John Hawkshaw

“ The increase in extent and variety of traffic is not likely to receive any diminution; on the contrary, it is certain to augment. I should be sorry to say that human care may not do something, and I am not among those who object to appeals through the press and otherwise to railway companies, though sometimes perhaps they may appear in an unreasonable form. I see no harm in men being urged in every way to do their utmost in a matter so vital to many. ”

“ The wealth of nations may be impaired by expenditure on luxuries and war; it cannot be diminished by expenditure on works like these.
As to the future, we know we cannot create a force; we can, and no doubt shall, greatly improve the application of those with which we are acquainted. What we called inventions can do no more than this, yet how much every day is being done by new machines and instruments! ”

“ The safety of railway-traveling depends on the perfection of the machine in all its parts, including the whole railway, with its movable plant, in that term; it depends also on the nature and quantity of traffic; and, lastly, on human care and attention. With regard to what is human, it may be said that so many of these accidents as arise from the fallibility of men will never be eliminated until the race be improved. The liability to accident will also increase with the speed, and might be reduced by slackening that speed. ”

“ Of railways the progress has been enormous; but I do not know that in a scientific point of view a railway is so marvelous in its character as the electric telegraph. The results, however, of the construction and use of railways are more extensive and wide spread, and their utility and convenience brought home to a larger portion of mankind. The British Association is peripatetic, and without railways its meetings, if held at all, would, 1 fear, be greatly reduced in numbers. Moreover, you have all an interest in them; you all demand to be carried safely, and you insist on being carried fast. ”

“ It follows that, whenever a railway can be made at a cost to yield the ordinary interest of money, it is in the national interest that it should be made. Further, that, though its cost might be such as to leave a smaller dividend than that to its proprietors, the loss of wealth to so small a section of the community will be more than supplemented by the national gain, and therefore there may be cases where a government may wisely contribute in some form to undertakings which, without such aid, would fail to obtain the necessary support. ”

“ Engineering depends largely on experience; nevertheless, in future times whenever difficulties shall arise, 'or works have to be accomplished for which there is no precedent, he who has to perform the duty may step forth from any of the walks of life, as engineers have not unfrequently hitherto done. The marvelous progress of the last two generations should make every one cautious of predicting the future. Of engineering works it may be said that their practicability or impracticability is often determined by other elements than the inherent difficulty in the works themselves. ”

“ I propose to say something of a profession to which my life has been devoted—a theme which cannot stand as high in your estimation as in my own, but which I have chosen because I ought to understand it better than any other. ”

“ The supply of iron in India as early as the fourth and fifth centuries seems to have been unlimited. In the temples of Orissa iron was used in large masses as beams or girders in roof-work in the thirteenth century, and India well repaid any advantage which she may have derived from the early civilized communities of the West if she were the first to supply them with iron and steel. If we look still farther to the East, China had probably knowledge of the use of metals as soon as India, and, moreover, had a boundless store of iron and coal. ”

“ Indeed, in most cases these silent workers had no wish to expose their work to public gaze. How long in the silent night the inventors of these machines sat and pondered; how often they had to cast aside some long-sought mechanical movement and seek another and better arrangement of parts, none but themselves could ever know. They were unseen workers, who succeeded by rare genius, long patience, and indomitable perseverance. ”

“ In India, under the Moguls, irrigation works, for which they had a natural aptitude, were carried on during these centuries with vigor, and more than one emperor is noted for the numerous great works of this nature which he carried out.
It is frequently easier to lead water where it is wanted than to check its irruption into places where its presence is an evil, often a disaster. For centuries the existence of a large part of Holland has been dependent on the skill of man. ”

“ The early building energy of the world was chiefly spent on the erection of tombs, temples, and palaces. While in Egypt, as we have seen, the art of building in stone had 5,000 years ago reached the greatest perfection, so in Mesopotamia the art of building with brick, the only available material in that country, was in an equally advanced state some ten centuries later. The practice of building great pyramidal temples seems to have passed eastward to India and Burmah, where it appears in buildings of a later date, in Buddhist topes and pagodas ”

“ As soon as civilization had advanced so far as to admit of the accumulation of wealth and power, then kings and rulers sought to add to their glory while living by the erection of magnificent dwelling-places, and to provide for their aggrandizement after death by the construction of costly tombs and temples. ”

“ Railways add enormously to the national wealth. More than twenty-five years ago it was proved, to the satisfaction of a committee of the House of Commons, that the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway effected a saving to the public using the railway of more than the whole amount of the dividend which was received by the proprietors. These calculations were based solely on the amount of traffic carried by the railway and on the difference between the railway rate of charge and the charges by the modes of conveyance anterior to railways. ”

“ A triumph of engineering skill in ship-building, the Great Eastern has not been commercially so successful. In this, as in many other engineering problems, the question is not how large a thing can be made, but how large, having regard to other circumstances, it is proper at the time to make it. ”

“ The limit of improvements will probably be reached before long, and the increase of accidents will depend on the increase of traffic, together with the increased frequency of trains. Up to the present time the improvements appear to have kept pace with the increase of traffic and of speed, as the slight increase in the proportion of railway accidents to passenger miles is probably chiefly due to a larger number of trifling bruises being reported now than formerly. ”

