The Internal Combustion Engine

First delivered in the Town Hall, Newcastle-on-Tyne, on September 4th, 1916, at the Meeting of the British Association.

THE CHAIRMAN said he had been called on to perform the pleasant duty of presiding at the meeting that afternoon, when the paper was read by the Chairman of Council, his old friend, Dr. Dugald Clerk. The subject of his paper was one which had occupied a great deal of his personal attention for many years, and with which his name was closely, and would ever be, associated. It was almost thirty-six years ago that he first had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Dugald Clerk under kindred and stimulating circumstances. He found him in his workshop at Glasgow, hard at work with his coat off and his hands were greasy and black, as an inventor's should be. He was working assiduously at his new gas engine, and he had explained to him (Sir Charles) its construction, its ingenious platinum ignition apparatus, and its two - cycle system of operation — a system now universally called the Clerk cycle—on which system many thousands of engines were now at work all over the world on land and at sea. The internal-combustion engine today ranked among the most important prime movers, and it was also the most economical in the conversion of the energy in oil or gas into mechanical work. Upon it depended all aircraft and nearly all submarines, and motor transport of all descriptions. Indeed for small and moderate powers its use was almost universal. It had become an ever-present part of our modern life, and was exercising on the community at large an educational influence in mechanics and engineering far greater than we were accustomed to suppose. It was a very important subject and one of which Dr. Clerk was a master. He took the opportunity of saying that in the near future Dr. Clerk would be assuming a very important Government position in connection with certain developments in this country. More than that he would not say then.

The paper read was—

THE INTERNAL-COMBUSTION ENGINE

By Dugald Creek, D.Sc., F.R.S., M.Inst.C.E.

Motive power is of fundamental importance to industrial civilisation : without steam, internal combustion, and hydraulic power it would be impossible to support at all the forty - six millions of people now living in fair comfort on our small islands of Great Britain and Ireland. The labour of the scientific man, the engineer and the business man, in the long run, renders possible the very existence of this large and dense population. The important part taken by us in the origin and development of steam motive-power is well known, and it is generally recognised that Britain stands supreme in all that relates to steam engines from the time of the condensing engine of James Watt to the steam turbines of the Hon. Sir Charles Parsons. All the intermediate stages—aexpansion, high pressures, compounding, tripling, and super-heating—originated in these islands. The application to pumping, mill-driving, marine navigation, and locomotive engineering began and developed here. Although the credit of steam invention is conceded to us, many of our general public and some of our engineers seem unaware of the leading part taken by England in that great field of invention covered by internal-combustion engines; they imagine that in this subject we are wholly indebted to Germany, and that the work of invention here is small compared to that of the (Continent. This impression has arisen because of the indefatigable propaganda of scientific engineering Germany and the distinct bias to German methods shown by some of our prominent men. We are freely given to self-criticism, and no doubt in time of peace this characteristic is quite beneficial and useful in maintaining the desire to improve ; but in times of war and change it is as harmful to underrate our own strength and achievements as it is to underrate the power of our enemies.

In the development of internal-combustion engines we have borne our full share of pioneer work. It is true that effort both in the past and present is more uniformly distributed among the nations in this field than in steam, but we hold our own in the competition towards more perfect thermodynamic methods and machines.

A very short review of the past will convince

you that much has been done by England to

develop engines fit for the great modern uses of

stationary power production, land and water

locomotion, and last, light and powerful engines

for flight. The subject is one to which I have

devoted much attention for the past forty years,

during which these engines have developed from

mere toys of one-half to three horse-power to

engines of the thousands of horse-power of

to-day. During that time there have been