Western Worthies Part 4

Baird's hearty coadjutor in every good word and work; and the inquiries made under the auspices of the a.s.sociation established for the purpose of inquiring into the religious dest.i.tution of Glasgow, all tend to prove that there are from 100,000 to 160,000 souls living without the means of grace, and in a state of practical heathenism, in a city that can boast of a Knox, a Chalmers, and other apostles of Christianity.

Thus, although Mr. Baird's figures appeared startling, and although his forebodings may have seemed unnecessary, they have turned out to be rather under than beyond the mark. But the zeal of Mr. Baird did not stop at merely pointing out the evil. He exerted himself most a.s.siduously to provide a remedy. We believe he was one of the promoters of a society formed for the purpose of extending the church accommodation of Glasgow, and especially for the building of new churches in neglected and necessitous localities. That society has already done the Church some service. It aims at removing from the Establishment the stigma that she has failed to keep pace with the requirements of the population; and, despite the difficult and arduous character of the work which it has a.s.signed itself, the a.s.sociation is likely to succeed in making "rough places plain and crooked paths straight."

We may add that Mr. Baird has been twice married. His first marriage was in 1852, to Charlotte Lockhart of Cambusnethan, who died at Nice, in Italy, in 1857. In 1859 he espoused Isabella Agnew Hay, daughter of the late Admiral Hay. Although he is still the princ.i.p.al of the firm, Mr.

Baird takes no very active part in the conduct of the business, the management devolving upon the other partners.

SIR WILLIAM THOMSON.

The world-wide reputation, as a mathematician and physicist, which Sir William Thomson has acquired, is a sufficient plea for giving him the foremost place in our sketches of University professors. Born in Belfast in June, 1824, Sir William has entered upon the forty-eighth year of his age. His father, Dr. James Thomson, was the author of several mathematical text-books, and occupied for some time the position of lecturer on mathematics at the Royal Academical Inst.i.tute in Belfast, from whence he was transferred to the mathematical professorship of Glasgow University. The subject of our present sketch commenced his University life at the early age of eleven years. Both in the chemistry cla.s.ses of Dr. Thomas Thomson, and in the astronomical lectures of Dr.

Nichol, he showed himself an exceedingly apt student, and gained numerous prizes. In 1845, he graduated as second wrangler and first Smith's prizeman at Cambridge University. On Sir William's career as a Cambridge student we find the following interesting paragraph in an article recently supplied to one of the leading magazines:--"When quite a boy at Cambridge, still in his teens, he was a contributor to mathematical journals both in France and England. It might have been supposed that he was a lonely student, dwelling in a tower, like Erasmus or Roger Bacon, quite cut off from the unsympathetic mob of his brother collegians. On the contrary, Thomson was one of the best oarsmen of his day, and an immense favourite with his brother under-graduates. This taste for the water has always accompanied him. He had made many valuable excursions in his beautiful yacht _Lalla Rookh_; and his knowledge of the theory and practice of sailing is said to be extraordinary. The occasion of his taking his degree proved an ovation still recollected, and recorded in the annals of Cambridge. There was not the least doubt in the University but that the youthful Peterhouse man was the mathematical genius of the day. 'Eclipse was first and the rest nowhere.' But the rumour arose that there was a 'dark man' at St.

John's, who possessed a wonderful power of throwing off paper-work at examinations with the regularity of a machine. One of the examiners subsequently described himself as petrified at the papers thrown off, as if by the velocity of a steam-engine, on the part of the Johnian. At the Cambridge Senate House examinations speed is everything; and when two men are pretty evenly balanced the muscular power of the wrist settles the day. Thomson was Second Wrangler, and a little more time for writing would have made him Senior Wrangler. For the Smith's Prize he of course distanced the Senior Wrangler and all other compet.i.tors. The worthy Johnian, who supplanted him for the blue ribbon of the University, was, irrationally enough, very unpopular, and has subsequently been lost sight of in scientific history. Before Sir William Thomson there was a great career. At twenty-one he was a fellow of his college. At twenty-two he was a Professor of Natural Philosophy at the University of Glasgow. When little more than out of his teens, Sir William Thomson became editor of the _Cambridge and Dublin Mathematical Journal_, through which a great impetus was given to the study of pure and applied mechanics; and before the era of the Atlantic Cable he contributed many papers on telegraphy to the Royal Society, in connection with which he made the acquaintance and enjoyed the esteem of such men as Faraday and Brewster. The Natural Philosophy Chair in Glasgow University he has raised to a high rank--perhaps the highest of its kind in the world, and students come from far and near to sit at the feet of this Gamaliel among the physicists of his day and generation."

The Bakerian lecture, ent.i.tled "The Electro-Dynamic Properties of Metal," was delivered by Sir William Thomson in 1855, and by that and kindred contributions to scientific literature he was rapidly laying the foundation of his great reputation. In 1854 he published a series of investigations, by which he shows that the capacity of the conducting wire for the electric charge depends on the ratio of its diameter to that of the gutta percha covering; and in the face of much opposition he established what is now known as the "law of squares," which a.s.serts that the rate of transmission is inversely as the square of the length of the cable. These results were of much utility in their bearing on the working of submarine cables, and it is not too much to affirm that it was to Sir William Thomson's counsel that the success of the Atlantic Cable is in great part due. His mirror galvanometer was the first instrument that could be applied with anything like satisfactory results to submarine telegraphy. More recently, however, he has invented and patented another instrument, called the "syphon recorder," which was exhibited publicly for the first time at the opening of the British India Submarine Telegraph. The special feature of the "syphon recorder"

