"Museum of Engineering"

In name and membership the National Museum of Engineering and Industry, Inc., already exists. But it has no home. Its sponsors now propose to erect one on the grounds of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. Its present headquarters are in the Engineering Societies Building, Manhattan.

Here would dwell the models of inventions, once revolutionary, now antiquated. Here the First Cause of street cars, steamboats, telephones could be seen. "In this way the U. S. will be given the kind of institution which all the great European nations have possessed for years."

In the American plan, however, a departure is proposed, made necessary by the vastness of the territory. In addition to the central collection at Washington, special collections--such as replicas of historical exhibits--will be sent about for public view. Also "live machinery" of various modern processes will be placed in affiliated museums in the industrial centres of every State.

A number of very old models and records have already been collected.

Dr. Elfhu Thomson is President of the new organization.

It was he who received this year the Kelvin Gold Medal from) the Royal Society, at the Kelvin Centenary in London, "in recognition of his preeminence in those branches of engineering with which Baron Kelvin's* scientific work and researches were identified."

Dr. Thomson's first important invention dates from 1876--a centrifugal separator for fluids of different density. He achieved the thorough lamination of armature cores, and in 1889 greatly improved electric-lighting apparatus. Other inventions are:

a constant-current regulator for arc light dynamos (he perfected the arc lamp), the induction motor, the art of welding metals by electricity, the magnetic blow-out for switches, lightning erectors of various types, constant current transmitters, a generator which was "one of the first and most effective and ingenious" in early electrical development, a recording watt hour metre. In the field of mechanical engineering he is respon sible for important developments in steam engines, steam turbines and the internal combustion engine.

Remarkable as is Benjamin G. Lamme's record of 150 U. S. electrical patents, Dr. Elihu Thomson has 700.

*Baron William Thomson Kelvin, born in Belfast in 1824, was the most eminent physicist of his time. He published over 300 original papers covering every branch of physical science. He made possible submarine telegraphy, and invented practically all the instruments used by electrical engineers for measurement-.