(1) Mechanical Technology: being a treatise on the Materials and Preparatory Processes of the Mechanical Industries (2) The Theory of Machines

Abstract

THERE is a peculiar fitness in bracketing the two above-mentioned books together, inasmuch as they represent almost entirely opposite views of the training of young engineers. By way of illustrating this it may be remarked that the second volume on inspection shows itself the product of an analytic mind, and deals on mathematical lines with the consideration of dynamical and statical forces and their results; thus this volume is one that would only indirectly appeal to the artisan or assistant works manager, and yet is one that should be thoroughly understood by the designer and chief draughtsman. The first volume is, as its heading suggests, a sound descriptive treatise of the most general processes and methods of dealing with raw materials, such as timber, iron, steel, alloys, etc., in order to fashion them into shapes of direct utility. There are in this volume some valuable tables of data obtained from the testing of materials, but there is no mathematics of any kind save a very elementary expression used on pages 6 and 7 in a paragraph on modulus of elasticity. The volume thus has only an indirect interest for the designer but is intensely interesting to the works manager's department, as it is wholly concerned with the properties of the materials used and the methods by which those materials are treated.

(1) Mechanical Technology: being a treatise on the Materials and Preparatory Processes of the Mechanical Industries.

By Prof. G. F. Charnock. Pp. x + 635. (London: Constable and Co., Ltd., 1915.) Price 7s. 6d. net.

(2) The Theory of Machines.

By R. F. McKay. Pp. viii + 440. (London: Edward Arnold, 1915.) Price 15s. net.