JOHN SCOTT RUSSELL.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2554, 15 June 1882, Page 4

JOHN SCOTT RUSSELL.

The following extracts are taken from

"Men of the Time" concerning the late deceased gentleman, whose death was re corded in our issue of the 12th instant: —

John Scott Russell, M.A., 08., VioePresident of the Institution of Civil Engineers and the Institution of Naval Architects, eldest son of the Rov. David Russell, of the family of Russell of Braidwood, born in the Vale of Clyde in 1808, received his eduoation *t the Universities of Edinburgh, St. Andrews, and Glasgow, and graduated at the latter at the age of sixteen. Evinoing a very eurly predilection for praotioal mechanics, his father permitted him to be employed in the workshop as an engineer, and afterwards assisted him to proeecute his studies in cognate sciences. In these hs made such advances, that on the death of Sir John Lsalie, Professor of Natural Philosophy in tho University of Edinburgh, in 1832, the young engineer was selected to supply temporarily the vacancy, acd delivered a complete oourse of lectures on natural philosophy to the students. Prom this time his career as a praotioal engineer and shipbuilder became decided, and whilst in Edinburgh he built some small steamboats for canal and river navigatiin, and constructed steamcarriages'for oommon roads, whioh ran between Paisley and Glasgow for a considerable time. In a few years he snooeeded Mr Oaird, of Greenock, as the manager of one of the largest shipbuilding and engineering establishments in Scotland, where he continued until hia removal to London in 1814, where he constructed four large steamships, the Teviot, the Tay, the Clyde, and the Tweed, for the West India Royal Mail Company. Meanwhile he had not neglected sciatico, but; had applied its doctrines to the meohauioal arts. As a shipbuilder, he wa9 lfld to investigate the laws by;which"water opposos resistance to the motion of floating bodies, and he established the existence of the " wave of translation," on whioh he founded hia " Wave System" of construction of sKips, introduced into practice in 1835. A paper bearing on this subject was read before tho British Association in 1835, and for some years he continued his experiments, whioh amounted to the almost incredible number of 20,000. It is only fair to state, however, that his claim to the originality of this discovery was contested by the late Thos. Assheton Smith, the well-known fox-hunter. The first vessel constructed on his " wave principle" was the Wave, in 1835 whioh was followed by the Scott Russell in 1836, and the Flambsau and Fire King in 1839, all of whioh proved successful. Mr Scott Russell's prinoiple was adopted by Mr Brunei in designing the Great Britain, and it has steadily made its way both in this country and the United States, and was carried out in the Great Eastern, the I»t?st triumph of Mr Scott Russell's genius. A memoir on the laws by whioh water opposes resistance to the motion of floating bodies was read by Mr Scott Russell before the Royal Socioty of Edinburgh in 1837, and obtained for him tho large gold modal, and he was el°oted a Fellow, and placed on the Counoil of the Sooiety. Ten years later he was elected Fellow of the Royal Sooiety of London, and Member of the lustitution of OivilEaginoers, of whioh he is a Vioe-Presidont; has long bean an active member of the British Association, is a momber of the Sooiety of Arts, and was for some time its Seoretary. He was one of the three original promoters of the Great Exhibition of 1851, who, under the direotion of H.R.H. the late Prinoe Consort, planned and organised the preliminary arrangements, and, in conjunction with Sir Stafford Northoote, Bart., was Joint Seoretary of the Royal Commissioners for carrying out tho Exhibition. He was one of the founders of the Institution of Naval Architects, and is one of its Vice-Presidents, and has contributed many important papers to its " Transactions." Ho has compiled a large and costly treatiso, entitled " The Modern System of Naval Architecture for Commerce and War," whioh comprehends the theory of naval design, the praotioe of shipbuilding in inn and in wood, the principles of steam navigation, and is illustrated with 150 engravings, containing the finest works of modern shipbuilders and engineers. His two latest works have been the initiation of railway transport norojs the sea, by oarrying railway trains on aea-going ships; and the construction of

tha largest vaulted dome in the world. His plan of transporting railway trains of goods or passengers over teas on ships without disturbing the passengeri or displacing the goods, was first oarried out on the Boden Sea, where the Swiss system of railways was parted from, tha German system by a wide inland sea, with seaports twelve to twonty miles asunder. At these porta the passengers were turned out and the goods transhipped out of trains into ships on one side, and out of ships into trains again on the other, at great cost and with much delay ; whereas now by the new system, trains arrive on the seaside, their own locomotive takes the entire train of carriages and their contents on board a steamer of spiral construction for that servioe. Tho steamor crosses over the sea about the same distance as Calais from Dover, and on the other side the German locomotive draws the train on shore and carries its contents undisturbed to Dresden or Berlin. The system has now been successfully in ns» some ten years without the slightest acoident. The Groat Dome at Vienna has been equally suooessful, being the lightest, strongest, and least oostly building of its size ; its span is 360 feet diameter dear, without column or support, and it ooreri an area and enoloses a volume nearly as large as the whole oathedral of St. Paul's. The new prinoiple on which this building is constructed is oallod by its author "The Conic Form of Maximum Strength,"