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The focus of this series is engineering, broadly construed. It covers technological innovation from a range of periods and cultures, but centres on the technological achievements of the industrial era in the West, particularly in the nineteenth century, as understood by their contemporaries. Infrastructure is one major focus, covering the building of railways and canals, bridges and tunnels, land drainage, the laying of submarine cables, and the construction of docks and lighthouses. Other key topics include developments in industrial and manufacturing fields such as mining technology, the production of iron and steel, the use of steam power and chemical processes such as photography and textile dyes.

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151 results in Cambridge Library Collection - Technology

Page 7 of 8

Electrical Papers
  • Volume 1
  • Oliver Heaviside
  • Published online:
    07 October 2011
    Print publication:
    16 June 2011
    First published in:
    1892
  • A self-taught authority on electromagnetic theory, telegraphy and telephony, Oliver Heaviside (1850–1925) dedicated his adult life to the improvement of electrical technologies. Inspired by James Clerk Maxwell's field theory, he spent the 1880s presenting his ideas as a regular contributor to the weekly journal, The Electrician. The publication of Electrical Papers, a year after his election to the Royal Society in 1891, established his fame beyond the scientific community. An eccentric figure with an impish sense of humour, Heaviside's accessible style enabled him to educate an entire generation in the importance and application of electricity. In so doing he helped to establish that very British phenomenon, the garden-shed inventor. Illustrated with practical examples, the subjects covered in Volume 1 include voltaic constants, duplex telegraphy, microphones and electromagnets.

Hunt's Hand-Book to the Official Catalogues of the Great Exhibition
  • An Explanatory Guide to the Natural Productions and Manufactures of the Great Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations, 1851
  • Volume 2
  • Edited by Robert Hunt
  • Published online:
    07 October 2011
    Print publication:
    19 May 2011
    First published in:
    1851
  • A renowned chemist, photographer and scholar, Robert Hunt was a passionate advocate of popular education and the ideal choice to write an accessible but informative handbook to the Great Exhibition of 1851. Published while the event was still welcoming visitors in Hyde Park, Hunt's Hand-Book is an encyclopaedia of Victorian material science, chemistry, engineering and design. Aided by small sectional plans of the building and tables of classification, in Volume 2 readers continue their vicarious journey through the Crystal Palace, while receiving clear and lucid lessons on the physics, mechanics and chemistry that enable such innovations as the hydro-pneumatic elevator and the railway system. Including exhibits as varied as enamelled glassware, woven flax, upholstery, diamonds and cement, Hunt's work constitutes one of the most valuable sources available on an age defined by innovation, industry and empire.

Hunt's Hand-Book to the Official Catalogues of the Great Exhibition
  • An Explanatory Guide to the Natural Productions and Manufactures of the Great Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations, 1851
  • Volume 1
  • Edited by Robert Hunt
  • Published online:
    07 October 2011
    Print publication:
    19 May 2011
    First published in:
    1851
  • A renowned chemist, photographer and scholar, Robert Hunt was a passionate advocate of popular education and the ideal choice to author an accessible and informative handbook to the greatest educational event of the nineteenth century. Published in 1851, while the Great Exhibition was still welcoming visitors in Hyde Park, Hunt's Hand-Book is an encyclopaedia of Victorian material science, chemistry, engineering and design. While an array of catalogues, pamphlets and guides told the story of the exhibition's conception and construction, Hunt reserved his pages for a detailed and comprehensive account of the exhibits themselves. Consequently, this two-volume work quickly established itself as the authoritative guide to the exhibits, their manner of manufacture and practical application in the modern world. Aided by a series of meticulous plans, Volume 1 leads readers through the celebrated Medieval Court and spectacular and varied displays of agricultural produce, weaponry, and porcelain.

