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AMERICAN SOCIETY 
MECHANICAL ENGINEERS 

PRESIDENTS ADDRESS 

1898 



THE ENGINEER 

HIS WORK 
HIS ETHICS 
HIS PLEASURES 



IV 



37489 




With the compliments 
of the author. 



AMERICAN SOCIETY OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERS--- 
ANNUAL ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT, 1898. 

Forming a part of Volume XX. of the Transactions, 

BT CHARLES WALLACE HUNT. 

It has been the custom of this Society for the President to 
deliver a formal address at the end of his term of service. This 
practice, like other acts which continue long enough for the 
establishing of a custom, must have good reasons for its exist- 
ence, although they may not be fully appreciated either by those 
who established or by those who follow the custom. 

The duty which devolves upon me this evening was first en- 
tered into as a task, but it grew to be a pleasure, as the growth 
and importance of the functions of the engineer became evident 
on every side, as we study them in our national development, in 
our industries, and even in the comforts and the luxuries of our 
daily life. 

Each one of us looks out upon the same world from a different 
standpoint, and each sees the same general scene, but the scope 
of the view and the details observed will vary to a greater or a 
less degree, depending upon our particular position. In addi- 
tion to this, each, as it were, looks through a colored glass which 
gives a personal tint to the scene, colored by the effects of our 
environment, as well as by our personal temperament. 

Could we combine all these various pictures, large and small, 
which are presented to our view, with all their varied tints, we 
would obtain a kind of composite image, which would be a more 
accurate and probably a more pleasing representation of the 
real subject than any one of us sees individually. A senior, 
who has travelled the rugged path of life, should be able from 
his experiences on the way to select such views as would be 
both useful and pleasant for a junior to consider as he starts 
out on a similar journey. The interest of our annual meeting 
is heightened, and an intellectual pleasure is given us, when one 
of our body presents to the others those subjects which seem to 



2 president's address, 1898. 

him important and interesting, that all may compare them with 
the view as seen from their own standpoint. As we pass from 
subject to subject, each will combine the picture presented with 
his own personal conceptions, giving, as it were, a stereoscopic 
effect, each one gaining a wider and a clearer view. In making 
this survey we will first consider those matters which immedi- 
ately concern engineering practice, and then pass on to wider 
fields and subjects of more general interest. 



TJie Word ^^ Engineer P 

In order that we may proceed in harmony of thought, we must 
use words in the same sense. Let us, then, first consider what 
we mean by the word " engineer " — not what it meant historically, 
but what it has come to signify in the active world of to-day — 
and try to bring our individual conceptions of this meaning into 
harmony each with the other. Following Tredgold, I have 
herein used the word " engineer " in the broad sense of one who 
is skilled in the application of the materials and forces of nature 
to the uses of man. 

Considered in this broad sense, the engineer is interested in 
every investigation and discovery in the whole realm of nature. 
Experience has shown that every field is tributary to his work. 
The theoretical abstraction of yesterday becomes a demonstra- 
tion to-day, and to-morrow it is the task of the engineer to apply 
it to the uses of man. The new discoveries of materials, of 
forces, and of laws which now succeed each other so rapidly, 
make a corresponding increase in the range of the work and the 
responsibility of the engineer of this present day. 

Engineering Practice. 

That we live in an age of changes is at once our opportunity 
and our pleasure. Some of these changes burst upon us, attract- 
ing universal notice, while others come so slowly that they are 
almost unobserved. A change of the latter character has been 
taking place of late years in the work of professional engineers. 
This has largely come from the development of our manufactur- 
ing institutions from the position of being a minor factor in our 
economic life to being one of commanding importance, and the 



president's address, 1898, 3 

necessary employment of skilled engineers to conduct their 
technical affairs. 

