The Savannah morning news., 1901-08-05
Engineers Born, Not Made.
From the New Orleans Times-Demo-


From the New Orleans Times-Demo-
crat.
civil engineers are born, not made"
declared a prominent builder and con-
tractor of this city. II don't under
value technical training, mind you. but
it's a curious fact that some of the
greatest men in the profession have
never had a particle of it'll mean in
regular way in the schools. They seem
to have unconsciously absorbed what
they needed on the field, and the some
thing or other born in them did the
rest. Take Schwab, the young iron
wonderful feature of his career was
the way he jumped from stake driver
in a gang of laborers to chief engineer
of the biggest steel works in the coun-
try. He had no opportunity for school
ing in the interval-the fact is simply
that he was a natural born engineer,
and, pegging away there on the
grounds, where great works were in
progress under capable men, his active
brain soaked up this thing and that,
until finally he burst out of his shell,
a full fiedged professional. / have seen
the same thing quite a number of
times myself, on a smaller SCALE" con-
tinued the contractor. Some years
ago, to give you an example that oc-
ours to me offhand, a builder in Texas
undertook to erect a sectional iron
bridge over a waterway of moderate
width, near an important town. He
was awarded the job as lowest bidder,
and it was decidedly out of his line,
but it seemed simple enough, and he
got along all right until 1t came to
putting in the second span. Then trou-
BILE began. 1t seems he had miscalcu-
lated the strains and thrusts, the Sec
lions wouldn't fit in their proper places,
and the completed portion commenced
to slowly topple over. At that criti-
cal juncture a young country school
teacher--a dreamy sort of chap-volun-
teered to take hold and straighten
things out. He had had no expert
ence whatever as an engineer, but the
poor builder was desperate, and, be-
ing impressed by his quiet air of con-
fidence, told him to go ahead. The
teacher walked around the structure
did a little figuring and gave his or
ders TO the construction gang. He
put in a new set of false work. as
we call the temporary supports, which
was built on an entirely novel plan,
and in a few days had the bridge In
place.
"The only way such a feat can be
explained is by saying that he was
natural engineer. He knew instinc-
lively how the general lines of strain
should lie, just as an expert billiardist
seems to know instinctlvely where to
touch a ball to make it take carroms
that couldn't be figured out mathemat-
ically in an hour. That sort of thing
and certain fertility of resource are
the qualities that make great engin-
GERS. What do / mean by fertility of
resource? Well. I'll answer that by
one more little story and I'm done.
They were driving piles up the river
in quicksand on one occasion, and
couldn't make 'em go in beyond a
limited depth. The timbers kept
bounding back as If they were pound
ing rubber. Finally the superintend-
emit, quiet chap, told a workman to
run hose down the side of the pile
and turn on the water while they ham
mered. The stream kept the point
clear Of the elastic sand. and 1t went
in as smooth as grease. Now they
always do It that way I'm such SOIL.
That man was another natural engin-
eer.v