Marine Engineering Collection

Abstract

H.M. STATIONERY OFJTCE has recently published a new descriptive catalogue (price 2s. 6d. net) of the Marine Engineering Collection in the Science Museum. Nowhere else is to be seen anything like so large and representative a collection of marine engineering models, drawings, photographs, etc., as that at the Science Museum; and a close study of this catalogue and the companion volume on history and development, will repay anyone with an interest in the subject. Nearly 400 exhibits are described clearly and accurately, and there are 15 plates. Among the illustrations are photographs of the engine built by David Napier in 1811 for Henry Bell's Comet and of one set of the main steam turbines of the Queen Mary, Both these vessels were built and engined on the Clyde, but some of the most beautiful models in the collection are those of engines built on the banks of the Thames when the names of Penn, Seaward, Maudslay and Field were as widely known as those of the marine engineers of the Clyde and the Tyne are to-day. In connexion with this it is perhaps permissible again to recall the debt of marine engineers to Bennet Woodcroft, who by securing the early engine built by Symington, and that of the Comel, laid the foundation of the fine series of exhibits described in this catalogue of marine engines.