is a minute capillary syphon, which, while it continually discharges ink against a moving paper, is by means of a delicate electro-magnetic arrangement caused to move from side to side _according to the electric pulses pa.s.sed through the cable_, and from the record thus obtained of these motions the message is deciphered. From trials lately made on the Falmouth, Gibraltar, and Malta lines, it has been ascertained that 25 words per minute can be registered through a cable 800 miles long. It is also a recommendation to the "syphon recorder" that it can be worked by very low battery power, and therefore tends to the preservation of the cable. Among Sir William's other inventions we may specially mention an electrometer, which has now a.s.sumed a very complete form. His divided-ring electrometer admitted of accurate measurements, in skilled hands, of fractions of a Daniell's cell; his portable electrometer admits of readings from 10 or 20 cells upwards; but his new reflecting electrometer gives as much as 100 divisions on the scale for one single cell of the battery. In Mr. Varley's patent of 1860, he describes a method which he employed to make the one plate charge itself, and on this principle he constructed a large electrical machine, which he exhibited at a soiree of the Royal Society of 1869-70. This machine has been adopted by Sir William Thomson for maintaining the charge in his electrometer. The new electrometer is really a combination of three inventions--of Sir William Thomson's portable electrometer to indicate whether or no the instrument is sufficiently charged; of the replenisher by Mr. Varley for charging or discharging; and of the quadrant electrometer for reading off the minute tensions measured. The instrument is in its present form so practically useful that it has been largely used in connection with telegraphic cables, and Mr. Varley has calculated tables to enable any electrician at a glance to infer from two readings by this electrometer the insulating power of any telegraphic cable.

Sir William Thomson is no specialist. Many people are accustomed to a.s.sociate his name with the Atlantic Cable, and with that alone. This, however, is a great mistake, for he has made many important additions to the science of magnetism, respecting which he published a number of valuable papers between the years 1847 and 1851. He has also displayed extraordinary ac.u.men and intelligence in the investigation of the nature of heat. Neither should it be forgotten that Sir William has speculated a great deal on the ultimate const.i.tution of matter--an inquiry which has occupied the attention of all great physicists in modern times. Last year he published in _Nature_ an article which, running from four different lines of argument, seeks to establish proof of the absolute magnitude of the atoms of matter. Of this argument Tyndall says:--"William Thomson tries to place the ultimate particles of matter between his compa.s.s points, and to apply to them a scale of millimetres."

In the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_, Sir William has published an article describing the instruments--chiefly invented by himself--which were used in laying the Atlantic Cable. In the same contribution he describes the expeditions undertaken in 1857 and 1858 for the purpose of laying the Atlantic Cable, and the difficulties that had to be encountered in that great enterprise. This he was eminently qualified to do from his experience as acting electrician on board the _Agamemnon_ during the progress of the work which resulted in the completion, in August, 1858, of the Atlantic Cable, and the astonishment of the world at finding the two opposite sh.o.r.es of the great ocean placed in instantaneous communication with each other. For some time after the cable was laid he remained at Valentia, endeavouring to bring his galvanometer to still greater perfection. From the subsequent failure of the Atlantic Cable, and until it was finally established as a successful "inst.i.tution," Sir William was busily employed in seeking to make more perfect and easy the difficult science of submarine telegraphy; and in the expeditions of 1865 and 1866, which he accompanied, his counsel and a.s.sistance proved of inestimable value.

From the Royal Society of Edinburgh Sir William received the Keith Prize for the years 1862 and 1863. On the occasion of the award, Sir David Brewster, the Vice-President of the Society, thus referred to the many valuable papers he had communicated to the Society during the seventeen years of his connection with it:--"These papers, and others elsewhere published, relate princ.i.p.ally to the theories of Electricity, Magnetism, and Heat, and evince a genius for the mathematical treatment of physical questions which has not been surpa.s.sed, if equalled, by that of any living philosopher. In studying the mathematical theory of Electricity, he has greatly extended the general theorems demonstrated by our distinguished countryman, Mr. Green; and was led to the principle of 'electrical images,' by which he was enabled to solve many problems respecting the distribution of electricity on conductors, which had been regarded as insoluble by the most eminent mathematicians in Europe. In his researches on Thermo-dynamics, Professor Thomson has been equally successful. In his papers 'On the Dynamical Theory of Heat,' he has applied the fundamental propositions of the theory to bodies of all kinds, and he has adduced many curious and important results regarding the specific heats of bodies, which have been completely verified by the accurate experiments of M. Joule. No less important are Professor Thomson's researches on Solar Heat, contained in his remarkable papers 'On the Mechanical Energy of the Solar System;' his researches on the Conservation of Energy, as applied to organic as well as inorganic processes; and his fine theory of the dissipation of Energy, as given in his paper 'On a Universal Tendency in Nature to the Dissipation of Mechanical Energy.' To these we may add his complete theory of Diamagnetic Action, his investigations relative to the Secular Cooling of our Globe, and the influence of internal heat upon the temperature of its surface." Sir David Brewster, after referring to other works, added that "the important conclusions which he obtained from 'The Theory of Induction in Submarine Telegraphy,' have found a valuable practical application in the patent instrument for reading and receiving messages, which he so successfully employed in the submarine cable across the Atlantic; and when that great work is completed, his name will be a.s.sociated with the n.o.blest gift that science ever offered to civilisation. By his delicate electrometer, his electric spark recorder, and his marine and land relation galvanometer, he has provided the world of thought with the finest instruments of observation and research, and the world of action with the means of carrying the messages of commerce and civilisation which have yet to cross the uncabled oceans that separate the families of the earth."

In 1866, after the Atlantic Telegraph Cable had been successfully laid, Sir William Thomson received the honour of knighthood from the Crown. On the same occasion he was presented with the freedom of his adopted city--Glasgow. The degree of LL.D. was conferred on him successively by Trinity College, Dublin, by Cambridge and by Edinburgh Universities, and that of D.C.L. by Oxford. He is a Fellow of the London Royal Society, as well as that of Edinburgh; and he is an honorary and corresponding member of several learned societies abroad.

