Scientific Society

The winter session of this society opened on Wednesday evening, when there was a fair attendance of members to hear the presidential address by. Mr. F. O. Kirby, M. Sc. With the aid of a blackboard and some lantern slides the President discoursed in an informing and at the same time interesting and occasionally humorous manner on “Archeological Engineering.”

First of all, he went back to the origins and development of arithmetical science in the East, dealt with the progress made in abstract geometry and mathematics by the Greeks, and showed how the theories of the European philosophers were brought into contact with the practical developments in engineering made by the Egyptians, through the conquests of Alexander the Great.

With the settlement of the Greeks in Alexandria, he showed, commenced the scientific development of mechanical appliances, and with the studies of Archimedes came the birth of modern engineering.

Going back to the beginnings of engineering on its practical and constructive side, Mr. Kirby dealt with the way in which the huge manual operations of the Egyptians in particular, and notably the building of the pyramids, were carried out, and went on to mention Xerxes’ bridge over the Hellespont and his Mount Athos Canal, and the great aqueducts built by the Romans, as making the stages of progress in early engineering.

He concluded with a reference to Vitruvius, whose writings contained the earliest examples of specifications, and who insisted on the necessary correlation of practice and theory in engineering.

The paper was listened to with appreciation and a short discussion followed.

The Society has an interesting programme for the winter session. Next Month Mr. H. Kraus Nield, F.R.A.S. is to lecture publicly in the Guild Hall on “The Sun,” and at the annual conversazione  in the spring a lecture to be given by Mr. W. H. Pickering entitled “Some casual notes on mining in India,”

Other lectures promised are on Beetles by Dr. Corbett, “East Yorkshire, a study in local geography” by Mr. F. Sheppard, F.G.S. (editor of “The Naturalist”), one by Mr. D. Knoop, lecturer in Economics at Sheffield University, “Our Local Limestone Rocks” by Mr. H. Culpin, and “The Relation of Science to Music” by Mr. W. E. Sanderson, Mus. Bac.