The student should read the article Navy and Navies (Vol. 19, p. 299) and refer to the Chapter For Naval Officers.

The following is a partial list of the articles in the Britannica of particular value to the marine transportation man.

CHAPTER XX
FOR ENGINEERS

What “Engineering” Includes

The history of a word will sometimes supply the key to the gradual development of an art. “Engineering” was originally used to describe a mere branch of military science, the construction of fortifications and the trenching and sapping needed for their capture. Then about a century and a half ago the use of the phrase “civil engineering” came into use to indicate the broadening of the engineer’s functions to civil pursuits, but even then it served for a long time chiefly to describe surveying, road-making and bridge building. To-day, the specialized knowledge of engineers of one kind or another directs or facilitates every branch of industry. Consider for a moment the handling of iron, which, as the Britannica article Iron and Steel shows, has become the most indispensable of all substances save air and water, because we can find no substitute for it that possesses its strength, the hardness and the pliability we can give to it, and its magnetic properties, upon which all our electrical work depends. The mining engineer is concerned with the ore, the mechanical engineer with the machinery employed in its treatment; the transportation of the finished iron or steel depends upon the skill of the engineers who construct railroads and ships; the structural engineer shapes our buildings from the girders and erects them on the sites indicated by the surveying engineer; the sanitary engineer makes them wholesome, and the electrical engineer provides them with the many convenient appliances we need. Various primitive races have believed that the earth is supported upon the back of a tortoise, an elephant, or a fish; but when we begin to look into the origin of the surroundings we have made for ourselves, we cannot carry our examination very far before we find that almost everything we possess begins with a blueprint.

It seems a paradox, and yet it is true, that the more a man’s profession tends to specialization, the more help he can get from the comprehensiveness of the Britannica. He finds it necessary to dig so deep that the shaft he sinks must perforce be of narrow diameter, limiting his daily vision to but a small circle of the broad sky above him. The engineer of each class has his own text books, but at any moment his work may bring him into temporary relation with allied subjects which they do not cover, and in connection with which he may need trustworthy information. There is certainly no other book which surveys so authoritatively and minutely as does the Britannica the whole field of applied science. The services rendered by the 73 engineering experts—German, American, English, French and Italian—who collaborated in the production of the work are not to be measured only by the articles they wrote; for the advice and assistance many of them gave the editors in planning the book as a whole, ensured such treatment as an engineer would desire of many subjects indirectly connected with his work.

Mathematical Articles

The engineer will naturally turn first to the mathematical articles, which may be described as text-books of the most concise and useful nature, written by leading mathematicians of the age. Algebra (Vol. 1, p. 599) is by Dr. Sheppard, and G. B. Mathews, formerly professor of mathematics, University College of North Wales; Algebraic Forms (Vol. 1, p. 620) by Major P. A. Macmahon, formerly president of the London Mathematical Society; Geometry (Vol. 11, p. 675), Euclidean, Projective, Descriptive, by Dr. Henrici, professor of mathematics, Central Technical College of the City and Guilds of London Institute; Analytical, by E. B. Elliott, Waynflete professor of pure mathematics, Oxford; Line, by B. A. W. Russell, author of Foundations of Geometry, etc., and Dr. A. N. Whitehead of Trinity College, Cambridge; Axioms, by Dr. Whitehead; Trigonometry (Vol. 27, p. 271) by Dr. E. W. Hobson of Cambridge University; Surveying (Vol. 26, p. 142), Geodetic Triangulation, Levelling, Topographical Surveys, and Geographical Surveying, by Sir Thomas Holdich, formerly superintendent of Frontier Surveys, India; Nautical, by Vice-Admiral A. M. Field, R.N., author of Hydrographical Surveying, etc.; Geodesy (Vol. 11, p. 607) by Col. A. R. Clarke of the British ordinance survey, and Prof. F. R. Helmert of the University of Berlin; Logarithm (Vol. 16, p. 868) by Dr. J. W. L. Glaisher, editor of the Quarterly Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics; Mechanics (Vol. 17, p. 955), Statics, Kinetics, by Dr. Horace Lamb, professor of mathematics, University of Manchester; Theory of Structures, Theory of Machines, Applied Dynamics, by Dr. W. J. M. Rankine, late professor of civil engineering, Glasgow University, and W. E. Dalby, professor of civil and mechanical engineering, City and Guilds of London Institute; Dynamics (Vol. 8, p. 756) by Professor Lamb; Differences, Calculus of (Vol. 8, p. 223), by Dr. W. F. Sheppard; Infinitesimal Calculus (Vol. 14, p. 535) by Dr. A. E. H. Love, secretary of the London Mathematical Society; Variations, Calculus of (Vol. 27, p. 915), by Dr. Love; Quaternions (Vol. 22, p. 718) by Alexander McAulay, professor of mathematics and physics, University of Tasmania; Diagram (Vol. 8, p. 146), by Dr. James Clerk Maxwell, the noted physicist; Mensuration (Vol. 18, p. 135) by Dr. Sheppard; Table, Mathematical (Vol 26, p. 325), by Dr. J. W. L. Glaisher; Units, Physical (Vol. 27, p. 738), by Dr. J. A Fleming, professor of electrical engineering, University of London; Units, Dimensions of (Vol. 27, p. 736), by Sir Joseph Larmor, secretary of the Royal Society, England; and Calculating Machines (Vol. 4, p. 972), with 24 illustrations, is by Professor Henrici.

These admirable treatises as well as the article Drawing, Drawing-Office work (Vol. 8, p. 556), by Joseph G. Horner, will be useful to all engineers, and in the special field of civil engineering the following partial list of articles will convey some idea of the scope of the material to which the professional man has immediate access.