On the loss of H.M.S. _Captain_, a Commission was appointed to investigate the merits of designs for ships of war. Of that Commission Sir William Thomson is a valuable and valued member, from his intimate acquaintance with dynamical science and the theory of stability. Sir William also conducts the operations of two committees appointed by the British a.s.sociation to investigate the subject of Tides and Underground Temperature, the results of which are expected to settle many points of physical theory. The circ.u.mstances of Sir William Thomson's election to the presidential chair of the British a.s.sociation for the Advancement of Science, and the remarkably able address which he delivered in opening the late Edinburgh meeting, are of such recent occurrence that they need not be recapitulated.

Sir William Thomson married, in 1852, a daughter of the late Walter Crum, Esq., F.R.S., who has predeceased him. He is a Liberal in politics, and no one has taken a more active part than he in forwarding the interests of the Liberal candidates for the representation of the Universities.

PRINc.i.p.aL BARCLAY.

Cities that bear the dual character of seats of learning and marts of commerce are comparatively rare. Who would ever dream of finding a foundry on the Isis, or a factory on the Cam? These streams are sacred to learning. They are not polluted with the vapours that are evolved from industrial life. No sounds of the ponderous hammer, or screeching "buzzer," are to be heard within the range of their pellucid course.

They are consecrated to more lofty, if not to more useful purposes. But with the Clyde the case is different. It is almost a puzzle to say whether Glasgow excels more as the seat of a famous University or as the centre of a hundred busy, important, and prosperous industries.

Certainly, the decadence of the one has not followed the development of the other. Learning and commerce flourish hand in hand, without the slightest trace of incompatibility. No less an authority than Sir Robert Peel declared, on the occasion of his installation as Lord Rector of the University in 1837, "I do not consider it an exaggerated compliment when I say that I doubt whether, of all cities existing on the face of the earth, there be any one so remarkable for the combination of commercial and active industry, with services rendered to science and literature, as Glasgow." From the watch towers of Gilmorehill a hundred chimneys, some of them rivalling the Pyramids of Gizeh in height, may be seen; the din of a hundred hammers, employed in the service of the world's merchant marine, may be distinctly heard; innumerable masts, denoting our traffic with all parts of the globe, may be counted. And yet in these same halls the budding genius of Scotland's sons is being developed--the qualities that are henceforth to distinguish our statesmen, and orators, and poets, and merchant princes, are being matured. The _alumni_ of Glasgow University have not all blushed unseen, albeit the fame of their _Alma Mater_ has sometimes been over-shadowed by that of Edinburgh. To go no further back than the living members of the _Senatus Academicus_, it will be admitted that Caird in Divinity, Lushington in Greek, Sir William Thomson in Natural Philosophy, Allen Thomson in Anatomy, Rankine in Mechanics, Grant in Astronomy, and Gairdner in Medicine, are names to conjure with. For the Princ.i.p.al of a seat of learning, that combines with an extraordinary amount of present vitality and prestige the traditions of a glorious past, stretching backwards until it is almost lost sight of amid the mists of the Middle Ages, it is surely essential that he should be a man of piety, of excellent governing and administrative powers, and, above all, of extensive erudition. All these conditions have distinguished more or less the predecessors of Dr. Barclay, the present Princ.i.p.al, and in himself they are very happily combined, although he is "not so young as he used to be," and his energy and usefulness have necessarily been somewhat impaired by the lapse of years.

Princ.i.p.al Barclay is the son of the Rev. James Barclay, minister of Unst, Shetland, and was born in the year 1792. After having been educated at King's College, Aberdeen, which he entered in the year 1808, and where he distinguished himself by carrying off the highest bursary, young Barclay proceeded to London, pending his appointment to a ministerial charge in the Church of Scotland. A spirit of adventure and enterprise induced him to take this step. He could not brook the idea of spending any of his time in a state of comparative idleness. Through the influence of some friends, he succeeded shortly after his arrival in the metropolis in getting an appointment as Parliamentary reporter to the _Times_, and he continued in the gallery of the House of Commons in that capacity during the four years commencing with 1818. It is not too much to say that these four years embraced one of the most eventful and exciting periods of England's history. The Reform agitation was being carried on with a bitterness that almost eclipsed all subsequent attempts to establish the five points of the Charter as the law of the land. In these years, too, the memorable trial of Queen Caroline took place, and it is one of Princ.i.p.al Barclay's most interesting reminiscences that during his connection with the _Times_ he had occasion to report not only a considerable amount of the evidence taken in the House of Lords during the Queen's trial, but also the memorable speech of Lord Brougham in defence of the unfortunate lady--a speech which has only been eclipsed in point of length by the recent address of the Attorney-General in the Tichborne trial, and by Burke's speech in connection with the trial of Warren Hastings. Among his _collaborateurs_ on the _Times_, Princ.i.p.al Barclay can recall the names of Collier, so well known for his knowledge and criticism of Shakespeare's works; Barnes, who subsequently distinguished himself as the sub-editor and leader-writer of the leading journal; and Tyas, who afterwards introduced that special feature for which the _Times_ has long been noted--the abridgement of the Parliamentary debates. The routine of a reporter's duties at that time was pretty much the same as it is at the present day, the main difference being that the work was, if anything, more difficult and arduous at a period when shorthand was in its infancy, and when the staff employed on the daily journals was much less numerous than it is in our own day. Another feature that tended to make more difficult the Parliamentary reporters' duties at that period, was the long "takes" which they had to supply--a "take" being the share of the work which each member of the reporting staff has individually alloted to his charge. At that time every reporter who entered the gallery was compelled to write out the proceedings of a whole hour, and he had to do this with so much celerity and amplitude that the report had to be as complete as the Parliamentary reports of the _Times_ have ever been. It has since been found, however, that the labour of an hour is far too much for one man, if he is to do himself or the report anything like justice; and hence the "take" of reporters became very much shortened, until they now seldom exceed a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes. Another negative phase of Dr. Barclay's journalistic career which may be noticed, is the fact that he never fell foul of the Sergeant-at-Arms, into whose custody many an unlucky reporter, who was accused of having misstated the speeches of legislators, was given.

