Upan 
 
- A UNIVERSnYj/miFORNIA 
 J COLLEGE of MINING 
 
 DEPARTMENTAL 
 LIBRARY 
 
 BEQUEST OF 
 
 SAM UELBENED1CTCHRISTY 
 
 PROFESSOR OF 
 MINING AND METALLURGY 
 
 1885-1914 
 
I 
 
 949 BROATWAY N. Y 
 
 Artotyne. E. Bierst,a-lt, N. 7 , 
 
MEMORIAL 
 
 OF 
 
 ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY, C.E. LLD. 
 
 PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF MINING ENGINEERS, VICE- 
 PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF CIVIL ENGINEERS, VICE- 
 PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF MECHANICAL ENGI- 
 NEERS, MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTION OF CIVIL ENGINEERS, 
 AND OF THE IRON AND STEEL INSTITUTE OF GREAT 
 BRITAIN, ETC., ETC. 
 
 BORN JULY 20, 1832. DIED JANUARY 29, 1882. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF MINING ENGINEERS, 
 AT THE OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY, 
 
 13 BURLING SLIP, NEW YORK CITY. 
 1884. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 PREFACE, 5 
 
 I. Funeral Services, 9 
 
 II. Memorial Session of the American Institute of Mining Engineers, . 18 
 
 III. Memorial Session of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, . 56 
 
 IV. Memorial Resolutions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, . 97 
 V. Joint Action of the Three Societies, 98 
 
 VI. Memorial Address before the Three Societies, 99 
 
 VII. Catalogue of the Books, Professional Papers, etc., Written by Alexan- 
 der L. Holley, . . ' 143 
 
 VIII. Action of the Cleveland Civil Engineers' Club, . . . . .151 
 IX. Action of the Trustees of the Kensselaer Polytechnic Institute, . . 157 
 
 X. Action of the Century Association, 159 
 
 XI. Action of the Iron and Steel Institute of Great Britain, . . . 160 
 XII. The Pittsburgh Testimonial, . .162 
 
 XIII. Speech at the De Lesseps Banquet, 167 
 
 XIV. A Metallurgist's Ode to Spring, .169 
 
 XV. The Nomenclature of Iron and Steel, 171 
 
 XVI. The Manufacture of Iron and Steel, 182 
 
 XVII. Technical Education, . 205 
 
 303631 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 THE Chairman of the Memorial Session of the American Institute 
 of Mining Engineers, held at Washington in February, 1882, was 
 charged with the duty of preparing an address, in commemoration 
 
 of the life and life-work of ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY, and the 
 
 I 
 
 Council of the Institute was at the same time requested to take into 
 consideration the publication of a Memorial Volume, to contain the 
 above-mentioned address, the proceedings of that meeting, and such 
 other matters as it might be deemed expedient to include in it. 
 
 In accordance with that request, the Council now issues the 
 present volume, concerning the contents and scope of which a few 
 words may fitly be said in this place. 
 
 It was evidently proper that the proceedings of other societies, as 
 well as our own, in honor of Mr. Holley, should be published in 
 this connection. Upon that head no explanation is needed, beyond 
 the expression of regret that the record is incomplete the action of 
 various societies and the eulogies pronounced by many admirers not 
 having been communicated to the secretary of the Institute. The 
 testimony of the press, technical and non-technical, was overwhelm- 
 ingly abundant ; but, upon due consideration, it was decided that 
 the obituary notices and articles published in American and foreign 
 journals should be omitted, because to publish them would be to 
 occupy many pages with but slightly varied repetitions of the lead- 
 ing facts of Mr. Holley's career. 
 
 It was the general desire of members of the Institute that Mr. 
 Hoi ley's professional papers and addresses, and also, if possible, 
 some or all of his brilliant speeches should be included in the volume. 
 
 With regard to the former, a reference to the catalogue, begin- 
 ning on page 143, will show that their number was so great as to 
 
6 PREFACE. 
 
 preclude all idea of comprehending them in a single book. More- 
 over, most of them were accompanied with plates, which could not 
 well be reproduced or included in a work of the present character. 
 A few papers and addresses, not illustrated with drawings, and adapted 
 to display the versatile ability of their author, have, therefore, been 
 selected; and it is believed that the choice thus made will be 
 generally approved. 
 
 Concerning his humorous and eloquent speeches on special occa- 
 sions, difficulty of another sort has been encountered. It is, per- 
 haps, not just to the memory of any man to make public after his 
 death what he deliberately and intentionally withheld from publi- 
 cation during his lifetime. In this case, the notes for many occa- 
 sional speeches, found among Mr. Holley's papers by his biographer, 
 would give, if published, -no adequate notion of the speeches them- 
 selves. They do not even accurately convey what he said still 
 less, the personal charm of his presence and manner. As the editor 
 of London Engineering has justly said : " We think that American 
 engineers cordially acceded to him the place of orator par excellence 
 of the profession. . . . Holley was both orator and poet in his 
 speech ; his voice was beautiful and under perfect training ; his 
 power of language as remarkable as his readiness at all times to em- 
 ploy it to good and emphatic purpose/' 
 
 It is notoriously impossible to preserve in printed words the power 
 and the effect of such gifts. Some hint of them may be obtained 
 from his speeches, in reception of the Pittsburgh testimonial, and 
 at the De Lesseps banquet, which are given in full in the following 
 pages, and from several extracts contained in the Memorial Address. 
 As an example of his wit and ready command of language, the 
 " Metallurgist's Ode to Spring," read at the Baltimore banquet of 
 the Institute, has been selected. 
 
 To complete the record contained in this book, it is necessary to 
 add a brief statement of the circumstances of Mr. Holley's death, 
 January 29th, 1882. He had already once recovered, in the sum- 
 mer of 1881, from a supposed bilious attack, which was universally 
 expected to prove fatal, and had enjoyed another year of sufficient 
 
PREFACE. 7 
 
 health and strength to permit the resumption of professional work. 
 But his malady (subsequently proved to be an internal tumor, ob- 
 structing the gall-duct, and producing many apparent symptoms of 
 liver-disease) was, in its nature, incurable. Early in the autumn of 
 1881 he was attacked, during a professional journey in Belgium, 
 with what he deemed to be a malarial ague. Unable to throw it off, 
 he went forward, nevertheless, with desperate resolution until he had 
 completed, in England and Scotland, the programme of his work. 
 To his wife and daughters, then travelling in Europe, he made light 
 of his illness, lest they should abandon their tour to rejoin him; and 
 when at last the family was reunited in London, the anxiety of all 
 was concentrated upon the terrible fever which had seized the elder 
 daughter, rather than the slow disease which was gradually stealing 
 upon the father. Relieved at last from the worst pressure of this 
 anxiety, Mr. Holley could give some attention to his own condition, 
 and, soon concluding that in London, at least, he could not get well, 
 he returned to this country, leaving his family to follow, a few weeks 
 later, with the convalescent invalid. Up to the time of their sail- 
 ing from England, he seemed to maintain a cheerful hope of re- 
 covery, and dictated frequent encouraging dispatches to them, rap- 
 idly arranging, at the same time, his business affairs, with, perhaps, 
 unconscious prescience of the end. Five days before his death, the 
 certainty of a fatal termination was recognized by all, and the only 
 question left was, whether he would live to greet once more those 
 who, comforted by his last, cheerful message, were on their way to 
 him across the sea. It was not to be; they reached the house a few 
 moments after he had passed away. 
 
 The portrait of Mr. Holley, which constitutes the frontispiece of 
 this volume, shows him, as all who knew him will delight to remem- 
 ber him, in the healthful vigor of his prime. Strength and beauty, 
 courage and gentleness, enthusiasm and judgment, earnest purpose 
 and happy humor, were blended in his face, as they were, in over- 
 flowing power yet exquisite balance, united in his character and 
 illustrated in his life. 
 
MEMORIAL 
 
 OF 
 
 ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY, 
 
 I. 
 FUNERAL SERVICES. 
 
 FEBRUARY 1, 1882. 
 Private Service held at the House, Brooklyn, N. Y. 
 
 HYMX. " Nearer, my God, to Thee." 
 
 SCRIPTURE. Psalm XXIII. 
 
 REMARKS. By Rev. Joseph Twichell, of Hartford, Conn. 
 
 It is left for me to say a word the last in his own dwelling 1 by 
 the side of the remains of our dear friend ; and since, lacking a few 
 words from me, no words will he spoken, I may be permitted to say 
 that while in my thoughts and in my heart I can compass, so far as 
 ever we can, the theme of this event of his departure from our 
 midst, I feel wholly unable to compass it in words. It seems the 
 strangest thing in the world, the most impossible thing in the world, 
 that he is dead. They seem incredible words, when they are taken 
 upon the lips, that Alexander Holley is dead, and that we shall see 
 him no more in this world. For a good many years, to me, as to 
 many of us here, he stood as the image of vitality, physically, men- 
 tally, and in his affections. He was full of ripe fruit. How active 
 he was ! What a vivacity he had 1 What a spring I What an over- 
 flow of animal spirits ! What a pleasure it was to meet him ! How 
 cordial his greeting was ! He was one of those friends whose coun- 
 tenance made your face to shine. It was a joy to come in contact 
 with him. What a sweet and sudden surprise at meeting he would 
 always testify ! Is it possible that that great pleasure of life for 
 many of us has been tasted for the last time? 1 Shall we never see 
 
10 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 that dancing eye again ? Shall we never again hear with joy that 
 cordial greeting ? I can hardly believe that he lies helpless in the 
 coffin here before us. 
 
 Then, as to his mental activity, we never saw him, in all these 
 many past years, that his mind was not in full movement in full 
 play; that he was not engaged in a tough, sturdy, mental struggle 
 with some matter on hand, or reaching out in plans which were 
 always for the benefit of mankind for selfishness had a very small 
 part in his composition. There was a live, a bright prospectus 
 always within him, which he had a cheerful confidence, and with 
 good ground that he could realize; and how many anticipations of 
 his he did realize! I think he could say, as few men can, to God, 
 who endowed him as few men have been endowed, " I have done 
 what I could." God gave him great powers, extraordinary capaci- 
 ties; He gave him a genius for work ; and throughout all his work- 
 ing years (indeed they, were working years), he put forth those 
 powers to the utmost; and that he did with them the best that could 
 be done, stands to his record. It is a glorious record for any man. 
 Is it possible that all this activity of mind is forever stayed, arrested 
 at its very height and prime, and in its mid-career? I do not believe 
 it for a moment ; it is impossible to believe it. 
 
 Now, as to his life in its affections. Only those (and they are not 
 few) to whom God gave it for a good gift to be in close personal re- 
 lations with him, can know what an ocean of love his heart was out- 
 pouring always outpouring. It was more blessed to give than to 
 receive with him, always. When you met him it was evident that 
 it was he that gave and you that received, liberally. It was perfectly 
 evident that his ruling idea always was to make his meeting with 
 you a pleasure to you as well as to himself. He went through these 
 years of his labor, I believe, with a great interest, in the first place, 
 in the public to which he belonged, and, in the second place, with a 
 deep and tender interest in all those in the private circles to which 
 he belonged, dominant in him ; and God has given him to confer 
 unusual benefit and pleasure upon us. He has been a maker of 
 happiness in this world this beloved man. A great many of us 
 feel that we never can enjoy such a friendship again ; our hearts are 
 in his coffin ; and a large part of our hearts are going into the grave, 
 never again to live in this world. Oh, that God might make all our 
 hearts and our lives as rich as his has been ! 
 
 May God comfort those (He alone can do it) who stand most be- 
 reaved in this desolate time. May the Lord approach them as He 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 11 
 
 knows how. May the Lord draw near to them, and by those im- 
 mortal intimations which He can give, lead them into the region of 
 serene, triumphant rest in Jesus Christ. 
 
 HYMN. " Friend after friend departs." 
 
 PRAYER. By Rev. H. W. Beecher. 
 
 HYMN. "There's a land that is fairer tnan day." 
 
 Public Service held at Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, N. Y. 
 
 PROCESSIONAL ANTHEM. " Fair are these houses, fairer far the 
 dwelling built by the Master." 
 
 HYMN. " Tranquil and peaceful is the path to heaven." 
 
 SCRIPTURE. Psalm XC. 
 
 HYMN. Solo, " O heart, that, sad and weary, dost count thy 
 load too great." 
 
 SCRIPTURE. II. Cor. IV., 12-18; II. Cor. V., 1-8. 
 
 REMARKS. By Rev. H. W. Beecher. 
 
 There has come down to us from the ages the yearning and the 
 sorrowing cry that life is so short; that its scenes are so interrupted ; 
 that its outcome, often, is so small; and especially when life has 
 been abundant in its offerings and blessings, that death, like an un- 
 timely frost, falls upon the garden of our expectations and blights 
 everything. There is a longing in nature itself that the seed should 
 not perish with the blossom, but should sow itself again somewhere 
 in a fairer clime and in a longer summer. Talk as we will in regard 
 to these subjects (and I am not saying that that is true which we 
 want to be true, and that there is a heaven of hope and immortality 
 merely because we long for it ; I am not entrapped in any such 
 thought as that), we must own that this hope, which has sprung up 
 even in the barbaric soul and rudely pictured to itself another life 
 out of the material with which the yet unopened thought of man 
 could best furnish itself, has grown brighter, stronger, deeper, as 
 men have emerged from ignorance and have advanced in civilization. 
 It meets rebuffs, resistance or a calm endurance of unbelief in only 
 here and there a pioneering soul that goes into the realm of the un- 
 certain future, seeking by the analogies of inferior matter to de- 
 termine what shall be the estate of superior matter. And whatever 
 men may say in regard to the organization of the soul, whether it 
 be regarded as an immutable spirit, or whether it be regarded as the 
 most exquisitely organized matter, one thing is certain that if it be 
 spirit, it does not necessarily perish with the body; and if it be 
 
12 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 matter, it does not necessarily perish with the body ; for, as rude 
 and inchoately organized matter is subject to its own laws, as com- 
 pared with the highest forms of organization, so it may be that this 
 asserted last development of matter has laws occult and unknown 
 to us, and is neither to be measured by our measure nor weighed by 
 our scales, but weighed and measured by laws of its own. On either 
 hand, therefore, I do not feel that we are driven into unbelief, or 
 into a hopeless yearning or longing that amounts to unbelief in the 
 continued ongoing of our personal existence organized in this life. 
 
 And why should we wish to doubt it? Why should we, who are 
 faring through this troubled life, so often becalmed or bestormed, 
 so often over-weighted, so continually helpless in the presence of 
 those great movements which are .going on in the visible and in the 
 invisible world, wish to blot out almost the only hope left to wretch- 
 edness, to weakness and to despondency. 
 
 There is not a cradle which empties its contents into the grave, 
 that does not cry out to us to believe that there is something beyond 
 the grave. There is not an anchored love which finds itself driven 
 from its moorings that does not beseech us to believe that there is a 
 haven beyond. There is not one single experience of wasting 
 strength, whether it be by sickness or by age, that does not lament 
 in the thought that we shall have accomplished all that is given us 
 to accomplish, and that we shall have no other chance. Whether 
 we look to superior wisdom, to affection, or to sentiment, they all 
 point alike in the one direction of the beyond, the greater, the 
 nobler in the direction of that sphere where human life, compre- 
 hensively, shall evolve and take on its next and grandest stage. 
 
 But there is another view of this subject which has its standpoint 
 in pride and the better sense of pride. It is an emanation of that 
 royalty which every man feels in himself; for there is not a man 
 worthy of the name who, at some hour, does not know that he is 
 crowned and that he is a king; and by as much as we feel the sweep 
 of intellect, and survey our knowledge, and the power of knowledge ; 
 by as much as we feel heroic impulses and are driven to noble and 
 generous deeds thereby ; by as much as we have those flashes and 
 intimations, obscure though they may be, but of endless power; by 
 so much we refuse to die and to be dead eternally; by so much we 
 demand that there shall be to us something beyond (even in their 
 best estate) those miserable experiences of life which are rebuked 
 day by day by our ideality, and which day by day are put under 
 foot and measured at their true value by our imagination. 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 13 
 
 When, therefore, there comes to us, clear as the unspotted heaven 
 washed after storms, and associated with all that is most venerable 
 and useful, a faith that brings with it all the most noble minds that 
 ever lived on the face of the earth when such a hope hangs over 
 the future, why should we forge missiles to destroy it? Why should 
 we smash the bells that are ringing out this hope, and bearing us on 
 waves of music over the rude difficulties of life, into the blessed 
 conception of another life? 
 
 And where shall we find expressions more simple, more manly, 
 and more sublime, than those that were uttered by the apostle Paul, 
 in these fourth and fifth chapters of the Second Corinthians ? Where 
 is there a thought of death that so rebukes the ineffable weakness of 
 a poor, defrauding materialism? 
 
 Is death, then, the running down of the clock? and is that the 
 end? Is death that which makes a man only the same as an animal 
 or a vegetable a decaying root, a wasted seed that and nothing 
 more? No; the apostle, looking down into the grave, says, "The 
 man is not buried there. Death is buried there. Life is there testi- 
 fied to. Death is swallowed up in life." 
 
 We are united, then, in that grand hope which has been the best 
 legacy of days gone by, inspired by our best feelings when we are 
 in our most noble state, inspired by all the hopes that we have, in- 
 spired by all our pride, and inspired by the faith of immortality. 
 
 As to reasoning, when I require reasoning to make me admire the 
 grandeur of the Transfiguration of Raphael, or of the figures which 
 Michel Angelo painted ; when I call mathematics and logic to 
 teach me that these are sublime and beautiful ; then I will need 
 reasoning to keep my soul from belief in the degrading abomination 
 of annihilation. Nay, I hold with ineffable faith to my very soul 
 the bright vision of a world to come, where the glory of the Lord 
 is revealed, and where we are lifted without hindrance or obstruction 
 into the full sphere and dignity of sons of God. 
 
 We are gathered, this morning, my friends, at this unaccustomed 
 hour, and in this unaccustomed place, not alone to express our pro- 
 found sympathy with a beloved household whose door has been 
 opened from the earthly into the heavenly sphere, but also to speak 
 of one who, as a citizen and as a professional laborer in the great 
 fields of knowledge and of attainment, has done well by the com- 
 monwealth, and by mankind. Without stopping to rank men, as to 
 which is highest or lowest, all men are honorable who keep time to 
 the great march of humanity and of benevolence. Some may be 
 
14 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 leaders, and some may be subalterns. The honor of the lowest is 
 greater than any other honor bestowed upon mankind ; but as they 
 go up and their sphere and privilege of usefulness is widened, so also 
 is our intelligent admiration of them, and so, likewise, is our desire 
 to express, in some worthy way, our esteem for them, and our honor- 
 ing thought of them. 
 
 Our friend who has gone from us, richly endowed, holding in 
 himself the legacy of the past, springing from a parentage that had 
 in it a gathered excellence of the best New England sort (there may 
 be better, but not on this soil), born under propitious influences, with 
 the luminous door of -education thrown wide open, following the 
 bent of his genius, turned aside from one path of scholarship, from 
 classical lore, to that scientific walk which had in it not alone a wide 
 range of intelligence and invention, but also a wide range of in- 
 struction. 
 
 Now, there has come to be a better understanding in our days 
 an understanding that men who build in matter, or distribute it, or 
 change its forms to better uses, are almoners of God's great benevo- 
 lence. If one were so rich that he could give to men a thousand 
 tons of grain, that certainly would be a great gift of benevolence ; 
 but if one should, by his invention, so alter the machinery of agri- 
 culture that the poorest man could earn a thousand tons of grain for 
 himself, that would be a greater benevolence, and a greater gift. If 
 one were to supply all the implements of a refined industry, himself 
 paying the cost, that would certainly be a very noble benefaction; 
 but if one may take hold, as a master-spirit, of all the metals, and 
 command them into forms, and at such rates that they shall become 
 the common property of the whole community, is not that a greater 
 benefaction? He who supplies the lack of men gives a great deal ; 
 but he who teaches men to supply their own lack gives even more. 
 And the whole pursuit of the life of him who has left us and gone 
 singing to a higher bough of the Tree of Life, was a beneficence ; it 
 was an organized bounty. Consciously and unconsciously, he served 
 his day and generation in this field; and with such fruitfulness and 
 such success that it is the testimony of all his compeers and associates 
 that he stood easily among the first. 
 
 But quite aside from this, his spirit, his manliness, his exquisite 
 modesty and diffidence have plucked all the nettles of envy ; and 
 he is crowned with no thorns among the bay leaves, and stands 
 honored because he was beloved by all those who were most intimate 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 15 
 
 with him, and associated with him in the great undertakings which 
 have been so much to this nation and generation. 
 
 He was a man of boundless industry ; a man of fruitful invention ; 
 a successful man in the execution of untried schemes largely de- 
 veloped through him, and through those who -were associated with 
 him, never failing to give them due praise, and only taking the least 
 portion to himself, even if he took any. Such buoyancy, such 
 sweetness of temper, such unaffected modesty, such genuine affection, 
 such generous sincerity, and such a luminous manhood had he, that 
 you who were among the representatives of that great, growing and 
 honored class to which he belonged, desire to express in this public 
 way your estimation of him, and to raise, if not a monument to the 
 outer eye, yet a monument in thoughts, to the man who has gone 
 higher. 
 
 To my thought he stands unspeakably higher, now that he has 
 buried himself as to outward form. All that is mortal is swallowed 
 up of life. He rests, that gave himself no rest. He shines in full, 
 that was inclosed but in a lantern while on earth. He sought and 
 searched, but now he knows. He tried and experimented, but now 
 all things lie open and plain to his easy soul. He looks down from 
 no tombstone ; he looks up from no grave ; but in his Father's home, 
 where many have stood waiting for him to come, I believe in my 
 very soul that he rests from his earthly labors, and looking back, 
 sees that they do follow him that the good he did upon earth is 
 marching on, and that multitudes, unknowing who blessed them, 
 will go to meet him in that heavenly land. 
 
 Is there any greater honor that can be bestowed on a man than 
 to say that he took loyally all the gifts that God gave him, to use 
 them not for himself, but in genuine modesty and simplicity for 
 others? He lived in the atmosphere of benefaction, and was sur- 
 rounded by another atmosphere of respect and of love. 
 
 His end was given to him soon. He was permitted earlier than 
 many of us to fly away and be at rest. Not those that live longest 
 are most fortunate, but those who live best and are soonest dismissed 
 to their higher manhood to the reward of divine glory. 
 
 I do not desire to pass by what perhaps in confidential conversa- 
 tion many of you already know that in that transition state into 
 which the inquiries of science have brought us, where many of the 
 exterior forms of Christian truth hitherto given have been modified, 
 and where some substantial truths are struggling now for -a new 
 
16 MEMORIAL OP 
 
 birth of expression, he did not accept all the views and truths of 
 the fathers. Yet he never scornfully rejected them. He held his 
 spirit in equipoise, waiting for more light not light for rejection, 
 but light by which he could reconcile the old and the new, and 
 bring into unity the revelations of God made in days gone by, and 
 the revelations of God which we are exploring and trying to under- 
 stand and harmonize to-day. 
 
