caught up the matter and sent details far and wide of experiments con-1

ducted by a German professor in photographing through a deal board, and takirjg a picture of a skeleton within the living flesh. Then, Rontgen's fame leaped all over the world. The story of the new light, which for want of a. better name has been styled "the X rays," is well known. Everyone is familiar with the uses already made of it in surgery. Who can tell what Avill follow the X rays ?

PHYSICAL AND NATURAL SCIENCE.

Electricity and its possibilities were still being discussed at the beginning of the reign of Victoria. Men who were in advance of their fellows had experimented with the comparatively new and migh.ty power, but that was practically all that had been done. But in 1837, the very year of the Queen's accession, Cooke, who had been experimenting in Heidelberg upon the machines and. theories of Baron Schilling, Gauss and "Weber, went to London and discussed the electric telegraph, with the equally well-known scientist Charles Wheatstone. THE INTRODUCTION OF THE TELEGRAPH. On June 12th, 1837, the patent was taken out by which Cooke and Wheatstoife were permitted to make " improvements in signals and alarms at distant places by means of electric currents transmitted through metallic circuits." This was the practical beginning of eimetric telegraphcommunication, five years after Baron Schilling had produced a needle telegraph instrument, and 91 years after Dr Watson had succeeded in transmitting an electric shock across the river Thames. Baron Schilling's was really the first practical telegraph, but for some reason .or other it was exhibited merely, and never brought into public service. To the young English medical student, William Pothergill Cooke, who was son of a Durham doctor, and the Professor of King's College, Charles Wheatstone, belong, therefore, the honour of establishing the electric telegraph. They conversed by means of a wire extended between Euston Square and Camden Town on the London and North-Western Railway, and their delight when they heard the needles clicking may well be imagined. This instrument had five needles. Later improvements reduced the number of needles to two, and finally to one. The success of the Euston Square-Camden Town experiment at onco attracted attention to the new agency. In 1838 the Great Western Railway Company laid down a line from Paddington to West Drayton, extending it to Slough in 1842. Messages were sent along this line at the rate of Is per word. In 1843 a lino was erected in Ireland, another was put up on the Leeds and Manchester line of railway, and another between London and Gosport. In February, 1845, the Queen's Speech at the opening oi Parliament was transmitted along the LondonGosport line at the rate of 30 words a minute. So many lines were required that companies were formed for their construction, and by 1860 the country was covered with a network of wires, and messages could be sent between all the large towns. Afterwards all the lines were taken over by the Government. AN INVENTOR'S STRUGGLES. Meanwhile Samuel Morse, the American electrician and painter (founder of the Morse code), had exhibited a magnetic telegraph to Congress in 1837. This invention he attempted to patent in England, but in vain. His claims to priority of invention over Wheatstone in England have been the subject of considerable controversy. The fact remains, however, that the Morse system has come into worldwide use. The American, inventor, who introduced tho " relay," now so well known and so necessary for long-distance working of the telegraph, had had to abandon his pictures Aphile working at his electrical patents, and 1840 saw him with scanty means, compelled many a time tp face the pangs of hunger, and doin£ so cheerfully, buoyed up as he was by the hope of final success. In that year he gained a patent, and offered his invention to the American Government for .£20,000, an offer which was declined. However, he did not lose heart, and in 1843 a Bill was introduced into Congress to authorise tho expenditure of £6OOO in testing the invention by erecting an experimental telegraph line between Washington and Baltimore, The spirit in which the Bill was received may be judged from the suggestion made by one senator, that hall the amount proposed to be spent should be devoted to ex : periments in mesmerism! It was in the last moments of the session that the Bill was passed, somewhere about midnight. Morse, who had been anxiously watching its fate, had left the Congress House twohourS before, thoroughly disheartened, and it was not until the following morning that he learned that the Bill had passed, Miss Ellsworth, the daughter of one of his personal friends, conveying the news to him. These interesting particulars are narrated in " Coil and Current," by Messrs Henry Frith and W. S. Kawson, who add : " When the experimental Hne,-'forty miles long, from Baltimore to Washington, was opened a year afterwards, the first message transmitted was sent by Miss Ellsworth, and tho paper recording it, ' What God hath wrought/ is still preserved as a precious relic." The path of success having been indicated, lines were, with characteristic American energy, rapidly erected in diJTerent parts of tho country. Morse lived to see his system of telegraphy adopted in France, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Russia and Australia. Honours were heaped upon him. An- international present of 400,000 francs was given him in 185 S, at tho instance of Napoleon 111., and a bronco statue was erected to him in Now York in 1871, a year before his death. SUB3IARINE TELEGRAPHY. The success of land telegraphy led men to think of communicating with other countries by means of tho mystical electric spark. Wheatstone suggested in. 1840 * t a

