JOURNAL OF T H E

FRANKLIN INSTITUTE OF THE 8TATE OF PENNSYLVANIA,

FOR T H E

PROMOTION OF THE MECHANIC ARTS.

VoL. LXVIII . OCTOBER, 1874. No. 4.

E D I T O R I A L .

ITEMS AND NOVELTIES, Sir Wi l l iam Fairbairn, F. R. S.--We take the following obit-

uary notice of this celebrated English Engineer from the Journal of tAe ~%ciety of Arts, of which Society he was for thirty years an active member, and at one time Vice-President:

"S i r William Fairbairn died on Tuesday, the 18th day of August last, in his 83d year, at Farnham, Surrey. H e was the son of Mr. Andrew Fairbairn of Smailholm. tie was born at Kelso in RoXburgh- shire in the early part of the year 1789, and received his education as a boy at a small school at Mullochy, in Rosshire. subsequently ac- quiring his professional training at Newcastle-on-Tyne. He settled in Manchester in 1817, in partnership with Mr. Lillie, in conjunction with whom his name rose to become that o[ one of the leading firms among the machine makers of that city. Mr. Fairbairn acted in con- junction with Robert Stephenson in the planning and execution of the celebrated Britannia and Conway Tubular railway bridge across the Menai Straits. In 1850, he published in the Philosophical Transac- tions of the Royal Society his ' Experimental Inquiry into the strength of wrought iron plates and their riveted joints, as applied to ship- building and to vessels exposed to severe strains.' To him also we

VoL. LXVIII.--THxRn SERIza.--No. 4.---OcTo~lz, 1874. 16

222 Hditorial.

owe many useful researches into the ca ttses of the explosions of Steam boilers. He was a Fellow of the R,,yal Society, a corresponding member'of the French Institute, an active or honorary member of almost every Society connected with e~gineering science in this coun- try, and of many philosophical soeietie~ ; and had received medals or other marks of recognition for his servic~es to science from most of the crowned heads of Europe. He was o~,e of Her Majesty's Commis- sioners for the Great Exhibition of 1551, and again took an active part in the organization of the second Great Exhibition in 1862, in the same capacity. He was also a m~mber of the Jury of the Me- chanical Department of the Great Ext,ibition of 1851, and noted as President of the Jury of the oorrespor, ting section of the Exhibition of Industry at Paris in 1855. In 1861, he occupied the position of President of the British Association for the advancement of Science. He was created a Baronet at the recommendation of Mr. Gladstone in 1869. The greater part of Sir William Fairbairn's acknowledged publica- tions appeared in the Philosophical Tran,~aetions of the Royal Society, in the Reports of the British Associati()a, and in the Transactions of the Philosophical Society of Manchester, in which he filled the chair of Dahon. Some of his works, however, were also published separately. Among his chief productions may be soecified treatises on ' Canal :Navigation,' on ' The Strength and other Properties of Hot and Cold Blast Iron,' on ~The Strength of Locomotive Boilers,' on ~ The Strength of Iron at Different Temperatures,' on ' The Effect of Re- peated Melting upon tim Strength of Cast Iron,' on ' The Irons of Great Britain,' on ' The Strength of Iron Plates and Riveted Joints,' on 'The Application of Iron to Building purposes in general,' on ' Useful Information for Engineers,' etc."

Melting of t h , Metal for the 1Vew Metric Standards of the International M~tric Commission at Paris.--At the meeting of the Executive Committee o[" the International Metric Commission in October last, the flasion of the large single ingot of platinum-iridium, weighing 250 kilograms, out of which all the new metric standards w,~re to be constructed, was fixed for the end of the following April, but ~he completion of the operation was de- layed by accidental circumstances until the middle of the following month. As this was the first occasion on which any attempt had ever been made to melt together more than a few kilograms of platinum or of platinum alloyed with iridium, it was necessary to make a great