 While in the process of education it may be necessary that we 
 should have catechetical and theological dogmas, one thing stands 
 revealed in the testimony of the Divine Word, that all ordinances, and 
 all technical philosophy, and all instruction, are for the purpose of 
 producing godliness; and if godliness is the result of concurrent 
 external influences as well as of intellectual conviction, the end is 
 gained. Holiness of life and disposition is all that makes any 
 religion good for anything. If you look at the sweetness of his 
 temper; if you look at the spotlessness of his honor; if you look 
 at the whole drift and upward tendency of his life; if you look at 
 the fruits of the Spirit as they are delineated in the word of God, 
 and say, " Did he not possess a larger share of these than is usually 
 seen in those who are professedly religious? Did we not see in him 
 the fruits of Christian thought and Christian faith ?" I think there 
 can be no doubt as to the answer. He is with God. 
 
 Not doubting myself, I speak of him with confidence as. one that 
 could not know any other place but heaven, and could not find a 
 place of darkness which he would not illuminate and make light; 
 and in the large faith that Christ and God are revealed to us not 
 alone by the letter and in the printed book, but in the greater book 
 that existed long before the experience of mankind found it out and 
 registered it in that faith I greet him, and bid him farewell, until 
 the day shall come when we shall. arise to see our Father as He 
 is not as through dim glasses we imagine him to be, but in the 
 fulness and the glory of that which He is. There we shall find 
 our friend, and there we shall rejoice with him. 
 
 HYMN. (Written for the occasion.) 
 
 Weary hands, O weary hands ! 
 Resting now from life's endeavor, 
 From the conflict, from the fever, 
 Lying peaceful where ye fell : 
 O folded hands, farewell, farewell ! 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 17 
 
 Gentle heart, O gentle heart ! 
 Faithful service thou didst render, 
 Beating ever true and tender; 
 On thee lies the silent spell : 
 O loving heart, farewell, farewell ! 
 
 Parted soul, O parted soul ! 
 Passed beyond this earthly portal, 
 Entered through the gate immortal 
 Into life no tongue can tell : 
 O brother-soul, farewell, farewell ! 
 
18 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 II. 
 
 MEMORIAL SESSION OF THE AMERICAN INSTI- 
 TUTE OF MINING ENGINEERS. 
 
 WASHINGTON, February 22d, 1882. 
 
 PRESIDENT WILLIAM METCALF, of Pittsburgh, Pa., called the 
 meeting to order, and spoke as follows r 
 
 When the sad news of the event we to-day commemorate came to 
 me over the wires, my first thought was that at our annual meeting 
 we must have a memorial service. I instantly sat down and wrote 
 to the secretary, suggesting this meeting. By the same mail, Dr. 
 Raymond wrote to the secretary making the same suggestion ; and 
 by the next return mail the secretary wrote to me indorsing the sug- 
 gestion. I feel that, owing to the very intimate connection of Dr. 
 Raymond with the Institute, and the more than intimate relations 
 that existed between him and our departed friend, it is only fitting 
 and due to him that I should retire from the chair, and make this 
 n'ot exactly an Institute meeting, but a Holley memorial meeting in 
 truth and reality, and to call Dr. Raymond to the chair, as the one 
 who properly and fittingly ought to preside, and I have arranged 
 the meeting accordingly. 
 
 Gentlemen of the Institute, we are met to-day to pay the highest 
 honor to our friend that earth can give. We are to lay bare our 
 hearts, open the storehouse of memory, and bring to view, each in 
 his own way, the pictures treasured there, of the rare merits of 
 him who painted them. From the day when, in a little dingy 
 pattern-room of a Pittsburgh foundry, I first met Mr. Holley, till 
 the last day I spent with him in June last, the impression left is one 
 of almost uninterrupted sunshine. Though never his client, I always 
 found him to pour out his knowledge without stint, and if he ever 
 asked anything in return, he did it in such a way that it was felt 
 that a great favor had been granted, only to find later that he had 
 left behind more than he had taken away. He was a charged re- 
 ceiver. His mind was full; and when anything was dropped into 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN IIOLLEY. 19 
 
 it, it spilled always what at the time was of greater value. He was 
 a gatherer and a scatterer. He gathered items and gave whole sys- 
 tems in return. He gathered flowers from every place, but handed 
 to 4 his friends bouquets of knowledge and artistic plants of rare 
 beauty. He gathered for himself a few thousands, and scattered to 
 his clients and friends throughout the world untold millions. He 
 gathered all hearts into his own large heart, which shed its over- 
 flowing love on every one 'he met. He had a rare insight, and saw 
 use and good where others only tried to avoid the dust and smoke 
 which their eyes could not penetrate. Perhaps the noblest phase of 
 his character was shown in his full knowledge and steady use of the 
 greatest force known to man ; the only force authorized by the Saviour 
 of mankind, and left by him to conquer all the world. I mean the 
 enduring, all-powerful, irresistible force of love. Beyond all his 
 science, his wit, or his skill, his love for us is what makes us hold 
 his memory so dear. His winning smile, sunny face and cordial 
 greeting we all remember well ; but how entirely they are all put 
 into the shade by the memory of his quiet talks when the sweetness 
 of his heart poured itself out as from a ceaseless spring ! He was 
 modest and did not seek his own preferment. He was content to let 
 others precede him. I wish I dared tell how he once averted a great 
 estrangement of friends in the Institute by going to each, and hum- 
 bly making himself out the greater sinner ; and how nicely his friends 
 fell into the trap. We shall miss him indeed the next time the 
 waters of strife arise. I have known him in some severe trials, and 
 some of his disappointments as well as triumphs. I feel it a true 
 thing to record of him : " His ways were ways of pleasantness and 
 all his paths were peace." 
 
 I now call upon Dr. RAYMOND to take the chair. 
 
 DR. E. W. RAYMOND, of Brooklyn, N. Y., Ex-President of the 
 Institute: My friends for friends indeed we are, and drawn more 
 closely together at this moment in the sympathy of mutual grief 
 what can I say, what can any one say, in these first days of the 
 paralysis of bereavement, except to ring the changes on the two 
 themes, love and loss? He was so much to us; we miss him so 
 sorely ! A meeting, and no paper from Holley ; a banquet, and no 
 speech from Holley ; a cordial reunion of fraternal joy, and no smile 
 or hand-clasp from Holley; it is more than sad, it is bewildering. 
 We stand as those before whom the earth, suddenly opening, has 
 swallowed up the place where their affections and their occupations 
 
20 MEMORIAL OP 
 
 alike centred, and who know not whither to turn. Our sense of 
 loss is almost greater than our sense of pain. We loved him deeply, 
 dearly ; but a man is not necessarily missed in proportion as he is 
 loved. He is missed in proportion to the number of points at which 
 he entered into our lives, and the emphasis with which he impressed 
 his being upon ours at each point. 
 
 Mr. Holley entered the Institute in November, 1871, the first 
 year of it existence. He brought to it a reputation already assured, 
 a wide acquaintance and an intense enthusiasm. He devoted to it 
 from that hour his unexampled gifts, in a spirit of absolute self- 
 abnegation. After serving as vice-president, he accepted with joy 
 and pride the unsought nomination and election to the presidency, 
 because he felt that it was in his power to increase the sphere of the 
 influence of the Institute, and enlarge its sources of power. At the 
 end of a year he declined a re-election, resisting all solicitations to 
 continue what had unquestionably been a most brilliant and success- 
 ful administration, because he felt what no one else felt that in 
 the Centennial year, we should be represented by some one better 
 prepared to receive and entertain foreign guests. He worked harder 
 to get out of the presidency than many men would work to obtain 
 public honors. Who among us can remember any movement for the 
 advancement of the interest and profit of our members, in which he 
 was not active? Who is not personally indebted to him for some- 
 thing that will be a precious memory hereafter? These debts we 
 cannot pay ; but we can at least acknowledge them. For my part, 
 among all the services which I have attempted to render to the In- 
 stitute, the one upon which I look with the greatest satisfaction is, 
 that it was my good fortune to overcome the modest reluctance of 
 Mr. Holley, and induce him to enter upon that prominent activity 
 in our affairs for which he was so brilliantly qualified, and which he 
 so fruitfully pursued. It seems strange to recall that when I knew 
 him first, fourteen or fifteen years ago, he was afraid to speak in public 
 he, by whose eloquence and humor we have been charmed so many 
 times since ! 
 
 He was not wont to parade his accomplishments. I remember 
 how, in 1873, 1 first discovered, after years of acquaintance with him, 
 his knowledge of architecture and his skill as an artist. It was after 
 one of the sessions of our Easton meeting in 1873, and he was wait- 
 ing for some of us who were detained in a committee-meeting. It 
 was in my lecture-room at Lafayette College ; and the blackboard 
 stood invitingly empty. Seizing the chalk, Holley employed the 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 21- 
 
 five minutes of idleness in an incredibly rapid and apparently care- 
 less scratching upon the board," and when we came from the com- 
 mittee-meeting, lo ! there stood before us a magnificent Gothic 
 cathedral, arch, buttress and spire complete, recalling, though not 
 precisely repeating, the white glory of Milan, or the stately splendor 
 of York. In all that hasty work, not a line had been thrown away ; 
 not an essential detail had been omitted. I love to think of the inci- 
 dent as a type of all his work the clear creative conception, the 
 trained skill of execution, the art become a second nature, the intui- 
 tive use of means to ends, that shone through it all. 
 
 It is by reason of his many-sided activity that it has seemed best 
 to make this meeting a many-voiced testimony to him. No single 
 minstrel only a great chorus -can fitly chant his praise. 
 
 DR. T. STERRY HUNT, of Montreal, Canada, Ex-President of the 
 Institute: I know that all the friends around me will agree with 
 me when I say how weak and inadequate I feel any language of 
 mine to express my appreciation of the many virtues of our friend, 
 and my sense of grief and desolation at his loss. I cannot, however, 
 forbear to recall on this occasion some few incidents which are to me 
 as landmarks in the course of my long friendship with Alexander 
 Holley, and which now rise before me with peculiar force as grateful 
 memories of one whose absence we all mourn to-day. 
 
 My acquaintance with him began fourteen years since, in 1868, 
 when he was at Troy, as a member of the firm of Griswold, Winslow 
 & Holley, and engaged in the beginnings of an industry with which 
 his name was hereafter to be so conspicuously identified. It was as a 
 student interested in the Bessemer process that I first met Holley, and 
 then and there began an intercourse which ripened into friendship. I 
 soon learned to recognize in him that eager spirit of scientific inquiry, 
 and that patience and courage under difficulties which were to lead 
 him to the eminence in this, which he had already achieved in other 
 branches of his profession. 
 
 Afterwards, in 1870, I was with him in a journey for metallur- 
 gical observation and study during a week. Through parts of Penn- 
 sylvania and Ohio, visiting steel-works, rolling-mills and other 
 establishments, in all of which his special knowledge was shown, 
 and was freely given for the instruction of myself and his other com- 
 panions, one of whom is with us here to-day to join his testimony to 
 my own of the great pleasure and profit which we then found in the 
 society and friendship of Holley. 
 
22 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 Next, it was my good fortune to find myself associated with our 
 friend as one of the Judges at the Centennial Exhibition at Phila- 
 delphia, in 1876, when we met daily in the same class, and week after 
 week prosecuted our examination in the department of metallurgy, 
 or encountered in social intercourse the distinguished representatives 
 of various foreign nations, who, as our colleagues, then learned to 
 know and to honor him. 
 
 Again. I shall never forget the pleasure which I felt when, in 
 1878, I found myself with our friend in Paris at the meeting of the 
 British Iron and Steel Institute. There were present three Amer- 
 icans, Holley, John Fritz, and myself. At the grand dinner, at 
 which-we were all invited guests, Holley was chosen to speak for the 
 American nation and for our own Institute. I have often listened to 
 him, and we all remember his wit, his wisdom and his eloquence, but 
 those who were not there present have never, it seems to me, heard 
 him at his greatest and his best, as inspired by the occasion, he ad- 
 dressed that brilliant assembly. How well I recall the emotion of 
 pride which filled my heart when Holley rose and, in a glowing 
 speech, replied to the toast of " The American Institute of Mining 
 Engineers." As a member of this Institute, and moreover, as being 
 like him, a son of Connecticut, I was proud to claim Alexander 
 Holley as my friend and countryman, and as a representative Amer- 
 ican in the best and highest sense of the term, representing American 
 science, American technical skill, American manhood, and Amer- 
 ican eloquence, grace and genius as well. 
 
 One more memory of Holley and the last. Soon after arriving 
 in England from the Continent, I chanced, on the 10th of last Novem- 
 ber, to hear that our friend was lying sick at Morley's hotel in Lon- 
 don. I hastened thither at once, but was met by the glad intelli- 
 gence that Mr. Holley was much better and had gone out. A 
 moment afterwards, as I was leaving the hotel, I met him coming 
 up the stair. His joyous countenance beaming with the bright ex- 
 pression which we see depicted in the portrait now before us, his 
 delighted surprise at the unexpected meeting, and the hearty grasp 
 of welcome greeting which he gave me, I shall never forget, nor 
 the interest with which he listened to an account of my recent travels 
 in various European countries, and to my plans for the future. He 
 then believed his health restored, and was to leave in a day or two 
 for the north of England, and to join his family in Paris in a few 
 weeks. I spoke with regret of my enforced absence from the late 
 gatherings of our Institute, and we then promised to meet each other 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 23 
 
 at this February meeting. And so we parted for the last time. He, 
 on his death-bed, told with evident delight to a dear friend the story 
 of our brief interview in London, and I am here alone to repeat it 
 to you. For the rest, you all know the sad sequel, and I feel that 
 I cannot add another word. My heart is 'full, but in the words of 
 
 another : 
 
 " I may not unlock my heart ; 
 The key is gone with him. 
 The silent organ loudest chants 
 The Master's requiem." 
 
 A. S. HEWITT, of New York City, Ex-President of the Institute: 
 I come with no set phrases to speak of our departed friend. In fact, 
 I did not know that I was expected to speak on this occasion ; but 
 to be silent in the presence of such a loss, knowing Holley as I knew 
 him, would be more than the heart could tolerate. I do not know 
 who in this audience first had the pleasure of his acquaintance; my 
 own knowledge of him goes back somewhere between twenty-five 
 and thirty years. He came into my office; I do not know whether 
 he brought me a letter, or whether he introduced himself to my no- 
 tice, but I never shall forget, and I never have forgotten, the won- 
 derful impression which that boyish face made upon me. The look 
 of intelligence, of honesty, of calm consciousness of power was more 
 marked in his case than in any young man who had ever come un- 
 der my eye. At that time I think he was engaged in some literary 
 work with Mr. Colburn. It was my privilege to introduce him to 
 my old friend, Mr. Edwin A. Stevens, of Hoboken, one of those born 
 mechanical engineers who understood the laws of nature and the 
 laws of character of personal character alike, and made no mis- 
 takes among the men whom he chose to aid him in his work. Un- 
 der his patronage Mr. Holley made one of his first visits to Europe; 
 and in all his subsequent career he enjoyed the confidence and the 
 friendship of Mr. Stevens and of the great engineers with whom he 
 was thus put in connection. I think that I first called his attention 
 to the Bessemer process, I mean to the subject of its introduction 
 into this country. My. firm had made a feeble effort within six 
 weeks after the famous Cheltenham paper was read in 1856, to see 
 whether pig iron could be thus converted into steel. It was three 
 or four years, perhaps, after that, that Mr; Holley's attention was 
 called to the matter, and he went to Europe and brought back for 
 his friends the control of that patent. I am not going to pursue 
 
24 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 the story of his contributions you know them better than I do 
 to the successful introduction of this wonderful civilizing agent. 
 
 Men are to be measured by two standards. One is the standard 
 of personal character, as we judge of it in each other by personal 
 conduct. Those of you who enjoyed his friendship need no word;* 
 from any one else to elevate the standard of judgment which you 
 will apply to Holley. There is another standard by which we 
 measure men when they have passed away, and that is by the influ- 
 ence they have exerted upon the progress of civilization and the ad- 
 vancement of humanity. Of all the men at this day, in this line, I 
 know of none surviving him who has contributed as much to, the 
 growth of material wealth and the advancement of industrial prog- 
 ress in this country, as Holley did. I look upon the invention of 
 Mr. Bessemer as almost the greatest invention of the ages. I do not 
 mean measured by its chemical or its mechanical attributes, I mean 
 by virtue of its great results upon the structure of society, and of 
 government. It is the great enemy of privilege, it is the great 
 destroyer of monopoly, it will be the great equalizer of wealth. I 
 have no time to pursue that line of thought longer, but those who 
 have studied its effect upon transportation, the cheapening of food, 
 the lowering of rents of land, the obliteration of aristocratic privilege 
 upon the other side of the Atlantic, will readily comprehend what I 
 mean by calling your attention to this view of the subject. To these 
 results, second only to that of Bessemer himself, the contribution of 
 Holley is greater than that of any other man, who has lived, or who 
 can possibly live. It is said that the world knows little of its great 
 men ; and this is true. The man who, in his closet, in the recesses 
 of his own workshop, discovers a new law of nature or makes a new 
 application of hidden forces by which the structure of society is 
 changed, modified, revolutionized, is often little known in his own 
 day, even in his own country. It may require the historian of future 
 ages to find out what his contribution has been to the progress of 
 humanity. But happily, in this day of rapid communication, we 
 know better the work which is done by such men as Holley ; and 
 I think that even now, so soon after his departure, we can assign him 
 to the place which he will hereafter occupy in the history of mechan- 
 ical industry, a mechanical engineer of unerring judgment, an 
 inventor of the true means for great results, a lover of his race who 
 subjected his science, his talents and his labor to the good of his 
 fellow-men ; and he will live in the memory of those who knew him, 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 25 
 
 and in the grateful recollections of those who will come after him, 
 for many a generation. 
 
 I would not say more; but I shall be condemned by all of you, if 
 I do not relate an incident that happened in London, at the time 
 Holley was sick, with reference to the movable shell, his patent, 
 which, as I understand, is necessary to the success of the basic pro- 
 cess in America. While in Europe in 1880, in the fall of the year, 
 I was astonished and pained to hear that Holley was dying in Lon- 
 don. I immediately went to Clapham, where he was said to be, to 
 see whether he could speak to me. I was shown into his room, but, 
 before I went up, the attending physician, who had just left him, 
 met me at the foot of the stairs, and said his death was a question 
 only of hours, or at most only of three or four days. Three consult- 
 ing physicians had arrived at the same conclusion ; and I was so sure 
 that his death was imminent that I afterward wrote home to advise 
 a friend to prepare his family for the sad result. I went into his 
 room and found him the very picture of dissolution. He smiled his 
 old smile, and, after a few words had passed and, I suppose, seeing 
 upon my face the expression of profound sympathy, he said : " Well, 
 I suppose that they have told you that I am going to die, and I sup- 
 pose I am, although I mean to get home first if I can ; but," said 
 he, "I have been trying to amuse myself while I am dying by in- 
 venting something that will enable me to die with credit. I want 
 to make the basic process practicable, and I have just perfected here 
 upon my bed the details of the movable shell ; and if I don't live 
 long enough myself to introduce it, I have explained it in full to my 
 assistant, so that this invention shall be known to my countrymen." 
 His recovering as he did, rising, as by a miracle, from that death- 
 bed, only adds to this remarkable evidence of the extraordinary 
 vitality and energy which characterized him, and which surpassed 
 that of any man I ever knew. 
 
 W. P. SHINN, of Pittsburgh, Pa., Ex-President of the Institute : 
 It is fitting that I should bear my tribute to the memory of our 
 departed friend on this occasion, not only because of my having 
 been a president of this Institute, but because it was through. Mr. 
 Holley that I became a member of it. It was at his- suggestion 
 that I made application; it was upon his recommendation that the 
 council approved my application, and I more than suspect that it 
 was through his kind offices that I was nominated to the position, 
 of president of the Institute. 
 
 3 
 
26 MEMORIAL OP 
 
 It is now more than twenty years since I first came in contact 
 with the professional labors of the late Alexander L. Holley in his 
 publication, with the late Zerah Colburn, of their report on Euro- 
 pean railroads. Engaged as I was at that time actively in railway 
 management, the report was of great practical importance to me, 
 and had almost the character of a revelation. Then " permanent 
 way," as it was known in Europe, was without an example in this 
 country. Many of the appliances which are now so familiar to us 
 were unheard of. The fish-joint had not yet been adopted, and 
 many experienced railroad officials first learned of it in Holley and 
 Colburn's report. 
 
 My personal acquaintance with Mr. Holley began with the dis- 
 cussion of the ground-plans for the Edgar Thomson Steel Works 
 in 1873; and what surprised me most was to find that the Holley 
 of the European railway report was still a young man, and that 
 since making that report, which involved the mastery of an art, he 
 had become the acknowledged authority on Bessemer steel machinery 
 and manufacture, and had meanwhile published a report on ordnance, 
 also accepted as a standard work. 
 
 My personal relations with him were intimate for about seven 
 years, during which I never knew which to admire most, the versa- 
 tility of his genius, the depth of his professional knowledge, or that 
 geniality of disposition and quickness of perception which made 
 personal, intercourse with him a pleasure, whether the object to be 
 attained was strictly of a business nature, or merely social pastime. 
 He appropriated and imparted valuable information with equal 
 facility and apparent gratification, and in the amenities of private 
 and social life he was as happy as in his professional knowledge he 
 was thorough. Not only to those who knew him best will he remain 
 an ever-present memory, but to all who frequently met him, par- 
 ticularly at the meetings of the Engineering societies with which he 
 was so prominently connected, and of which he was the life. His 
 death has left a void which time will efface but slowly. Those who 
 heard the ineffable tenderness with which he responded to the pre- 
 sentation address which, by the partiality of his friends, I was 
 deputed to make at the Pittsburgh convention in 1879, will never 
 forget his beautiful apostrophe to that final "conversion" of this 
 world's life which he, of all those then present, has been the first to 
 experience. 
 
 MR. ASHBEL WELCH, of Lambertville, N. J., President of the 
 American Society of Civil Engineers: About a quarter of a cen- 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 27 
 
 tiny ago there was a young man who had already attained emi- 
 nence as an author. He was highly educated and highly accom- 
 plished in every way, but with a red shirt with sleeves rolled up, 
 and hands all smirched, ran a locomotive on the Camden and Amboy 
 Railroad. Such a prodigy attracted my attention. I found that 
 he was studying to be an expert in steam-engineering ; that he was 
 not content to take his knowledge from books, but that he wanted 
 to see everything, and on the railroad he took the best way of 
 getting at it by going into it. That man, as you will all recognize, 
 was the man whose portrait you see yonder. Xow I want to say, 
 if there are any educators here, and I am sure there are, T want 
 you to say to your students, do not be afraid of smirching your 
 hands; do not be afraid of dirtying your fingers; if you want to 
 learn mechanical engineering or steam-engineering, do as Holley 
 did. 
 