cable between Dover and Calais; Morse proposed an experiment of the same kind between Castle Green and Governors Island (New York), and even conceived the idea of Atlantic submarine communication. An indiarubber cable was laid under tbe Solent in 1845 by West, and Brett, who asked himself why, if the telegraph worked under ground, it might not work equally well under water, laid a temporary cable between France and England, along which several messages were sent before the cable became useless through been rubbed by the waves against the rocks. Other submarine cables were put down, until at the close of 1857 there were thirty-seven lines, or a total length of 3700 miles, below the sea.

HOW THE ATLANTIC CABLE WAS LAID

Cyrus Field, of New York, and some other energetic spirits with money at command, interested themselves in the Atlantic cable scheme, and a survey of the bed of the Atlantic having shown that it was nearly level, a company was formed m 18ob, to which the Governments of Great Britain and the United States gave liberal guarantees. This company, after a fruitless attempt in 1857, finally succeeded in 1858 in their design for an electric cable. EC M S. Agamemnon and the United States frigate'Niagara met in mid-ocean with equal portions of the cable on board; there ilf wab spliced, and the shore ends finally landed—the one end by the Agamemnon at Valentia, Ireland ; the other by the Niagara at Trinity Bay, Newfoundland. As soon as the connections were made the message was flashed through from Valentia t0 Europe o andAmerica united by telegraph; glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, goodwill to men. But though the naw cable was greeted with S'reat popular enthusiasm, it proved by no means satisfactory. The current obtained through the wire was so weak that a congratulatory telegram from the Queen to the President of America Mr Buchanan, containing 90 words, took 67 minutes to transmit. Some important Government messages were sent, some 4000 words in all being transmitted from continent to continent (including the important cablegram countermanding the order for the troops in Canada to return to Great Britain, a message which saved an enormous sum to the nation) ; but the line began to give trouble even before' it was opened for public traffic, and at last on September 3rd: the very day set apart in America tor public rejoicing, the cable ceased to work, owin<* to the insulation becoming defective.

THE USE FOUND FOR THE GREAT EASTERN.

In consequence of this failure, it was not until 1865 that capital was found to make another attempt. This time the luckless Great Eastern, the colossal ship designed and built by the younger Brunei, was employed in the work. The first cable, 2500 miles long, had weighed one ton per mile, but this time the cable was heavier The whole length, 2300 miles, weighed 4000 tons. The paying out journey was commenced at Valentia, Mr Gooch Professor William Thomson (now Lord Kelvin; and other scientists being on board the Great Eastern as she left on her memorable expedition. When the vessel was 1064 miles out from Yalentia, however, the cable broke from an accidental strain, and, after a fruitless effort to fish it up, it was abandoned for the season. In 1866 a new cable, both lighter and stronger than the previous one, was ordered, and in July of that year the Great Eastern again steamed out of Valentia Harbour, those on boaid being able by a new method of testing to keep up continuous communication with Mr Glass, the electrician in charge of the station at Valentia. By the 18th July 600 miles bad been laid, by the 22nd 1200 miles, and as the American shore loomed nearer and near the hearts of those on board beat faster and faster, until on July 2/th, 1866, the other end was made fast to the .Newfoundland shore, and the cable between England and America was really successfully laid. The 1865 cable was tben, by means of the Great Eastern, grappled for in mid-ocean, brought up from a distance of two miles, proved by the usual test to be still alive, spliced, and completed to Trinity Bay. The news that at last a cable was in use between England and America caused universal rejoicing. Mr Gooch was created a baronet, and Professor Thomson (to whom we owe the solution of the problem of the transmission of electric currents m submarine cables) was knighted, as were also Mr Curtis Lampson, Mr S. Canning and Captain Anderson. The succcess ot the cables led to a number of others being laid.