Despite the fact that Collier was at that time the only shorthand writer on the staff of the _Times_, it was his misfortune to undergo this ordeal. He was summoned to the bar of the House, and, having fully vindicated his report, he was immediately discharged from custody. The fee of the Sergeant-at-Arms (eighty guineas) was paid by Mr. Walter. On another occasion a complaint was made in the House of a report by a Mr.

Ross, one of the _Times'_ staff. The occasion was a speech delivered by Canning, and the sentence which he was said to have misreported was to the effect that the subject had never been under the consideration of the Cabinet above five minutes. Ross, however, had the satisfaction of receiving a letter from Canning himself, in which the great statesman vindicated the accuracy of the report. Mr. Barclay was never a shorthand writer. He was accustomed to use abbreviated longhand, and he became so expert in the use of this system, that he could report without difficulty any average speaker. After leaving the _Times_, which he did at the close of the year 1821, Mr. Barclay received a call to Dunrossness, in Shetland, and he continued to minister in that parish until the year 1827, when he was translated to Lerwick, a parish in the same remote region. Subsequently, in 1843, he was removed to Petercoulter, in Aberdeenshire; and his fourth and last charge was Currie, in Mid Lothian, to which he was translated in 1844. It was while he was in the latter charge that the Princ.i.p.alship of the Glasgow University became vacant, owing to the death of the late Princ.i.p.al Macfarlan, and the office was conferred by the Government, with whom the patronage lay, upon Dr. Barclay. The appointment was a good deal discussed at the time, and it was said in some circles that it was scarcely judicious, the fact being that Mr. Barclay's claims and qualifications for such a high position were not fully known. But he had really earned the honour by his ability and scholarship. It is questionable whether any man in Scotland has a more extensive acquaintance with languages, both modern and ancient. He is particularly conversant with Icelandic literature, which very few people have studied, but which is specially worthy of study, both for its historical interest and its poetry. Indeed, from the Mediterranean to Iceland there is, perhaps, no language spoken that Princ.i.p.al Barclay does not understand. Besides this, however, he has devoted much attention to Biblical criticism, and he was long distinguished as one of the ablest and staunchest of the few advocates of reform and liberalism that during his ministerial career adorned the Church Courts. Hence, although they might be comparatively unknown, Dr. Barclay was not without due qualifications for the office. One of the leading journals, in referring to Princ.i.p.al Barclay's appointment, which was made in December, 1857, declared "that to stand up as he did against a ma.s.s of brethren in matters on which the _esprit de corps_ is morbidly strong, requires not only the exercise of some of the higher moral and intellectual powers, but the sacrifice of some of the weaknesses especially incident to the clerical character, and those who in the Established Church Courts perform such a duty in the interests of justice, of progress, and of the public, have much need of the sympathy and encouragement that can be given from without. Hitherto, however, there has been a sort of impression that the support of liberal measures formed rather an obstacle than a recommendation to the good offices of even liberal dispensers of patronage, and there is matter for congratulation in so much being done towards the destruction of this impression by the fact of Dr. Barclay, being a Liberal in Church and State not having been allowed to act as a counterbalance to his other qualifications for the high office to which he is about to be raised." Princ.i.p.al Barclay enjoys in his present capacity an _otium c.u.m dignitate_ to which, after the labours of a long life, he is well ent.i.tled. Although verging on his eightieth year, he is still hale, hearty, and vigorous, and able to converse intelligently on the most abstruse and recondite subjects.

Princ.i.p.al Barclay was married in 1820 to Mary, the daughter of the late Captain Adamson of Kirkhill. They have had a large family, but only two daughters and one son survive. Both the former are married, and the latter is following the medical profession in China.

PROFESSOR RANKINE.

The Clyde is indissolubly connected with the history and progress of naval architecture. It was on the Clyde that steam navigation was first successfully applied. The Clyde may almost be said to be the cradle of iron shipbuilding; and it is to Clyde engineers and shipbuilders that the compound marine engine, and other improvements that have rendered ocean navigation more easy, safe, and practicable, are mainly due. But while the earlier history of naval architecture is bound up with that of the Clyde, its ultimate development and its present high state of perfection were brought about by the sustained and unflagging energy, enterprise, and ability of men like Professor Rankine, Robert Napier, and John Elder, who exerted themselves to maintain the pre-eminence which, thanks to their discoveries and exertions, the Clyde has never lost. The two latter gentlemen carried out in practice what the former demonstrated in theory. Never having been directly engaged in commercial pursuits, Professor Rankine could not earn the credit of building those leviathans that have directly contributed to our commercial prosperity; but in another, and not less essential way, he has a.s.sisted to build up and consolidate our industrial supremacy, and his numerous writings and discoveries in the science of mechanics will ever cause him to be regarded as a pioneer, not less than Henry Bell or Robert Napier, of a trade that has proved a source of untold wealth to the West of Scotland.

Professor William John Macquorn Rankine was born in Edinburgh. His father was an officer in the Rifle Brigade, and afterwards a railway manager and director. After receiving his education at Edinburgh University, he studied engineering under his father, and afterwards under Sir John M'Neill, who subsequently became Professor of Practical Engineering in Trinity College, Dublin, and at the opening of the railway from Dublin to Drogheda, which he constructed in 1844, received the honour of knighthood from Earl de Grey, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.