“ A great building-age began in Europe in the tenth century, and lasted through the thirteenth. While the building of cathedrals progressed on all sides in Europe, works of a utilitarian character, which concern the engineer, did not receive such encouragement, excepting perhaps in Italy. ”

“ In looking uneasily to the future supply and cost of fuel, it is, however, something to know what may be done even with the application of our present knowledge; and, could we apply it universally to-day, all that is necessary for trade and comfort could probably be as well provided for by one-half the present consumption of fuel; and it behooves those who are beginning to build new mills, new furnaces, new steamboats, or new houses, to act as though the price of coal which obtained two years ago had been the normal and not the abnormal price. ”

“ The genius for dealing with large masses in building did not pass away with the pyramid-builders in Egypt, but their descendants continued to gain in mechanical knowledge. The Romans, though they did not commonly use such large stones in their own constructions, carried off the largest obelisks from Egypt and erected them at Rome, where more are now to be found than remain in Egypt. ”

“ The world has to regret the loss of more than one who, like Archimedes, fell slain by the soldiery while applying the best scientific knowledge of the day to devising means of defense during the siege. The necessity for roads and bridges for military purposes has led to their being made where the stimulus from other causes was wanting; and means of communication and the interchange of commodities, so essential to the prosperity of any community, have thus been provided. ”

“ There is no more remarkable instance of the rapid utilization of what was at first regarded as a mere scientific idea than the adoption and extension of the electric telegraph. Those who read Odier's letter written in 1773, in which he made known his idea of a telegraph which would enable the inhabitants of Europe to converse with the Great Mogul little thought that in less than a century a conversation between persons at points so far distant would be possible. ”

“ A great future is undoubtedly in store for that country; but can the race who now dwell there develop its resources, or must they await the aid of an Aryan race? The art of extracting metals from the ore was practised at a very early date in this country. ”

“ The Babylonians wore linen also and wool, and obtained a wide-spread fame for skill in workmanship and beauty in design. In this country wool long formed the staple for clothing. Silk was the first rival, but its costliness placed it beyond the reach of the many. To introduce a new material or improved machine into this or other countries a century or more ago was no light undertaking. Inventors and would-be benefactors alike ran the risk of loss of life. ”

“ Postal deliveries were and are great and able organizations, but what are they to the telegraph? Need we try to extend our vision into futurity farther? Our present knowledge, compared with what is unknown even in physics, is infinitesimal. We may never discover a new force—yet, who can tell? ”

“ Supposing no improvement had been effected in the working of railway-traffic, the increase of accidents should have borne some proportion to the passenger mileage, multiplied by the proportion between the train mileage and the length of line open, as the number of trains passing over the same line of rails would tend to multiply accidents in an increasing proportion, especially where the trains run at different speeds. ”

“ Many cases of waste arise from the existence of old and obsolete machines, of bad forms of furnaces, of wasteful grates, existing in most dwelling-houses; and these are not to be remedied at once, for not every one can afford, however desirable it might be, to cast away the old and adopt the new. ”

“ Like most important inventions, that of the steamboat was a long time in assuming a form capable of being profitably utilized, and, even when it had assumed such a form, the objections of commercial and scientific men had still to be overcome. The increase in the number of steamboats since the time when the Sirius first crossed the Atlantic has been very great. ”

“ When settled communities were few and isolated, opportunities for the interchange of knowledge were scanty or wanting. The slowly accumulated results of the experience of a community were lost on its downfall. Inventions were lost and found again. The art of casting bronze over iron was known to the Assyrians, though it has only lately been introduced into modern metallurgy; and patents were granted in 1609 for processes connected with the manufacture of glass, which had been practised centuries before. ”

“ But the greatest improvement in the art of weaving was wrought by Cartwright's discovery of the power-loom, which led eventually to the substitution of steam for manual labor, and enabled a boy with a steam-loom to do fifteen times the work of a man with a hand-loom. For complex ingenuity few machines will compare with those used in the manufacture of lace and bobbin net. ”

“ Some things have been better done than in those earlier times, but not all. In what we choose to call the ideal we do not surpass the ancients. Poets and painters and sculptors were as great in former times as now ”

“ More ingenuity and creative mechanical genius is perhaps displayed in machines used for the manufacture. of textile fabrics than by those used in any other industry. It was not until late in historical times that the manufacture of such fabrics became established on a large scale in Europe. ”

“ Until 1738, in which year the improvements in spinning-machinery were begun, each thread of worsted or cotton-wool had been spun between the fingers, in this and all other countries, Wyatt, in 1738, invented spinning by rollers instead of fingers, and his invention was further improved by Arkwright. In 1770 Hargreaves invented the spinning-jenny, and Crompton the mule in 1775, a machine which combined the advantages of the frames of both Hargreaves and Arkwright. ”

“ In these days, when sanitary questions attract each year more attention, we may call to mind that twenty-three centuries ago the city of Agrigentum possessed a system of sewers, which on account of their large size was thought worthy of mention by Diodorus. ”

“ With the seventh century began the rise of the Mohammedan power, and a partial return to conditions apparently more favorable to the progress of industrial art, when widespread lands were again united under the sway of powerful rulers. ”

“ The number of accidents varies considerably from year to year, but, taking two averages of ten years each, it appears that the proportion of deaths of passengers from causes beyond their control to passenger miles traveled in the ten years ending December 31, 1873, was only two-thirds of the same proportion in the ten years ending December 31, 1861. ”