THE SCIENTIFIC TIiIUMPHS OF KELVIN. •When the 1358 Atlantic cable was laid, it was possible only to send words through at the rate of three and a-halt'per minute. Sir William Thomson, thereupon, invented the mirror galvanometer and the siphon recorder to increase the speed of working. Without the Thomson galvanometer long cables could scarcely have been commercially successful. Sir William Thomson, who for some years was Professor of Natural Philosophy in the University of Glasgow, has done remarkable work for science. He is facile princeps as an inventor of accurate and delicate scientific instruments. He is well known to all engineers by his electrometers, his sounding apparatus and compass have been adopted by the Admiralty, and m pure science his work is incomparable. Me was created a peer in 1892 with the title of Lord Kelvin.

edison's inventions

For improvements in telegraphy, including the duplex, quadruples and sextuplex systems, much is owing to the American inventor, Thomas Alva Edison, "the Wizard of Menlo Park," as he has been styled. Edison's industry is amazing. Between 1875 and 1880 he took out over 50 patents in connection with not only these

improved systems of telegraphy, but the carbon telephone transmitter, the mierotasmeter, the aerophone (for amplifying sound) and the megaphone (for magnifying . sound). His inventions ot tha phonograph, of one form of telephone (Mr Graham Bell having been first in the field with his invention) and of the practical adaptation of the electric light for pur- \ poses of illumination, quickly followed. In j the improvement of the electric light and the telephone, electrical engineering has had a field for usefulness in which valuable work has been recorded. One of Edison's latest triumphs is the kinetoscope, or in its enlarged form the kinematographe, OTHER CELEBRATED MEN. The scientists of the Queen's reign include John Dalton, the famous English chemist, who distinguished himself by his development of the atomic theory, as well as by his researches on the absorption of J gases by water, on carbonic acid, carbu- / retted hvdrogen, the constitution of mixed gases, the force of steam, the elasticity of f vapours, the expansion of gases by heat, j Dalton, who died in 1844, was a man of j kindly, simple manner, who was so wholly \ wrapped up in science that he " never found time to marry." Edison must be one of the same stamp. He forgot about i his wedding on his return from the church i with his bride, and it was only after an anxious search that he was fonnd in his laboratory, engrossed in a scientific experiment.

