The average speed, both with one and three cars, was 30 kilometers per
hour.--_Zeitsch. f. Elektrotechnik_.

* * * * *




INSTRUCTION IN MECHANICAL ENGINEERING.

By Professor R. H. THURSTON.


The writer has often been asked by correspondents interested in
the matter of technical and trade education to outline a course of
instruction in mechanical engineering, such as would represent his
idea of a tolerably complete system of preparation for entrance into
practice. The synopsis given at the end of this article was prepared
in the spring of 1871, when the writer was on duty at the U.S. Naval
Academy, as Assistant Professor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy,
and, being printed, was submitted to nearly all of the then leading
mechanical engineers of the United States, for criticism, and with a
request that they would suggest such alterations and improvements as
might seem to them best. The result was general approval of the course,
substantially as here written. This outline was soon after proposed as a
basis for the course of instruction adopted at the Stevens Institute of
Technology, at Hoboken, to which institution the writer was at about
that time called. He takes pleasure in accepting a suggestion that its
publication in the SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN would be of some advantage to
many who are interested in the subject.