CIVIL ENGINEERING. In order to understand clearly what constitutes civil engi neering, it will be desirable to consider briefly the steps by which the different branches of the engineering profession have developed and have become differentiated from one another. The profession of engineering in some form is as old as the human race, for some form of building, some utilization of the materials and forces of nature, has always been necessary in order that man might protect himself against the elements and sustain himself in the con flict with nature. Up to about the middle of the 18th century there were but two recognized branches of the profession, the civil and the military. (See ENGINEERING, MILITARY). The former inc uded all those branches of the con structive art not directly connected with mili tary operations and the construction of forti fications; while military engineering concerned itself with the applications of science and the utilization of materials in the art of war. But during the last third of the 18th century, there came a remarkable series of mechanical in ventions, such as the spinning jenny by Har greaves, the spinning frame by ArIcwright, the mule by Crompton, the power loom by Cart wright, the modern steam engine by Watt, the puddling process for making wrought iron by Cort and others. These were followed in the first third of the 19th century by the develop ment of the steam locomotive by Stephenson and of the steamboat by Robert Fulton. These discoveries led to the inauguration of the age of steam transportation by rail and by sea, The era of railroads began, for all practical purposes, with the victory of the •Rocket' in the competition at Rainhill in 1829. Improve ments rapidly followed in the various fields of manufacturing and in methods of producing iron and steel.
The Field of Civil The In stitution of Civil Engineers of Great Britain was established in 1818, and its first president Thomas Telford, described civil engineering at a meeting of the Council 4 Jan. 1828, as •the art of directing the great sources of power in nature for the use and convenience of man. as the means of production and of traffic in statek, both for external and internal trade, as applied in the construction of roads, bridges, aqueducts, canals, river navigation and docks, for internal intercourse and exchange; in the construction of ports, harbors, moles, breakwaters and light houses; and in the art of navigation by arti ficial power for purposes of commerce, and in the construction and adaptation of machinery, and in the drainage of cities and towns' But the improvements and inventions above re ferred to soon led to the differentiation of sev eral branches from the parent stem of civil en gineering, which up to that time had included all brandies of the constructive art, excepting those for military purposes. The "construction
and adaptation of referred to by Telford, soon became a field by itself, which is known as mechanical engineering (q.v.) and which is distinguished from civil engineering by the essential characteristic that it deals with machinery. The rapid development in the man ufacture of iron and in the production of the various metals from their ores soon led to the differentiation of metallurgical and mining en gineering (q.v.). Architecture, which up to the 18th century had been considered a branch of engineering, had already become a profes sion by itself. Thus, until about the middle of the 19th century, the branches of the engineer ing profession were civil engineering, mechan ical engineering and metallurgical and mining engineering. The last half of the 19th cen tury, however, has probably witnessed a greater advance in the utilization and application of the "sources of power in nature for the use and convenience of man' than had occurred in all previous history, and various other branches of the engineering profession have become specialties. For instance, within the last quar ter of a century the perfecting of the electric motor and the other great discoveries in elec trical first led to the development of electrical engineering (q.v.) as a distinct pro fession, while later the increasing importance of the applications of chemistry in manufactur ing has produced the chemical engineer, a com bination of chemist and mechanical engineer, and the advance in sanitary science and the dis coveries with reference to the nature, causes and prevention of disease have resulted in the development of sanitary engineering (q.v.) as a branch quite extensive enough to constitute a profession by itself, though it is still consid ered a branch of civil engineering.