Excerpt from Useful Information for Engineers: Containing Experimental Researches on the Collapse of Boiler Flues and the Strength of Materials, and Lectures on Popular Education and Various Subjects Connected With Mechanical Engineering, Iron Shipbuilding, the Properties of Steam, Etc The Lectures on Iron Shipbuilding are on a question of such deep importance that I make no apology for their introduction into this series. When it is known that the most disastrous and fatal consequences have followed from the construction of vessels on erroneous principles, and that thousands of lives are at the mercy of our naval engineers and architects, assuredly it is essential to the in terests of humanity that defects and errors of construction should be pointed out and sounder principles applied. If we examine closely into the state of iron shipbuilding, it will be found that numbers of vessels are built and are now afloat which are perfectly unseaworthy, that our knowledge of first principles is far from perfect, and that a remedy should be immediately applied to avert the calamitous and fatal shipwrecks which so frequently fill the columns of the public prints. 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.