NOTICE OF BOOKS.

Evening Star, Issue 3540, 27 June 1874, Page 2

NOTICE OF BOOKS.

LocoinotiveEngineering. and the. Mechanism of Railways, by Zerah Colburn, Civil Engineer. ; William Collins, Sons, and Co., London and Glasgow. William Hay, Princes street, Dunedin. This elegant and elaborate work may be considered the legacy left to the world by the eminent engineer whose name is recorded as having been its author. 11 is comprised in two large volumes—one containing the theory, practical aud mathematical details of looomotive engineering, and the other drawings of such careful execution and' minuteness of detail as to become miniature working plans. From this description it will be evident that it is a work more valuable to an engineer than to a general reader; but it is not without interest to all classes, for there is much told of the rise and progress ef that railway system which, in the few years it has been in operation, has so completely changed the physical relations of men inhabiting thd same and foreign countries. These volumes, which are dated March, 1871, are not merely national m their details, but what may be termed cosmopolitan; they contain descriptions or. the best machinery known ip all countries. They tell of what has been done in the way of locomotion “in a clear and pleasant style. We are apt to imagine that none of those ideas which the knowledge and energy of this age have reduced to practice, entered into the minds of men of old time. But this is a mistake. Mr oiburn states that 200 years before Christ, Hero, of Alexandria, described a steam-engine with slide valves, in such terms as to justify the belief that the properties of steam as a motive power were pretty well understood ; that 200 years ago Solomon do Cans, confined m a Parisian lunatic asylum, projected a locoinotive, and that the Marquis of Worcester approved of and adopted his idea. It was, however, a French inventor, .Nicholas Joseph Cugnot, who constructed the locomotive land carriage in 1769. It was intended to run on common roads, and <iid do so ; but it lacked continuity of effort, as it would not run a greater distance than about two and a half miles without stopping until tteam was got up for another spasmodic start. It was the progenitor of those splendid engines now running at such wonderful speed. The numerous illustrations enable the reader to trace the rapid progress that has been made in railway engineering. To us in New Zealand the subject is of vast importance, in the introduction it is intimated that five classes of persons “.»re likely to turn to a work on railway engineeriog ’ : those who wish for general information on the subject, those who wish to know how to manage locomotives, those who wish to construct them, those who regard railway construction in a commercial light, and those who are philosophically inclined. There is scarcely a man in New Zealand who does not come under one or otter of these* classes. Merchants, squatters, farmers, politicians, mechanical and civil engineers, are desirous of possessing such knowledge of looomotive engineering and the mechanism of railways as will enable them to form opinions of the relative value of various plans, and we have .seen no work that apparently treats mere exhaustively ou the subject than that of the late Mr Colburn. Works like hxs are never out of date, for they are historical and deal with principles. Improvements are daily being effected, but they do not blot out the past on which they are engrafted : they become stepping-stones like their predecessors for future advance.