Engineering, the business of the engineer, is the art of designing and superintending the execution of works of a constructive character, such as roads, railways, bridges, canals, harbours, docks, works for supplying water to towns, drainage and sewerage works, as also the working of metals and the making of machinery.
The duties of the military engineer are defined in the next article. The civil engineering profession is subdivided into several sections. The railway engineer projects and superintends the execution of railways and all the works in connection with them, such as the alteration of roads and streams, the construction of viaducts, bridges, cuttings, and embankments. The hydraulic engineer plans and superintends the works connected with the supply of water to towns, irriga- tion, drainage, the protection of low lands from inundation, and the use of water as a motive-power. The dock and harbour engineer has the management of all works connected with the sea or navigable waters, such as the construction of piers, breakwaters, docks, harbours, and lighthouses.
The mechanical engineer is principally concerned in the manufacture of machinery, the working of metals, the construction of ships, steamers, cannon, and all the various structures in which the metals bear a prominent part. The marine engineer makes parts of ships, and the machinery in ships and boats; or he takes charge of an engine on board ship. Then there are mining engineers, who discover minerals and manage mines; sanitary engineers, who are specially engaged in the drainage of towns; and electric engineers and many other less prominent divisions of the profession. Any one who tends an engine is also called an engineer. In many engineering works the contractor takes a very important part; he executes the works from the designs, and under the direction and superintendence of the civil engineer, and on his ability and good management the success of undertakings very materially depends.
Among the most notable of the engineering works belonging to very remote antiquity are the pyramids of Egypt. The rude stone monuments of the north, as at Stonehenge and Carnac, also testify to some engineering skill. The harbours and temples of ancient Greece are very memorable. The buildings of ancient Rome—its theatres, temples, baths, and aqueducts, its roads, bridges, and drainage-works, vie in extent and magnificence with the most celebrated works of modern times. From that period down to the commencement of the 18th century the most extensive works executed were the canals, embankments, and other hydraulic constructions used by the Dutch for the purposes of inland navigation, and to protect their low lands from the sea; the canals of North Italy; and the cathedrals and fortifications of medieval Europe.
Civil engineering, as a distinct profession, may be said to have originated, in England, about the middle of the 18th century; since that time the improvements in the steam-engine by James Watt, its subsequent application to the railway-system by George Stephenson, and its use in navigation have given a great impulse to commerce and civilisation. Among celebrated engineers are the Stephensons, Rennies, the Brunels, Telford, Smeaton, Eriesson, Eads, Krupp, Fairbairn, Armstrong, Siemens, Besserer, Fowler, and Baker.
The education of engineers should embrace a fair knowledge of pure mathematics, and of the mixed sciences of natural philosophy, such as mechanics, hydrostatics, hydraulics, and optics, as also of drawing and arithmetic. The principal society of engineers in Britain is the Institution of Civil Engineers, established in 1818, 'for facilitating the acquirement of professional knowledge, and for promoting mechanical philosophy.' There are now everywhere colleges and schools in which engineering is a special study.
The more important operations in engineering, and the most famous triumphs of the art, are treated of under such heads as AQUEDUCT, BREAKWATER, BRIDGE, CANAL, DOCK, HARBOUR, LIGHTHOUSE, MECHANICS, MINING, RAILWAYS, ROAD, SHIPBUILDING, STEAM-ENGINE, STRENGTH OF MATERIALS, TRACTION-ENGINES, WATER. For machinery, see also the articles on Printing, Weaving, Spinning, Metallurgy, and the other arts and trades discussed in this work. And see such works as Cresy, Encyclopædia of Engineering (new ed. 1880); Spon's Dictionary of Engineering (1874); Smiles's Lives of the Engineers (1874); Macquorn Rankine, Manual of Civil Engineering (new ed. 1884); Wheeler, Civil Engineering (New York, 1877).