Professor Henslow, the botanist, acquired fame during the reign of Victoria. He it was who encouraged Charles Darwin in his botanical and zoological studies. Whatever may be thought of the conclusions arrived at by Darwin, his researches as a naturalist and biologist, and the vast fund of information thus acquired, are admittedly of high value. Darwin, as naturalist to tbe Beagle expedition, which left England in 1831, obtained an intimate knowledge of the fauna, flora and geological conditions of the countries visited in the course of that voyage. The elaboration of his theory on the origin of species, which has been violently attacked, he made the principal work of his life. The names of Professor Huxley, Dr Tyndall and Sir Richard Owen are also familiar from their studies in biology and anatomy. Cuvier, the chief of modern comparative anatomists, died in 1832. Amongst the astronomers of the reign, chief place is taken by William Lockyer, who in 1866 discovered a new method of observing the sun, and in 1874 gained the Rumford medal of the Royal Society. Michael Faraday has already been mentioned. Faraday, who was »the son of a blacksmith, has been well described as one of the most distinguished chemists and natural philosophers of the nineteenth century. The extraordinary set of papers published in the " Philosophical Transactions " for forty years and more, entitled "Experimental-Researches in Electricity," contain a series of most admirable discoveries. In electricity, magnetism and electro-magnetism, he made minute research, with splendid results. Not only has his work been of extreme importance in itself, but it has led to later discoveries with which the world is now familiar. Amonst other noted names of the reign are those of Arago, the great astronomer ; Biot, the French physicist and astronomer, whose contributions on the polarisation of light gained him the Rumford gold medal in 1840; Jean Baptiste Dumas, celebrated for his researches in organic chemistry; Dr Buckland, the eminent geologist, Dean of Westminster in 1845, and his son Francis T. Buckland, the naturalist; Hugh Miller, the distinguished geologist and journalist, and so on down to John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Jevons and the other political economists (whose works of course form a distinct branch of science). Within the last two years Professor Ray Lankester and Lord Rayleigh have announced an important discovery—that of a new constituent in the air, which they have styled " argon." In another direction, astronomy, work has gone on with vigour during the past 60 years, new discoveries of planetary bodies being frequently announced. In these colonies science has progressed in a rapid degree. Everyone is acquainted with the work of the late Rev Father Tenison-Woods, who was vicepresident of the Linnaean Society of New South Wales. His contributions to the geological history of Australia have been exceedingly valuable. Other men have also done splendid work in these lands. As to one branch of science, Arctic exploration, the great deeds done during the Queen's reign by the intrepid Norsemen and other explorers who have endeavoured to wrest from the North Pole its grim secrets have received new interest from the daring attempt of Nansen, of whose feat in reaching a point nearer the Pole than any previous explorer the world is now busy talking as it studies his book " Farthest North." Other expeditions are in prospect, one to the South Pole by Borgrevinck being practically arranged for. The future of science opens a glorious prospect. With the Titanic marvel, Electricity, only in its infancy, who will say that there is not every promise that the victories of the nineteenth century will be dwarfed into insignificance by those of the century at the threshold of which we stand ?

ENGINEERING. The strides made in electrical engineering during the past 60 years have been already indicated, and in the other branches of engineering the progress has been equally remarkable. The venerable Puffing -Billy, now to be seen in the museum of the Patent Office in London, was tearing its way along a rough railroad in England in the year 1813, just about the time that George Stephenson—originally a poor labourer, whose father had to maintain a family of six children on twelve shillings a week and keep honest—-built a

locomotive for the tram roads at Killingworth colliery. A brief span of not much more than 60 years, and the ramifications of the railroad extend all over the known world. THE RAILWAYS. Puffing Billv, the first locomotive, patented in 1813 by William Hedley, was kept in constant use until 1872, when it was purchased by the Government. _ The problem of securing adequate and uniform steam power for the locomotive, however, was the difficulty that beset the first builders, and-the credit of solving this difficulty belongs to George Stephenson, who is in every way entitled to his honour _as " father of the steam-engine." His engine, the Rocket, completed in 1825, weighed 4£ tons; but the many changes which have since been made in the size and appearance of the locomotive affect detail rather than the principle as it was laid down by Stephenson. The 75-ton express passenger engine, which runs at a speed or a mile a minute for miles together, does not differ materially in conduction from George Stephenson's pioneer engines. The most important modern development for economy of fuel is the adaptation to the locomotive of the compounding principle which has effected such a revolution in steam navigation. The overhead railway is used in New York and other American cities, as well as in Liverpool, and for steep grades the rack system is found to have a decided advantage. The supply of brake power has been the subject of many ingenious patents. With reference to railway tunnels, the longest in the world is the Alpine mountain tunnel under the St. Gotthard, 9£ miles, commenced in 1872 and finished in 1880. The "Underground Railway " in London is practically a series of tunnels, and the most remarkable undertaking of Sir M. I. Brunei, father of the designer of the Great Eastern, was the old Thames Tunnel, which ran beneath the bed of the river, and was completed in March, 1843. The first turf of the first railway in Australasia was turned on the 3rd July, ISSO, near Sydney, by the Hon Mrs Keith Stewart, and the first railway opened in Australasia was the section from Sydney to Parramatta.