 Twenty years ago ttnere was lying at Hoboken what was called 
 the Stevens battery. It had been made many years before for the 
 purpose of defending the harbor of New York. It was adapted to 
 that purpose, and to no other purpose. The designer of it never 
 thought of any other purpose, but the changes in events had made 
 it unnecessary for that purpose. The Stevens battery, as you all 
 know, was the father of ironclads, or rather of proposed ironclads. 
 The then proprietor of the ship was desirous of adapting it to sea- 
 going purposes. He had had years previously a good deal of ex- 
 perience in firing large shots, a thing never brought to this country 
 in armored ordnance. I was called in, and Mr. Holley was called 
 in, and we worked together for some months to see what we could 
 do there. It was my good fortune to inform Mr. Holley of a great 
 many of the experiments that had been previously made, and he 
 saw some of those made at the time. And that was the seed sown 
 in his mind which afterward grew up into his great book on armor 
 and ordnance. I can indorse all that has been said, or all that can 
 be said, of his genial, lovely disposition. I am tempted to mention 
 one incident, yet I cannot describe it. We were here together, at 
 Washington, when he got word from home that his oldest daughter 
 was born ; and I remember the beams of parental love then dis- 
 closed. Mr. Holley was one of the most wonderful men that I 
 have ever known, in character and capacity. A single word dropped 
 in his ear, a single little seed sown, was sure to grow up into a 
 powerful plant, a great tree, just as the little suggestion at Hoboken 
 grew up into his book on armor and ordnance. I am sorry that I 
 
28 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 did not know I was to be called upon, or I might have said some- 
 thing more fitting to the subject. 
 
 E. D. LEAVITT, JR., of Cambridgeport, Mass.: I first met Mr. 
 Holley in 1859. He was then a young man, who seemed to me 
 the finest looking I had ever seen. He impressed me, as Mr. 
 Hewitt said he did him, with his force of character as a man who 
 would carry through anything that he undertook, and I claim that 
 he was such a man. I had been connected for several years pre- 
 viously with the establishment to which Mr. Holley went first on 
 leaving Brown University, and the traditions of his ability, of 
 what might be called his budding genius, are still there. I re- 
 member what an impression it made upon us, notwithstanding the 
 feeling that working mechanics had for a man who was just out of 
 college. We all know that such men are not generally regarded 
 with much favor, and it was then more so than now. But Holley 
 had impressed these men as an honest worker for truth ready to 
 roll up his sleeves and do anything that any of them would do. 
 He would never shirk any duty, however menial. I again met him 
 in 1876, when he invited me to join this Institute. Through his 
 kind offices it was, I merely granting permission for the use of my 
 name, that I became a member; and I have been more or less 
 intimate with him ever since. When the Society of Mechanical 
 Engineers was formed, Holley was the moving spirit. He presided 
 at our first meeting. I was a member of the nominating committee 
 for the first board of officers, and to illustrate his extreme modesty, 
 which impressed me very strongly at the time, I remember with 
 what great difficulty we persuaded him to resign from our committee, 
 in order that we might make him an officer of the society. We 
 found it was absolutely indispensable to have him in a prominent 
 capacity if the society was to succeed. He was the most enthu- 
 siastic and energetic member, doing more for us than any other two 
 or half-dozen men, from the fact that he was so well acquainted 
 with the leading engineers throughout the country. When the 
 wire flashed to me the information of his death, I felt at once an 
 overpowering sense of loss. I was about leaving home, and it 
 seemed like going away from a death-bed in my own household. 
 All through the night it came to me what a loss ! And I cannot 
 express fitly and fully the feeling which dwells within me at this 
 time, at the loss we have met with in the decease of our dear 
 friend. 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 29 
 
 CAPTAIN C. E. BUTTON, U. S. A., "Washington, D. C. : It is a 
 gratification to me to be able to unite with yours my testimony of 
 ]ov.e and affection. It was my great privilege to be very intimate 
 with Mr. Hoi ley at a period of his career which was, perhaps, the 
 most interesting. We all know how broad a man he was, how 
 wide a field of mechanical art his attainments covered, how splendid 
 was his culture in all respects. But we know him best, perhaps, 
 through his relations to the Bessemer process that great epic or 
 drama of the modern arts. And in that epic we will all concede 
 that he played the part of Achilles or ^Eneas. When I knew him 
 most intimately and was most closely associated with him, the 
 Bessemer process was in its dark days. Those who are familiar 
 with the history of the early development of that process cannot 
 fail to recall the vast multiplicity of difficulties which stood in the 
 way of the development of its details how they rose up on every 
 hand, how they met the engineer at every step. The art had no 
 precedents whatever. Everything connected with it had to be 
 created anew. It was in this stage of the process that it seemed 
 to me that Holley showed the noblest and strongest traits of his 
 character, both intellectual and moral. I think that Holley was 
 undoubtedly the first to take a broad view of the policy of a Bes- 
 semer establishment, which subsequent experience has proved to be 
 a correct one. He knew at that time, although he was perhaps 
 unable to demonstrate it still he knew, and constantly asserted, 
 that it was necessary for all purposes to take a wider range and 
 involve larger amounts of capital than anybody at that time thought 
 necessary. Men persisted in dependence upon the converter. They 
 said that if they could only manufacture ingots, they could sell 
 them ; that it was a patented process, and on that everything rested. 
 But from the very start Holley was convinced that the Bessemer 
 process always meant blast-furnaces, blooming-mills, and rolling- 
 mills. He was unable for a long time to engage in any Bessemer 
 enterprise in which he could carry out his own ideas to his satis- 
 faction. Perhaps it was not in the long run unfortunate that it was 
 so, for there were matters of detail to be overcome which even he 
 could not have foreseen. It was from the period of 1866 to 1869 
 that those great difficulties presented themselves most numerously, 
 and were battled with most successfully. There was many and 
 many a time when Holley became almost discouraged ; his whole 
 soul was wrapped up in that great enterprise, for which he seemed 
 to live. Everything else for the time being was thrown away, and 
 
30 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 as disappointment after disappointment came over him, he would 
 frequently break out to me, in moments of confidence, in a feeling 
 almost bordering upon despair. Probably very few of those who 
 knew Holley can associate him with any such frame of mind. To 
 almost all of us the recollection presented to us is that of a man of 
 extremely cheerful, warm, genial disposition a man whose temper 
 would more probably lack sufficient hardness of edge to stand the 
 blows of severe trial and adversity. But it was not so. No man 
 ever showed truer temper under trials and difficulties than he. No 
 man was ever more fully persuaded of the difficulty of his task 
 than he was, or ever brought to bear more expedients and struggled 
 with more courage and more vigilance. It was in this stage of his 
 career that I knew him best and was associated with him most 
 closely. I felt his troubles as if they were my own, for I think I 
 was at that time almost the only person with whom he associated 
 upon terms of extreme intimacy outside of his own family. But 
 when his success came, no person ever rejoiced with him more 
 heartily than I did. I am very glad to speak of this portion of 
 his life and career, because I presume that very few people knew of 
 it as well as I did ; and if anything could add to the strong love 
 and affection we bear for him, it is perhaps the conviction that he, 
 too, had trials which were bitter to suffer, and that he surmounted 
 them and conquered like a true hero. 
 
 ROBERT W. HUNT, of Troy, N. Y. : Had our dear friend and 
 brother been asked to select the tribute most grateful to him, I 
 feel certain he would have desired it to be paid by the American 
 Institute of Mining Engineers. Feeling this, I am glad to add 
 my mite to the expression of grief and respect which you propose 
 to pay his memory to-day, and which will be but an echo of that 
 already gone up from all over our own country, and will have been 
 re-echoed from abroad when we receive tidings of the reception 
 there of this sad news. 
 
 I first met Holley in the fall of 1865. He was then a member 
 of the firm of Winslow, Griswold & Holley, and manager of their 
 Bessemer Works at Troy. Those works then consisted of the 2J 
 ton experimental plant, which he built on his return from England 
 in 1864, after having purchased for his firm Bessemer's American 
 patents. 
 
 In the light of the present Bessemer practice it seems like a 
 dream to look back to this time, and a full realization of the diffi- 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 31 
 
 culties encountered and overcome can only be realized by the men 
 who came through those early days. An imperfect knowledge of 
 the chemical requirements of the process, an utter absence of tested 
 and approved refractory materials, and, above all, imperfect ma- 
 chinery, were the conditions of the problem which, in 1864, Holley 
 set himself to solve. With his own hands he had to make his first 
 tuyeres; mould his first stoppers; line his converter and ladles. 
 When meeting with failure after failure, through the imperfection 
 of some of the materials employed or the breaking down of some 
 of the machinery, he not only maintained his own high courage and 
 confidence in ultimate success, but kept up as well the doubting 
 faith of those associated with him. 
 
 Encountering these troubles, his ever active mind and wonderful 
 inventive genius at once grasped the mechanical difficulties, and as 
 a result gave us the present American Bessemer plant. These 
 mechanical departures he patented, and in the final settlement of 
 his firm relations these patents became the property of his partners, 
 and subsequently of the Bessemer Steel Co. Moreover, Mushet's, 
 Kelley's, and Bessemer's patents having expired, they are now the 
 only ones on which this company can collect royalties. 
 
 One of the finest monuments to his ability as an engineer exists 
 in the only Bessemer plant yet built in this country oirtside of his 
 patents. 1 think my fellow Bessemer managers will unite with me 
 in deciding it far below the standard of a Holley plant. It is very 
 good, indeed; but, compelled to avoid him, they also avoided much 
 that was good. But in the criticism of these very works, his 
 lovable nature was shown. I am certain to no one sooner than 
 myself would he have freely expressed himself, but never did I 
 hear him utter an unkind or slighting word about this, if I may so 
 call it, rival plant. So many of its owners were his friends (as 
 who were not?), I suspect many a hint was given by him of dangers 
 to be avoided. 
 
 After leaving Troy, upon the dissolution of the firm of Winslow, 
 Griswold & Holley, he assumed charge of the completion of the 
 Harrisburgh works. At this time began our closer acquaintance, 
 ripening into warmest friendship. We at Cambria rolled the steel 
 made by him at Harrisburgh. This brought George Fritz and 
 Holley together, and a most intimate relation it became. I regard 
 these two men as having been among the most brilliant metallurgical 
 engineers the world has yet seen. Entirely unlike in all. save 
 genius and heart, they became mutual-helping, utterly trusting 
 
32 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 friends. George Fritz was a rugged, self-educated, self-made man, 
 naturally jealous and distrustful of assumed scientific knowledge. 
 But Holley, with all his science, his culture, and polish, won to him 
 this man of iron. I know George Fritz loved him as with the love 
 of a woman. A few short years ago we buried him, his labor 
 over his enduring monument left in his works; and over his grave 
 stood no sincerer mourner, no more stricken heart, than Alexander 
 Holley. And he also is at rest, with a monument of imperishable 
 work even greater 'than his friend's. Their country, the world, 
 gainers by their lives ; but, alas ! their reward attained all too 
 soon. 
 
 During those Harrisburgh days, Holley encountered many diffi- 
 culties, many trials. Even his brave spirit was often almost 
 daunted ; and having made the works a success for that period, I 
 think he was glad to accept the offer of John A. Griswold, for 
 whom he entertained the greatest affection, to again assume control 
 of the Troy works. Mr. Griswold, himself a most captivating 
 man, fully appreciated Holley, and their intercourse was entirely 
 satisfactory. But the field of one works was too small for his rest- 
 less genius; so, in 1871, he relinquished the management, and 
 became the consulting engineer to several of the works then built, 
 or in course of construction. Hence it came that he was connected 
 with the construction of all the eleven works forming the Bessemer 
 Association save two. 
 
 While ever loyal to the Bessemer process, Holley early became 
 interested in the Siemens-Martin method, and devoted much time 
 to its study, and in working out the details of the plant. Here, as 
 in the Bessemer, he at once cut loose from the accepted practice, 
 and at least partially as a result of his professional advice the first 
 open-hearth works, built with him as consulting engineer, are the 
 finest in this country, if not, for their size, in the world. He was 
 a firm believer in the Pernot furnace, and the results now being 
 attained in the plants built under his advice certainly point toward 
 his belief having been well founded. 
 
 After full investigation in Europe he became fully impressed with 
 the merits of the Basic Process, and mainly through his exertions 
 were the Thomas-Gilchrist patents purchased by the Bessemer Steel 
 Co. In this connection came his last tr umph as an engineer. 
 While there is not a doubt about the chemical success of the Basic 
 Process, still from an American steel-maker's standpoint it would 
 not pay without some such invention as Holley gave us in his 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 33 
 
 removable shell. We must have speed. Slow work may answer 
 abroad, and even pay better than fast; but not so here. Of Amer- 
 ica, Holley was most American ; and I regard his last invention, 
 in its boldness, in its simplicity of detail, in its entire practicability, 
 as a fitting crown to his illustrious career. 
 
 We have spoken of Holley the engineer. As such the world 
 mourns his loss; but we weep for Holley, the genial companion, 
 the brilliant wit, the sympathizing friend, the noble man. His 
 sympathy was always ready. His heart was for his fellow-man. 
 His friendship, once given, never faltered. Probably no one had 
 his good offices worse abused ; but he never soured, and ever had 
 an excuse for the delinquent. Some eighteen months ago h?s friends 
 waited with fear the tidings from his dangerous illness while abroad, 
 and, as you will remember, at our last Philadelphia meeting one of 
 our members so beautifully referred to our then late fears, and 
 expressed our thankfulness for his safe return. Alas ! even then, 
 while we were toasting his safety, the hand of death was upon him, 
 the grim monster smiling mockingly at our human hopes. But 
 when this presence was known to him, he met it, as he had lived, 
 with quiet self-possession, thoughtfulness for others, with a brave, 
 undaunted spirit. 
 
 Shall I, while thinking of greater, speak of my personal loss? 
 Associated with him as I was for fifteen years, he had become part 
 of my professional life. Alexander Holley was my closest, dearest 
 friend. I loved him as an own brother. The void is unrealizable. 
 But the world rolls on. Our daily duties, difficulties, trials, present 
 themselves. Can we not better meet them, can we not be better 
 men, from having known and loved that spirit, who did more than 
 his duty ; who surmounted all difficulties ; who shrunk from no 
 trial ? Our hearts are stricken, but in our grief we rejoice that 
 we loved the bright one who has so early left us for his rest. 
 
 DR. THOMAS EGKESTOX, Columbia College School of Mines, 
 New York city : There are some men who impress themselves so 
 thoroughly upon our lives that it is impossible to tell when we first 
 became acquainted with them. I have been trying ever since the 
 Monday morning when I saw his death announced to tell when it 
 was that I first met Holley. I do not know. It seems as if I must 
 have known him always. I have looked forward month after month, 
 week after week, for so many years, to meeting him, waiting to hear 
 his cheerful greeting, to learn something of the progress of hrs 
 
34 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 work, or to have some word of encouragement when I was dis- 
 couraged in my own, that it is almost impossible to say when I 
 first met him. There is a side of his character that I knew per- 
 haps better than any of you. Probably some of you may remember 
 the stand that Holley took in the Philadelphia meeting of 1876, 
 during the discussion upon technical education. He said those of 
 us who were engineers, who design and who build works, are in 
 duty bound, when called upon, to teach those who corne after us 
 upon what principles it is done. The work of teaching should be 
 one of just as much conscientious endeavor as is the prosecution of 
 the professional work we are doing. It did not strike me at the 
 time as being a thought so pregnant as it really is, but I learned 
 its meaning when I heard him lecture a few months after this 
 speech was made. Holley was called by the trustees of the Co- 
 lumbia College to lecture at the School of Mines on the manufac- 
 ture of iron and steel ;' I took it for granted that on account of his 
 professional engagements he would refuse. The reply he made to 
 me was, "It is my duty, if I am called upon to lecture upon iron 
 and steel, to do so. I cannot make my arrangements to do it this 
 year, but I will do it next;" and he did so for several years, as a 
 matter of principle and at great personal inconvenience. There are 
 some here who have heard Holley lecture to young men. It was 
 my privilege to attend nearly all of his lectures. How earnestly 
 he talked to young men about how scientific and engineering work 
 should be done! I don't think I ever heard such lectures. They 
 were full of the practice and experience of a great engineer. He 
 criticised freely the work of others, and did not forget to blame 
 himself when any of his own practice had been wrong. I have 
 heard him speak in the meetings of the Institute and say brilliant 
 things, but I do not think I have ever heard him surpass his own 
 lectures upon metallurgical engineering. I used to remonstrate 
 with him about his excessive, and what I thought his unnecessary, 
 labor. " Yes," he would reply, "I know I am burning the candle 
 at both ends, but I must be here to-day, and be in Pittsburgh, 
 Chicago, or St. Louis to meet engagements, and back here again to 
 lecture. I cannot do otherwise." I said to him: "Holley, in justice 
 to yourself, in justice to your friends, in justice to your profession, 
 you ought to stop." He said, " I am going to stop. I shall not 
 always work so hard, but I cannot stop now." He wrote every 
 word of every lecture he delivered. I urged upon him: '''You are 
 doing for the young men what young men do not appreciate." His 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 35 
 
 lectures were worthy of an audience of engineers, and I expostulated 
 with him for doing for young men what they did not and could not 
 appreciate. His reply to me was the reply of a man who was 
 thoroughly satisfied that he was right, and who was fully convinced 
 that it was due to his profession that he should magnify his position 
 as a teacher. "I cannot," said he, " afford not to write what I am 
 to say, for I am in duty bound not to be too profuse when I am 
 teaching young men the science of metallurgical engineering." I 
 told him that I thought that young men would understand his own 
 work better when presented to them in the more familiar form of 
 an extempore lecture, and just as he used to talk to us when every 
 one felt it a privilege to listen. " But," said he, " I am enunciating 
 principles to be remembered. It is my business, my duty, my 
 pleasure to put them down, with my best thoughts, in the best 
 language, and in the fewest words that I possibly can." After 
 hearing these same lectures twice, I urged him to write a book. 
 "Some time," he said, "I am going to write a book on Bessemer 
 practice. I cannot now, for I have too much work to do, and am 
 burning the candle at both ends already; but some time I am going 
 to write a book." The book is nearly written. The lectures were 
 a book, and I hope some day some one will have the privilege of 
 editing those lectures that he delivered at the School of Mines, and 
 add to it the plans of the works he built and the practice he adopted, 
 as the best tribute to his memory, because I do not think that any 
 such discussion of steel metallurgical practice exists in print. Per- 
 haps, if there is any satisfaction at all in thinking of-Holley as a 
 man that has gone from us forever, it is in thinking of the fact that 
 not one stroke of his overwork hastened his departure. We feel 
 almost called upon to regret that he did not do more work, for he 
 was bound to die; death struck him months before, and of all the 
 brilliant work that he ever did, the most brilliant was what he 
 accomplished in the last two or three years of his life, when, no 
 matter what he had done, he could not have been saved. 
 
 G. W. MAYXARD, of New York city : I made the acquaintance 
 of Mr. Holley in 1869, at Troy, while he was rebuilding the Bes- 
 semer works of John A. Griswold & Co. The introduction was at 
 the table of our mutual friend, Captain Button. The charm of 
 that first meeting can never be effaced. From that evening dates a 
 friendship which intensified as the years rolled on. The magnetic 
 influence of the man has been experienced by many, and I believe 
 
36 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 you will agree with me that the friendship he inspired ripened into 
 affection. It would be difficult to say in what quality Holley espe- 
 cially excelled, for he was excellent in all ; there was one, however, 
 which he possessed in a marked degree, and that was always doing 
 whatever he promised to do, particularly if the doing meant the 
 granting of a favor. Perhaps this is not to be wondered at, for the 
 substratum of his character was truth, and this was undoubtedly 
 the mainspring of his influence with his fellow-men. Another trait 
 was his good nature and the wonderful pluck which never deserted 
 him in the most trying times, whether the trial was a lot of bad 
 steel or personal physical suffering. 
 
 On one occasion, when he was looking into a cupola-tuyere, an 
 explosion of gas blew hot coals and cinders into his eyes, and for a 
 time it was thought that he had lost his sight. On learning of the 
 accident I rushed over to his room. I found him in great pain ; 
 still the joke was uppermost, when he said: "I'm glad you have 
 come, for I wanted a mining engineer to work this newly-discovered 
 coal bed." As an illustration of the absolute reliance reposed in 
 him, I hope I shall not at this late day betray confidence when I 
 cite the words of his friend, Mr. Griswold, who sent for Mr. Holley 
 one evening for the purpose of discussing the chances of success of 
 the Bessemer process. The gist of the conference, which extended 
 into the small hours of the night, was; "Aleck, how much more 
 do you want to pull us through?' 7 "About $100,000." "Go 
 ahead, my boy; my faith in you is unshaken; I'll find the 
 money." There were many characteristics which these two men 
 possessed in common, and it may be said of our dear brother, as it 
 was said by a prominent citizen of Troy of Mr. Griswold at the 
 time of his death he was always a gentle man. 
 
 From 1873-79 I made several trips with him to steel-works in 
 England and on the Continent. The doors of works were thrown 
 open to him as to no other man. His suavity, and the fact that he 
 always gave more information than he received, accounted for the 
 exceptional facilities afforded him. His capacity for work was 
 something remarkable, and, as you all know, he had a world-wide 
 reputation at an age when the majority of engineers have not yet 
 got through with their preliminary training. Up to the time of 
 the Philadelphia Exhibition he still appeared very youthful. On 
 one occasion in London, in 1874, we casually met a prominent 
 engineer, to whom I introduced Mr. Holley. "Ah! any relation 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 37 
 
 to Mr. Holley the engineer?" "He ,is the engineer." "But not 
 the great Holley who wrote that very thick book on ordnance and 
 armor?" "Yes; he's the man!" "Ah, but that can't be, you 
 know, for the man I mean must be about sixty years old." I am 
 glad of the opportunity of paying this poor tribute to the memory 
 of my friend, and the friend and brother of us all. 
 
 T. C. CLARKE, of New York city : Holley was such a rnany- 
 sided character that it is difficult to know which to speak of. What 
 one omits to say of him the next one can say. I will, therefore, be 
 very brief. Some thirty years ago certain worthy gentlemen, real- 
 izing the horrors of impending war, took it upon themselves to call 
 upon the Czar of all the Russias and ask him to aid in averting it. 
 What was the success of their mission ? The war broke out the 
 next year in the Crimea. Now, I think everybody will admit that 
 to the labors of Holley in perfecting the Bessemer steel process we 
 owe the fact that the transportation of grain has been cheapened, 
 so that it can be carried from the interior of this continent and 
 across the sea at a less cost than it can be grown there, and if ever 
 there is anything done to abolish the present military burdens of 
 Europe, it will be through the competition so established. It is to 
 the labors of Alexander L. Holley that this grand result will be 
 due. So much for one side. As to his private character, I can say 
 no better words than those of the poet : 
 
 " He leaves behind him, freed from griefs and cares, 
 Far worthier things than tears : 
 The love of friends, without a single foe, 
 Unequalled lot below !" 
 