The engineer of the user and the engineer of the maker have 
widely different duties. Consider how different may be the in- 
formation required in practice by two classmates, whom we will 
designate as " A " and " B," who graduate from college as engi- 
neers. We will suppose that '^ A " secures a position in the 
engineering department of a city, and commences his work, which 
may be the designing of a new water-pumping station. His 
college course has fitted him for the work. His text-books were 
suited to problems of this character. He finds abundant infor- 
mation on all branches of the subject, in data published in the 
proceedings of scientific societies, in technical literature, and in 
annual reports of city departments. The forms of contracts 
to be entered into are at hand, all found elaborately drawn, with 
every point safe-guarded, and need only a little selection and 
adaptation to suit his case. They place in his hands the power 
to decide absolutely and without appeal all questions which 
may arise in carrying out the work. 

" B " obtains employment in the engineering department of a 
manufacturing corporation, which in due time is to submit a 
tender for the construction of the pumping plant for which " A " 
has issued specifications. He will find that the form of contract 
proposed by "A" has many minute and carefully worded 
clauses to bind and limit the supplier. The tender to be sub- 
mitted for the execution of the work must in its scope and word- 
ing protect the interests which " B " represents, not only in a 
general sense, but in every one of the clauses of the proposed 
contract. Every obscure phrase and every adjective used by 
"A" must have definite consideration and be clearly defined 
in both an engineering and a legal sense. " B " here finds that 
the information derived from his college course is meagre, and 
there is no technical literature which he can use, either as a 
general guide for making a form of tender, or the proper ex- 
pressions to use to define or limit the obscure clauses or words 
found in the specification. 

Looking at the subject from a purely technical point of view, 
we see quite as great a variation in their work. In the case 
supposed, " A " would require only a general knowledge, while 
" B " would require the most thorough and exhaustive informa- 
tion of the qualities of constructive materials, and shop practice 



4 PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS, 1898. 

available in that particular location. The farther we carry the 
comparison of their work, the more clearly it is seen that the 
educational needs are becoming more and more complex, to 
correspond with the growing specialization of engineering work. 



Practice Abroad. 

There is another phase of engineering practice represented 
by the duties of " A " and " B " which now becomes interesting, 
if the work of American engineers is to take the place in the 
world at large to which the indications now so plainly point. 
In other countries it is a common practice for " A " to make all 
the general designs and all of the details for engineering work, 
and the supplier has no responsibility for either, or for the 
efficient working of the plant when completed. If errors or 
omissions are found in the drawings or specifications, the cost 
of the changes required is paid by the purchaser, in the usual 
bill for extra work. In this case, the duties of "A " are exhaus- 
tive, and those of " B " are small or disappear altogether. 

American Practice, 

The American practice is tending to the method of making 
the requirements issued by " A " of a general character which 
will cover the results sought, and leave to the supplier, "B," 
the work of designing the particular means to accomplish the 
desired end. Business has become of such a magnitude and 
so complex that one mind cannot fully grasp and readily 
handle the new discoveries, new materials, and new practices 
which now come so rapidly. For efficient and economical 
results, each phase must be handled by an expert. 

There will be many " B " engineers to respond to the require- 
ments of " A," and each will present for consideration different 
ideas, different materials, and different shop practices. "A" 
must select, from these various plans and details submitted, 
the one which best promises to fulfil the requirements. It is 
a division of labor between " A " and *' B," each of whom, by 
tastes and training, is especially fitted for his part of the work. 
We may paraphrase their duties by saying that " A " is a judge, 
" B '* is a counsellor. 



president's address, 1898. 5 

Post-Graduate Work. 

At the present time we cannot expect our technical schools, 
painstaking and perfect as they are, to fully prepare both " A " 
and " B " for such new and varied duties, or even to have their 
instruction in engineering fully abreast with the latest practice, 
or at least not until progress in the arts and sciences has sub- 
stantially ceased. It takes time for a new practice or a new 
result to be recorded, published, considered, and adopted by 
the teaching staff. 

This difference between the teaching and the engineering 
practice of the day is not only an indication of progress in 
engineering, but in some measure is an index of its rate. The 
student, then, must expect, as a normal proceeding, to supple- 
ment his graduating acquirements by practical experience, 
together with a personal contact with his professional breth- 
ren, in order to place himself fully abreast of the times, 
and to be fitted for the most effective and useful engineering 
service. 

