present paper--namely, the relation
of _speed_ to _build_. Some sixteen or eighteen years ago, the British
Association rightly conceived that its Mechanical Section would be
worthily occupied in an inquiry concerning the forms of ships, and the
effect of form on the speed and steadiness. The inquiry was intrusted
to Mr Scott Russell and Mr (afterwards Sir John) Robison; and
admirably has it been carried out. Mr Scott Russell, especially, has
sought to establish something like a _science_ of form in
ship-building--precisely the thing which would supply a proper basis
for the artificers.

It is interesting to see how, year after year, this committee of two
persons narrated the result of their unbought and unpaid labours to
the Association. In 1838 and 1839, they shewed how a solid moving in
the water produced a particular kind of wave; how, at a certain
velocity, the solid might ride on the _top_ of the wave, without
sinking into the hollow; how, if the external form of a vessel bore a
certain resemblance to a section of this wave, the ship would
encounter less resistance in the water than any other form; and thus
originated the _wave principle_--so much talked of in connection with
ship-building. A ship built on that principle in that year (1839) was
believed to be the fastest ship in Britain. In 1840, the committee
stated that they had 'consulted the most eminent ship-builders as to
the points upon which they most wanted information, and requested them
to point out what were the forms of vessel which they would wish to
have tried. More than 100 models of vessels of various sizes, from 30
inches to 25 feet in length, were constructed,' and an immense mass of
experiments were made on them. In 1841, they described how they had
experimented on vessels of every size, from models of 30 inches in
length to vessels of 1300 tons. In the next following year, the
committee presented a report of no fewer than 20,000 experiments on
models and ships, some of which afforded remarkable confirmation of
the efficiency of the wave principle in ship-building. Thus the
committee went on, year after year, detailing to the Association the
results of their experiments, and pointing out how the ship-builders
were by degrees giving practical value to these results.

Now, a country in which a scientific society will spend a thousand
pounds on such an inquiry, and in which scientific men will give up
days and weeks of their time to it without fe