The Sun.
London, England, 1860-01-19 00:00:00

INSTITUTION OF CIVIL ENGINEERS,

The following address of Mr. George Parker
Bidder, president of the Institution of Civil Engi-
neers, was delivered, on taking the chair for the
first time after his election, a few evenings .ago :
Gentlemen,—l beg to thank You for the distin-
guished position in which your suffrages have placed
me. Looking back upon the eminent men who have
successively occupied this chair, I cannot but feel
anxious that the high character of our profession and
the efficiency of this institution should not suffer any
abatement during the term of my tenure of office ;
and considering the powers and high professional
position of my predecessors, this anxiety cannot but
be increased ; indeed, it is only in one respect that I
tan hope to place myself on an equality with those
eminent men—that is by zeal for your progress and
the ardent desire I entertain of conducting our dis-
cussions with impartiality and courtesy towards
all who may address you. On this I must act, and.
I am sure you will give me your cordial co-
' operation and assistant. Before entering on the
main objects of my address I cannot but feel that it
would be unbecoming in me not to allude to the re-
cent loss of two of our most eminent brethren—Mr.
Brunel and Mr. Robert Stephenson—although I
am but well aware I can add but little to what has
been already written and spoken here and elsewhere,
and in terms more eloquent than I can command.
With regard to Mr. Brunel, in common with you
all, I ever admired the wonderful resources of his
mind, his extreme ingenuity, his courage in facing
difficulties of every description, and his great tact
and resources in overcoming them, so long as ho re-
tained his physical power. It has frequently been
my lot to be placed in professional conflict with that
gentleman, and I need hardly say that, in common
with every other member of the profession, I found
him a very dangerous and most able adversary ; but
at the same time he was equally high-minded, and
above all mean and pettifogging practices for accom-
plishing his objects ; he was one of those men in
whose' minds private friendship was never inter-
rupted by professional strife; and there never was a
time when, if I needed it, llshould have hesitated to
recur to him for advice, assistance, or sympathy;
whilst in private life I can, from personal knowledge,
attest his sympathy for distress, and his unhesitat-
ing generosity in pecuniary sacrifices to abate it. In
his professional career, it apears to me that full
justice has not been done to the memory of Mr.
Brunel, I allude more especially to his exertions
in accelerating the progress of oceanic steam navi-
gation. The Great Western was a brilliant example
of the correctness of his conceptions in this point.
It must must be conceded that he was the first
clearly and practically to conceive the advantages
to be derived from augmenting the size of steamers,
with a view to increased speed and to the exten-
sion of their voyages. Looking back, therefore, to
the period of the construction of the Great Western
steamer, she must be admitted to have been an ab-
solutely successful experiment, mechanically and
commercially, and the names of Brunel as the engi-
neer, of Patterson as the shipwright, and of Mauds-
lay and Field as the constructors of the engines, can
never be omitted from the records of oceanic steam
navigation. The next stop was the Great Britain ;
and so far as regards the construction of the hull,
the efficiency of that vessel, even to the present day,
bears ample testimony to the skill of the design ;
whilst her having endured a whole:winter's buffet-
ing of the waves in Dundrum Bay testifies to the
strength of her construction and to the powers of
resistance of which iron vessels are susceptible. It
must not be forgotten that it was to this vessel
that the screw propeller was first applied on the
large scale ; and it should be stated that by Mr.
Brunel's exertions in experimenting upon the Archi-
medes, the introduction of that mode of propulsion
was greatly accelerated. The only part of this ex-
periment which was not satisfactory was the per-
formance of the engines, and this may be mainly at-
tributed to the fact that, instead of confiding their
construction to men whose lives had been directed
to perfecting that particular branch of engi-
neering, Mr. Brunel took upon himself the respon-
sibility of designing the machines. It may not be
unbecoming here to remark that genius, however
great, cannot alone supply the results which can
only be attained by a life-long experience in prac-
tical details. It is deeply to be lamented that the
life of our friend was not spared to consummate his
conception of the Great Eastern steamship. This
great experiment has been already partially dis-
cussed in this institution, and there does not ap-
pear to he any reason why she should not be me-
chanically successful; but all who have had ex-
tended experience in our profession are aware that
in all experiments there will arise certain pheno-
mena which no human foresight can anticipate.
Now seeing that the Great Eastern is six or seven
times the bulk of any existing vessel, and seeing
that this of necessity involved the application of
two sets of. engines, two kinds of motive power—
the paddles and the screw-propeller—bearing also
in mind that she was intended to,cncounter head
seas at a speed never hitherto contemplated,
and knowing also the enormous forces which
ordinary vessels have to withstand in head-
ing the waves, however slowly; in heavy wea-
ther, it might reasonably be expected that in many
respects her first trial would be somewhat disap-
pointing. I sincerely hope, and lam sure that I
carry your sympathies with me in trusting that
there still remain in this country sufficient skill,
enterprise, and co-operative action, to bring this
great experiment to a real teat, and thus to com-
plete the most fitting memorial to the fame of our
deceased friend. In alluding to Mr. Robert Ste-
phenson I cannot but feel that I am scarcely in a
position to take an impartial review of his career
and of his character. For upwards of a quarter of
a century I have enjoyed his most intimate, and I
may add, his most affectionate friendship. Even
this term is, perhaps, hardly strong enough, for
throughout the whole of this period his conduct to-
wards me was that of an elder and affectionate
brother—he has encouraged me in all he thought
right, and has not failed to criticise all lie
deemed wrong, and had the necessity arisen he would
have applied his whole fortune, to his last sixpence,
for Icy benefit. I have said that our friendship
has endured for upwards of 25 years, but our ac-
quaintance extend.: over a much longer period, as
we were in the same class and on the same benches
at the University of Edinburgh. Probably no mem-
ber of our profeesion, either past or present, ever
availed himself more earnestly of varied opportu-
nities of acquiring professional accomplishment than
did Mr. Stephenson ; his early youth passed with
his father at Killingworth Colliery, his early man-
hood at Edinburgh,
his engagements in the mines
of South America, and on his return to England his
occupations in perfecting the locomotive, and in ma-
naging
tileearlythelvorks at
railways,
nd added Newcastle,
his with
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