A Great Engineer.

Thames Star, Volume XIII, Issue 4254, 19 August 1882, Page 1 (Supplement)

A Great Engineer.

The death is announced of Mr Scott Eussell, M.A., F.feS;, the celebrated marine engineer andnaval- uouatruuto*-. - His father was the Key. David Eussell, of the Vale of Clyde, where the deceased was born in 1808. He was educated at the Universities of Edinburgh, St. Andrews, and Glasgow. On the death of Sir John Leslie, Professor of Natural Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh, he was elected temporarily to supply the vacancy. From this time his career as a practical engineer and shipbuilder was decided, and in a few years he became the manager of one of the largest shipbuilding and engineering establishments in Scotland, where he designed and built four large steamships called by the names of Scotch rivers. His investigation of the laws by which water opposes the motion of floating bodies led to the discovery of what is termed the "wave of translation," on which the " wave system" of construction in ships is founded. Amongst the first vessels in which the new system was carried into effect was the Great Eastern, which Mr Russell contracted to build. He also designed and constructed the paddle, engines, and boilers of this colossal ship. Mr Eussell was one of the earliest advocates of ironclad men-of-war. His last

work in naval construction was the steamer on Lake Constance, which carries railway trains between the termini of the German and the Swiss railways on the opposite shores of the lake. The great dome of the Vienna Exhibition of 1873, having a clear space of 360 feet in diameter, was the most important of his engineering works. Mr .Russell was the author of one or two important works on subjects connected with his profession. He compiled a treatise entitled, " The Modern System of Naval Architecture for Commerce and War," and he wrote a book called " Systematic Technical Education for the English People," which proves that he was amongst the first to estimate the value of technical instruc tiori. Mr Russell was joint secretary, with Sir Stafford North cote, of the Great Exhibition of 1851, and atone time acted as secretary to the Society of Arts. He died at Ventnor, Isle of Wight, in his seventy fifth year.