Mine Drainage
  • Being a Complete and Practical Treatise on Direct-Acting Underground Steam Pumping Machinery
  • Stephen Michell
  • Published online:
    07 October 2011
    Print publication:
    19 May 2011
    First published in:
    1881
  • Stephen Michell's 1881 work covers the full range of engines and steam-pumps available for draining mines in the nineteenth century. An expert on contemporary mining technology, Michell co-authored the essays 'The Best Mining Machinery' and 'The Cornish System of Mine Drainage' prior to writing this comprehensive survey. Mine Drainage represents the first attempt to gather in one book information previously located in various journals (and therefore difficult to find), and documentation about engines by their (possibly biased) manufacturers. The book also contains almost 140 illustrations of the diverse pumps and engines discussed. After a short introduction, the material is organised into two main sections, focusing on horizontal and vertical engines. Within those categories it discusses rotary and non-rotary engines, and simple and compound steam-pumps. The book will interest historians of technology, science, engineering, and mining in the Victorian period.

Memoirs of Richard Lovell Edgeworth, Esq
  • Begun by Himself and Concluded by his Daughter, Maria Edgeworth
  • Volume 1
  • Richard Lovell Edgeworth, Maria Edgeworth
  • Published online:
    07 October 2011
    Print publication:
    24 February 2011
    First published in:
    1820
  • Richard Lovell Edgeworth (1744–1817) was a noted Irish educationalist, engineer and inventor. This two-volume autobiography, begun in 1808, was completed by his novelist daughter Maria, and published in 1820. Edgeworth's interest in education is evidenced by his reflections about how his childhood shaped his character and later life. Volume 1, written by Edgeworth himself and covering the period to 1781, reveals that his interest in science began early; he was shown an orrery (a moving model of the solar system) at the age of seven. As a young man, Edgeworth attended university in Dublin and Oxford, studied law, and eloped while still in his teens. He experimented with vehicle design, winning several awards, and was introduced by Erasmus Darwin to the circle of scientists, innovators and industrialists later known as the Lunar Society of Birmingham. In 1781 Sir Joseph Banks sponsored his election to the Royal Society.

Present Day Metallurgical Engineering on the Rand
  • John Yates
  • Published online:
    07 October 2011
    Print publication:
    19 May 2011
    First published in:
    1898
  • The discovery of gold in the Witwatersrand hills and the Transvaal region of South Africa sparked a rush in the late 1880s. Competition between the British and Boer settlers for access and control of this valuable commodity was one of the underlying causes of the second Anglo-Boer war (1899–1902) in which the British eventually won control of the territory. In this work, published in 1898, the mining engineer and Fellow of the Geological Society of London John Yates outlines the state of the booming industry on the eve of war. He discusses the work of key companies and includes technical specifications and illustrations of the equipment used in the new gold mines, such as the shafts, mills and cyanide works. An appendix by his fellow engineer Hennen Jennings addresses the question of government assistance in subsidising the huge start-up costs of these mining projects.

The Life of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Civil Engineer
  • Isambard Brunel
  • Published online:
    07 October 2011
    Print publication:
    03 February 2011
    First published in:
    1870
  • Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806–1859) was one of the outstanding civil engineers of the nineteenth century. He began his professional life while still in his teens, as his father's chief assistant engineer on the Thames Tunnel, and remains famous for projects including the Clifton Suspension Bridge and the SS Great Eastern. This study by his elder son, who was assisted in technical details by his engineer brother and by colleagues of their father, was published in 1870. The opening and closing chapters discuss Brunel's childhood and his private life, but the main body of the book presents Brunel's work thematically, with sections on bridges, railways, steamships, and dock and pier works. In all these areas Brunel was an innovator, pioneering the use of new materials and revolutionising early Victorian transport networks. The book also includes reports to the directors of the Great Western Railway and Great Western Steamship Company.

