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 Institution 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 Institution, 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 Institution 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 Institution_, 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 assiduously at his theory of the
development of heat, and one of his first papers to the Royal Society
was entitled "A Review of the Fundamental Principles of the Mechanical
Theory of Heat, with Remarks on the Thermic Phenomena of Currents of
Elastic Fluids, as Illustrating 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 Association 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 Institution of Engineers in Scotland, with which the Association 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 Institution 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
Institution of Mining and Mechanical Engineers held a series of joint
meetings with the Institution 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 Association, in which
the following passages occurred:--"The valuable assistance which you
have constantly given for the advancement of the Institution 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 Institution under a debt of gratitude
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 illustration 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
quantity of the one that is equal to a quantity of the other, places
within our reach the numerical result to be obtained from assumed
elements of heat--prime movers. Your name, and that of Clausers, and
Joule, and our distinguished friend Thomson, will ever be associated
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 Association, 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 entitled "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 lustre 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 passed 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 practitioners 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 constitutional 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 associates
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 _helluo librorum_, and up to the close of a busy, laborious
life, was a keen student and admirer of the ancient classical 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 circumstance 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 passed,
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 title 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, entitled "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
Institutes of Medicine. The labours of the class-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 classes 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'
incumbency 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 illustrations, 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 Association 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 constitutional 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 repetition. 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 assert 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 practitioners 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.
REV. DR. JOHN CAIRD.
Of the many ornaments which the Established Church of Scotland has
produced, Dr. John Caird is one of the most brilliant as a preacher, as
a thinker, and as a rhetorician. During the comparatively short period
of his ministry, he secured a world-wide fame for the eloquence and
beautiful diction of his sermons, and although his pulpit appearances
are now few and far between, they are sufficiently important to draw
together larger congregations than any Church in Glasgow could possibly
accommodate; to find a prominent place in the newspapers of the day; and
to realise for the author a handsome _honorarium_ for the copyright of
his sermons.