Engineering theory and practice are rapidly extending with 
the general advancement of our economic interests, and the en- 
gineer, whether he be a young graduate or otherwise, who does 
not make use of the modern aids to information, among which 
are to be counted scientific societies, and a personal association 
with his brethren, with the innumerable hints and suggestions 
which come from these, will soon be found struggling with what 
seems to him adverse fate, but what, in reality, is inferior knowl- 
edge, behindhand knowledge, or, plainly speaking, ignorance 
greater or less. The engineering world has passed by him, 
and he must then view the working out of the law of the sur- 
vival of the fittest with what grace he may. 

Laboratory Devel(ypment. 

An interesting development in the engineering world of the 
present day is the rapid growth of the experimental equipment 
of our colleges and technical schools. There seems to be no 
limit to the expense and the completeness of the illustrative 
and experimental machinery which is being installed for the 
instruction of the students of these institutions. And not less 
valuable is the learning, industry, and skill of the professors 



Q PBESIDENT'S address, 1898. 

in charge of and directing these schools, whose theoretical 
acquirements are supplemented by being in constant per- 
sonal touch with the industrial and economic interests of the 
country. 

It is possible that by an organized effort the magnificent 
equipment of trained professors and experimental apparatus 
could be brought in closer touch with each other, that to a 
material extent their work and investigations might be made to 
proceed on a predetermined plan. This would broaden their 
field of experimental investigations, lessen the duplication of 
work, systematize the publication of results, and more rapidl}^ 
extend our growing fund of accurate engineering data. 

A Helping Hand, 

The engineering and scientific work of to-day uses one or the 
other of two systems of metrology, — the English or the metric. 
The discussions of the relative importance and the desirability* 
of these systems of weights and measures are frequently interest- 
ing, and may to some extent be useful in familiarizing the terms 
and making easier the conversion of quantities from one system 
to the other. Practical engineers can, however, lay aside aca- 
demic discussions on the advantages or disadvantages of either, 
and recognize that the two great systems of metrology are each 
used by great engineering nations to the practical exclusion of 
any other, and they may safely assume, without discussion, that 
they are not likely in the near future to be changed in any ma- 
terial way by those using them. 

It is especially desirable that English-speaking societies shall 
give every practicable aid to engineers using the metric system 
of measures, that the work of their engineers may be readily 
available and with the least possible trouble in making conver- 
sions of quantities from the English to the metric system. Such 
computations are always troublesome to perform, and distract- 
ing to the mind when undivided attention is required by the 
subject matter of the article. If the numerical expression in 
English measures is followed in a parenthesis by the exact 
metric equivalent, the article is practically translated when 
printed, as most engineers using the metric system read the 
English language, although they may not speak it, or readily 
make numerical conversions. The greater the availability and 



PEESIDBNT'S ADDKESS, 1898. f 

the publicity given to the published proceedings of a scientific 
society, the more nearly has the society accomplished the chief 
object of its existence. 

An Extending Field. 

It has long been evident that we were making rapid progress 
in perfecting our manufacturing machinery, as well as organiz- 
ing and developing our industries, thus constantly increasing 
the efficiency of our labor, until we have reached a point where 
an hour's labor with its facilities produces more of our principal 
products, and transports them farther, than an hour's labor will 
do in any other part of the world. 

The late war has revealed to us the fact that we have gone on 
reducing the cost of our products, and increasing our capacity 
for production, until our country alone does not furnish a suffi- 
cient market to insure steady work for our labor, and prosperity 
for our merchants and manufacturers. Like confined waters, the 
tendency of these increasing economic forces has been to break 
out from their confinement and equalize trade conditions by 
seeking a market in the world outside. If articles which are 
necessary to supply the wants of man can actually be made here 
with less labor and cheaper than elsewhere, here they will surely 
be made, though it modify our traditional ideas of isolated posi- 
tion, and our protective theories. 