History of the Iron, Steel, Tinplate and Other Trades of Wales
  • Charles Wilkins
  • Published online:
    07 October 2011
    Print publication:
    20 January 2011
    First published in:
    1903
  • Charles Wilkins (1831–1913) was a Welsh postmaster and librarian who had a deep interest in local and regional history, especially of the town of Merthyr Tydfil where he lived. He wrote prolifically for many of the local newspapers, and produced histories of the town, Welsh literature, and the region's coal trade before tackling this work, published in 1903, which examines the rise of the iron and steel industries across the region, and gives a lively account of the notable families who were behind this industrial expansion from the eighteenth century onwards. Wales was a hub of steel, iron and tin production, which became much in demand during the Industrial Revolution. Wilkins also considers the workers' lives, devoting space to the riots of 1831, and paints a broad social and economic portrait of Wales at a time of great transition.

History of the Manufacture of Iron in All Ages
  • And Particularly in the United States from Colonial Time to 1891
  • James Moore Swank
  • Published online:
    07 October 2011
    Print publication:
    19 May 2011
    First published in:
    1892
  • James Moore Swank (1832–1914) was a US expert on iron and steel, and wrote widely about the industry. In 1873 he became secretary of the American Iron and Steel Association. This second edition (1892) of his influential book on iron manufacture was significantly expanded compared to the 1884 original, with 132 more pages, 15 extra chapters, and revisions throughout the text. Swank aimed to move away from the highly technical approach and European focus that had dominated previous works. Instead, he would emphasise names, dates, facts and results, and give special attention to the growth of the industry in the United States while providing an international context. He includes every country and US state that produced iron. The book is organised chronologically, and provides a fascinating account of the manufacture of iron from the ancient Egyptian period through early modern Britain to late nineteenth-century America.

Lighthouse Construction and Illumination
  • Thomas Stevenson
  • Published online:
    07 October 2011
    Print publication:
    09 December 2010
    First published in:
    1881
  • Thomas Stevenson (1818–1887) was the son of the engineer Robert Stevenson, and father of the writer Robert Louis Stevenson. Like his brothers David and Alan, he became a lighthouse designer, being responsible for over thirty examples around Scotland. Throughout his career he was interested in the theory as well as the practice of his profession, and published over sixty articles on engineering and meteorology. He was an international expert on lighthouses, and advised on projects in India, China, Japan, New Zealand and Canada. Lighthouse Construction and Illumination, published in 1881, was an expanded version of his Lighthouse Illumination of 1859, and remained a standard text. Many of his improvements in illumination came into universal use. According to his son, as a result of Thomas' work 'the great sea lights in every quarter of the world now shine more brightly'.

The Industrial Resources of Ireland
  • Robert Kane
  • Published online:
    07 October 2011
    Print publication:
    17 February 2011
    First published in:
    1845
  • Sir Robert Kane (1809–1890) was a noted Irish chemist, becoming a professor at the age of twenty-two. His work on compounds of ammonia were considered internationally important. His 1,200-page textbook, Elements of Chemistry (1841) was considered 'the best extant in the English language' and was widely used in England and America. The Industrial Resources of Ireland, published in 1844 and reissued in 1845, had originated in a series of lectures to the Royal Dublin Society, and contains a mass of factual detail on the energy, mineral, agricultural, capital and labour resources of the country. Kane believed that Ireland did not lack natural resources so much as the knowledge of how to exploit them, and technical education was necessary. The book outlines an ambitious plan to harness the raw materials which Ireland possessed, or was believed to possess. However, the outbreak of the Famine overtook his schemes.

A Handbook of Wireless Telegraphy
  • Its Theory and Practice, for the Use of Electrical Engineers, Students, and Operators
  • James Erskine-Murray
  • Published online:
    07 October 2011
    Print publication:
    19 May 2011
    First published in:
    1907
  • James Erskine-Murray (1868–1927) was a Scots expert in wireless technology who studied under Lord Kelvin for six years at Glasgow University before arriving at Trinity College, Cambridge as a research student. He eventually became a telegraphy consultant and published this work in 1907. Its aim was to inform engineers, students, and radio operators about many aspects of a rapidly changing technology. The book covers recent developments of the time, and a whole chapter is dedicated to the issue of transmission. Erskine-Murray also provided a chapter of tables containing data which he calculated himself and which had not appeared in print before. The work stands as a classic in the field of early engineering texts, and offers contemporary students and radio enthusiasts a useful guide to early wireless technology.