 MARTIN CORYELL, of Lambertville, N. J., ex -Secretary of the 
 Institute : The tribute of respect I would offer to the memory of 
 Mr. Holley originates in the talent displayed in the publication 
 made by Colburn and Holley several years ago, from which I 
 received great advantage. It was a very able book, and came out 
 at a time when it did great good to the whole country. Since then 
 I have been connected with him in this society as well as in busi- 
 ness, and in every emergency he has been kind, conciliatory, and 
 obliging, adding greatly not only to my comfort, but to the comfort 
 of all those about him. I can only say that I regard his death with 
 the same feeling: as I would that of a brother. 
 
38 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 JOHN H. RICKETSON, of Pittsburgh, Pa. : My acquaintance with 
 Mr. Hoi ley began some ten years ago, when this society held its 
 first meeting in Pittsburgh. I had, therefore, not known him as 
 long or as intimately as some of you, and yet when I heard that 
 he was dead I felt the keenest sense of personal bereavement ; for 
 in the warmth of his heart, and in the genial sunshine of his pres- 
 ence, acquaintance soon ripened into friendship. I have never 
 before attended a meeting of this Institute, held for discussion or 
 for social enjoyment, where Mr. Holley was not present, and where 
 he was not, and I am sure there is no man here who will think 
 himself disparaged when I say it, where he was not facile princeps. 
 It was my sad but precious privilege to be present at the house of 
 one of our members when a few of the friends of Mr. Holley gave 
 him the little testimonial of affection and respect to which allusion 
 has already been made. As Mr. Shinn said, no one who witnessed 
 that scene can ever forget it. Standing upon what we all felt was 
 the brink of the grave, for even then the coming event cast its 
 shadow before, in accents that fell upon our ears and sank into 
 our hearts like a plaintive strain of sweet music, in words ren- 
 dered even more touching by their modesty, we heard our friend 
 chant his own requiem. Then, and perhaps not till then, some of 
 us realized how dear he was to us. In the days of old, when the 
 Latin language was a living tongue, the words de mortuis nil nisi 
 bonum passed into a proverb. When applied to our friend, these 
 words have a new significance, for among the hundreds, or, perhaps, 
 thousands, who knew him in his own country or beyond the seas, 
 not one can say aught but good of him. Into the last twenty- five 
 years of his life he compressed half a century of the work of many 
 an able man. Many of the brightest of the dead whom the world 
 delights to honor, who reached the age of threescore-and-ten years, 
 left no deeper footprints on the sands of time than he. True, had 
 he been less unmindful of himself, had he possessed less of that 
 enthusiasm which alone makes great achievements possible, had he 
 been less prodigal of his strength and resources, had he, in a word, 
 not taken as his creed, "It is more blessed to give than to receive/ 7 
 he might have been with us to-day. But then he would not have 
 been the Alexander Lyman Holley whom we knew and loved, and 
 we would not be exclaiming from the depths of our hearts : 
 
 "Oh, for the touch of a vanished hand, 
 And the sound of a voice that is still !" 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 39 
 
 But, Mr. President, in the midst of our sorrow let us catch the 
 key-note of the lesson of Holley's life. Let us profit by the ex- 
 ample of our army friends when a comrade falls dead by their side. 
 No matter how well he may have fought the good fight, no matter 
 how bravely he may have died, or how much he may have been 
 beloved, no matter how muffled the drum, or solemn the dirge, or 
 measured the tread of his fellow soldiers as they bear him to the 
 grave, the last rites once performed, the last tear shed, the last 
 flower thrown upon the bier, they march briskly back, keeping 
 pace to the music of an inspiriting quickstep, to the duties of life 
 and the fight of to-morrow. Could our dear friend speak to us 
 to-day, would it not be in this spirit? Would he not say, especially 
 to you who must take up his fallen mantle, to you who were his 
 co-workers for so many years, and with him organized this Institute, 
 whose efforts in the field of applied science have been crowned with 
 results which were a surprise almost to him as well as to you 
 would he not say, "Go on with the work so well begun, so success- 
 fully continued ;" and might he not add in those familiar tones 
 whose echoes will ever linger in our ears, " Thus will you best 
 testify your remembrance of me." 
 
 O. CHANUTB, of New York city : My acquaintance with Mr. 
 Hoi ley dates back seventeen years, although that was eight years 
 before I saw his face. It was in 1865. I was in the West, and in 
 want of information which I failed to gain in the books. I knew 
 that the information would surely be in the possession of Mr. 
 Holley, and I tool* the liberty of writing to him and making the 
 necessary inquiry. I took care to write the letter in such a way 
 that he could answer it in a few words if he chose. Almost by 
 return mail I got from Mr. Holley, who was a very busy man, a 
 letter of five or six pages, by which he laid me under an obligation 
 which remained so warm, that when, eight years later, I came East, 
 I took the very earliest opportunity of hunting him up. At that 
 time we were thrown occasionally into contact with each other, 
 meeting in either this society or the Society of Civil Engineers, 
 and I grew to know him better and love him more and more. 
 And now that he is gone, I fail of words to express the regret I 
 feel. I have listened to what has been said here, and each one 
 upon rising has recognized the union of great talents, of the highest 
 possible right living and integrity with the most lovable character, 
 and I feel that all that has been said will be insufficient to make 
 
40 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 those, who knew him not, appreciate how this professional family 
 feels for its lost brother. 
 
 CHARLES MACDOXALD, of New York city : It is not for me to 
 attempt to paint in words an enduring picture of Alexander Hoi ley's 
 life; but I may be permitted to dwell for a moment upon that 
 wondrous wealth of loving light which illumined his intercourse 
 with his friends and who could ever have known him and not be 
 his friend ? 
 
 His character, as known to all of us, was the very personification 
 of good-will to his fellow-man. Who could ever have looked upon 
 that joyous face, and not feel his own petty cares fade away as a 
 mist? or who could draw near to his inner life, and taste of the, 
 sweetness, the gentleness, the helpfulness, and withal the genuine 
 nobility that was there, and not wish to be more like him? 
 
 Shall we ever forget those of us who were fortunate enough to 
 hear that speech of his at the Philadelphia banquet, when with 
 exquisite humor he defined the "true basic lining/ 7 and then with 
 equally exquisite pathos acknowledged the sympathy which, like 
 bread cast upon the waters, had been returned to him again, as he 
 lay upon a bed of sickness in a far-off land? 
 
 The foundation stone upon which Alexander Holley builded was 
 love. Brilliant intellect was there ; an indomitable will and perse- 
 verance to accomplish great things; but above and beneath all 
 these was his ever-present willingness to spend and be spent for 
 others. 
 
 The world will honor him for the great industries he has done so 
 much to develop ; for the stores of information he has left for the 
 education of those who are to follow. But his friends will keep 
 him in their hearts among the loved ones who have made life better 
 worth the living. His memory will to them be ever fresh and 
 green ; and although we shall never see his smiling face again, or 
 press his hand in friendly salutation, the recollection of all the 
 good deeds he has done, and of all the kindly words spoken in the 
 past, will ever prove an incentive to try to follow in his footsteps; 
 to make those about us stronger to do the right for the sake of the 
 right; and to spread abroad so far as in us lies the blessed doctrine 
 of peace and good-will. 
 
 J. F. HOLLOW AY, of Cleveland, O. : In another and distant city, 
 before an association of engineers, I spoke as best I could of the 
 personal virtues of our dear friend; but while so doing I was em- 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 41 
 
 barrassed by the fact that of the large number present but few had 
 ever had the pleasure of his personal acquaintance. As I rise here 
 to add my mite of tribute to his memory, to lay upon his new-made 
 grave a leaflet from the Buckeye State, I am still more embarrassed 
 by the thought that, owing to nearer residence and closer personal 
 relations of business and society, most of you knew him far better 
 than I possibly could; but there was about Alexander L. Holley a 
 cosmopolitan feature in all he said and in all he did, which so 
 broadened the scope of his influence, and widened the range of his 
 many manly virtues, so diffused that cheerful, genial, sunny atmos- 
 phere which was ever about him, that all who have ever met and 
 known him in any land or on any sea feel privileged to stand with 
 you as common mourners about his open grave. I remember the 
 engineer of my youth, how uncommunicative he was, how closely 
 he kept the secrets of his craft, how even the setting of a simple 
 slide-valve was something to be done at night or reserved for a 
 Sunday, when no peering eyes were about to watch the proceedings 
 or seek to pry into the mysteries that lay locked up behind the cover 
 of the steam chest; how the terms "lap," "lead," and "compres- 
 sion " were as full of mystery as if they had been quotations from the 
 Arabian Nights ; and I well remember that the first outgoing of 
 my heart toward him whose memory we have met here to honor 
 was when the first number of his paper, the Railroad Advocate, fell 
 into my hands, and for the first time in my life I learned .that there 
 Avas a man who could not only lay out and set a valve, but could, 
 and better still would, tell plainly how others could do the same. 
 While this was in the very beginning of Mr. Holley's professional 
 life, it was ever afterward its characteristic. He was ever noted for 
 the freedom with which he opened up the vast stores of knowledge 
 and experience he possessed, knowledge and experience gained 
 only by hard study and much travel, yet he gave of both freely 
 to his readers and his listeners; and how valuable both have been 
 to the industries of our country we all well know. The generosity 
 of his nature, his frankness, and his open-hearted manner toward 
 all who came in contact with him disarmed all rivalship, and to- 
 day, without one tinge of jealousy or envy, all, with one accord, 
 unite to write above his honored grave, "Here lies America's 
 greatest engineer." I cannot bring myself to speak of anything in 
 any way pertaining to our friend other than those events which so 
 well illustrate the loving traits of his character, and which have so 
 endeared him to us all; and no matter where my thoughts begin^, 
 
 4 
 
42 MEMORIAL OP 
 
 or how widely they range, they never cease until they bring back 
 that eventful night at Pittsburgh, where the darkness, the gloom, 
 and the falling rain outside were only the forecast of what many of 
 us then dimly foresaw and feared, and which, alas ! has now fallen 
 upon us all. What were the thoughts which so rapidly passed 
 through his mind as he gazed upon that testimonial of love and 
 esteem, and the names written thereon, can never be known. 
 Beautiful as were the words he spoke, they doubtless failed to 
 convey the depth and fulness of the thoughts which a busy memory 
 conjured up before him. I ever think of him in connection with 
 that event as if he were then standing beside a milestone in life's 
 journey, upon the crest of a high eminence, to reach which he had 
 travelled long and laboriously. As he leaned upon it, he cast 
 behind him a wearied look down the long and rugged way over 
 which he had passed, noting the while where friends had here and 
 there joined him on the way ; but he seemed alone now, and the 
 way before him, as he looked into it, seemed dark, but through 
 some opening rift in the clouded future he seemed to catch a glimpse 
 of a resting-place not far beyond. You all remember with what 
 touching words he summed up life's failures, and how appropriate 
 was his beautiful simile of the converter, the converter about 
 which he had so much dreamed and planned, how he spoke of it 
 as taking the crude materials of the " earth, earthy," and through 
 its alchemy transmuting them into a pure, a noble metal. So, too, 
 of our lives; might not they, chastened, purified, and freed from 
 all earthly dross and stains, come at last to be moulded anew into 
 higher and nobler forms.? But words fail to convey the beauties 
 of his thoughts, while the pathos that was in his voice, the pallor 
 that was on his cheek, the far-away look that was in his eyes, will 
 never be forgotten by any one that stood among that group that 
 night. When his biography shall be truly written, it will be found 
 that while his accomplished work and deeds as an engineer will 
 give him a place among the ablest in the profession he so well 
 adorned, his highest and best monument will be found in the 
 loving memory of him that will ever linger in the hearts of his 
 friends. 
 
 ECKLEY 'B. <CoXE,* of Drifton, Pa., Ex-President of the In- 
 stitute : The death of Alexander Lyman Holley means much more 
 
 * This and the following tributes to Mr. Holley's memory were contributed in 
 writing, the authors being absent, or the lateness of the hour not permitting further 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 43 
 
 to the engineering profession than the loss of a great technical ex- 
 pert ordinarily would. There are not many, it is true, who possess 
 his power of gathering and thoroughly digesting all the facts, 
 theories, and other information bearing upon any great engineering 
 problem they may have on hand, of opening the mind without 
 prejudice to all sides of the question, and of reaching with almost 
 unerring accuracy the true solution. He was one of a few men 
 who have been distinguished not only as a civil, but also as a me- 
 chanical and mining, engineer. It is rare for any one to be eminent 
 in a single branch of engineering, and almost unheard of that one 
 should be, as Holley was, without a superior in all. 
 
 But it was in aiding in raising engineering as a profession to its 
 present high position, in forming and strengthening that esprit de 
 corps which of late years has grown up both here and abroad, that 
 Holley exerted an influence which no other engineer has exerted, 
 and which will be felt for years. He was a man whom to know 
 was to love, with whom it was a privilege to have professional 
 relations, to whom every true engineer delighted to communicate 
 any new discovery that he might make ; for no one who did so ever 
 felt that he gave away anything for which he did not receive back 
 full equivalent, not only in the treasures drawn from a well-stored 
 memory of engineering facts and theories, but also in clear, sharp, 
 unprejudiced criticism. 
 
 No one was quicker to acknowledge the merit of discoveries not 
 made by himself, or slower to claim credit for himself for anything 
 that in any way could be considered as the invention of another. 
 
 This characteristic showed itself not only in his intercourse with 
 American engineers, but also with those whom he met in his many 
 professional trips to Europe; When he went abroad, he was every- 
 where received with open arms, and information was gladly given 
 to him which many others sought for in vain. All with whom.he 
 came in contact there found, as we all had done, that with him it 
 was " more blessed to give than to receive ;" that he came not as a 
 beggar, asking alms, but as the generous fellow that he was, willing 
 and anxious to give of the rich stores he possessed to those from 
 whom he received. Thus he did more than any living man to 
 break down the barriers and jealousies that separated the engineers 
 of different countries. This he could do to great advantage, pos- 
 sessing as he did a mind which, after much reflection, I think was 
 the broadest, best-developed, most complete that I have known. 
 He loved not only science, but art; he could write well; he could 
 
44 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 speak well ; whatever he was called upon to do, he did as a master ; 
 and it is hard to conceive of any sphere of life in which he would 
 not have been distinguished. He was, in the highest sense of the 
 word, a gentleman. To say that any person could have known 
 Holley well, and not have loved him, seems to me impossible. Of 
 him one can well say, "'Twere better to have loved and lost than 
 never to have loved at all." The loss of Holley is something I 
 could not at first appreciate ; it grows upon me day by day, and I 
 find myself constantly becoming more and more conscious of it ; 
 for when thinking over some problem or something of interest to 
 the profession, I still say to myself, as I often did, " I must talk to 
 Holley about this," and then suddenly remembering the sad truth, 
 I realize how great, how irreparable our loss has been. 
 
 As I stood on that day at Greenwood, and saw him slowly low- 
 ered into his grave, I thought of all he had done for mining en- 
 gineering, both in this-country and abroad, and almost involuntarily 
 I repeated to myself the old German Bergmannsgruss, which seemed 
 peculiarly appropriate to him : 
 
 "DEN LETZTEN GKUSS BRINGT IHM DER BERGMANS' DAR. 
 
 " Leb' wohl, leb' wohl, Du Bergmannskind, 
 Du hast vollbracht den Lauf ; 
 Treu warest Du und brav gesinnt, 
 Drum rufen wir: Gliiek auf! 
 
 " Zum letzten Male fiihrst Du an, 
 Und fiihrst nicht mehr herauf; 
 Drum griisst Dich auf der dunkeln Balm 
 Ein inniges Gllick auf! 
 
 " Doch schloss sich auch dein Auge hier, 
 Dort thut sich's wieder auf; 
 Wir Alle, Alle folgen Dir 
 Und griissen Dich ! Gliiek auf!" 
 
 JAMES F. LEWIS, of Quinnemont, W. Va. : After all that has 
 been written, and the many eloquent words spoken here to-day, it 
 would seem impossible to find suitable words to express more., Yet 
 I feel that the half has not been told, and that words cannot dfl full 
 justice to the memory of our beloved friend and brother certainly 
 not words from me ; but my feelings will not permit me to let this 
 meeting pass without adding my testimony. The first time that I 
 met Mr. Holley to know him personally was at the May meeting 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 45 
 
 of the Institute, held in Dover, N. J., and it was through him that 
 I became a member. My associations with him since then have 
 been more of a social than of a business nature; yet so far as 
 advice and information on business matters was concerned, I always 
 found him ready and willing to impart it. I shall never forget the 
 Sabbath I spent with him at his home in Brooklyn, directly after 
 the Pittsburgh meeting and shortly before his departure for Europe 
 to get the much-needed rest which he felt was essential at that time 
 to prolong his life, and enable him to complete the great work he 
 had marked out. In the long talk we had while riding that after- 
 noon, he opened his heart, and spoke of the past and his hopes and 
 fears of the future, with expressions of love and gratitude toward 
 his friends for their many tokens of love and friendship to him. 
 It was one of those seasons of delightful intercourse between men 
 that come not frequently, and cannot be described, but are to be 
 stored away in the heart as sweet memories things to make us 
 both happier and better. It also revealed to me the true manhood 
 of A. L. Holley. But while we mourn the loss of our friend and 
 brother, let us bear in mind that Holley still lives not in the flesh, 
 but in the spirit and in his professional writings, in the many in- 
 teresting and most instructive papers read by him before this In- 
 stitute, and in the monuments of industry at Troy, Harrisburgh, 
 Johnstown, Bethlehem, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Joliet, etc. His spirit 
 and example will lead others to take up the work where he has left 
 it, and a monument will be built up to his memory that will be 
 lasting as the ages. 
 
 JOHN FRITZ, of Bethlehem, Pa. : I much regret that I cannot 
 go to Washington to attend the session in memory of our dear 
 friend Holley ; and I take this opportunity to express my heartfelt 
 sympathy in the sorrow of his many friends. It was my good for- 
 tune to make his acquaintance some fifteen years ago, and for the 
 greater part of the time I have been on the most intimate terms 
 with him. While it makes me sad to think that I shall never see 
 his bright and cheerful face again, yet I can with unalloyed pleasure 
 look back to the time when we would sit for hours, and talk over 
 the various problems of mechanical and metallurgical engineering 
 with which he was so fully identified. It was in these quiet talks, 
 which I so much enjoyed, that I learned to respect and love him. 
 He was so brilliant, so frank, so communicative, and withal so 
 modest, that it was impossible to withhold from him admiration 
 
46 MEMORIAL OP 
 
 and affection. He is no more; his noble career on earth is ended; 
 and while in common with many others in his profession I shall 
 greatly miss him as a member of it, yet it is when I look back to 
 the enjoyable and instructive hours spent together with him, and 
 the thought comes that they will return no more, that I feel his loss 
 most keenly, and can most deeply sympathize with his many loving 
 friends. But he did not live in vain. His life was one of benefi- 
 cence as well as of untiring industry and of herculean labor in the 
 development of the great mechanical and metallurgical progress of 
 the age. Though his name is written in letters of steel all over 
 our broad, fair land, yet I think there should be some distinctive 
 memorial erected that will tell to coming generations of the work 
 and worth of our friend and brother, A. L. Holley. 
 
 W. R. JONES, of Pittsburgh, Pa. : In the death of A. L. Holley, 
 those who have been intimately connected with him in the develop- 
 ment of the Bessemer process have lost not only their chief, but also 
 a valued and true friend. To his genius and his mechanical ability 
 the wonderful development of the Bessemer process in this country 
 is largely due. With far-seeing sagacity he urged development, 
 while others timidly suggested delay. The perfecting of any new 
 process requires genius, enterprise, and force of character, all gov- 
 erned by sound wisdom. All these elements he possessed in a 
 remarkable degree; and, combined with these, his frankness, his 
 generosity, his extreme modesty, his nobleness of purpose, rendered 
 him one of the grandest and greatest of men. No wonder that we 
 entertained for him the highest respect, that we loved him with a 
 love strong and pure. 
 
 He has passed beyond, yet he has stamped the impress of his 
 great genius on our scientific and metallurgical enterprises. No 
 longer will the drear monotony of our task be broken by a cheery 
 letter from our beloved Holley, or the roar of the converter, or the 
 clashing and clatter of machinery be made pleasant by his presence. 
 He did his whole duty while with us; let us, who still linger, see 
 that his memory is honored. 
 
 P. BARNES, of Springfield, 111. : My acquaintance with our good 
 friend Holley began just before he went abroad to arrange for the 
 definite introduction of the Bessemer process into this country; and 
 after January, 1869, I was until the day of his death almost con- 
 tinuously employed, either as an attach6 of his own private office, 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 47 
 
 or else in local charge of Some one or other of the works with which 
 he was associated as consulting engineer, and hence under his imme- 
 diate professional supervision. 
 
 These works, in their varied extent, their large cost, and in their 
 enormous product, are the best monuments to his skill; but no 
 tribute to his worth can be framed in words clear enough to set 
 forth his never-failing kindliness to his subordinates, his ever-ready 
 considerateness toward their preferences, in the fulness which these 
 qualities deserve.. He had a very rare faculty of impressing his 
 own views upon others, and securing their adoption, even though 
 at first there seemed to be wide differences to be overcome, in the 
 innumerable details needing attention in construction-work ; and 
 probably a thousand instances could be found in which the correct- 
 ness of conclusions formed by him almost by intuition, as it were, 
 has been demonstrated by the rigorous proof of actual service of 
 the details thus planned and executed. 
 
 One other thing may be most justly referred to at such a time as 
 this, as showing the fully rounded character of our departed friend 
 the ever- ready zeal with which he would overlook and forget the 
 unkindness of those who (in more instances than one) had, through 
 heedlessness or through ill-will, forgotten the obligation they owed 
 him of professional loyalty, to say nothing of kindlier personal 
 regard. To every one, even to these, his heart was always open, 
 his friendly advice and suggestion always ready. 
 
 To the offerings of those who may present more fitting memorials 
 than this, I desire to add my own tribute of respectful and affection- 
 ate remembrance. 
 
 EDMUND C. PECHIX, of Cleveland, O. : What Holley has accom- 
 plished in the world at large does not so much interest me. I think 
 of him only as the genial companion, the kindly, big-hearted man, 
 the trusty friend. I can pay him no higher meed of praise than 
 that in all the years of our acquaintance I never heard him speak 
 an unkind word of any one. The Northmen make Odin say : 
 
 " We ourselves die, but the fair fame of him that hath earned it 
 never dies." 
 
 Holly could afford to die, when he had enshrined himself in so 
 many loving hearts, and had earned so fair a fame.. 
 