One hundred years ago the iron trade of Sweden was greater 
than that of England, and remembering the great changes which 
have taken place in the last hundred years, it would be rash to 
assume that the momentous economic changes which are now 
taking place, may not cause an equally great shifting of the 
centres of more than one phase of industrial activity. 

Sdentific Societies, 

Every age has produced most ingenious and able engineers 
and mechanicians, as is conclusively shown by specimens of 
their work. Many of these have been preserved and handed 
down to us, causing us to wonder at their skill when we con- 
sider the limitation of materials then available, and in their time 
the paucity of exact knowledge of the laws of nature. But the 
special knowledge and experience of those masters in the art 



8 president's address, 1898, 

practically disappeared when death claimed the originators, 
as only a small portion usually remained in the minds of the 
pupils, and but little of this was transmitted to posterity. It 
was only when scientific and technical societies for the preserva- 
tion of accurate records had developed, in the fulness of time, 
making all the world pupils, that the valuable knowledge so 
laboriously obtained was preserved and handed down to those 
who, sooner or later, could utilize it for the comfort and the 
advancement of mankind. 

These lately developed scientific societies, which are so 
prominent a feature of the present age, were organized for the 
discovery and the universal diffusion of scientific knowledge, an 
object entirely different from that of all mediaeval guilds and 
trade organizations. At first they were largely philosophical, 
discussing theories and experiments which at the time appeared 
to the community at large to have little or no direct bearing on 
the practical affairs of life. 

The members presented to the society the results of their 
investigations and experiments, in the form of written papers, 
making them permanent records to be consulted and made avail- 
able by others who were contemporaneous or who would succeed 
them. This was the vital germ which was to develop and elevate 
science and its applications in industrial work in succeeding ages. 
These societies thus became, so to say, the savings-banks of our 
civilization, the repositories and guardians of the results of in- 
vestigations, experiments, and experience that otherwise would 
have been lost to the world. 

As industrial interests became more important, other societies 
sprang up, each devoted to some particular phase of scientific or 
technical work ; each gathering, selecting, and recording data, not 
alone for their members, but to become permanent additions to 
the general fund of scientific and engineering knowledge. The 
growth of these societies has been accompanied by a gradual de- 
crease of secret methods of manufacture, formerly so prominent, 
but which have now practically disappeared in our industries. 
Manufacturing supremacy is now decided by other factors. 

The advance made in the accumulation of useful data and 
more accurate knowledge in practical engineering gained one 
season, is presented to a scientific society the next, and still 
later it will be embodied in text-books for the instruction of 
students who are soon to take our places and carry on our work. 



president's address, 1898. 9 

Until attention is called to the subject, we are not likely to real- 
ize that, in their essential parts, the great bulk of the engineer- 
ing data available to us now has been first presented to a sci- 
entific society, and there permanently preserved until the time 
came for its utilization or application. It is this great fund of 
information, principally accumulated during the last century, 
that we draw upon for the materials for our text-books, our 
general treatises, and our engineering hand-books. 

ApjpUed Science. 

Turning now to the effects of this accumulation of scientific 
data and literature available to all alike, and the results follow- 
ing its application by organized methods of procedure, our first 
glance will show prominently the wonderful and rapid increase 
of the importance of engineering in our industrial life. It has 
transformed almost every phase of it, and put into our hands 
materials and processes which make the actual life of our im- 
mediate ancestors seem primitive by comparison. 

Commencing under adverse conditions and developing in a 
field of restricted capital, with scarce and high-priced labor, 
engineering in America has applied the forces and materials of 
nature to the uses of man in a characteristic way. Freedom 
from mediaeval traditions and the hampering conditions found in 
the older countries left them substantially free in the choice of 
means to accomplish their end. Influenced as our engineering 
has been by the experience and the work of other parts of the 
world, yet we cannot escape the fact that its development was 
essentially independent, and in some phases unique. 