The Manufacture of Iron
  • In all its Various Branches
  • Frederick Overman
  • Published online:
    07 October 2011
    Print publication:
    19 May 2011
    First published in:
    1850
  • Frederick Overman (1810–1852) was a German-born engineer who emigrated to Pennsylvania in the United States and worked in the booming field of iron manufacturing. He wrote that his book, first published in Philadelphia and then in London in 1850, was designed to be of 'practical utility' to engineers working in the industry. It includes 150 woodcuts to illustrate fully the many different aspects of making iron. Overman covers every part of the process, from the mining of iron ore to the variety of forges that were used, and also includes a chapter about the related steel industry. Today this historic engineering text sheds light on nineteenth-century industrial processes on both sides of the Atlantic during the height of Victorian innovation, making it essential reading for scholars, students, and enthusiasts of this period.

Memoirs of Richard Lovell Edgeworth, Esq
  • Begun by Himself and Concluded by his Daughter, Maria Edgeworth
  • Volume 2
  • Richard Lovell Edgeworth, Maria Edgeworth
  • Published online:
    07 September 2011
    Print publication:
    24 February 2011
    First published in:
    1820
  • Richard Lovell Edgeworth (1744–1817) was a noted Irish educationalist, engineer and inventor. This two-volume autobiography, begun in 1808, was published in 1820. Edgeworth had abandoned the project in 1809, having covered the period to 1781, and it was completed after his death by his eldest daughter, a successful novelist. Maria Edgeworth and her father had co-authored educational works, and the experience of helping her father run their estate during her teens had provided material for her novels. Volume 2 of these memoirs was wholly written by her, though it contains excerpts from Richard's correspondence. It recounts how, after his third marriage, the growing family returned to Ireland, and focused first on domestic and educational concerns. Richard became involved in Irish politics and the newly founded Royal Irish Academy but continued to publish essays on scientific and mechanical topics, as well as influential (though controversial) works on education.

Electromagnetic Theory
  • Volume 2
  • Oliver Heaviside
  • Published online:
    07 September 2011
    Print publication:
    02 June 2011
    First published in:
    1899
  • Oliver Heaviside FRS (1850–1925) was a scientific maverick and a gifted self-taught electrical engineer, physicist and mathematician. He patented the co-axial cable, pioneered the use of complex numbers for circuit analysis, and reworked Maxwell's field equations into the more concise format we use today. In 1891 the Royal Society made him a Fellow for his mathematical descriptions of electromagnetic phenomena. Along with Arthur Kennelly, he also predicted the existence of the ionosphere. Often dismissed by his contemporaries, his work achieved wider recognition when he received the inaugural Faraday Medal in 1922. Published in 1899, the second of three volumes of Heaviside's collected work argues that physical problems (such as the age of the Earth) drive mathematical ideas, and then goes on to compare the propagation of electromagnetic waves with physical analogues.

Recollections of Forty Years
  • Volume 1
  • Ferdinand de Lesseps
  • Translated by C. B. Pitman
  • Published online:
    07 September 2011
    Print publication:
    10 March 2011
    First published in:
    1887
  • The French diplomat and engineer Ferdinand de Lesseps (1805–1894) was instrumental in the successful completion of the Suez Canal, which reduced by 3000 miles the distance by sea between Bombay and London. This two-volume memoir, written towards the end of his life and dedicated to his children, was published in this English translation in 1887. In it, de Lesseps describes his experiences in Europe and North Africa. He includes reflections on European and colonial history and politics, a chapter on steam power, and a report on the 1879 Paris conference that led to a controversial and abortive early attempt to build the Panama Canal. Volume 1 focuses on de Lesseps' diplomatic missions to Rome and Madrid in the late 1840s during a period of political and social unrest in Italy, Spain and France, and the early stages of the Suez canal project.