When we remember that Sir John was no less able as a teacher than as an author, and that his knowledge of engineering was not bounded by mere theory alone, we get a clue to the eminently practical turn of mind which characterised his ill.u.s.trious pupil. In 1844 Mr. Rankine commenced business as a civil engineer in Edinburgh. His residence in Edinburgh was unrelieved by any event worthy of being recorded in his biography, if we except a project, which he brought before the authorities and zealously promoted, for obtaining a more efficient supply of water.

After a two or three years' residence in Edinburgh, Mr. Rankine determined to remove to Glasgow, where a more congenial sphere appeared ready to receive him. Entering into partnership with Mr. John Thomson, he took an active part in all great schemes of a scientific or mechanical nature; and it was while here engaged in private practice that he again called attention to the admirable source of water supply afforded by Loch Katrine, thus reviving a project which had been originated in 1845 by Messrs. Gordon and Hill. It was reserved for others to carry to a successful issue the scheme thus earnestly advocated by Rankine; but to him belongs the merit none the less of having urged it upon the authorities of that day. After the lapse of several years, during which he no doubt improved his time and opportunities by laying the foundation of that series of text books which he produced with remarkable fecundity in a marvellously short s.p.a.ce of time, Mr. Rankine was appointed in 1855 to the Chair of Civil Engineering and Mechanics in Glasgow University. This Chair, we may explain, was inst.i.tuted by Queen Victoria in 1840, and is in the gift of the Crown. Its first occupant was Louis D. B. Gordon, C.E., who subsequently devoted his whole time and attention to the practical business of civil engineering and to telegraphy, in connection with which subjects he has made a great reputation. The curriculum of study imparted by Professor Rankine includes the stability of structures; the strength of materials; the principle of the actions of machines; prime movers, whether driven by animal strength, wind, or the mechanical action of heat; the principles of hydraulics; the mathematical principles of surveying and levelling; the engineering of earthwork, masonry, carpentry, structures in iron, roads, railways, bridges, and viaducts, tunnels, ca.n.a.ls, works of drainage and water supply, river works, harbour works, and sea coast works. The engineering school of the University of Glasgow was approved by the Secretary of State for India in Council as one in which attendance for two years would qualify a student who had fulfilled the other required conditions to compete for admission to the engineering establishments of India. This recognition, however, came to an end when the Cooper's Hill College was established. It is worth while noticing that although Professor Rankine started on his academic career with only some half-a-dozen pupils, his cla.s.s now numbers between 40 and 50. This is to be ascribed in a great measure to the establishment by the authorities of the University in 1862 of a systematic course of study and examination in engineering science, embracing the various branches of mathematical and physical science which have a bearing on engineering. While attending to his University duties he still continued to carry on a private practice, and was frequently called in to consult upon engineering schemes of great magnitude, in this and other countries, and upon matters relating to shipbuilding and marine engineering.

Mr. Rankine's literary career commenced while he was in Edinburgh with the publication of a series of papers on the mechanical action of heat.

His theory of the development of heat as one of the forces of thermo-dynamics was propounded simultaneously with that of Professor Clausius of Berlin, in 1849, and supplied the only link that was wanted to make the theory of the steam engine a perfect science. For his researches on this subject he received the Keith Medal of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1852. Of miscellaneous literature connected with the science of mechanics he has been a most voluminous writer. He has contributed a number of valuable papers to the Inst.i.tution of Naval Architects, of which for many years he has been a prominent member. In 1864 he read before that Society papers on "The Computation of the Probable Engine Power and Speed of Proposed Ships," "On Isochronous Rolling Ships," and on "The Uneasy Rolling of Ships." In the following year he read a paper on "A Proposed Method of Bevelling Iron Frames in Ships;" and, in 1866, he read two papers--one of them demonstrating the means of finding the most economical rates of expansion in steam engines, and the other describing a balanced rudder for screw steamers.

But he did not confine his contributions to one Inst.i.tution, or even to one medium of publication, for we find that he read a number of papers before the Philosophical Society, the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and the Inst.i.tution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland, while he wrote occasionally at the same time for the _Philosophical Magazine_, the _Journal of the Royal United Service Inst.i.tution_, and other leading publications. His first appearance in the pages of the _Philosophical Magazine_ was made in 1842, when he wrote a paper on an experimental inquiry into the advantages attending the use of cylindrical wheels on, with an explanation of the theory of adopting curves for these wheels, and its application to practice, and an account of experiments showing the easy draught and safety of carriages with cylindrical wheels. From this time, until he made his _debut_ at the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1853, he had been working most a.s.siduously at his theory of the development of heat, and one of his first papers to the Royal Society was ent.i.tled "A Review of the Fundamental Principles of the Mechanical Theory of Heat, with Remarks on the Thermic Phenomena of Currents of Elastic Fluids, as Ill.u.s.trating those Principles." In 1858 he published "A Manual of Applied Mechanics and other Prime Movers," in 1859 he produced another masterly work on "Civil Engineering," and in 1866 "Useful Rules and Tables Relating to Mensuration" came from his prolific pen. In 1865 he published, in conjunction with his friends Mr. James R.

Napier, Mr. Isaac Watts, C.B., and Mr. F. K. Barnes, of the Constructors' Department of the Royal Navy, a treatise on "Shipbuilding, Theoretical and Practical," which has since taken a foremost place among the mechanical works of the day. Besides these, he wrote, in 1857, the article on "Applied Mechanics" for the eighth edition of the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_, and in 1870 he published "A Manual of Machinery and Mill work." From the time that Mr. Rankine's maiden efforts at the literature of mechanical science appeared in the _London Philosophical Magazine_, he has attracted the attention and commanded the esteem of scientific men throughout the world. One of the most remarkable features in his career is the rapid succession with which he produced the text books of mathematical formulae which bear his name. Not a little of the contents of his works can claim the merit of originality, and where he has drawn upon previously ascertained facts, he has carried out his plan in such an able and judicious manner as to secure for his publications the confidence of the whole profession.

