Engineering Wonders of the World
Volume I

GENERAL INTRODUCTION. By the Editor. SEVERAL years ago there was staged in London a play which taught the lesson that the man of science, the engineer, the inventor, and the mechanic are classed far too low in the social scale of civilized society ; that when human beings are over- taken by circumstances which compel them to fight Nature for a bare subsistence, the man who can devise and make things comes inevitably to the front. The amenities of modern life are so largely dependent on what the engineer has done for us, that we have some difficulty in appreciating the extent of our indebtedness. Furthermore, the high specialization of professions and callings tends to shut the individual off from a knowledge of the doings of men engaged on Work different in nature from his own. To say that the engineer has benefited mankind more signally than has any other class is hardly to overstate the case. His roads and railways and ships have established easy communication between districts and countries, with all the accruing advantages of a universal commerce. He brings fertilizing water into desert places, and thereby increases the means of human subsistence. His machinery sows and reaps the crops, prepares the grain, and conveys it quickly to the distant market. He is constantly pushing railway tentacles into savage regions and opening them up for civilization ; and his