OURSELVES.

Progress, Volume IV, Issue 1, 2 November 1908, Page 10

OURSELVES.

With this issue Progress enters upon the fourth year of its career. The time is propitious for a review of the short past — short, but long enough, we hope, to guarantee the length of days invariably associated with successful practice. Naturally one asks first why the journal has, lasted so long. The only possible answer — an answer we confidently leave to our many readers — is that Progress has done what it set out to do at the outset. We promised to supply a monthly journal of science, written on popular lines, devoted, inter alia, to industries and inventions and all things concerning the same, and such a journal we have supplied in six-and-thirty consistent numbers. From the first, moreover, we have aimed at good printing and first-class illustration. In these respects the journal speaks for itself. It has, however, not by any means been left to do so alone. Every notice, of the many laudatory notices we have from time to time received, has dwelt on the success with which this, our original intention, has been fulfilled. Under such circumstances retrospects are always pleasant day dreams. Indeed, these are the only day dreams permissible to practical people. The real dreamers exercise their imaginations on the nebulous future instead of devoting their memory to the well-filled past. Our retrospect extends over a large field occupied by many subjects. Amongst these we remember numerous industries of the Dominion, extending up to twenty-six numbers — a fair proportion of performances for a journal published thirty-six times after promising to devote much of its space to industries. In addition, we have described the mining industry and the possibilities of the iron industry; we have told the story of several great industrial undertakings, among them the famous Singer factories and commercial connection. The railways of the Dominion have several times passed through these pages, the Northern Trunk one day, the Midland another, the Manawatu another, the Addington workshops another, the Otira tunnel another. Various harbours of OUT coasts, the work of the persistent well-advised local bodies of the Dominion, have been noticed. Most of the new

buildings of importance throughout New Zealand have been illustrated and described, the present and future of our forests have been discussed, and every patent applied for during the life of Progress is recorded, and many of them have been specially illustrated and described. Among the latter are patents for engines, window frames, automatic electric "cutouts," milking machines, cash registeis, trolley heads, turbines, the newest electric batteries, and hosts of others too numerous to jaention. The account we

published of tlie Patent Office emphasised the fact that the proportion of patent applications for patents to population in the Dominion exceeds that of any other country. It is at the same time official corroboration of the testimony Pkogress has unswervingly borne from first to last to the eminence of the talent born and trained in the Dominion, practising therein . We beg-an our motoring section at the time when the motor was a hesitating quantity, unreliable in some respects, not

given to commercial use at all ; and we have followed it, keeping pace with, the improvements of the machinery, bringing increased reliability, speed, and endurance, showing every phase from the uncertainty of the day when men could not rely on getting through any journey from anywhere to anywhere, to the present perfection of hill-climbing and roadendurance together with the increased dangers and difficulties illustrated by accounts of the many journeys, including the first Wellington-Napier, and the phenomenal journeys made through Siberia, and the not less phenomenal pace that has carried the mile averages many times well into the century and destroyed some lives and some machines. Of the coming of the Commercial Motor we have kept due count also. In short, whatever motorists do, even to the testing of their machines and the mending of their gear, that has found its way consistently into our pages. In the department of engineering we have kept well up: for example, Progress was the first to state correctly for the Dominion the cause of the great catastrophe of the cantilever bridge constructing near Quebec. Progress went fully into the Parsons turbine, the Brennan monorail and gyroscope, besides describing, and, of course, illustrating, the experiments with the latter instrument at sea. Progress has discussed the new marine invention of floating breakwaters — devoted space, much of it, to the harnessing of water for electric purposes. Progress has told the marvellous story of the Atlantic Cable, doing justice to the genius of Lord Kelvin and the extraordinary pertinacity of Cyrus Field, and last, but not least, to the leading and commanding part played by the British Government in this most beneficial department. Progress has often placed the subject of wireless telegraphy in its many lights before its readers, and has followed the development of electric science with ardour, the last example being the description of the magnet at work in a steel foundry. Progress has kept up with astronomy with various papers, among them a series on the subject of Partial Impact, papers on the last comet, and on the system of the universe from many points of view, and has published tlie valuable addiess of tlie Astronomer Royal, bringing the science up to date all along the line.

In Aviation, Progress has done well. In the Architecture department Proorfss has, while not neglecting local developments, taken care to throw the light of history and old experience over its pages, at the same time doing justice to practical matters such as the present and future of reinforced concrete, the uses of timbers and the substitutes for the same, the various orders of building stones, the eaithquake question, the fireproof question, and the numerous questions of more than passing interest. Of late we have added a department of miscellaneous subjects for the purpose of finding room for the treatment of such subjects as are not easily classed in the

mpst of them bearing names to conjure with in their several spheres. In the front rank of outside names there are Rj.nkin Kennedy, the famous engineer, Parsons, the great inventor of the marine turbine — or rather its adapter, Hiram Maxim, of universal fame, and Edge, the inepressible, who, however, ought not to be repressed. These are but the head of the column. Among the local men there are Sir Robert Stout, the indefatigable and the wide reading, Dr. Kennedy, the painstaking steady astronomer of Meanee; P. C. Skerret, the eminent K.C. ; Yon Haast, who has discoursed on practical matters of law with clearness and. precision and in the language of the people

was abreast of the progress of every science and willing to take every one along Tsith him, making such educational effort a labour of love; Black and Fulton nnd Leslie Reynolds and a host of other engineers enlightening our readers in the darkness of many things ; and architects h&ve honoured our columns, Clere and others at the head of the list. The younger men too have been before our readers, notably Robertson, the Rhodes scholar. Bickerton, of the Canterbury Ccllege, late we may add with a regret to be measured only by the keenness of tLe general appreciation of the services h r , did while in the service of mankind, thiough that institution; Gifford, of

regular departments. In this there are Wellington College, Third Wrangler and te be seen references to the newest theo- distinguished Herschel prize-winner in ries of disease, the latest discoveries of astronomy in the highest branches, and iredical science, theories of the human many others too numerous to mention, biain and its origin, various aspects of To these and all who have with them various weapons lately offered to man helped to make the columns of Progress for the killing of his fellow-man, the interesting and instructive we tender our stiange government of the bee world in fvllest acknowledgments and best thanks which what we would style anarchism In joining our many readers, who have In human affairs succeeds in the per- so substantially backed their opinion of manence of harmonious rule at a sacri- Progress, in that expression of thanks, fice of life and liberty appalling, were as also our advertisers who have not found it a case of the human race, to contem- our pages unremunerative, we beg to replate, new the promise of good work which we In these walks of our life we have had made three years ago and have kept the assistance of many willing workers, throughout the interval.

as distinguished from the shiboleths of the lawyers, the late Six* James Hector, the illustrious almost omniscient worker who