OTHER ENGINEERING WORKS.

Amongst the most remarkable of engineering works in Great Britain during the reign was the Forth Bridge, an immense structure of cantilever design on the North British railway system. This bridge, opened by the Prince of Wales on the 4th of March, 1890, is the largest and most magnificent in the world. .The engineers were Sir John Fowler Jand Sir Benjamin Baker. The Tower Bridge, recently thrown across the Thames at the Tower of London, is also a fine work. The first lattice girder in iron for bridges was designed by Sir John Mae Neill, and erected in 1843 on the line of the Dublin and Drogheda Railway. _ Lattice girders are now almost universally adopted for iron bridges of long span. The Clifton suspension bridge, begun in 1835, and completed only in 1864 with the materials of the designer's own Hungerford suspension bridge over the Thames at Charing Cros3, was planned by I. K. Brunei, who, as already stated, built the Great Eastern, and in doing so merely proved himself a little in advance of his time, for there is now being built by Harland and Wolff, for the White Star line, a steamer which shall be longer than the Great Eastern. Mention of these two remarkable ships will, however, be found elsewhere in the course of this article. An engineering work of great importance just completed is the Blackwall Tunnel, which crosses the Thames between Blackwall and the East Greenwich side. During the period we are reviewing many notable aqueducts have been built. The Manchester aqueducts, very large works, were constructed during the nine years ending in 1877 to carry water from Longdendale, between Sheffield and Manchester, to the latter city. The Manchester Ship Canal was an important undertaking, brought to a completion in 1894. In order that New York should be supplied with water from the Croton river, an aqueduct, described as one of the grandest modern works of its kind, was built between the years 1837 and 1812, and as it has been found inadequate, a new aqueduct, of a more stupendous character, has been built. The Loch Katrine aqueduct, for the supply of water to Glasgow, was begun in 1855, and completed in 1860, and the Liverpool aqueduct is likewise a noteworthy work. A magnificent specimen of French engineering is given in the Marseilles aqueduct, built in 1847. In breakwaters the principal works in England have bean the Plymouth breakwater, completed in 1841; that at Holyhead, which occupied from 1847 till 1873 in building; that at Portland, 1849-72, and the Dover and Alderney breakwaters. The word " breakwater" has a rather toofamiliar sound to some New Zealanders. The Suez Canal is a celebrated engineering work commenced in 1860 and completed in 1869. The engineer was the well-known Ferdinand De Lessops, whose career went out ignominiously with the Panama Canal scheme, in which the

; poor old man was made tho victim of l those who sought to benefit themselves j at the expense of the funds. The story of 1 the Panama Canal project and its failure makes pitiful reading. Beside the Manchester Ship Canal (already mentioned) the Baltic Canal, opened with great ceremony by the German Emperor in 1895, and the St. Petersburg and Kronstadt Ship Canal are likewise noteworthy. No docks in the world are on so splendid a scale as those of London, Liverpool and Birkenhead. The Royal Albert and Victoria Docks, in London, are amongst the most complete in the world. A great engineering work was the iron floating dock designed by Thomson, of Edinburgh, in 1859 for the port of Sourabaya, in Japan. Of lighthouses, the new Eddy stone house was completed in 1883 by Sir James

Douglass, the rock on which. Smeaton's was built having 1 been considerably undermined. The electric light was first used for lighthouse work m 1852 at Foreland lighthouse, and has now come in extensive use, more especially for lightships. Mining engineers have made many improvements in their special department, and mining work is now very much in advance of its condition at the beginning of Queen Victoria's reign.