is one of the marvels of the engineering
profession. Dynamos, motors, arc-lights, alternating current, the
X-ray--these are a few of the things which followers of the profession
have created for the uses of mankind. The field is yet practically
unexplored, and offers to engineering students an outlet for their
energies--provided they enter this branch of engineering--second to none
of the other branches. A fascinating study, doubly so because of the
fact that nothing is known about electricity itself--its effects only
being understood--electrical engineering should appeal to the
curious-minded as no other vocation can. It is a profession shrouded in
mystery, and not the least mysterious of its recent developments is the
wireless telegraph. What this one development alone holds for the future
nobody can say. All sorts of inventions can be imagined, however, and
among them I myself seem to see automobiles operated from central
stations--indeed, all mechanical movements so operated--to the end that
individual engines in time will cease to be.

The profession of mining engineering, last of the major branches,
embraces all work having to do with the locating and construction of
mines--coal-mines, iron-mines, copper-mines, diamond-mines, gold-mines,
and the like. Also it establishes the nature of the apparatus used,
though more often than otherwise the mechanical engineer in this regard
is consulted, since much of the machinery utilized in mining operations
is the direct work of mechanical engineers. Screens and hoppers are
mechanical devices the result of mechanical engineering genius; but the
work of shoring up, done with timbers, and the work generally of
supervision of all mine operations, rests solely with the mining man.
The shaping of these timbers, though--the cutting of tenons, for
instance--is the work, again, of the mechanical engineer; though the
placing of these timbers, to revert back once more, is the work of the
mining engineer.

There are many minor branches, and more are rapidly coming into
prominence. Chemical engineering is one of the older minor branches;
while industrial engineering--following closely upon automotive
engineering--belongs properly with the more recent of the newcomers.
Efficiency engineering is a branch which to-day is making a strong bid
for recognition as a profession, although the work as yet, lacking, as
it does, proper foundation in scientific truth, even though strongly
humanitari