Improvement has followed improvement in technical matters, 
profits and savings have been added to the capital invested in 
our industries, until our country, two hundred years ago an 
untraversed wilderness, one hundred years ago a struggling 
nation — struggling with industrial difficulties and serious po- 
litical problems — has triumphed over those early limitations, 
and has developed into a nation which in numbers, prosperity, 
and wealth takes a prominent position among the great nations 
of the world. 

The Advent of the Engineer. 

Whichever way we turn, we behold marvellous changes, which 
have followed the advent of the engineer on the scene. A view 



10 PKESIDENT'S address, 1898. 

of one subject will in a measure serve to represent these changes, 
and to recall similar illustrations to your minds which differ 
from this only in degree. 

It is but a few years, well within the memory of men now 
living, that our navy and all the other navies of the world were 
composed of sailing ships. In one of these vessels a mechanical 
germ was introduced in the form of a steam engine and an 
engineer. The grave question soon arose as to what should be 
the status of the new intrusion into the personnel of the ship, 
the engineer. This factor, which was soon to revolutionize the 
navy, was considered unimportant at that time, as is shown 
by the first official record on this subject in the Navy Depart- 
ment at Washington, stating that it would seem that such 
persons should be exempt from the penalty of corporal punish- 
ment. 

The engine grew in size with each succeeding vessel, and as * 
it increased, the sails correspondingly shrank, until finally they 
disappeared altogether. Other mechanical germs also found a 
lodgment in the ship, which have so developed that hydraulic 
and pneumatic pressures are produced, and electric currents 
are generated and distributed, to govern the rudder, hoist the 
anchor, ventilate the compartments, energize the combustion, 
revolve the turrets, train and control the guns, handle the am- 
munition, and purge the ocean's water of its impurities, making 
it wholesome for the ship's use. 

Following these in quick succession came incandescent lamps 
and search-lights, breech-loading and rapid-fire guns, multi- 
charge automatic guns, and mobile torpedoes — one mechanical 
appliance rapidly following another, until the ship-of-the-line, 
which but just now embodied the result of hundreds of years of 
thought and experiment, has been completely transformed from 
keel to topmast into a vast machine, controlled and operated, 
even to the least important function, not by sailors, but by 
mechanicians. 

In every phase of our industrial life the changes wrought 
by the engineer are quite as evident; for instance, note the 
marvellous changes in the manufacture of steel, — in the 
development of electric locomotion, — in iron building con- 
struction, — in machine tools, — in agricultural implements, — 
in sewing-machines, — in textile industries, — in electric me- 
tallurgy. 



president's address, 1898. 11 

His Work. 

The life of the engineer has a full measure of the labors, the 
trials, the discomforts, and the disappointments which are 
found in this as in every other walk of life. But it also has 
the successes which come from well-directed labors. It is not, 
however, either the useful work in itself, or what are called the 
successes of life, which brings happiness. It is man's ideals 
which make him happy. 

Let us together survey some of the surrounding influences 
which tend to give high ideals of life to the engineer, no matter 
what the trials or the vexations of the moment may be. We 
will pass in review the interesting character of his daily work, 
his pure-minded associates, the higher pleasures of life, and the 
fascinating scenes by which he is surrounded. We will then 
better appreciate with what elevated emotions a father can lead 
a son, or a teacher his pupil, to the path of an engineering life, 
and place in his hands the mathematical, chemical, and physical 
implements to enter upon a work which will bring to him use- 
fulness, pleasure, and honor. 

Whichever way engineering may develop as time rolls on, its 
elevating influences are constantly at work on the mind and on 
the character. The work is carried on under unchangeable 
laws, which must be rigorously applied and adhered to, or 
failure is sure to result. Man builds to master, to resist, or to 
guide the forces of nature. If he has rightly judged the condi- 
tions, his work stands as a permanent monument of the fact ; 
but if otherwise, the irresistible laws of nature will develop the 
defect and discover his ignorance, incompetence, or error to 
every observer. 

His Besearches. 