 W. J. TAYLOR, of Chester, N. J. : I regret exceedingly my in- 
 ability to be present, and unite with my fellow-members in express- 
 
48 , MEMORIAL OF 
 
 ing our great sorrow at the loss of our friend and brother, Alexander 
 L. Holley, and in paying that tribute to his memory which his 
 eminent abilities and noble character have so richly merited. Taken 
 from us in the prime of manhood, when he was a vast store of 
 knowledge, to which we all had the most kindly access, it is hard 
 for us to be reconciled to the ways of Providence, and not rebel at 
 the removal of one whom we not only loved, but loved to honor. 
 Only those who knew him can realize the loss the whole metallur- 
 gical and mechanical world has sustained in his early death. But 
 his earthly labors and trials are over, and we must not forget that 
 our loss is his gain. God grant that there may be more Holleys. 
 
 W. F. MATTES, of Scranton, Pa. : I feel it a personal misfortune 
 that my acquaintance with our late associate, Dr. Holley, was so 
 limited, and that my opportunities for conversation with him so 
 few. Therefore, in adding my trifle to this memorial, I will speak 
 only of the impression made upon me by his writings, particularly 
 in my repeated studies of his various reports to the Bessemer com- 
 panies. These productions impress by their surpassing excellence 
 for the objects in view, combining, as they do, in great masses of 
 material the rare qualities of judicious selection and concise state- 
 ment an instinctive seizing of salient points with luminous ex- 
 pression. The strokes are bold, accurate, and graphic, revealing 
 the extensive knowledge and working of a master-mind. 
 
 M. V. SMITH, of McKeesport, Pa. : As one of those whose own 
 lives have received a benefit from the life of Mr. Holley, I am glad 
 to avail myself of the privilege of paying a tribute to his memory. 
 His more intimate friends will tell how he was endeared to each of 
 them ; they will also tell of those noble traits of his character by 
 which he was best known to the world. A more favored few may 
 speak of what he was at his own home and fireside. What I par- 
 ticularly wish to call attention to is the fact, that his nobility of 
 character was exercised and found expression in noble words and 
 actions, not only toward his kindred and his friends, but also toward 
 those who had no claims upon him, either of friendship or of 
 business, and from whom he could have no expectations of ever 
 receiving any reward. 
 
 Some men may be generous from selfish reasons, because gener- 
 osity, like honesty, is the best policy ; but Mr. Holley's generosity 
 sprang from no considerations of policy it was only one manifesta- 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 49 
 
 tion of his natural disposition. I have a personal knowledge of 
 one action of Mr. Holley's, in the Council of the American Insti- 
 tute of Mining Engineers, of which I cannot give the particulars, 
 as they would involve the names of living persons; but suffice it to 
 say that the action was a noble and generous one, for the benefit of 
 one who could have had no claims even upon Mr. Holley's atten- 
 tion. I only mention this to show what I hope others may show in 
 a better way, that Mr. Hoi ley's heart was large enough to include 
 not only his own kindred and friends, and their number is legion, 
 but to reach out and do good in the outside world. 
 
 PROF. R. H. THURSTON, of Hoboken, N. J. : I had relied so 
 greatly upon Holley in all the work and in all the plans in which 
 we had a mutual interest, that his loss leaves me with a lonelier and 
 more helpless feeling than I have ever experienced after the loss of 
 the nearest of earlier friends. He was so just, so generous, and so 
 absolutely trustworthy, so full of kindly impulses, so overflowing 
 with noble enterprise ; so kindly appreciative of the weaker attempts 
 of his friends to inaugurate or to forward any useful work ; so bright, 
 cheery, happy, and sympathetic in his communion with us, that his 
 departure seems like the passage of a summer's sun behind a win- 
 ter's cloud. I only hope that we may, when we, too, " pass over," 
 have something of this feeling of love and honor in the hearts of 
 our friends, with somewhat less of the sadder sense of bereave- 
 ment. 
 
 [Brief letters of condolence were also received from many other 
 members of the Institute.] 
 
 The following telegrams were read by the Secretary : 
 
 LONDON. 
 
 The Council of the Civil Engineers, now sitting, desires to record 
 its high sense of the eminent qualities of Mr. Holley, which won 
 for him universal respect and esteem. 
 
 INSTITUTION CIVIL ENGINEEKS.* 
 
 * The Secretary subsequently recei\ 7 ed the following letter : 
 
 THE INSTITUTION OF CIVIL ENGINEERS, 
 25 GREAT GEORGE STREET, WESTMINSTER, s.w. 
 22d February, 1882. 
 
 SIR : I beg to hand you herewith Extract from the Minutes of Council of this 
 Institution, with copy of a telegram dispatched to you last night. 
 
 Having known Alexander Lyman Holley since his first visit to Europe in 1857. 
 
50 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 LONDON. 
 
 As an English member I would testify to the unique regard in 
 which Mr. Hoi ley was held here as an engineer and man. I would 
 add an humble personal tribute to his memory as metallurgist, 
 brilliant engineer, and generous friend. 
 
 SIDNEY GILCHRIST THOMAS. 
 
 WORKINGTON, WEST CUMBERLAND, ENGLAND. 
 
 I express my deepest sympathy with Mr. Holley's friends and 
 countrymen in the irreparable loss sustained by them, and by us, 
 through his departure. 
 
 G. J. SNELUS. 
 
 MlDDLESBORO', ENGLAND. 
 
 I exceedingly regret that Mr. Holley has passed away from us. 
 I join you all in spirit to-day in praise of his memory. 
 
 WINDSOR RICHARDS. 
 
 BL A EN A VON, WALES. 
 We all mourn him, and shall miss him greatly. 
 
 E. P. MARTIN. 
 
 LONDON. 
 
 Having travelled with friend Holley all over Europe, few can 
 better testify to his talent and amiable character, and how deeply 
 
 I may, perhaps, be permitted to add ray own personal testimony to his worth and 
 merits. His fascinating manner had a peculiar charm for all with whom he was 
 brought into contact, while the uprightness of his character was beyond dispute. 
 
 I remain, sir, 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 JAMES FORREST, 
 Secretary. 
 
 Extract from the Minutes of Council of the Institution of Civil Engineers, 21st day of 
 
 February, 1882. 
 
 Moved, seconded, and 
 
 " Resolved, unanimously, This Council desire to record their high sense of the 
 eminent qualities of the recently deceased member of the Institution, Alexander 
 Lyman Holley, of New York city, which had won for him universal respect and 
 esteem. 
 
 " Resolved, That in view of the Special Session of the American Institute of 
 Mining Engineers, to be held in Washington on Wednesday afternoon, February 
 22d, in memory of the late Alexander Lyman Holley, the substance of the above 
 Eesolution be conveyed by telegram to Mr. Drown, the Secretary of the In- 
 stitute." 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 51 
 
 his European friends show the sorrow felt at his loss. The friend- 
 ship for Holley in Europe was strong as steel and good as Swedish 
 iron. United in this mournful condolence are Schneider, of Creusot, 
 France; Greiner, of Seraing, Belgium; Longsdon, of Krupp's, 
 Germany; Akermann, of Sweden; and numerous friends in Eng- 
 land from whom I have received letters expressing deep sorrow. 
 Honor to the land that produced such a man. Our consolation 
 is that Alexander Lyman Holley is now " formed in a better 
 mould." 
 
 C. P. SANDBERG.* 
 
 DELORO, ONTARIO, CANADA. 
 
 You know the important work that detains me. Please express 
 my regret at being unable to attend the meeting of the Institute. 
 My whole heart is with you, and I desire especially to bear my 
 testimony to the rare gifts which placed our Holley among the very 
 first engineers of any age, and commanded the love, esteem, and 
 admiration of all who knew him. Learned, skilful, discriminating, 
 sound in judgment, and unprejudiced; unstinted in sympathy and 
 appreciation for the work of his fellow-laborers; warm-hearted, 
 
 * The Secretary subsequently received the following letters : 
 
 PARIS, le 27 Fevrier, 1882. 
 
 Mr. C. P. Sandberg, ingenieur a Londres, m'informe qu'il a associ mon nom 
 au temoignage de condoleance et de sympathie, dont il a pres 1'initiative au nom 
 des ami de feu Alexander Lyman Holley en Europe. 
 
 J'ai 1'honneur de vous faire savoir que j'approuve completement les sentiments 
 qui ont dicte la de"peche qu'il vous a adress^e a cette occasion, et ji profite de la 
 circonstance pour vous exprimer la part que ji prends personellement aux eloges et 
 aux regrets des amis de Mr. Holley en Amerique. 
 
 Venillez agreer, Monsieur, 1'assurance de ma consideration la plus distinguee. 
 
 H. SCHNEIDER. 
 
 ESSEN, GERMANY, Feb. 27, 1882. 
 
 [To MR. SANDBERG.] Please accept my best thanks for kindly including my 
 name in the cablegram of those who mourned the loss of our friend Holley. I had 
 the profoundest admiration for the character of our late friend ; for with all his 
 excellent gifts that brought him prominently to the front, there was the true 
 modesty of a gentleman. His judgment was always clear and distinct, while his 
 knowledge was profound. America has lost much in losing him ; and I am glad 
 to see all that is being done to honor his memory. His friends will never forget 
 him, and enemies I am sure he has none. Again thanking you, believe me, 
 
 Yours, very truly, 
 
 ALFRED LONGSDON. 
 
52 MEMORIAL OP 
 
 brave, faithful, and incorruptible, our Holley has builded in his 
 works and in our affection a monument such as few in any age have 
 deserved or received. 
 
 R. P. ROTH WELL, of New York city. 
 
 BEADING, PA. 
 
 Regret I cannot be present to do honor to the memory of the 
 lamented Holley. He always dispensed generously the knowledge 
 he so easily and intelligently acquired, and was a benefactor of 
 mankind. 
 
 W. E. C. COXE. 
 
 After the reading of letters and telegrams, Mr. Weeks spoke as 
 follows : 
 
 J. D. WEEKS, of Pittsburgh, Pa. : It was not my privilege to 
 know Mr. Holley as long as some of those who have spoken, but I 
 remember that a few years ago, in this very city, at the time he was 
 President of this Institute, I met Mr. Holley. As a newspaper 
 man I asked him for those favors that newspaper men are accus- 
 tomed to ask of men of influence and position. I found him kind, 
 generous, friendly ; and I have always found him so at every time 
 that I have approached him. And I wish to bear testimony, in 
 behalf of the technical and scientific press of this country, to their 
 friend, to their fellow-laborer for Alexander Holley was one of 
 us in the early years of his life, and in his after-years as an author, 
 also, he was one of us I wish to bear testimony to the extreme 
 courtesy, to the great kindness, and the great disinterestedness with 
 which he has always met us, and with which he has always given 
 us the best that he had to give. I thought, when reference was 
 made to his connection with the Bessemer process, that he had 
 merited and should have received as high honor as that man to 
 whom he is only second.* And yet what matters it? He was 
 Alexander the Conqueror in the arts; he is Alexander crowned 
 king in our hearts, whose reign shall never end with the words, 
 " The king is dead." When our chairman so beautifully referred 
 to that sketch that our friend Holley made, there rushed to my 
 mind that wonderful poem of Emerson, in which he describes the 
 
 * The Bessemer medal was subsequently sent by the British Iron and Steel In- 
 stitute to the family of Mr. Holley, 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 53 
 
 feelings, thoughts, aspirations, and motives that animated the cathe- 
 dral builders in those old times. You remember the words: 
 
 "Himself from God he could not free. 
 He builded better than he knew; 
 The conscious stone to beauty grew." 
 
 and, as our chairman has so admirably said, has grown into the 
 white glory of Milan or the stately splendor of York. I recalled 
 the majestic cathedral of York as we saw its glories. We went 
 down and down and down with the verger, and he showed us, 
 beneath the foundation of the cathedral, another foundation that 
 dated back in the Dark Ages, when they had builded a beautiful 
 cathedral to testify to what their ideas of glory and grandeur were. 
 In the coming days, in the grand social "reform that has been spoken 
 of, mankind will see a structure more grand and more glorious 
 than that which exists at York. You and I may not live to help 
 construct it, or to admire and explore it; but somebody else will 
 have found the foundation that Alexander Lyman Holley laid, 
 broad and deep and strong, and builded thereon a structure worthy 
 of his thought. I wish, Mr. Chairman, in closing, to oifer these 
 
 RESOLUTIONS. 
 
 Resolved, That in the death of Alexander Lyraan Holley, formerly 
 President of the Institute, we mourn the departure, not only of a 
 great inventor and engineer, pioneer in the applications of science, 
 and benefactor of mankind, but also and more keenly, of a true 
 comrade and dear friend, the memory of whose strong and gentle 
 spirit is indissolubly blended with the social history of this organ- 
 ization, as his genius, enthusiasm, and activity were potent factors 
 in its professional success. 
 
 Resolved, That the chairman of this meeting be requested to de- 
 liver on some suitable future occasion an address in commemoration 
 of the life and life-work of Mr. Holley. 
 
 Resolved, That the Council of the Institute be requested to take 
 into consideration the publication of a memorial volume, to contain 
 the above-mentioned address, the proceedings of this meeting, and 
 such other matters as may be deemed expedient. 
 
 Resolved, That we extend to the American Society of Civil 
 Engineers and to the American Society of Mechanical Engineers 
 our sympathy in this great loss, sustained by them as well as our- 
 selves. 
 
54 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 Resolved, That a committee of five be appointed to take charge, 
 after consultation with the Council, and in cooperation with such 
 similar committees as may be constituted by our two sister societies, 
 of the execution of the measures proposed in these resolutions, and 
 to represent the American Institute of Mining Engineers in any 
 further proceedings that may be taken for the same purpose. 
 
 Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions, together with the 
 assurance of our profound sympathy, be transmitted by the Secre- 
 tary to the family of Mr. Holley, and that copies be sent also to 
 the Secretaries of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers 
 and the American Society of Civil Engineers. 
 
 (Carried unanimously.) 
 
 The Chairman, in signifying his cordial acceptance of the task of 
 preparing a memorial 'address, read a private letter written to him 
 several years ago, in which Mr. HOLLEY placed at his disposal cer- 
 tain biographical memoranda, and proposed that, of the two, the 
 survivor should render this service of friendship to the other. 
 
 The Chairman also read, at the conclusion of the meeting, the 
 following letter : 
 
 89 JORALEMON ST., BROOKLYN, Feb., 1382. 
 MY DEAR FRIEND: 
 
 May I ask you to convey to my husband's friends in the Institute 
 of Mining Engineers my deep sense of their kindness to me and 
 affection for him? I have recalled so many times since his death 
 their oft-repeated expressions of love for him. I never shall forget 
 on one of the excursions at the Pittsburgh meeting the earnestness 
 with which different members said to me, " Mrs. Holley, we do so 
 love your husband." Those words pleased me then, but how much 
 more precious they are to me now ! 
 
 They all know the sad circumstances of his death and all the 
 darkness and gloom that so suddenly enveloped us. At first there 
 seemed no comfort; but I wish I could make them feel as I do, not 
 only the comfort but the almost joyousness that has filled my heart 
 as I have read all their words of love and sympathy. I never can 
 express my gratitude. 
 
 Mr. Holley had the deepest interest in the Institute, and regarded 
 its members as his brothers, and now their words make me feel that 
 they had for him the same affection, and that at this meeting their 
 
ALEXANDER* LYMAN HOLLEY. 55 
 
 tears are mingling with mine, because one whom we all loved so 
 dearly has gone from us. 
 
 Will they think it presumptuous in me if I say that I shall 
 always think of them as his brothers? I beg you and them to 
 believe that any and all events connected with the American Insti- 
 tute of Mining Engineers will be of the greatest interest to 
 Yours most gratefully and affectionately, 
 
 MARY H. HOLLEY. 
 
56 MEMORIAL OP 
 
 III. 
 
 MEMORIAL SESSION OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY 
 OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERS. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA, April 19th, 1882. 
 
 THE PRESIDENT, PROF. R. H. THURSTON, of Hoboken, N. J. : 
 I feel that I have a peculiar right to speak in this place of the 
 friend and colleague who has left us, to speak of him who was one 
 of the most active among the founders of our Society, and of the 
 man who was the ablest of his generation in our profession. As 
 your presiding officer I stand in the place that he should have 
 occupied, holding the position which he would probably have held 
 had he not himself chosen otherwise, deferring an honor which he 
 hoped, and of right may have anticipated, would be tendered him 
 a little later, when, with improved health, he expected to pass an 
 unbroken year among us. 
 
 The brotherly feeling that always unites men who have been 
 taught within the same academic walls came to unite us a quarter 
 of a century ago when we became alumni of u Old Brown." A 
 mutual trust and confidence, such as rarely bind men seeing as little 
 of each other as we did during the succeeding years, came to us, 
 despite infrequent meetings, while the last few years had brought 
 so many opportunities of intercourse that our friendship was ce- 
 mented with a firmness and closeness of union that is still more 
 rarely experienced among business men. Common tastes and closely 
 related professional pursuits, similar interests, and pleasant mem- 
 ories of much that was common to our earlier manhood, led to a 
 friendship of which the remembrance will never cease to yield sad 
 pleasure to the survivor. 
 
 Mr. Hoi ley was one of those who signed the call for the meeting 
 for the formation of the American Society of Mechanical Engi- 
 neers; he was the principal author of our by-laws and rules, and 
 the leading spirit in the organization of the Society. He was a 
 member of the Nominating Committee, and resigned in order to 
 oblige his colleagues by accepting a nomination as Vice-President, 
 while positively declining nomination as the first President. He 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 57 
 
 was one of those among the officers of our Society who were always 
 present at the business meetings of the Council, and at all regular 
 meetings, and who never allowed even important private business 
 to interfere with the business of the Society. 
 
 No member was more thoughtful in regard to its interests, more- 
 prolific of plans for the promotion of its welfare, or more active and 
 earnest in enlisting others in its support, and in bringing the leaders 
 of the profession into our ranks. Mr. Hoi ley was among the fore- 
 most in the movement to resuscitate the United States Board to test 
 metals, and to reorganize the great scheme of investigation planned 
 so carefully by that body, but hardly more than planned before the 
 demise of the Board. He was the most active of our members in 
 the organization of a plan for a gathering of European members 
 of the several branches of the profession to meet our own represent- 
 ative men in convention in the United States, and to inspect, under 
 the guidance of our committees, the public works and private en- 
 terprises of this country. This thought of a community of work, 
 of pleasures, and of all interests, that should bring into contact all 
 branches of the profession, and all members of our great guild, is 
 illustrative of the breadth of his intellect no less than of his great- 
 ness of heart; and these qualities always became prominent in dis- 
 cussing those still weightier matters that had for us a common and 
 more intense interest, a rational system of education, and a general 
 system of promotion of the useful arts and applied sciences by the 
 united efforts of statesmen, men of science, and men of business, 
 matters that were always brought into view when, as was so often 
 the case, "The Scientific Method of Advancement of Science" be- 
 came the theme of our discussion. 
 
 Intellectually great, with a noble soul, and possessing the next 
 essential, a powerful and vigorous yet graceful body, Mr. Holley 
 was in all the days of his middle working life one o>f the finest illus- 
 trations of the type of man that Agassiz is said to have been. It 
 was " the soul of a sage in the body of an athlete. 7 ' But that soul 
 has broken out from even such confinement, and that athletic frame 
 yielded to the strain of the mightier soul temporarily confined within 
 it; and to us is left only the hope of a future renewal of intercourse 
 and the remembrance of the past. 
 
 Our friend Holley was an honest and an earnest man. But such 
 a man is not always the most useful man either to the world, to his 
 fellows, or to himself. The honest, earnest man, who, in the excess 
 of his zeal, deceives himself, is often the most dangerous of char- 
 
 5 
 
58 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 acters. The greater his intelligence the more dangerous the man. 
 The greatest crimes that the world has known have been committed 
 by conscientious, zealous men. Such men must possess a better 
 judgment and a greater power of self-control than their comrades if 
 they are to live useful, happy, and successful lives. 
 
 Holley was an honest, earnest, intellectually great man, possessing 
 that rare and sterling judgment, and having more than a common 
 share of that woman's intuitive appreciation of the right, which is 
 the best regulator of the earnest worker. The faith, the hope, the 
 charity, the brightness, the earnestness, and the wholeness of heart 
 that distinguished him, no less than his great mental powers and 
 his professional standing, helped to place him in the high position 
 which he held among men. Shakespeare's admonition in that well- 
 named play, "All's Well that Ends Well," was unneeded by our 
 friend. To " love all, trust a few, do wrong to none," was, with 
 him, second nature. .His charity and his love covered all humanity; 
 his faith in those about him, once given, was never withdrawn, ex- 
 cept when, by some such bitter experience as we have all occasion- 
 ally tasted, it was extinguished by betrayal. 
 
 Do wrong to none! His whole life was a mission of noblest 
 beneficence, not only to his friends and his acquaintances, to those 
 who loved, and to those who came to him necessitous, but to all 
 nations, to the whole race contemporary with and succeeding him. 
 He was of those few great and fortunate benefactors of mankind to 
 whom we owe the highest material benefits brought to us by civili- 
 zation. 
 
 Our committees are considering how, where, and in what form a 
 suitable monument shall be erected to the memory of this most hon- 
 ored of pur colleagues ; whether to mount a bust of marble or of 
 bronze in Central Park ; to erect a statue at the capital of the 
 United States, on to place some more modest but not less fitting and 
 expressive memorial at his tomb. We may adopt either scheme; if 
 we were to measure his deserts, they would be beyond all these 
 plans. It is of little consequence which is decided upon ; his 
 noblest monument is the memory which is implanted in the hearts 
 of his friends, and in the memories of mankind. If these were 
 not enough, we might erect in the midst of each of those great and 
 wonderful industrial establishments built up so largely by his genius 
 a tablet inscribed with his name, and the legend so familiar to the 
 visitor to Sir Christopher Wren's tomb in St. Paul's, London : 
 
 "Si monumentum quseris, circumspice." 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 59 
 
 Let us hope that the time may come, and that soon, when a still 
 nobler monument than any yet proposed may be built to perpetuate 
 his fame. 
 
 The time must come, and that we will hope very soon, when a 
 pressing want of this great country shall be supplied by the estab- 
 lishment of a complete system of thoroughly scientific practical 
 education of the people for their work, a congeries of trade schools 
 and of technical colleges, united into a thoroughly organized and 
 well -ad ministered whole. Such a system it seems now certain must 
 be the work of private hands, and must be built up by the intelli- 
 gent liberality of comparatively few wealthy and patriotic citizens. 
 We have not yet statesmen in numbers, intelligence, and influence 
 equal to the task of securing a governmental system of education 
 such as has done so much for Germany and France. But the work 
 is begun, and when it has so far progressed that the grand central, 
 crowning, and directing member of the organization, a great UNI- 
 VERSITY OF THE ARTS AND SCIENCES, shall have been founded 
 and endowed by some noble modern Vaucanson, or Worcester, or 
 citizen more kingly than Ptolemy of Alexandria, some one, per- 
 haps, of the beneficiaries of the comrade whom we mourn, let us hope 
 that its most important department may be known as the HOLLEY 
 MEMORIAL SCHOOL OF THE ARTS AND SCIENCES OF ENGINEERING. 
 
