Excerpt from The Theory of Strains in Girders and Similar Structures, Vol. 1 of 2: With Observations on the Application of Theory to Practice and Tables of the Strength and Other Properties of Materials The following pages have been written at various times during such brief intervals of leisure as the author could spare from his professional duties. They are for the most part the result of experience combined with theory; it is therefore hoped that they may supply the student with what has long been a want in Engineering literature, namely, a Handbook on the Theory of Strains and the Strength of Materials, giving practical methods for calculating the strains which occur in girders and similar structures. The theory of transverse strain has indeed been incidentally treated by writers on Mechanical Philosophy; their researches, however, have been confined to strains in plain girders, or to a few brief remarks on the more elementary forms of trussing, which, without further development, are of little practical use, and but too frequently afford a pretext for the ill-concealed contempt which so-called practical men sometimes entertain for theoretic knowledge. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.