Hence he laboriously seeks out the unseen laws and forces 
of the universe, then expresses the revelation in a workable 
form for his daily use. He tests his materials with painstaking 
refinement. He measures electric resistances with an accuracy 
now reaching the point of one in four millions, — time to the one- 
millionth part of a second ; — divides a circle with a mean error 
not exceeding the one-millionth part of the circumference ; — 
makes surfaces six inches square with a variation from absolute 
flatness of less than one two-hundred-thousandth of an inch. 



12 president's address, 1898. 

and parallel within one second of arc ; — rules lines whicli vary 
from absolutely perfect spacing by only one three-millionth part 
of an inch ; — measures his optical work with a wave-length of 
light as a unit of distance, and handles this unit of the one 
forty-thousandth of an inch as easily as a mechanic handles a 
rule ; — sees clearly the spectrum of samarium when one part 
is diluted with three million parts of lime ; — and surveys lines 
eleven miles long, in the open air, with an average variation 
in three measurements of only four-tenths of an inch. 

His Ethics. 

The effect of living and working in such a sphere of action, 
where it is inconceivable that an engineer could knowingly be 
otherwise than exact in his work, should tend to influence the 
whole trend of his life and character, and make them to a 
greater or less degree a reflex of his daily work. He of all men 
has the most unchangeable and exalted basis for his ethics — 
the clearest of all knowledge of the disastrous results which 
will surely follow the violation of law. The very qualities of 
his mind which make his work a pleasure and a success will all 
tend to bring his every act into compliance with the inexorable 
laws of the universe. If it is otherwise, and his conduct is not 
guided by, and his ethics are not in accordance with the laws 
of right doing and right thinking, then, and to that extent, he 
is not an engineer — not one who is skilled in the application 
of the laws and the forces of nature to the uses of man. 

His Pleasures. 

It is with hesitation that I ask you to contemplate the pleas- 
ures of life enjoyed by those whose daily walk is thus sur- 
rounded. Words fail to describe the exquisite pleasures and 
the noble aims which are inspired by the contemplation of the 
wisdom and beneficence of the laws of the universe, which 
the diligence of man has revealed to us. Who can estimate the 
satisfaction which comes to the mind of the engineer from the 
knowledge that his work, the fruit of his investigations, and 
the wisdom of his decisions will be judged, not by fallible 
human methods and its caprices, but by the infallible and immu- 
table laws of the universe ! 



PEESIDENT's address, 1898. 13 

Then consider the pleasure which comes from working in the 
open air, in the broadest light, where every interested one can 
see his difficulties, his investigations, his adaptations, and 
finally, if God has given him ability equal to the task, his solu- 
tion of the problem. When victory comes, he is given the 
honor due to the work in unstinted measure, and he can accept 
it with propriety and count the commendation as one of the 
pleasures of life. 

It is inspiring to the earnest engineer to feel that the actual 
workings of his mind, and his inner and fundamental conception 
of the forces of nature, of resistances, of materials, of workman- 
ship, will be shown in his works as in a mirror. Roebling, 
Ericsson, Sir Benjamin Baker, and Edison have worked, as it 
were, in a glass house. Their thoughts and judgments are 
shown to all the world, not by inadequate words, but in the 
works of their hands — the Brooklyn Suspension Bridge, — the 
turreted Monitor, — the Forth Bridge, — the quadruplex tele- 
graph, — the enclosed filament whose electric conductivity in- 
creases with the current. 

Then he has the gratification to the mind which is found in 
comprehending and intellectually seeing, as clearly as in a dia- 
gram, the theoretical lines of the forces in a structure, and 
then clothing those lines with materials of strength and re- 
sistance, to make them realities, and adapted to do the every- 
day work of life. The Brooklyn Suspension Bridge by Eoeb- 
ling shows an almost ideal correspondence of the two, so that 
it may represent either theory or practice, depending on which 
way at the moment he chooses to look at it. Again, he 
uses a system of weights that cannot be seen or handled, the 
purely intellectual atomic weights — yet the rock under our feet 
is not more firm and real than is the work done with these in- 
tellectual aids. 