 If other inscription is needed upon any tablet that may be erected, 
 or upon the pedestal of the monument that shall be raised to the 
 memory of this great man, this worthy successor in fame to the 
 greatest of the inventors of the steam-engine, we may write with 
 fitness and justice a paraphrase of that splendid tribute which may 
 be read on the base of Chantrey's statue of Watt in Westminster 
 
 Abbey : 
 
 Not to perpetuate a Name 
 which must endure while the peaceful Arts flourish, 
 
 but to show 
 that Mankind have learnt to honor those who best deserve their 
 
 Gratitude, 
 
 those among the People of the United States and of Europe 
 who love, honor, and cherish his Memory have united 
 
 to raise this Monument to 
 
 ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY, 
 
 who, directing the Force of an original Genius, early exercised 
 
 in Philosophic Research, 
 
 to the development of the modern Processes of Steel Manufacture, 
 enlarged the Resources of his Country, increased the Powers 'of Man, and 
 
 rose to an eminent Place 
 
 among the most illustrious Followers of Science, and the real 
 Benefactors of the World. 
 
60 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 It is of this man that I am desired, that I myself desire, most 
 earnestly to speak in fitting terms. But I am unable to do so. 
 I have gone to my desk many times during these last sad weeks 
 with the intention of putting on paper words properly expressive 
 of the feelings that are awakened by the thought of our loss. But 
 the words would not fit the thought, and after repeated trials I gave 
 up the attempt. But one evening as I sat at my window, saddened 
 and disheartened, I saw Sinus, that most beautiful and bright of all 
 the-stars, rising through the gray mists of the east, his sapphire rays 
 'quivering with varying refraction, steadily sweeping upward into 
 the clearer space above, and finally shining out of the invisible dome 
 with the brilliancy of a thousand diamonds, only made the brighter 
 by contrast with the thousands of orbs of lesser magnificence which 
 besprinkled the whole celestial vault. 
 
 I watched the progress of that glorious star, from hour to hour, 
 as it so slowly, so steadily, so quietly rose toward the zenith, " <$|jux 
 Jmst, obne rast," After a time a thin cloud barely touched, without 
 concealing, its light, and presently it shone free and clear again, and 
 once more swung magnificently upward. Again, a broader and a 
 thicker veil passed before it, dimming its lustre, and bringing upon 
 me a startling fear lest the beautiful st#r should disappear forever 
 from view. And even when it reappeared the apprehension re- 
 mained with me and dimmed the pleasure that its recovered beauty 
 should have given. How soon must a deep and impenetrable shade 
 conceal it forever t The star still rose, still bright, still beautiful, 
 still wonderful in contrast with the galaxy about it, shining down 
 upon the world with almost, if not quite, all its earlier splendor, 
 blessing the world with light gathered in space away beyond the 
 reach or ken of human minds, and impressing me with a feeling 
 of strength, majesty, invincibleness, such as can only be realized 
 in the presence of the most noble and incomprehensible of all 
 creations. 
 
 At last, when Hearing the zenith, when in the very height of its 
 glory and beauty, those blue rays quivered again, struggling through 
 the cloudy veil for a little time, flashed through a rift in the black, 
 and disappeared. A shock came to my heart ; a sense of deser- 
 tion, of loneliness, and of grief beyond remedy. Gone forever ! 
 But a second thought brought relief. That great and glorious star 
 is still there !. It is but a veil of mist, impenetrable to vision, but 
 hardly tangible, that has come between us. Another day will pass 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 61 
 
 and all its magnificence and all its beauty shall again be ours to 
 enjoy. 
 
 Another thought brought greater relief: A friend passes from our 
 sight when at the zenith of his fame, in the prime of his manhood, 
 in the height of his usefulness. But why mourn, and why seek to 
 express the selfish sentiments of grief? He still Hv 7 es. His is still 
 the glory and the splendor of a great soul. Let the tongue be silent ! 
 His is the story of the star. 
 
 And yet, after all, to many of us who have long known this emi- 
 nent man, who have found in him a valuable acquaintance, the 
 pleasantest of companions, and the truest and kindest of friends, 
 who, ourselves no orators and feeble even in the every-day use of 
 language, nevertheless feel " more than tongue can tell," or yet 
 " heart can hold in silence ;" to many of us it is an unspeakable 
 pleasure to be able to intrust our duty to a representative of our- 
 selves and of the Society, who can, and who will gladly, say what 
 we would say had we the power. For this we gladly turn to one 
 who can give suitable expression to the grief which weighs upon us 
 while we contemplate our loss, and while, nevertheless, we are con- 
 scious that our utterances should rather take the form of a song of 
 victory for this immortal, and of congratulation that our friend 
 who has now " passed over," has won so gloriously the peace, and 
 the love, and the happiness of the better life, to which we may hope 
 he may, in due time, welcome all who are left bereaved. 
 
 I have the honor to introduce to the Society the eulogist chosen 
 by our committee to express for us all a common grief, common 
 recollections, and a common hope. I present MR. JAMES C. BAYLES, 
 member of the Society. 
 
 Mr. Bayles then delivered the following 
 
 TRIBUTE TO ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 
 
 Mr. President and Gentlemen of the American Society of Mechanical 
 Engineers: I have been asked, on behalf and as a member of the 
 Memorial Committee appointed by our Council, to formally express 
 our deep sense of professional loss and personal bereavement in the 
 death of our honored vice-president and dear friend, Alexander L. 
 Holley. I have accepted this sad duty with satisfaction and with 
 reluctance; with satisfaction, because he was my friend through 
 
62 MEMORIAL OP 
 
 years of pleasant and, at times, intimate intercourse; with reluc- 
 tance, because I know that nothing I can say will give fitting ex- 
 pressions to the sorrow we feel, each in his own way. Even the 
 language of exuberant eulogy, could I command it, would seem out 
 of place in this our lodge of sorrow, and inappropriate, because none 
 valued less than he mere phrases and declamation. 
 
 But how can we speak of Holley without eulogy? He was at 
 once so great a man and so dear a friend; we knew him so inti- 
 mately and loved him so well, that we, at least, cannot speak of 
 him as of others who die cpowned with honors gained in spheres of 
 usefulness different from our own. He was one of ourselves, but 
 now that he is gone we recognize as never before his immeasurable 
 worth. I do not mean that he was not appreciated and understood 
 by those of us who knew him best. We ever rated him far above 
 his own modest estimate of himself, and involuntarily paid him the 
 homage of an honor he never courted. But still he was our Holley, 
 and now that he has vanished we stand like Gideon beside the wine- 
 press, when, gazing at vacancy, he knew to whom he had offered 
 the meat and broth of his commonplace daily life. We realize now 
 as never before that in his high sphere of special usefulness, Holley 
 was one of the greatest engineers of his time, and that a generation 
 hence the student of science who scans the metallurgical and engi- 
 neering literature of this century, will see better than we do now 
 the impress of his name on the cornerstones of more than one of 
 the great industries of the future. 
 
 I speak to many who in Holley 's death have suffered personal 
 bereavement. To each of us the sad news came fraught with the 
 dread significance of irreparable loss. To each it meant the sever- 
 ance of ties far stronger than we had realized until a pang in the 
 heart revealed the truth. To each it meant a sorrow keen or dull 
 according to the intimacy with which we had known him. Each 
 of us has some legacy of personal reminiscence which, though better 
 worth remembering than telling, is none the less a precious posses- 
 sion precious if only the echo of his gentle, kindly voice, or the 
 recollection of his earnest face beaming with a light which illumi- 
 nated all about him. I count it as one of the most striking evi- 
 dences of Holley's greatness and goodness that we remember him 
 with an unconscious exaggeration of personal admiration. Who 
 has yet heard even calm and impartial comment on his work and 
 worth ? When or where is he yet mentioned save with tremulous 
 voice? Who recalls aught but good of Holley, or names him with- 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 63 
 
 out such tribute of praise as few men merit while living, or receive 
 when dead ? 
 
 In what is meant to be merely a tribute to Holley's memory, 
 it will not be expected that I shall attempt to name or value the 
 results of his varied, conscientious, and skilful professional work. 
 With such knowledge of the subject as I possess, I can at most 
 sketch freely and in outline the incidents of his phenomenal career. 
 Had we time to look more closely, we should see that the genius we 
 so greatly wonder at meant simply tireless industry; that he moved 
 upward step by step, in natural and regular development; that the 
 results he accomplished were worked out by close study and clear 
 reasoning. Luck and chance were not factors in the equation of 
 his success. What he did he first knew; what he knew he first 
 learned. There was no happy accident to mark the turning-point 
 in his professional career. His inventions and improvements were 
 but the means by which he sought the attainment of ends kept 
 steadily in view. Thoroughness characterized his habits of thought 
 and of work, and those who knew him best, best knew how care- 
 fully he prepared himself for whatever he had to do. In this, 
 probably more than in anything else, we find the secret of his 
 uniform success in all the undertakings and duties of his brilliant 
 career. 
 
 It detracts nothing from our estimate of his attainments to know 
 that Alexander L. Holley began life under auspices peculiarly fa- 
 vorable. The child of exceptional parents, and born into a happy 
 and virtuous New England home, the influences surrounding his 
 early life were probably all which could be desired. He was a 
 scion of the true American aristocracy an aristocracy of intel- 
 lectual and moral worth. Knowing neither poverty nor riches, 
 he felt the inspiration of necessary self-dependence without the 
 discouragements and limitations of want. Quick to learn, he com- 
 pleted his studies at school in 1853, choosing the scientific course 
 at Brown University in preference to the classical course at Yale, 
 for which he had been prepared. He was then twenty-one years 
 of age. At once we find him seeking the knowledge which can 
 only be gained in practical work, and without which technical train- 
 ing has so limited a value. He went direct from the school into 
 the large locomotive works at Providence, and for about a year ran 
 a locomotive on the Stonington road. Years after, as President of 
 the American Institute of Mining Engineers, we catch a suggestion 
 of his fruitful experience in this modest capacity, in the striking 
 
64 MEMORIAL OP 
 
 passage in his address on "The Inadequate Union of Engineering 
 Science and Art/' in which he thus describes the relation of the 
 driver to his engine: "The thoughtful locomotive driver is clothed 
 upon, not with the mere machinery of a larger organism, but with all 
 the attributes except volition of a power superior to his own. Every 
 faculty is stimulated, and every sense exalted. An unusual sound 
 amid the roaring exhaust and the clattering wheels, tells him in- 
 stantly the place and degree of danger as would a pain in his own 
 flesh. The consciousness of a certain jarring on the foot-plate, a 
 chattering of a steam-valve, a halt in the exhaust, a peculiar smell 
 of burning, a sudden pounding of the piston,.an ominous wheeze of 
 the blast, a hissing of a water-gauge, warning him respectively of a 
 broken spring-hanger, a cutting valve, a slipped eccentric, a hot 
 journal, the priming of the boiler, high water, low water, or failing 
 steam; these sensations, as it were, of his outer body, become so in- 
 termingled with the sensations of his inner body, that this wheeled 
 and fire-feeding man feels, rather than perceives, the varying stresses 
 upon his mighty organism." 
 
 Thus, unconsciously perhaps, Holley tells us how he carried his 
 responsibilities in all the details of his professional work. It was 
 not perfunctory service for wages or for profit, but a living experi- 
 ence, subjecting mind and body to constant tension. He had put 
 something of himself into every member of the Bessemer plant. 
 The throb of its machinery kept time to his own heart-beats, and 
 he felt, as well as perceived, all the stresses upon the mighty organ- 
 ism with which his life was so closely identified. 
 
 At the outset of his professional career, Holley began to write for 
 publication. With an unselfish love of truth, he could not conceal 
 or save for his own benefit the fruits of his study arid experience. 
 At twenty-three we find him a regular contributor to the technical 
 press, especially to Colburn's Railway Advocate. About this time, 
 I am told, there came a marked change in Holley's literary style. 
 His earlier compositions, though enriched by occasional evidences 
 of unconscious genius, were florid and sophomoric to a degree which 
 cannot fail to excite a smile. At once he changed to the simple, 
 earnest style which gave his literary talent the brilliancy of a cut 
 and polished diamond. For this change, Holley was no doubt in- 
 debted in a great degree to his friend and co-worker, Zerah Colburn, 
 and we can imagine what delight those wonderful young men must 
 have felt in an association so fruitful of mutual benefit. Doubtless, 
 Holley owed much to Colburn. Without the aid of such a col- 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 65 
 
 laborator he would have made his way to substantial greatness; 
 with it the road was shorter and smoother. But journalism, under 
 whatever guidance or in whatever companionship, is an excellent 
 school, and one in which Holley learned much that better prepared 
 him for his life work. At twenty-four we find him proprietor and 
 editor of the Railway Advocate, which, founded too early and with- 
 out 'an appreciative constituency, suspended during the crisis of 
 1857. This release from serious and unprofitable responsibilities 
 gave Holley a chance to go abroad for study. At twenty-six we 
 find him publishing with Colburn, as their joint production, a work 
 on European Railways,* which had an immediate and important 
 influence on American railroad construction and operation. At the 
 age of twenty-nine we find him again started in what gave promise 
 of a brilliant journalistic career. He went abroad as correspondent 
 of the JSTew York Times, and the scrap-books in which he preserved 
 his writings is, I am told by Dr. Raymond, who now has them for 
 examination, a mine of wealth from which might be compiled a 
 brilliant and memorable volume. Of the value of his work as a 
 contributor to the newspaper press we can have but little knowledge. 
 That it was potent in stimulating invention and improvement we 
 may be sure. Such work is often valued too lightly. It seems to 
 possess but a transient interest, and to be pushed aside, almost before 
 the ink is dry, by the fresh attractions of the next day's current 
 literature; but every valuable article finds somewhere readers to 
 whom it is worth more than a library of books. The writer for 
 the newspaper press may often feel discouraged by the thought that 
 what costs him so much is so soon forgotten, but every article which 
 is worth remembering is remembered. Like the poet's arrows shot 
 into the air and falling he knows not where, the work of the able 
 and conscientious newspaper contributor exercises an influence he 
 little knows. At twenty-eight, while still a journalist, we find 
 Holley the author of a work on railway practice, f which at once 
 
 * The Permanent Way and Coal-burning Locomotives of European Railways, 
 with a Comparison of the Working Economy of European and American Lines, 
 and the Principles upon which Improvement must Proceed. By Zerah Colburn 
 and Alexander L. Holley, with 51 engraved plates by J. Bien. New York, 
 Holley & Colburn, 1858, 4to. 
 
 f American and European Eailway Practice in the Economical Generation of 
 Steam, Including the Materials and Construction of Coal-burning Boilers, Com- 
 bustion, the Variable Blasts, Vaporization, Circulation, Superheating, Supply- 
 ing and Heating Feed-water, etc., and the Adaptation of Wood and Coke-burn- 
 ing Engines to Coal-burning ; and in Permanent Way, including Road-bed, 
 
66 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 became standard. When we remember that the materials for this 
 treatise were collected at a time when he seemed wholly engrossed 
 in newspaper work, we can but wonder at his extraordinary in- 
 dustry. At thirty we find him going abroad for Edwin A. Stevens 
 to study ordnance and armor; and at thirty-three he published a 
 work on these subjects,* which was alone sufficient to give him a 
 recognized position in the front ranks of engineers. Meanwhile he 
 had secured for American capitalists the Bessemer patents, and 
 built at Troy experimental works. He had thus reached profes- 
 sional eminence at an age when most men are but laying the 
 foundations of a career. In this department of metallurgical en- 
 gineering his extraordinary talent found full opportunity for its 
 greatest achievements. How much he did to create the Bessemer 
 steel industry in this country, and make our average practice supe- 
 rior to the best foreign practice, has been ably and frankly told by 
 Mr. Robert W. Hunt, of Troy, in a paper before the American 
 Institute of Mining Engineers.f When we remember in how short 
 a time this industry has attained its present extent and prosperity, 
 and with what giant strides it has moved forward to a point at 
 which its statistics overshadow those of Great Britain, we cannot 
 fail to find interesting the story of how this was brought about, 
 chiefly by Hoi ley's persistent industry and close study of details. 
 Fully impressed with the possibilities of the Bessemer process as 
 he had witnessed its workings in England, he inspired others with 
 his own enthusiasm, and under his direction the original plant of 
 the Albany and Rensselaer works at Troy was built. Previous 
 experiments with the pneumatic process, as patented by William 
 Kelly, had been made at Wyandotte, in which Mr. W. F. Durfee, 
 of our membership, took a prominent part, and he and his asso- 
 ciates are certainly entitled to share with Holley the credit of the 
 
 Sleepers, Kails, Joint Fastenings, Street Railways, etc., etc. By Alexander L. 
 Holley, B.P., with 77 plates, engraved by J. Bien. New York, D. Van Nostrand, 
 1st edition, 1860; London, Sampson, Low, Son & Co., 4to., 1st edition, 1867; 2d 
 edition, 1867. 
 
 * A Treatise on Ordnance and Armor, Embracing Descriptions, Discussions, 
 and Professional Opinions Concerning the Material, Fabrication, Eequirements, 
 Capabilities, and Endurance of European and American Guns for Naval, Sea- 
 coast, and Iron-clad Warfare, and their Rifling, Projectiles, and Breech-loading. 
 Also, Results of Experiments Against Armor, from Official Records; with an 
 Appendix, Referring to Gun-cotton, Hooped Guns, etc., etc. By Alexander L. 
 Plolley, B.P., with 493 illustrations. New York, D. Van Nostrand, 1865 ; London, 
 Trubner & Co., 1865, octavo. 
 
 f ransaclions, A. I. M. E , vol. v., pp. 210-216. 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN IIOLLEY. 67 
 
 first great improvement in the process, the substitution of the cupola 
 for the reverberatory furnace for melting the iron to be charged 
 into the converter. Mr. Durfee's failure to make this improvement 
 successful was due to the small size of his cupola, the distance the 
 iron had to be moved in the ladle, and the fact that, being low in 
 silicon, it would not generate heat enough to produce the proper 
 reactions when blown in the converter. Holley's success with the 
 cupola was due to better and more convenient arrangements. 
 Though not the first to make steel by the pneumatic process in this 
 country, the Troy works were the first to approximate a commercial 
 success. Early in the history of this industry, Holley seems to 
 have concluded that the best foreign practice was merely a starting- 
 point for an ingenious American engineer to work from. His talent 
 was eminently practical, and in his judgment nothing was success- 
 ful which did not give satisfactory commercial results. The task 
 he had undertaken was a great one. Not only was the process to 
 be adapted to the conditions here existing, but the popular prejudice 
 against the product must be overcome by maintaining a standard 
 of quality which should disarm criticism and command the confi- 
 dence of consumers. Having made successful the melting in a 
 cupola of the iron to be converted, he began to experiment with 
 American irons, with enough success to encourage efforts on the 
 part of furnace managers to provide a grade of pig suited to the 
 process. The Troy plant was increased by the erection of a 5-ton 
 converter, and Holley then assumed charge of the erection of the 
 plant of the Pennsylvania Steel Company at Harrisburg, for which 
 he had previously designed the machinery. In 1868 he returned 
 to the management of the Troy works, which he partially remod- 
 elled in the light of experience gained at Harrisburg, and the im- 
 proved plant made its first blow in 1870. His next important 
 improvement was the substitution of a 30-inch 3-high blooming 
 train with lifting tables, for the cogging hammer, in the reduction 
 of ingots. George Fritz, a great mechanic, between whom and 
 Holley existed an almost fraternal love, subsequently devised an 
 apparatus which displaced Holley's improvement, and carried 
 economy a step further. Standing admittedly at the head of this 
 branch of the profession, Holley was called upon to build or design 
 one after another of the Bessemer works, or to assist with his advice 
 and experience the engineers immediately in charge. 
 
 Mr. Hunt, in the paper before mentioned, thus summarizes the 
 results of Holley's work up to the year 1877 : 
 
68 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 "The result of his thought gave us the present accepted type of 
 American Bessemer plant. He did away with the English deep 
 pit, and raised the vessels so as to get working-space under them 
 on the ground floor ; he substituted top-supported hydraulic cranes 
 for the more expensive counter-weighted English ones, and put three 
 ingot-cranes around the pit instead of two, and thereby obtained 
 greater area of power; he changed the location of the vessel as re- 
 lated to the pit and melting-house; he modified the ladle-crane, and 
 worked all the cranes and vessels from a single point; he substituted 
 cupolas for reverberatory furnaces ; and last, but by no means least, 
 introduced the intermediate or accumulating ladle, which is placed 
 on scales, and thus insures accuracy of operation by rendering pos- 
 sible the weighing of each charge of melted iron before pouring it 
 into the converter. These points cover the radical features of his 
 innovations. After building such a plant he began to meet the dif- 
 ficulties of details in manufacture, among the most serious of which 
 was the short duration of the vessel-bottoms, and the time required 
 to cool off the vessels to a point at which it was possible for work- 
 men to enter and make new bottoms. After many experiments the 
 result was the Holley vessel-bottom, which, either in its form as 
 patented, or in a modification of it as now used in all American 
 works, has rendered possible, as much as any other one thing, the 
 present immense production." 
 
 Of what he has done since this was written we can learn only by 
 a search among his papers. In the position of Consulting Engineer 
 of the Bessemer Association, he worked with tireless industry, but 
 with probably less advantage to his reputation and fortune than had 
 he worked in another capacity. His responsibilities were great, and 
 although his work cannot be said to have been profitable to him in 
 proportion to its value to those for whom it was performed, he was 
 too conscientious to consider his own interests to the sacrifice of 
 theirs. It was not until a manifestation of their feeling of absolute 
 ownership stung Holley's proud and sensitive nature, that he sought 
 to sever this connection by resigning his position. But they were 
 in no mood to part with one on whom they had learned to depend 
 so absolutely. He remained to the last trammelled by a profes- 
 sional engagement he could not resign and was loath to sever, but 
 which gave him a vast opportunity for usefulness in the line of his 
 best abilities. 
 
 Considered as an inventor, Holley had fewer claims to recogni- 
 tion than many men whose lives have been of very much less 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 69 
 
 benefit to the world. His talent was more fruitful of immediate 
 results than that of the restless discoverer who is always pushing 
 into the wilderness of possibilities as yet untraversed by the beaten 
 paths of human endeavor. Holley cannot, I think, be called an 
 inventor. He made no great discoveries, and, so far as I can 
 learn, every invention claimed by him had for its object the pro- 
 vision of better means of reaching an end previously aimed at or 
 attained. 
 
 His first patent was taken out in 1859, when he was twenty-seven 
 years old. It was for an improved railway chair, and describes a 
 device to preserve the continuity of the track by brackets so attached 
 to spliced pieces and tension plates that the weight of the train 
 wheels on the rail should keep the splices tightly in their places 
 without the aid of plates, nuts, keys, or rivets. 
 
