A hundred years ago it was possible for a man to be simultaneously a great civil engineer, a great structural engineer and a great architect as well. Is it because the three professions were less highly specialised than they are at present or did there tread the earth in those days men of greater intellectual stature than our modern generation seems able to produce? Or is it some quite remediable circumstance which disallows the expression of a constructive genius catholic in its scope and capable of subordinating the multifarious activities of engineers to a common cultural end? As Sir John Rennie has finely said: "The real object of the civil engineer is to promote the civilization of the world." The same may be said of the mechanical engineer, the structural engineer and also the architect. The utilitarian virtues of convenience, economy and durability must, of course, be aimed at, but we must also strive after humanism, that state of accomplishment in the art of living wherein man is master over all the mechanical means he has created for his use and is never on any occasion subservient to them. Let the machine bear the human mark rather than man bear the mark of the machine. Engineers are under an obligation to achieve design in the complete sense of this word and-need we hesitate to say it?-beauty. A. Trystan Edwards
AS in our own country, so in the Netherlands, the supply of dwellings for the people in pre-war days was by means other than through the instrumentality of local authorities. In England and Wales prior to 1909, 98 per cent. of the houses for the needs of the working classes, were provided by private enterprise of various kinds and without aid from public funds. Although a certain stimulus to the housing activities of local authorities was given by the Housing and Town-Planning Act of 1909, the result of their efforts in the provision of new houses was comparatively small. Sir Charles T. Ruthen
0F all structures which man has made to satisfy his needs, the bridge is that in which he has been aesthetically most successful, and, perhaps, structurally least. From the beginning of recorded history, you have in long succession the tale of bridges breaking down and swept away, till the accident becomes a commonplace compared with the failure of other structures. You have further a limit to effort, very clearly marked; the effort to obtain height or majesty through width or length of unbroken emptiness in other forms of structure, has been an effort successfully progressive and often rapidly progressive. But bridges, even for the overcoming of comparatively small obstacles, were felt to be a special triumph. There was a temptation to make them do more than the art of the time allowed. One can point to a score of places in Western Europe (Avignon is the most famous) where th3 effort was vanquished, and to hundreds where what looks to-day like the surmounting ot but a trifling span or height was looked on as a marvel, and carries to this day some nickname connoting astonishment. Hilaire Belloc
The discussion was opened by MR. H.J. DEANE, B.E., M.Inst.C.E., etc ., Vice-President of the Institution of Structural Engineers, who said :-You are no doubt aware that the late Mr. H.G. Bamber was to have opened the discussion this evening, but his untimely death necessitated other arrangements being made. Mr. Bamber, I believe, had already made some notes on the subject, and there are few who were in a better position to deal with a matter in which intimate knowledge plays so important a part. His untimely death will be wry much regretted by all those who knew him, none of whom can have failed to appreciate his keenness in all he undertook, his never-failing courtesy, and his cheerful disposition. I am sure that all will agree that we have sustained a great loss.
Many structural engineers have for a long time been convinced that the effect of casing steel beams in concrete in the manner which has obtained for many years with the filler-joist floor, has a strengthening effect upon the floor and that it is safe to design the steelwork in such floors upon higher stresses than the extreme fibre stress of 7.5 tons per square inch which is usually specified. Ewart S. Andrews