ENGINEER AND ENGINEERING (OF.
rroliono r, inn, ofo•iti vo•impr. from hat.
you woo, mir talent. from inyignere, to instill by birth, from in, in + gignere, to pro duce). The designing, constructing, and often the operating of various structures and machines to serve as ways and means of communication, to secure and utilize Nature's stores of wealth, and to protect life and property from the action of the elements or the carelessness and ignorance of man; all at a minimum outlay of materials and energy. To these ends, roads, railways, bridges, canals, harbors, docks, mining and metal lurgical plants, mills, shops, and factories are constructed and are equipped with the highest obtainable grade of mechanical power. Most of the arts and sciences are called into use, either as subsidiary or supplementary to engineering, particularly the working of wood, stone, and metal, and the sciences of mathematics, chemis try, physics. and bacteriology. Offensive and de fensive military works and operations by land and by sea, public water-supplies, sewerage and drainage, and the disposal of wastes in general, tire the provision of light, beat, and power, with an almost endless variety of other undertakings, fall within the work of the engi neer. In nearly all fields of modern industry and throughout the whole range of rapidly increasing municipal activities the engineer is indispensable where the aim is to secure maximum returns for minimum expenditure, the nicest adaptation of means to ends, the most careful provision for human comfort. and convenience, life, and health. In economies and finance the engineer plays one of the most important parts among the many actors. It is only necessary to consider the lim ited way in which the forces of nature were util ized by man before the development of the steam engine, the modern water-wheel, and the electrical transmission of power. It has been pointed out that with one man to mine coal and another to feed it to a boiler and run an engine, as much work may be done by steam-power as 1300 men could do by hand, while if immense, high-duty engines be used, and the coal mined by machinery, fed to the furnaces by automatic stokers, and the ashes also be removed by mechanical power, the multiplication of available energy would be much greater, even after allowing for the capital and labor required to build the power plant.
Historically, engineering is divided into two branches, military and civil. The development of mechanical power gave rise to the term mechani cal engineer, and with the advent of applied elec tricity theelectrical engineer was found necessary. Speeialization has been becoming more common, until now we have mining, railway, bridge, water works or hydraulic., and many other classes of en ginee•s. engineers have also been divid ed into army and navy engineers, while officers of either class having to do with the design and con struction of firearms and cannon are often called ordnance engineers. The equipment and opera
' inn of a modern war-ship demands the services of ordnance, inechanieal, and electrical engineers, besides the naval engineer who designs the ship itself, and the metallurgical engineer who has eharge of the production of the armor-plate and all the other steel and iron structural parts of the vessel. 011 shore the army engineer builds roads. water-works, sewers. chn•triv light power stations at forts and camps, thus doing work elassed under civil, mechanical, and elec trical engineering. In the United States Army, eiwincers are employed on river and harbor works, surveys for reservoir sites for irrigation, and other work having little or no direct relation to the military arm of the Government. On the other hand, !warty all classes of engineers in civil life enter the (tovernment service under army or navy engineers, but without receiving military commissions or titles unless engaged in actual ',var. Thus it appears that the historic use of the terms 'civil' and •military'engineer is rapidly dis appearing. Curiously enough, with the enlarge ment of the field of the traditional civil engineer there has been a strong tendency to narrow what falls within that title from an inclusion of every thing not military to what remains after flue new specialties are placed in classes by themselves. As opposed to this tendency sonic go so far as to class all engineering as either civil or mechanical, the first having to do with fixed structures and the latter with those that move, either as a whole or in sonic of their parts. Thus the railway track would come within civil, but the locomo tives and cars within mechanical engineering. Another tendency is to group engineers in accord amp with the industrial or governmental works with which they are connected, regardless of the specialties involved. This has already been noted in mentioning army and navy engineers, to which examples may be added municipal engineers, the number and professional standing of which are increasing with the development of municipal life and ideals. Industrial engineers are engaged in various large manufacturing establishments re quiring mechanical, electrical, chemical, or civil engineering service. Sanitary engineering also has assumed individual prominence, including matters of pure water-supply. the disposal of wastes, and other engineering for the protection of the public health. Still other divisions of engineering, such as designing, constructing, and consulting practice, may be made, to which may be added engineering superintendence of works in operation, and a large and growing amount of expert evidence in connection with litigation, ar bitrations. and appraisals. The consulting engi neering specialist is achieving a well-merited prominence among professional men.