Although each of his works is, in its way, equally valuable, the "Manual of Applied Mechanics," which forms the real basis of the others, maybe regarded as the standard, and so universal has its use become that the young engineer who has not mastered its contents is considered to have learned only half of his profession.

With his ample and varied experience in the qualities and requirements of sea-going vessels, Mr. Rankine was very appropriately selected a few months ago as one of the members of the Committee on Designs for Ships of War. This, we may add, is not the only instance in which he has been entrusted by Government with a responsible and honourable commission.

For a number of years Mr. Rankine has held the honorary post of Consulting Engineer to the Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland. In 1859 he raised the Glasgow University Company of Rifle Volunteers, and served with that corps as Captain and Major for nearly five years. He is a Fellow of the Royal Societies of London and Edinburgh; an LL.D. of Dublin University; and a member of several learned societies, including the British a.s.sociation for the Advancement of Science, over the Mechanical Section of which he has more than once been called to preside.

Special reference should be made to Professor Rankine's connection with the Inst.i.tution of Engineers in Scotland, with which the a.s.sociation of Shipbuilders was ultimately incorporated. Of that Society Mr. Rankin was an earnest promoter, and he was suitably elected to be its first president. In recognition of the services which he rendered to the cause of mechanical science generally, and to this Inst.i.tution in particular, he was presented with his bust at a conversazione held in the Corporation Galleries on 19th August, 1870, when the North of England Inst.i.tution of Mining and Mechanical Engineers held a series of joint meetings with the Inst.i.tution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland.

The presentation was made by Mr. David Rowan, president, who read on the occasion an address prepared by the Council of the a.s.sociation, in which the following pa.s.sages occurred:--"The valuable a.s.sistance which you have constantly given for the advancement of the Inst.i.tution since its foundation in the year 1757, the admirable manner in which, during three sessions, you presided over its deliberations, the distinction which your papers, and the part you have taken in the discussions, imparted to the proceedings, have placed the Inst.i.tution under a debt of grat.i.tude to you that we all feel cannot be adequately repaid by anything that it is in our power to do. These, however, are not the only reasons for the great esteem with which we all regard you. These may be said to be on our part selfish reasons; but there are others vastly more important why you merit--why you irresistibly attract--not only from us that great regard which we all feel to be an honour to ourselves to bestow, but from all who possess an acquaintance with your works, and who possess a knowledge of the value of exact science. Your work on 'Applied Mechanics' is a great ill.u.s.tration of your power to grasp, to connect, and to apply the definite principles of exact science with the less definite known elements of practical problems. Abstract principles are valueless, except in application to the wants of man, and this work occupies that field with great eminence. Your work on the 'Steam Engine and other Prime Movers' deals with the principles involved in that important subject in a masterly manner, that renders comparison with any other similar work impossible. In this work the first elements of the science upon which these machines depend are traced in their operation through their material embodiment, and the laws which govern the principle of pure science connected definitely with the varied construction of the machines. Your works on Civil Engineering, Machinery, and Millwork, &c., each exhibit the powerful intellect that is invariably found in all your productions, and that place them on an eminence peculiarly your own. All your books possess a value which we, who are practical men engaged in performing many of the varied works which fall to engineers, feel to be of the very highest importance. Each of these works is a text book on the subject to which it relates, and an authority established in the estimation of those engaged in these pursuits. The labour and mental power required for the production of these works place the author on an eminence rarely attainable. But great as is the distinction which the authorship of these works proclaim, there is yet another and grander achievement for which science is indebted to you. The new science of modern times which embraces the relation of all physical energy is largely your own. It is to you that we chiefly owe the development of that branch of the science called Thermo-dynamics, which has revolutionised the theory of heat and the principles of all the machines dependent on that theory. The steam engine, the most important instrument, I believe, in existence, is now placed on two principles. Its operation before the development of this science was to a considerable extent obscure, and although there are some features that still require consideration, you have done more than was ever done before to instruct us in its true principle and operation.

Your development of thermo-dynamics, coupled with the great discovery of Joule of the numerical relation of heat and dynamic effect, or the quant.i.ty of the one that is equal to a quant.i.ty of the other, places within our reach the numerical result to be obtained from a.s.sumed elements of heat--prime movers. Your name, and that of Clausers, and Joule, and our distinguished friend Thomson, will ever be a.s.sociated with this science, which has done much towards explaining important laws of nature."

We may add that Mr. Rankine is a painstaking and conscientious teacher, and takes great care to impart to his students a correct and intelligible knowledge of their studies. He is no sciolist himself, and he does not believe in merely superficial attainments in his pupils. As to his social qualities, it is well known to his more intimate friends that Professor Rankine is a _bon vivant_ of the first water. He is in his element at the "Red Lion" dinners of the British a.s.sociation, where he has frequently displayed vocal powers of a high order of merit; and it is worth while mentioning that he is the composer of the words and music alike of some of his best songs. One of his most familiar productions as a song writer appeared originally in _Blackwood's Magazine_, and is ent.i.tled "The Engine Driver's Address to his Engine."

PROFESSOR ALLEN THOMSON.