Sis Environment. 

Working in a field and in touch with a body of his fellow-men 
having similar tastes, he sees on every hand scenes of engross- 
ing interest — the telescope photographically recording the po- 
sition and motion of stars which no human eye has ever seen, — 
the spectroscope analyzing the materials of the sun and stars 
with all the accuracy which it would show if the articles were 
in the laboratory, — looking with Eoentgen rays through a double- 



14 president's address, 1898. 

barrelled rifle, and seeing not only the leaden bullets within the 
steel barrels, but also the wads and the charges, — and photo- 
graphing lines in the ultra-violet and infra-red spectrum far 
beyond the reach of our vision. 

He stands by a quartz filament galvanometer which indicates 
an electric current so minute that if it should be increased in 
magnitude eight hundred thousand times it would still be only 
the one-millionth part of an ampere ; and on the other hand, in 
contrast, sees the Niagara electric generator of five thousand 
horse-power, with a current so much larger than that of the 
galvanometer that the difference can only be expressed mathe- 
matically, not in colloquial language. He sees with entrancing 
interest the liquefaction of hydrogen at a temperature of only 
twenty-three degrees centigrade above absolute zero, — and, again 
in contrast, sees what promises to be a rosetta-stone in astral 
analysis, in the precise correspondence of the spectrum of the 
star gamma Cygni and that of the chromosphere of the sun. 

He shares in the enthusiasm at the results of two years of 
unremitting work in the extreme part of the known spectrum in 
isolating a new element, monium, — in the Hertz electro-mag- 
netic waves now applied in wireless telegraphy, — in the newly 
discovered element polonium, whose radiations make the air 
through which they pass a conductor of electricity. 

More nearly touching him personally comes the work of the 
biologist, whose quest for the thing we call life has continued 
from the primitive man to the present time. Constantly flit- 
ting from his grasp, it has seemingly passed from fire and 
storm to mountain and deep, from animal and plant to flower, 
to seed, to cell, and now it has been followed to the molecule 
or the atom ; and yet it as completely eludes his grasp, or even 
his comprehension, as ever it has. But followed it certainly 
has been, by all the laws and forces of nature at the command 
of man, until the search for it is now in the atom, a space 
physically so small that only the trained imagination can even 
faintly comprehend its minuteness. 

And there, on the outskirts of this unexplored world, stands 
man, with spectroscope and polarized light, peering into the 
sphere of action which we call an atom, well knowing that 
therein lie wonderful forces, activities, and at least the effects of 
that mysterious entity, life itself. He sees a field for investiga- 
tion so fraught with possibilities, so infinitely beyond the com- 



PEESIDENT's address, 1898. 15 

prehension of any conception which we can form of the capaci- 
ties of the human mind, that he stands gazing into the abyss 
with the same devout wonder and awe as does the astronomer 
when viewing the illimitable heavens. The two are standing, as 
it were, back to back, and each is gazing into an infinity — one 
into the infinitely great, and the other into the infinitely small. 

Thus stands the engineer in the midst of a countless number 
of earnest explorers in the field of unrevealed nature, and, so to 
speak, sees the tools forged and the materials discovered with 
which he is to work. Cheerfully can he enter upon his daily 
task with the consciousness that his application of these dis- 
coveries is of real service in lightening the burdens of our life, 
as well as elevating and ennobling his fellow-men. 

The scenes which we have just brought to our intellectual 
vision are not those of the untrained imagination, of rhetoric, or 
of unreality, but those of the most rigorous truth, among the 
most real and matter-of-fact things known to us in all the realms 
of nature, and brought before you in the plainest language at 
my command. 

We have traversed a wide field together, and now, as we draw 
near to a personal parting — never to meet again under similar 
circumstances — let us, as we travel the way of life, appreciate 
its elevating pleasures, and carry to our daily tasks and to our 
homes a higher realization of the dignity of the life and of the 
work of the engineer. 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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