 In the same year he took a patent for cut-oif gear for steam- 
 engines, describing an apparatus in which a combination of the 
 motion of an eccentric or its equivalent with the motion of a steam- 
 piston for moving a valve, effected a variable cut-off of the induc- 
 tion-steam without interfering with a free exhaust. 
 
 Ten years passed before he again claimed protection as an in- 
 ventor. In 1869 he patented a combination of crane, converter, 
 and chimney, so placed relatively to each other that the crane could 
 swing entirely around in its orbit over the converter without coming 
 in Contact with the chimney. One side of the converter was sup- 
 ported by a beam, in such a way as to permit a car to be run under 
 it from one side; and it was claimed that by the arrangement of 
 oven, crane, car, and lift for removing the bottom of the converter, 
 special advantages were gained over those pertaining to the arrange- 
 ment previously employed. A guide and hand screw were provided 
 in connection with the improved arrangement of parts, so that the 
 ladle stopper could be readily adjusted. 
 
 Again, in 1869, he patented a shield in connection with a Bes- 
 semer converter, for the protection of the workmen. A tuyere box 
 is described in combination with the converter bottom, and the 
 latter was so constructed as to admit of its introduction through 
 the former. 
 
 In 1872, Holley patented the converter-bottom which bears his 
 name. The patent described a construction of notched bricks shaped 
 so as to be set below and around the tuyeres, the spaces between 
 being rammed with ganister; and to more readily dry the mass 
 
70 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 screw plugs were provided, which passed through the ganister and 
 boxes. 
 
 In the same year he took out two patents relating to the casting 
 of ingots. The first of these describes a mould so arranged as to 
 fill from the bottom to any height desired; the second described 
 suitable moulds, in connection with a solid flask containing suitable 
 runners leading from one mould to another, and lined with a refrac- 
 tory metal to prevent a too rapid abstraction of heat from the molten 
 steel. 
 
 In 1873 he patented a stopper for ingot-moulds, supported at 
 different points by elastic flanges or friction-springs, and on the 
 same' date an ingot-mould provided with an adjustable cast-iron 
 stopper. 
 
 Towards the close of 1873 he obtained a patent on improved 
 rolls, in which the middle roll was adjusted by two screws, one 
 right- and the other left-handed, passing through the bolster at 
 either end, and operated by worm-gearing connected with the pulley 
 above. Fore- and catch-plates were fastened to lugs on the bolster 
 of the middle roll, and carried by these when the roll was adjusted. 
 A stop on the bolster limited the height to which the metal was 
 raised by the table. 
 
 Three years later he invented and patented a furnace-construction, 
 in the roof of which were spaces for air, water, or spray conduits for 
 cooling the same. 
 
 In 1879 he patented a feeding-device for rolling-mills, in which 
 the feed-rollers were mounted on a special frame provided with 
 suitable mechanism imparting a proper motion, and adapting the 
 apparatus -for feeding either long or short pieces. Another device 
 consisted in a rocking frame attached to the housing. The feed- 
 roller frame was carried by the rocking frame, and suitable mechan- 
 ism is described to guide the pieces and impart a rotary motion to 
 the feed-rollers. 
 
 Two years later, in 1881 scarcely more than thirteen months 
 ago he patented a steam-boiler furnace, in which the essential de- 
 vice consists of alternate ports, with a diaphragm so placed over 
 them as to thoroughly mix the gases entering through the ports. 
 The space below the diaphragm constitutes the combustion-chamber 
 in which the gases are burned. 
 
 One year and seven days ago* his last patent is dated, which 
 
 * April 26th, 1881. 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 71 
 
 describes the removable converter shell, of which I shall speak 
 somewhat more fully later on. 
 
 This, I believe, is a brief record of Holley's work as an inyentor 
 of new and patentable devices. The list is not a long one, and the 
 casual reader will not find therein much to sustain a claim to great 
 originality or a talent for discovery. But when we remember what 
 some of these improvements have done for one of the great indus- 
 tries of the country, and how they have helped to place us in the 
 front rank as steel-producers, we see that the world owes Holley 
 more than it does many who anticipate industrial progress, and 
 stake out claims which succeeding generations may perhaps work 
 with profit, but which, when located, lie outside the busy circle of 
 the world's activities and industries. I regard Holley's mechanical 
 talent as eminently practical and characteristically American. He 
 ever sought " convenient means." To facilitate, to simplify, to 
 save labor, to economize where economy was profitable, these were 
 the ends he strove for and attained. Bessemer probably has more 
 claim to recognition as a great inventor than Holley ; but if we 
 compare the two men we see strikingly exemplified the difference 
 between the inventor and the industrious engineer. Where Bes- 
 semer left the process which bears his name, Holley's work began. 
 It was full of possibilities which Mr. Bessemer, distracted by a 
 restless ambition to do something new in marine architecture and 
 other lines of experiment, not always judiciously chosen, seems to 
 have aided but little in realizing. Holley was content to be useful ; 
 the typical inventor leaves the question of utility for others to 
 answer, and pushes on. It is as an engineer, rather than as an 
 inventor, that Holley must be considered great; and not alone as 
 an engineer, but as a teacher of the accomplished facts of scientific 
 progress. He had a faculty for imparting to others the fruits of 
 study, observation, and experience, which is given to but few men. 
 Not only was he lucid and clear in his description, but even around 
 the dry details of mechanical proportioning and construction he 
 cast a glow of color; and truth, when he presented it, became poetic. 
 How much his writings have enriched the engineering literature of 
 the two continents, I do not need to tell you. Holley's life and 
 work merit all the honor we can pay his memory, and his title to 
 substantial greatness is beyond the reach of question or criticism. 
 
 There is something very pathetic to me in all of Holley's death- 
 bed utterances, but espscially in those which touched upon- his 
 work. " I should like/' he said, in effect, " to live ten or fifteen 
 
72 MEMORIAL OP 
 
 years longer to aid in realizing the possibilities of the open-hearth 
 process. This would have rounded and completed my professional 
 career; but I am satisfied." To long for an opportunity of further 
 usefulness was natural to one whose life had been so full of great 
 achievements, but to speak of rounding and completing such a pro- 
 fessional career seems like wishing to gild fine gold. Not so to 
 Holley ! Death to him meant simply leaving undone that for 
 which he had made earnest preparation, and which he desired to do 
 because he could do it best. Others will do good work, great work, 
 but not his work. 
 
 " The unfinished window of Aladdin's tower 
 Unfinished must remain." 
 
 Holley's connection with the Society of Mechanical Engineers is 
 a memory of which we may well be proud. Perhaps to him, more 
 than to any other member, its success is due. His active interest 
 in the project was in ifself an assurance that it would realize the 
 objects of its organization, and his name created confidence in all 
 departments of the profession. Some of us, but probably not many, 
 know what effort he made to secure a good attendance at the Hart- 
 ford meeting, and how anxious he was that the dinner should be a 
 complete and memorable success. He knew better than most of us 
 the value of recreation as a preparation for the serious work of life, 
 and long experience had taught him that to make the social features 
 of our society-meetings delightful was the surest way to make such 
 meetings successful. In our dinners we have a perpetual memorial 
 of Holley. On such occasions he enjoyed life at its best, and how 
 much his presence added to our pleasure I do not need to say. 
 Unfortunately, failing health deprived him of the opportunity of 
 contributing liberally to our transactions, but, had he been spared, 
 he would have aided materially in giving us a high place among 
 the great technical societies of the world. I have lately re-read 
 with pleasure and profit his address as chairman of the preliminary 
 meeting in February, 1880, on "The Field of Mechanical Engi- 
 neering," which is charming in its simple earnestness and brimming 
 with valuable suggestions to officers and members. 
 
 We have also on our records the fullest, and, I believe, the first 
 description of his last great improvement,* which is in a striking 
 
 * " An adaptation of Bessemer Plant to the Basic Process." Eead at the Annual 
 Meeting Soc. Mech. Eng., February, 1880. 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 73 
 
 degree characteristic. Convinced from examination that the basic 
 process was a chemical success, he also saw that it presented difficul- 
 ties which threatened to make it useless in this country. Having 
 brought the Bessemer practice up to the high perfection which it 
 had attained in the working of the so-called acid process, he recog- 
 nized the impracticability of restricting a steel plant in the United 
 States to the comparatively small productions which satisfied Eng- 
 lish engineers and capitalists. When Thomas was in this country, 
 he and Holley were at Troy together. Thomas was greatly inter- 
 ested in all he saw, and while in the converter-house he remarked 
 that he "should like nothing better than to sit down on an ingot- 
 mould and watch the work all day." " If you want to find an 
 ingot-mould cool enough to sit on," replied Holley, "you will have 
 to send to England for it." Holley's improvements had rendered 
 impossible the delays which would have resulted from the frequent 
 relining of converters, and to perfect the basic process he had hit 
 upon the clever expedient of making the linings detachable, so that 
 with very little delay a new lining could be substituted for one 
 burned out, and the work go on., enabling our steel-makers to adopt 
 the basic process, when it is to their interest to do so, without sacri- 
 fice of product. This was the crowning work of Holley's life, and 
 to us he gave the paper which would have been welcomed by the 
 greatest technical societies of the world. 
 
 It is much to be regretted that petty jealousies led to the decision 
 to withhold from Holley the Bessemer medal, which he, more than 
 any engineer, had earned ; but he was too great a man to be made 
 unhappy by the fact that he had excited in weaker minds feelings 
 which found no place in his own great, loving heart. The con- 
 sciousness that he merited the honor was worth more to him than 
 to have had it grudgingly bestowed by those who knew, but dare 
 not confess, that he towered high above those who sat in judgment 
 on his claims to recognition. The love of his friends was always 
 worth more to Holley than barren compliment, and he died with- 
 out uttering a word to indicate that he had known a disappointment 
 in life. Even in the detention of his stricken family, who were 
 hurrying to his bedside, he saw a blessing for them which out- 
 weighed the satisfaction it would have given him to look once more 
 upon those nearest and dearest to him ; and among his last words 
 was a message that he died without disappointment, knowing that 
 it would be less a shock to them to find their worst fears realized 
 than it would be to find him unconscious, and see him die with- 
 
74 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 out even a look of recognition or a word expressing the infinite 
 tenderness of his love. One capable of such forgetfulness of self 
 in the presence of the awful reality of death could look with 
 equanimity on the petty annoyances which make weaker natures 
 unhappy. 
 
 Of Holley's personal character, I can speak only as a friend and 
 best describe him as he seemed to me. Perhaps I owe him more 
 than I would care to tell. He won my confidence and regard years 
 ago, when with nothing but youth and inexperience to commend me 
 to his consideration, I sought his counsel and was freely admitted to 
 his confidence. You can estimate better than I can describe the 
 value of such a friend to one weighted with grave and anxious re- 
 sponsibilities, and impressed with a sense of the inadequacy of his 
 preparation for the work devolving upon him. It is the experience 
 of the journalist that truth is sometimes difficult of access. The 
 statements made to him are often colored by a regard for real or 
 supposed self-interest, and misrepresentation masquerades in the 
 garb of frankness and confidence. But when I met Holley and sat 
 with him for half an hour in conference, I would have pinned my 
 faith to his deliberate statement, otherwise unsupported, against the 
 oaths of all the world. Holley was to me a revelation. Not only 
 was he a -man of whose sincerity no one could entertain a doubt, 
 but he was one who dared to put confidence in the sincerity and 
 honesty of others. It was as refreshing to talk with him as to pass 
 from the gray shadows of a closed chamber into the full glow of 
 sunshine, from the chill of reserve and suspicion into the genial 
 warmth of outspoken frankness. Others I have found honest and 
 true, others have won my love by unselfish service, others have given 
 me wise counsel and judicious advice. Their sincerity I have proved ; 
 Holley's sincerity needed no proof. 
 
 During the twelve years of an acquaintance which I shall always 
 remember with pleasure, it was my privilege to learn by observation 
 and experience the generous side of Holley's nature. Never have 
 I known him too busy to see one who needed his assistance ; never 
 did he promise aid without rendering it. In our great metallurgical 
 establishments are scores of young men who have reason to bless 
 the memory of this unselfish friend, whose timely assistance opened 
 the way to honorable professional success. With Holley there was 
 nothing perfunctory in this service for others. It was his pleasure 
 in a peculiar degree to confer benefit, and he was never so happy 
 as when it was in his power to bring happiness to others. 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 75 
 
 Of the irresistible charm of Holley's conversation, of his sunny 
 temperament, his brilliant wit, and his genial good-fellowship, I 
 need not speak ; but remembering all these I am moved to write on 
 the tablets of memory as his epitaph, a paraphrase of the remark of 
 the old farmer of Marshfield as he stood beside the bier of Webster : 
 " This is a lonesome world, and Holley dead." 
 
 THE PRESIDENT: I see among us a gentleman, who, although 
 not a member of our Society, is a member of two of the great 
 societies of Great Britain. I would like, if he is willing, to have 
 him say a few words on this occasion Mr. Fernie. 
 
 JOHN FERNIE, of London, England: Although not an intimate 
 friend of Mr. Holley, yet I had the pleasure of meeting him in this 
 city in 1876 ; and I know a good deal of his work, and I can bear 
 high testimony, as an English engineer, to the very high apprecia- 
 tion we have in our country for his mechanical skill and genius. 
 He commended himself to us in a great many ways, principally as 
 a writer, as an inventor, and as a connecting link between English 
 and American engineers. So, whenever Mr. .Holley came to any of 
 our meetings, we looked upon him as your representative, and treated 
 him accordingly. I assure you that there is a great blank in our 
 societies in England caused by the death of Mr. Holley, and that 
 we mourn his loss as much as you do, for we considered that he 
 belonged to us as he belonged to you. There are a great many 
 small minds in our country, as I dare say there are in yours, who 
 do not look at men with the broad feelings and respect with which 
 they ought, and who regard them in an envious sort of way ; but 
 the general feeling of the engineers of our country as regards Mr. 
 Holley was a feeling of genuine respect. 
 
 After the eloquent words which have fallen from the last speaker, 
 the most eloquent memorial tribute which I have ever heard, it will 
 be improper for me to express more than my deep regret for the 
 death of Mr. Holley, and to say that we mourn his loss as deeply 
 as you do. 
 
 One word in regard to a subject that came before your Society 
 this morning. In respect to a meeting of Mechanical Engineers of 
 England and America, I may say that two years ago I tried to get 
 
76 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 up a party to come to the United States. At our annual meeting, 
 Mr. Barlow, our President, mentioned in his address the pleasure 
 which a visit to the United States had given him. He was present 
 here at your great Exposition. And after he made that statement, 
 I thought it my duty, as having several times visited on this side, 
 to try and get up a party to come across here and see your great 
 works, and try to meet our professional brethren in America and 
 have more fellow- feeling with them. But I found that a long time 
 would be required for such a visit, and that considerable expense 
 would attend it ; and although I got Cook, the great excursionist, 
 to arrange about a steamer for us, yet when we learned the length 
 of time it would take, it was found impracticable to get up a party. 
 I believe that is the great trouble with engineers coming to Amer-, 
 ica. I wish we could shorten the road. I hope in a few years we 
 will get it down to six or seven days, and at that time we hope to 
 get a considerable number of English engineers over in America. 
 We have a great many American engineers coming to England, 
 but very few going from England to America. I wish there were 
 more. 
 
 THE PRESIDENT : The road between England and America is 
 being shortened very rapidly. The Alaska made her last passage 
 in six days and twenty-three hours. 
 
 We have among us one of our old officers, who was also Presi- 
 dent of the Institute of Mining Engineers. Can we hear from 
 Mr. Coxe? 
 
 ECKLEY B. COXE, of Drifton, Pa. : I have been at many meet- 
 ings of the Civil, Mining, and Mechanical Engineers at which our 
 dear old friend Holley was present. This, gentlemen, is the first 
 one I have attended since he has gone. As I look around and see 
 so many who have been with us when Holley was here, I feel as if 
 I could say nothing. Holley was a man who made us better. He 
 made us stronger. He made us act like men and feel like men ; 
 and I do not believe that there is a man worthy of the name, who 
 has had the honor and the privilege of being well acquainted with 
 Alexander Lyman Holley, who has not found himself a better man. 
 Of him we may well say : " It is better to have loved and lost than 
 never to have loved at all." I am not speaking of his great genius 
 as an engineer ; that is not necessary ; he wrote his name as an 
 engineer where none can efface it; but as a friend, as a man, as one 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 77 
 
 who made engineering a profession'. And I think to Alexander 
 Lyrnan Holley the profession of engineering owes more to-day than 
 to any other man who has lived on this side of the Atlantic. Those 
 who were with him in the American Society of Civil Engineers 
 know what he did for its advancement, and I, who labored with 
 him for so many years in the American Institute of Mining En- 
 gineers, know what he did for that Society; and we all feel and 
 must say, if we speak the truth, that but for him it is very doubt- 
 ful if this Society would have come into existence, at least for some 
 time. I feel that I should be but repeating what is in all your 
 hearts were I to say anything in his praise ; and I can only repeat 
 that this is the saddest meeting that I have ever attended. I feel 
 that I would like to go away, as I see his loved face before me 
 there, and think that we are never again to meet upon this earth. 
 I wish almost that I were not here. Gentlemen, let us all try to 
 leave behind us a name like his, sans peur et sans reproche, the 
 Chevalier Bayard of our profession. He did everything to ad- 
 vance and glorify engineering, and never anything to sully its fair 
 fame. 
 
 THE PRESIDENT : We have among us another gentleman, who 
 has watched Mr. Holley's work with more intelligence, more power 
 of comprehension, than most of us could have done, and one better 
 qualified to speak of his works than any man among us. We would 
 like to hear from Mr. Hunt. 
 
 ROBERT W. HUNT, of Troy, N. Y. : I can hardly trust myself 
 to speak of Holley. Yesterday I happened to be in the shops of 
 the Corliss Steam-Engine Company, and mentioned to one of the 
 workmen there that I expected to-day to attend the memorial meet- 
 ing of the Mechanical Engineers on the death of Alexander L. 
 Holley. The man exclaimed: "What! our Holley?" And so it 
 is, whether it is among the world ngmen or among the cultivated 
 engineers, it is to "our Holley" that we to-day seek to pay our 
 tribute. 
 
 Sadness is rendered less painful when the privilege is given us of 
 making expression of our grief: "Out of the fulness of the heart 
 the mouth speaketh." Oh, how full our hearts have been, and are, 
 from the loss of our friend and fellow-member! In rny reflections 
 upon dear Holley's death, I have so many times thought of the 
 death of his close friend, and one of our most cherished members, 
 
78 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 one who felt so much interest and filled such an active part in the 
 organization and success of this Society, Henry R. Worthington. 
 
 Many of you will remember that at our second meeting, the one 
 held for the purpose of final organization, Holley was too ill to be 
 present, and Mr. Worthington in his stead read the report of the 
 Committee on Constitution and By-Laws. In a few weeks Holley, 
 having partially recovered, sailed for Europe, where, later, he ex- 
 perienced the terrible sickness which so nearly ended his life. Dur- 
 ing this time, while his family and friends were anxiously awaiting 
 each cablegram, several professional associates and myself had occa- 
 sion to visit Mr. Worthington's office. We found him holding a 
 message in his hands, and overwhelmed by grief. His feelings were 
 so overpowering that speech was almost impossible. At last, in 
 eloquent, heartfelt words, he pointed out to us his sorrow. Holley 
 Was dying ! 
 
 What a beautiful .tribute he paid to his character. Worthington 
 himself, most genial of men, most pure, most talented, laid his gar- 
 lands at the feet of one whom he loved for these same qualities. 
 Would that I could to-day pay my tribute to Holley's memory by 
 repeating Worth ington's words ! 
 
 How past all comprehension is fate ! Worthington died ; Holley 
 came back to us apparently restored to health, and was himself the 
 mourner at the tomb of his friend. And now both are gone. The 
 world has lost much, and of the world this Society is among the 
 heaviest sufferers. 
 
 Holley's character is best illustrated by the peculiar marks of 
 affection and respect which have been paid to it since his death. 
 Who would not live such a life ? But few can. Such an intel- 
 lect, such a simple, loving, all-embracing heart is seldom given. 
 But while mourning his loss, we can all endeavor to prove ourselves 
 worthy to have received his love, to have been of his friends. 
 
 Whether or no tablets of stone or monuments of brass are erected 
 to his memory, the Memorial Session, at Washington, of the Ameri- 
 can Institute of Mining Engineers, this of our own Society held 
 to-day, and the action of the American Society of Civil Engineers 
 yet to come, are greater, better, sweeter tributes, tributes such as 
 none but Holley could have called forth. 
 
 Nevertheless, let us do more, let the three Societies meet in rearing 
 an enduring physical tribute one alike appropriate to his genius, 
 his love of art, and the good done by him for his fellow-men. Let 
 it stand as an example of the value of practical science, of practical 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLET. 79 
 
 work, and as a beacon to the young men of our country, of whose 
 welfare, of whose guidance, of whose fortune his great heart was so 
 full. 
 
 THE PRESIDENT : I see there is another gentleman with us, who 
 is also a member of this and of the sister Societies, who has worked 
 with Holley on the Boards of direction of those Societies, and has 
 himself been President of the Mining Engineers, and is one of our 
 most active and most valued members. Will Mr. Metcalf address 
 the Society? 
 
 WILLIAM METCALF, of Pittsburgh, Pa.: In 1874 I had the 
 pleasure of first meeting the man we have to-day met here to honor. 
 In 1874 it was my fortune one day, as I incidentally dropped into 
 one of the machine shops of our city, to be directed to the pattern 
 shop, and further into a little, dingy corner to find one of the em- 
 ployers. And there, in this little, dark corner of the place, I met 
 a man who was introduced to me as Alexander L. Holley, and the 
 bright face, and the sweet srnile, and the clear, intelligent, flashing 
 blue eyes that were set on me that day are just as clear in my mind 
 at present as they were at that time, and that was my first meeting 
 with Holley. Afterwards it was through his influence that I was 
 induced to join the American Institute of Mining Engineers. It 
 was partly through his influence that I became a member of the 
 American Society of Civil Engineers, and it was altogether through 
 his influence that I became a member of this Society. To him I 
 owe the great honor of having the nomination to the office of 
 President of the American Institute of Mining Engineers, and 
 when called upon to-day, Mr. President, to speak of Mr. Holley, I 
 hardly know what to say. Of his career, of his professional work, 
 many gentlemen here to-day know far more than I do ; and I have 
 simply jotted down a few remarks to add as a tribute to the char- 
 acter of Mr. Holley, which I hope will be deemed at least worthy 
 to go upon the records of this meeting, which is intended, as I 
 understand, simply to be a tribute to the memory of a man whom 
 we all love, honor, and respect. 
 