Though Glasgow has long been somewhat over-shadowed, in matters medical, by the superior fame of Edinburgh, it is nevertheless worthy of remark that at no period have her medical schools, whether intra-academical or extra-academical, been without teachers of high excellence. The Hamiltons, the brothers Burns, Jeffrey, Millar, Thomson, M'Kenzie, Lawrie, M'Grigor, Graham, Hunter, and Pagan were men all who would have shone with a bright l.u.s.tre in any sphere, and when we instance Harry Rainy, Andrew Buchanan, and Allen Thomson as a few who are still with us, we say enough to show that the mantles of those that have pa.s.sed the fatal bourne have fallen on no unworthy successors. The cynosure, however, just now, in our faculty of medicine, would seem, by general consent, to be Dr. Allen Thomson. And there is reason for this. His able, trustworthy researches in microscopic science have gained for him a European reputation--as a teacher of anatomy he is rivalled by few, if any, in the kingdom--as a member of the Academical Senate he is a most energetic promoter of the welfare of our time-honoured University--while as a citizen he is ever the warm and judicious supporter of all measures calculated to forward the social prosperity of our great and still-increasing civic community. Dr. Thomson was born in Edinburgh in 1809. His father was Dr. John Thomson, one of the most eminent metropolitan pract.i.tioners of his day; his mother was Margaret, a daughter of the late Professor John Millar, of this city, one of the most attractive expounders of jurisprudence of the period, and well-known as the author of various treatises of acknowledged excellence on "Ranks," "Government," and other departments of const.i.tutional law.

Dr. John Thomson was in many respects a very remarkable man. When upwards of twenty years of age, he might have been seen in his father's factory in Paisley, working at the loom as a silk-weaver; when he died, which was in his eighty-second year, he was Professor of General Pathology in the University of Edinburgh. In proof of the extent of his attainments, it may be stated that besides being the author, editor, and translator of a variety of publications, some of which may be perused with advantage even at the present hour, he delivered at one time or other during his professional career, courses of lectures on chemistry, pharmacy, surgery, military surgery, diseases of the eye, practice of physic, and general pathology. Besides professional friends in nearly all quarters of the world, he could number among his intimate a.s.sociates Brougham, Horner, Jeffrey, Pillans, Thomas Thomson, and John Allen, afterwards private secretary and confidential friend of the late Lord Holland--friendships which, no doubt, account readily for the appearance of certain of the productions of his unresting pen on medical topics in the earlier numbers of the _Edinburgh Review_. We presume that it was to his long, warmly-cherished intimacy with Mr. Allen that his younger son, the subject of the present sketch, stands indebted for the baptismal name he bears. Dr. John Gordon, who, half-a-century ago, was looked upon as one of the brightest and most promising ornaments of the Edinburgh Extra Academical Medical School, and whose early death was felt to be almost a public loss, was among his earlier favourite pupils; the late Sir James Simpson was one of the last. Dr. Thomson was from his youth quite a _h.e.l.luo librorum_, and up to the close of a busy, laborious life, was a keen student and admirer of the ancient cla.s.sical literature of his honourable profession. When an old man, it was no uncommon sight to see him whiling away a leisure hour with a well-thumbed Greek copy of the _Aphorisms of Hippocrates_ for his sofa companion. In a home so graced by all the amenities of lettered and scientific tastes, the subject of these remarks could not but enjoy, when a youth, many and great educational advantages. The tutorial shortcomings, if such there were, whether of High School or College, could not fail to be amply supplemented beside a domestic hearth predominated over by a father possessed of such force of character and well-garnered experience. As a student of medicine, Dr. Thomson held a distinguished place among his contemporaries, a circ.u.mstance which in due time earned for him the laurel-crown of Edinburgh studenthood, in the form of a presidency of the Royal Medical Society--a post of honour which had been occupied by his venerable father also, a quarter of a century before. His curriculum of professional study completed, and the necessary examinations pa.s.sed, he obtained the degree of Doctor of Medicine from the University of Edinburgh in 1830. At this time it was yet the rule for the aspiring candidate, ere he could secure the longed-for degree, to compose and defend a Latin thesis drawn from some department or other of medical science, and this, like his fellows, had Dr. Thomson to do. "De Evolutione Cordis Animalibus Vertebratis," was the t.i.tle of his dissertation, a subject wide as the poles apart from the customary jejune hackneyed topics figuring on such an occasion, and, at this period, one of all others, we would imagine, where learned professors, if modest men, would in all probability be the pupils, and the trembling candidate the instructor. It would appear from this that microscopic embryology has been with Dr. Thomson a favourite field of study and research from his youth upwards. The inaugural dissertation was, however, but a brief antepast of something more exhaustive to follow. In the same year in which he took his degree, we find him coming before the scientific world through the medium of the _Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal_, with a series of elaborate papers, ent.i.tled "The Development of the Vascular System in the Foetus in Vertebrated Animals," a contribution which is admitted on all hands, we believe, to be perhaps the highest and safest authority on its intricate and recondite subject-matter that as yet exists. We are not aware whether Dr. Thomson entered on the study of medicine with any view of going into the arduous and often unremunerative toils of private practice. If so, the idea must have been soon abandoned, as we have him, in 1832, becoming a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, Edinburgh, and thereafter betaking himself, as an extra academical lecturer, to the teaching of the Inst.i.tutes of Medicine. The labours of the cla.s.s-room would seem, however, not to have in any way overtasked his energies, as we find that in the same year he was again before the public as an author. The publication which saw the light on this occasion was an "Essay on the Formation of New Blood Vessels in Health and Disease," a subject at once full of practical interest to both physician and surgeon, and a most natural supplement to the _magnum opus_ on the development of the vascular system. The same period, too, occasionally found Dr. Thomson not unwilling to appear before lay audiences with lucid, instructive expositions of the structure and functions of our wonderfully-made frame--a fact, we daresay, of which many middle-aged citizens of Edinburgh will, even still, retain a pleasing recollection. As regards his professional courses on physiology, these he continued to deliver up to 1836, when the removal of his colleague and intimate friend, Dr.