The Chemistry of Light and Photography in their Application to Art, Science, and Industry
  • Hermann Vogel
  • Published online:
    07 September 2011
    Print publication:
    19 May 2011
    First published in:
    1883
  • First published in 1875, this book describes the history and science of photography, with an emphasis on the practical processes involved and their relation to the physical and chemical properties of light. Hermann Vogel (1834–1898), who pioneered the technology for colour photography, was Professor of Photography at the Royal Industrial Academy of Berlin. Here he explains the science of photography simply and concisely for a popular readership. The book has 100 illustrations, including both woodcuts and 'specimens of the latest discoveries in photography', intended to demonstrate the value of the technology to society. It traces the history of photography from its beginnings in experiments conducted by Davy and Wedgwood and the invention of the Daguerreotype to the most recent developments of Vogel's day. It was regarded as the most comprehensive guide to photography then available, and ran to several editions. This reissue is of the fourth edition of 1883.

Electromagnetic Theory
  • Volume 1
  • Oliver Heaviside
  • Published online:
    07 September 2011
    Print publication:
    02 June 2011
    First published in:
    1893
  • Oliver Heaviside FRS (1850–1925) was a scientific maverick and a gifted self-taught electrical engineer, physicist and mathematician. He patented the co-axial cable, pioneered the use of complex numbers for circuit analysis, and reworked Maxwell's field equations into a more concise format. In 1891 the Royal Society made him a Fellow for his mathematical descriptions of electromagnetic phenomena. Along with Arthur Kennelly, he also predicted the existence of the ionosphere. Often dismissed by his contemporaries, his work achieved wider recognition when he received the inaugural Faraday Medal in 1922. Published 1893 this is the first of three volumes that bring together Heaviside's contributions to electromagnetic theory. It introduces the subject at length, and features his first description of vector analysis and the reworking of Maxwell's field equations into the form we know today.

Correspondence of Josiah Wedgwood
  • Volume 1, Letters of Josiah Wedgwood 1762 to 1772
  • Josiah Wedgwood
  • Edited by Katherine Eufemia Farrer
  • Published online:
    07 September 2011
    Print publication:
    20 January 2011
    First published in:
    1903
  • Josiah Wedgwood (1730–1795) was a master potter who pioneered the industrialisation of pottery manufacture during the early Industrial Revolution. His experimental work on ceramics resulted in many innovations in the production and decoration of pottery. This three-volume work, edited by his great-granddaughter Katherine Eufemia Farrer and first published between 1903 and 1906, contains Wedgwood's letters to his business partner, the Liverpool merchant Thomas Bentley (1730–1780). Wedgwood's highly successful partnership with Bentley is credited with the expansion and development of Wedgwood's reputation across Europe. The letters cover the years 1762 to 1794 and provide a lively account both of the growth of the business partnership and of Wedgwood's domestic life. Wedgwood and Bentley also maintained a keen interest in current affairs, and these volumes provide a fascinating glimpse into the society and domestic life of the late eighteenth century. Volume 1 covers 1762–1772.

Recollections of Forty Years
  • Volume 2
  • Ferdinand de Lesseps
  • Translated by C. B. Pitman
  • Published online:
    07 September 2011
    Print publication:
    10 March 2011
    First published in:
    1887
  • The French diplomat and engineer Ferdinand de Lesseps (1805–1894) was instrumental in the successful completion of the Suez Canal, which reduced by 3000 miles the distance by sea between Bombay and London. This two-volume memoir, written towards the end of his life and dedicated to his children, was published in this English translation in 1887. In it, de Lesseps describes his experiences in Europe and North Africa. He includes reflections on European and colonial history and politics, an essay on steam power, and a report on the 1879 Paris conference that led to a controversial and abortive early attempt by a French company to build the Panama Canal. Volume 2 focuses on the Suez project, quoting extensively from de Lesseps' correspondence, and also contains facts and figures relating to the 'interoceanic canal', political essays, and the speeches for his inauguration into the Académie française.

Page 7 of 8