Sharpey, from Edinburgh to the Chair of Anatomy and Physiology of the London University College, induced him to open cla.s.ses for extra-mural students of anatomy, at that time a somewhat numerous body in the northern metropolis. As prelections and demonstrations on this fundamental important branch of medical study formed the daily vocation, at the period spoken of, of not less than three or four private lecturers--as they were termed--we can well imagine that the labours of Dr. Thomson, at this point of his career, would by no means be light. In 1839, however, a partial reward for his anxieties and toils came in the shape of an appointment to the Chair of Anatomy in Marischal College, Aberdeen, a situation which he had filled for three years, when he was recalled to the University of his native city to take the place of the late venerable and widely-venerated Professor Alison. The year which saw Dr. Thomson transferred to the granite city saw also a valuable contribution from his pen in the _Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal_, "On the Development of the Human Embryo," an elementary nucleus, among others, of a series of specially luminous articles by him on "Circulation," "Generation," and "Ovum," which afterwards appeared in "Todd's Cyclopediae of Anatomy and Physiology." After a six years'

inc.u.mbency as Professor of Physiology in the University of Edinburgh, he was, in 1848, presented by the Crown to the Chair of Anatomy in Glasgow University, at that time vacant in consequence of the death of Dr. James Jeffrey, who formerly had been its occupant for the long period of 58 years. On coming to Glasgow, he soon gave lively proofs that the important situation which he had been brought to fill would, in his hands, be anything other than a sinecure. In his opening address he modestly promised that he would do his best to preserve the fame which the place had acquired under his predecessors, and amply has he fulfilled the pledge. We are led to understand that, alike in lecture-room and laboratory, everything is carried on with spirit, decorum, and order, and that what with the efficiency of the prelections and examinations, aided as these are by a profusion of admirably executed pictorial ill.u.s.trations, many of them drawn by the lecturer himself, the place is, in point of usefulness, outstripped by no anatomical theatre anywhere, whether at home or abroad. As a lecturer Dr.

Thomson possesses many points of excellence. He is singularly lucid in his arrangement of his topics, and what he thus arranges so well is always stated in language at once impressive and perspicuous, while over all there is a quiet self-possession which has a never-failing power in subduing pupils, however buoyant or wayward. Dr. Thomson's eminence as a scientific observer has been attested and recognised by his admission into the various learned societies, foremost among which may be mentioned the Royal Societies of Edinburgh and London; and we need scarcely say that whether as councillor, vice-president, or president, the Glasgow Philosophical Society has no more active supporter than he.

What the members of the Universities of Glasgow and Aberdeen think of his qualities as a man of judgment and discretion is well evidenced by the fact of their selection of him once and again as their representative in the General Council of Medical Education and Registration of the United Kingdom, an office fraught, we are led to believe, with cares and duties of the highest social importance.

At the late meeting of the British a.s.sociation in Edinburgh, Dr. Thomson rather startled the scientific world by an address delivered in the Biological Section, in which he characterised the so-called new science of spiritualism as the invention of impostors and mountebanks. His address, which lacked the author's const.i.tutional caution and discretion, was severely handled in several of the leading journals, and a trenchant pen, in an Edinburgh cotemporary, "cut up rough" with a vengeance. Among others who replied to Dr. Thomson's strictures was Dr.

Robert H. Collyer, of London, who claims to be the original discoverer of electro-biology, phreno-magnetism, and stupefaction, by the inhalation of narcotic and anaesthetic vapours. In the course of his address, Dr. Thomson spoke as follows:--"It must be admitted that extremely curious and rare, and to those who are not acquainted with nervous phenomena, apparently marvellous phenomena, present themselves in peculiar states of the nervous system--some of which states may be induced through the mind, and may be made more and more liable to recur, and greatly exaggerated by frequent repet.i.tion. But making the fullest allowance for all these conditions, it is still surprising that persons, otherwise appearing to be within the bounds of sanity, should entertain a confirmed belief in the possibility of phenomena, which, while they are at variance with the best established physical laws, have never been brought under proof by the evidences of the senses, and are opposed to the dictates of sound judgment. It is so far satisfactory in the interests of true biological science that no man of note can be named from the long list of thoroughly well-informed anatomists and physiologists, who has not treated the belief in the separate existence of powers of animal magnetism and spiritualism as wild speculations, devoid of all foundation in the carefully-tested observation of facts.

It has been the habit of the votaries of these systems to a.s.sert that scientific men have neglected or declined to investigate the phenomena with attention and candour; but nothing can be farther from the truth.

From time to time men of eminence, and fully competent, by their knowledge of biological phenomena, and their skill and accuracy in conducting scientific investigation, have made the most patient and careful examination of the evidence placed before them by the professed believers and pract.i.tioners of so-called magnetic, phreno-magnetic, electro-biological, and spiritualistic phenomena; and the result has been uniformly the same in all cases when they were permitted to secure conditions by which the reality of the phenomena, or the justice of their interpretation, could be tested--viz., either that the experiments signally failed to educe the results professed, or that the experimenters were detected in the most shameless and determined impostures." This sentence fell among the _savants_ like a bomb, and "great was the fall thereof." Some have described it as an _ad captandum vulgus_ use of words, and others have called it rash, and unduly sceptical. It is proverbial that doctors disagree, and it would be wonderful indeed if they were of one mind on the mysterious phenomena of spiritualism.

It would be unpardonable were we to omit reference to Dr. Allen Thomson's great exertions on behalf of the new University. No member of the Senate was more zealous and hard-working in raising the necessary funds for the splendid edifice that now rests on Gilmorehill, and Professor Thomson was suitably selected to cut the first sod some four years ago, when the work of erection was commenced.

Like his father, Dr. Allen Thomson has all his life been a consistent Whig in politics, although in political movements, as such, he has never taken any very prominent part.

In August last Dr. Thomson received from his _Alma Mater_ the degree of LL.D.