 We all know why we loved Mr. Holley, simply because we 
 could not help it. Not merely because he was sweet-tempered ; 
 many a man has a sweet temper, and is insipid. Not only because 
 of his knowledge, for many a one is learned, and no one else is ever 
 allowed to know it. Not because of his many-sided attainments, 
 
80 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 for many people acquire many things only to air their own vanity. 
 Holley had sweet temper, profound knowledge, and a great variety 
 of attainments, and he poured them out so lavishly, so persistently, 
 and best of all so modestly, that he drew us all to him whether we 
 would or not. But in what was Holley great? He was great in 
 his far-seeing apprehension of the utility of things. He had the 
 enthusiasm of a zealot, the courage of one convinced, and the energy 
 of inspiration. He seized upon the great Bessemer process when 
 capitalists were afraid, when old practices and ignorant prejudice 
 derided it, and when a slumbering world had no idea of its own 
 needs. He gave courage to capital, bent down ignorance and preju- 
 dice, and showed an astonished world what a poor world it was 
 before. He was successful in probably the greatest of engineering 
 feats, for his task was no wide chasm to be spanned, no great moun- 
 tain to be pierced, no large river to be guided and controlled, nor a 
 huge swamp to be filled up and made useful. 
 
 These are all great works, but their accomplishment depends 
 mainly upon common-sense, and the knowledge and application of 
 well-known and changeless laws of nature. Once completed they 
 stand fulfilling their objects and requiring but little care for their 
 preservation. 
 
 Holley went to the capitalists, and said, " Give me your money, 
 and I will span the great chasm between now and to-morrow ; I 
 will blow to atoms the mountains of ignorance and prejudice; you 
 shall float upon rivers of wealth ; and old ways and old methods 
 shall be completely swamped. I will take your dollars and convert 
 them into buildings, and furnaces, and mills, and hammers; I will 
 put all of these fair structures into the hands of the most ordinary 
 men, and they shall do all they can to smash and tear them in pieces. 
 They shall fail ; I shall succeed, and you shall be rich." He did 
 succeed, and why? How could this man, poet, artist, architect, 
 lover of all that was beautiful, succeed in such a task? He did it 
 because he was modest, and kept himself in the background. He 
 pushed every one but himself to the front, and the front rank bore 
 him aloft on its shoulders, and he fulfilled his promises. The little 
 streams of thousands, invested in his many contrivances, united into 
 a great river of millions, and his patrons still gather up the profits. 
 And here is the great secret of his success. He never allowed his 
 love of the beautiful to get the better of his sense of the useful ; 
 and he never allowed his ambition to overcome his faith to the trust 
 reposed in him. 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 81 
 
 He was happy when he saw each new work completed and run- 
 ning successfully, but he was most happy when he could say, "They 
 are working economically and making lots of money." All I have 
 said seems as nothing, Mr. President, and I can think of no more 
 fitting words to close than those of a friend whom I met the other 
 day, who said : " I cannot tell you how I miss him." 
 
 THE PRESIDENT: We have with us a gentleman who has been in 
 a certain way a co-worker with Mr. Holley, and who has helped him 
 through a good many of his difficulties, and whom in turn he has 
 helped very much. There was a sympathy between those two gen- 
 tlemen, such as I am sure would justify me in calling for Mr. Charles 
 T. Porter. 
 
 CHARLES T. PORTER, of New York city : In coming here, I 
 confess to you, sir, it is not the great engineer, it is not the man of 
 strong purpose and heroic endeavor, it is not the foremost figure in 
 the band of giants who have created the great steel-industry of this 
 country, neither is it the brilliant writer, nor the man of high and 
 varied attainments, whom my memory most loves to dwell upon; 
 oh, no! Alexander Lyman Holley was all this; but, sir, he was a 
 great deal more than this. That beaming countenance with speak- 
 ing eyes, upon which it was such a joy to look, and which, to every 
 one who ever gazed upon it, it will ever be such a joy to remember, 
 was the outward manifestation of a great soul, instinct with every 
 feeling that, in the appropriate words of another, can ennoble or 
 can adorn our nature. 
 
 The opportunity for studying Mr. IIol ley's character, which I 
 enjoyed for the past few years, enabled me to form an estimate of it 
 which is higher than I can very well express. It seemed to me, 
 it always has seemed to me, as if Mr. Holley combined in a wonder- 
 ful degree, strength and elevation of character, with warm, loving 
 sympathies and sensibilities. It seems to me, sir, as if it could be 
 fairly said of our dear friend, that whatsoever things were honest, 
 whatsoever things were just, whatsoever things were pure, whatso- 
 ever things were true, whatsoever things were lovely, that to all 
 such things he was ever loyal. These were the things which called 
 forth all the enthusiasm of his nature, and with which his every 
 heart-beat throbbed in harmony. Such a character, Mr. President, 
 as that of Mr. Holley, must leave an unusually marked impress upon 
 the great number of his co-workers, by whom he was admired and 
 
82 MEMORIAL OP 
 
 loved: and it is a joyful thing to think that, as it ought, so it must, 
 tend thus to perpetuate itself in ever- widening circles, however 
 they may grow more faint, throwing its spell upon every one who 
 conies, however remotely, within the sphere of its influence. And 
 so we can write his name among the names of those who not only 
 have added to the material good of their fellow-men, who not only 
 have contributed largely to the advancement of our civilization, 
 but through whom men have been made better, have been made 
 more just, have been made more generous, have been made more 
 pure, have been made more loving. 
 
 THE PRESIDENT : I will next call upon Mr. Hoadley, of Law- 
 rence. 
 
 J. C. HOADLEY, of Boston, Mass. : I received information from 
 the committee having the commemoration in charge, that a few 
 minutes would be accorded to me to speak of my regard for Mr. 
 Holley, and I received this invitation with profound satisfaction, 
 and have spent hours in pleasing melancholy, thinking over the 
 associations that have taken place between us. When I consider 
 how few and how far between were the occasions when we met, and 
 upon how slender a foundation of actual personal intercourse was 
 based the strong and warm personal regard I have always enter- 
 tained for Mr. Holley, I feel that it must be futile for me to attempt 
 to account to you for the feeling I express, which might seem, there- 
 fore, extravagant; and that it would be entirely idle for me to dwell 
 at any length upon his career, which is quite as well known to you 
 all as to me. 
 
 Almost twenty-five years ago, when Mr. Holley was a very young 
 man, I intrusted to him a delicate negotiation in England, when he 
 was about to go to England with Mr. Colburn to prepare their joint 
 work upon European railways and machinery. He performed this 
 negotiation with great tact and delicacy, but with characteristic gen- 
 erosity he declined to receive any compensation, and could only be 
 induced by considerable urging to accept a trifling remuneration for 
 personal expenses. A few years later, in 1863, I met him in Lon- 
 don. I was almost ready to go home, and Holley had arrived but 
 a few days. He was seeking at that time to make arrangements 
 with Mr. Bessemer for the manufacture of Bessemer steel in this 
 country. With a perspicacity entirely characteristic of the man he 
 had perceived the transcendent importance of this invention, which 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 83 
 
 was almost unnoticed by the world, and before Mr. Bessemer had 
 ever received a shilling of legitimate compensation for his invention. 
 True, it was the year he had received a present from Sir John Brown 
 of two thousand dollars. Mr. Brown told me that so far they had 
 made no money, but he was confident there was money in the future. 
 In that stage of the invention, Mr. Holley, perceiving its great im- 
 portance, with his own true-hearted loyalty, went directly to the 
 man who had invented the process to get at the very limit the 
 utmost outpost of the invention, and we all know how much further 
 he ha/ carried it. 
 
 Afterwards I occasionally met him, so rarely that of course we 
 only entered upon the most ordinary themes of professional interest. 
 Life, and destiny, and the loftier speculations of human thought 
 were never even approached. His character was so lovely, so trans- 
 parent, it spoke so plainly in his clear, calm eyes and in all his 
 ways, that no one could doubt, at least I entertained no doubt, that 
 he was a sound and true man in every respect, in heart and in char- 
 acter; as we all know him to have been in his chosen profession. 
 As to his profession, as to the physical sciences generally, it is some- 
 times made a reproach to them that they fix the attention too ex- 
 clusively upon phenomena, and therefore ignore essential verities; 
 that appearances are much too opaque, and that behind the veil of 
 appearances there is something undiscerned by the scientific eye. 
 On the other hand, men of science say they see too clearly to be 
 deluded by dreams and superstitions. And, therefore, these con- 
 current views of the same aspect of human life point in the same 
 direction. They are like two sides of a tapestry. About all this, 
 in connection with Mr. Holley, I know nothing, nor do I care. 
 What is doubt but an ambiguous term ? And denial itself is only 
 negative faith, and the sign you know changes by transposition to 
 the other side. 
 
 And though to us who a know in whom we have believed," doubt 
 may seem dismal, and denial dreary and dark, yet when we see the 
 hollow, shadowy forms that pass in the name of faith, doubt denial 
 itself seems seraphic devotion, beatific vision, compared to that 
 heartless assent and shallow acquiescence which give a too ready 
 credo to the incredible. I do not know why I should have said all 
 this of Mr. Holley, because I have not the slightest doubt that upon 
 all that relates to the higher problems of life his mind was clear and 
 poised, fixed upon firm conviction as upon all matters of physical 
 science. I need not say that I loved him ; all loved him. "None 
 
84 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 knew hrm but to love him, none named him but to praise." And 
 if I should reiterate much that has been better said, as I should have 
 to do to express my feelings, I should say that I have but little to 
 give as a rational basis for those feelings; and therefore I will claim 
 your attention no longer. 
 
 THE PRESIDENT : We have with us a gentleman who has come 
 from the West, for the purpose of presenting a tribute to the memory 
 of our friend. Mr. Holloway, I think, is in the room. 
 
 J. F. HOLLOWAY, of Cleveland, O. : It is now nearly twenty 
 years since first I met Alexander L. Holley. At that time, at the 
 request of some gentlemen who were about to establish works in 
 Cleveland for the manufacture of steel by the Bessemer process, I 
 made a visit to Troy for the purpose of witnessing its manufacture 
 there, and to take note of the appliances by which it was accom- 
 plished. 
 
 Upon rny arrival in that city I sought the location of the steel 
 works, which, as I remember, was in a somewhat rural district below 
 the city, on the banks of the Hudson. Arriving at the spot, I en- 
 tered a small wooden building, which seemed to be office, drawing- 
 room, and store-room combined; it contained among other things, 
 as I well remember, a large table, and on one side a row of shelves 
 upon the walls. Upon the table and upon the shelves were short 
 bars of steel, sections of rails, lumps of iron-ore, specimen-pigs of 
 iron, and pieces of boiler-plate. The bars of steel were bent and 
 twisted into various shapes, and the boiler-plate was flanged back- 
 ward, forward, and doubled upon itself, and the corners drawn down 
 into small rods, which were tied into all kinds of fantastic loops and 
 knots, all tending to illustrate the wonderful tenacity of the material 
 from which they were made. I knew not where the specimens were 
 made, or where the material came from, but supposed them to be 
 from the newly discovered Bessemer steel as made in England. 
 While looking over the contents of the table, Mr. Holley, who had 
 been sent for out in the works, came in. I had read with great 
 interest his paper, the " Railway Advocate," and his work on 
 " European Railways/' and had been charmed with his contribu- 
 tions to the New York Times, over the signature of "Tubal Cain," 
 and I confess I was a little disappointed as I looked upon the 
 slender, young-looking fellow who stood beside the table and before 
 me; but the frank, open-heartedness of his manner, his bright, 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 85 
 
 hopeful face, and his modest bearing, left an impression upon me 
 years have only deepened, and time will never efface. I was taken 
 through the works by Mr. Hoi ley, and shown all that had been 
 accomplished up to that time, and it was little enough. The works 
 were then idle; they had built one plant and had tried to operate 
 it by water-power, and had failed ; they had then built another, 
 and a larger one, expecting to work it by steam, but owing to in- 
 sufficiency of boiler-power and for various other reasons, that had 
 not been a success. I remember how fully and frankly he spoke of 
 all these failures, and how hopeful he was of the future; he said 
 that, when they had procured new boilers, and changed the blow- 
 ing engines somewhat, and found a material that would stand for 
 lining the* vessels, and come across the right kind of pig-iron, he 
 thought it would be all right. Knowing little or nothing of this 
 new process for making steel, and seeing so little evidence of success 
 in the surroundings, it seemed to me to be an almost hopeless under- 
 taking. There were only two things about the whole place that 
 looked at all encouraging; one was the table, with its twisted and 
 bent bars of steel, the doubled and knotted specimens of boiler- 
 plate that lay upon it ; and the other was the young man who 
 modestly stood beside them. A few days ago, after an interval of 
 all these years, I again stood within the steel works of Troy. To 
 you who are familiar with the Bessemer steel-plant of to-day no 
 description of the place is required, but the contrast between it and 
 its surroundings and the little experimental works I had visited 
 there twenty years before was marvellous. The quiet, rural sur- 
 roundings were all wanting ; the peaceful air which had previously 
 pervaded the spot had given place to a hum of industry, which 
 encircled the whole country about. The very air quivered with 
 the pulsations of immense fans and blowers, which swallowed up 
 the atmosphere by tons and poured it into vast furnaces and con- 
 verters ; ponderous hammers shook the ground you stood upon ; or 
 as you picked your way about the works, amid the din of clashing 
 wheels and the escaping steam from out a hundred panting engines, 
 fiery little locomotives chased you over tortuous paths, dragging 
 behind them cars laden with glowing ingots, whose passing left a 
 fierce sirocco in the air; but amid the roar of leaping flames, the 
 brilliant coruscations that filled the air with grandeur and beauty, 
 I saw only the table of long ago with its curious specimens, and the 
 young engineer standing beside it. The history of these intervening 
 years is known to most of you to some extent, but to none have its 
 
86 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 trials, its disappointments, its struggles, and its failures ever been 
 fully divulged. He who suffered them bore them bravely, uncom- 
 plainingly; and the study, the hard thinking, the patience, and 
 courage which were so necessary, not only for himself, but for those 
 with whom he was associated, can never be fully known by any 
 one. How the metal that was in the man, as well as the metal he 
 sought for and which lay within the reach of the process he intro- 
 duced, both have triumphed in these later years, you all know. 
 One has made all roadways safe and pleasant, and the other has 
 opened up pathways in all our lives, which, lighted up by his genial 
 wit and humor, no coming cloud can now obscure, and which only 
 the twilight of our own lives will mellow ere its light^ goes out 
 forever. 
 
 To the Society of Mechanical Engineers, in this the early stage 
 of its existence, the death of Alexander L. Holley is a great loss. 
 How earnestly he interested himself in its formation is known to 
 you all ; how valuable would have been his advice and counsel, his 
 spoken and written contributions, had his life and health been 
 spared, all can well imagine. It was ever his constant effort to 
 raise the standard of engineering science, and to elevate to the high 
 position he felt that the engineer was entitled to, all who made it a 
 practice or a profession. You who still possess the engineering 
 paper which, in connection with the late Zerah Colburn, he published 
 in his youth, will find within its yellow faded leaves many an edi- 
 torial in which he strove earnestly to incite the engineers of that 
 day to make themselves worthy the position their high calling 
 entitled them to. His helping hand was ever stretched out to lift 
 upwards, his cheering words went through the ranks urging all to 
 come up higher ; and the rich legacy he has left us of an honored 
 and world-respected name, is one which the Mechanical Engineers 
 of America should ever prize. He was the Moses who led us out 
 from the old bondage of cant and custom, which made the engineer 
 a worker only, and not a thinker as well. College-bred as he was, 
 donning the costume of the locomotive engineer, he mounted the 
 footboard, and cajoled and manreuvred the rickety engine of that 
 early day over the still more rickety roadbed over which they then 
 ran. It was the saying of a celebrated and somewhat eccentric in- 
 ventor and engineer, as illustrative of the various conditions of a 
 life which fortune and misfortune had brought to him, that he had 
 at times dined in the palaces of the great, where the plate upon the 
 table was worth a duke's ransom, and so downward through every 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 87 
 
 varying stage of descent to the twopenny bench under a bridge, 
 where the battered iron spoons were chained to the table to keep 
 the guests from stealing them. Inversely, our friend and associate 
 from the footboard of the little Jersey locomotive made honest, 
 manly strides upwards, until he became the honored, welcome guest 
 in the highest circles in foreign lands as well as in our own. It 
 was not because Alexander L. Holley was a graduate of a college 
 or university that I loved him, it was not because he was a practical 
 workman and engineer, it was not because he was a brilliant and 
 graphic writer, nor was it because he was as well a learned and 
 argumentative one; not because he could stand up before any 
 society, no matter how technical or scientific, and deliver an essay 
 which for its depth of research, originality, and comprehensiveness 
 would rank with the best ; it was not for the reason that at the 
 social gathering, where wit, humor, and good fellowship held the 
 hour, he was the plumed knight about whom all loved to gather, 
 who from his well-filled quiver launched repartee and response, 
 and who parried and thrust with his lance-like wit, hitting every- 
 where, wounding nowhere; neither was it because he was ever 
 the kind, courteous, considerate gentleman ; in short, it was not 
 for any one of these things he won the high regard he so richly 
 deserved; but it was because that he of all the men of his time 
 and age, so far as I know, combined all these commendable quali- 
 ties in one. The truest test of his goodness now is that in this 
 steady upward march his noble manhood disarmed all criticism, 
 allayed all jealousy, making no enemies, winning all hearts. 
 
 Let us remember his fame is our own, winning it as he did by 
 hard study and toil ; as he rose to the high eminence he occupied, 
 he lifted the profession with him, and the standing of all mechanical 
 engineers the wide world over is higher to-day for the labors of his 
 life, and for the works he accomplished ; and if there is any one 
 thing more than another left us to do, it is to emulate his example 
 and to keep his memory green. 
 
 THE PRESIDENT : I will call upon Mr. Coleman Sellers. 
 
 COLEMAN SELLERS, of Philadelphia, Pa. : I regret exceedingly 
 that I was not able to come earlier to this meeting, so as to hear 
 the addresses delivered by Mr. Bayles and those who spoke later. 
 Probably they covered the ground better than what I can say now. 
 
88 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 For want of particular knowledge as to what they have told you, 
 it would probably be better for me to confine my remarks to some 
 little instances that occurred in the life of Mr. Holley that may be 
 interesting. My acquaintance with our dear friend began many 
 years ago, when he was connected with Mr. Colburn, as the last 
 speaker remarked, in that little paper which has now become yellow 
 with age. I hardly know how to consider the different events of 
 his life. Looking over a memorandum-book a few days ago for an 
 entirely different purpose, I stumbled upon a period when Mr. 
 Hoi ley's name seemed to be written on almost every page, and that 
 was the year 1861, at which time he was imbued with the idea that 
 a locomotive traction-engine for common roads would be a very 
 desirable thing; and in connection with Mr. Holley I worked for 
 many months on this traction-engine. At that time our forts had 
 been fired upon, and everything was confusion and fear, and it 
 seemed that the whole attention of mechanics would have to be 
 given to furnishing the Government with materials for war. It was 
 then that Mr. Holley turned his attention to the more important 
 work of making Bessemer steel. But there is a little incident that 
 I should like to present to you. A gentleman some little while 
 ago, writing from New York, asked me for a definition of "set- 
 screw." Unfortunately, he said, he could not find a definition which 
 he could use in a suit at law. I told him he was mistaken, and 
 that the definition could be found in Webster's Dictionary ; and 
 the reason I knew it was because Mr. Holley had put it there. 
 Mr. Holley called on me once to have one of those little chats that 
 we used to enjoy so much. He said that he came for the purpose 
 of getting my help in preparing the technical terms on mechanical 
 science for Webster's Dictionary. So we went through the shop to 
 get those words, and thus it came that the definition of a "set- 
 screw 7 ' was one of the terms which Mr. Holley and I worked out 
 together. 
 
 Now, all those little things are pleasant recollections to me. It 
 seems as if there was no period in my life as an engineer into which 
 Mr. Holley did not enter. He would come and have a long talk 
 about this Society, what was absolutely necessary for its vital exist- 
 ence, and urging the preparation of various papers that would be 
 required ; and it was only a very short time before his death that 
 we had one of those delightful conversations. But there was a 
 little talk that I had with him on the Hudson River Road that was 
 so characteristic of the man that I think, if I relate that alone, it 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 89 
 
 will be sufficient for my contribution to this commemoration of 
 Mr. Holley. We had been up to Troy, and we had gone over the 
 Bessemer works there. We had dined together, and there was a 
 party of ladies and gentlemen in an apartment of one of the cars. 
 They did not know very well all the places along the road, and 
 made inquiries about them, and finally the conversation turned 
 upon the style of architecture that obtains in some of those beauti- 
 ful buildings that stud the Hudson. Holley said : " Do you know 
 I would like some day or another to deliver a course of lectures on 
 architecture applied to mechanics." I said, " I hope you will. 
 How will you handle it?" "Don't you know," he said, "that you 
 and I have had a good many talks about the abominable practice 
 of putting different styles of architecture, Gothic and what not, into 
 steam-engines and other machines ? We know perfectly well that 
 what is the most fit is the most beautiful." And so he went on 
 talking, in the way in which Holley only could talk, about the pos- 
 sibilities of the lecture, which would be of eminent use to mechanics 
 in showing the law which obtains in regard to everything, that 
 utility and fitness constitute beauty. Just what nature has done in 
 adapting each tree and each part of it to its proper use is applicable 
 to machinery, and each deviation from that is only an abnormal 
 condition. This was soon after the fire in Chicago, and he said: 
 " Have you seen Chicago since the fire? Have you seen the won- 
 derful buildings that have been erected there? Chicago has risen 
 like the Phoenix from her ashes, and yet you will find there the 
 most striking instances of the barbarity of the American people, 
 and their low condition in regard to fitness and propriety. In 
 Chicago they have erected numbers of handsome buildings, and 
 some of the noblest specimens of architecture have been put into 
 their stores and warehouses, but what else have they done ? All 
 these beautiful pieces of architectural ingenuity are plastered from 
 top to bottom with signs, cigars, snuffs, tobacco, dry goods, 
 covering the whole city of Chicago with black and gold, after put- 
 ting millions of dollars into those buildings in which the highest 
 skill in construction has been displayed. Now," he said, " we 
 must educate the American people up to such a condition that those 
 things will be impossible. It certainly shows the very low condi- 
 tion of the aesthetic element in the country that they are capable of 
 defacing these beauties with this mere advertisement of their goods 
 in such a glaring way." That was so characteristic of Mr. Holley 
 that I would like very much to see it put upon the record. Had 
 
 7 
 
90 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 he lived, I think, because he frequently referred to it afterwards, he 
 would ultimately have worked up this particular subject. He would 
 have found many more willing ears to listen to him now than at the 
 time he talked to me. The very thing he advocated so earnestly is 
 having its effect. 
 
 It is useless for me to say anything to you about his genial quali- 
 ties. You all know more about them probably than I do. It is 
 very unfortunate that the city of New York is a great way off from 
 the city of Philadelphia, and we did not see each other as often as 
 we would like to, Philadelphia being a suburb of New York, of 
 course. But there were times when he would come over here. 
 When he was in London ill, and every steamer was watched to bring 
 the news of his condition, there was one very pleasing thing con- 
 nected with it all, and that was that gentlemen connected with the 
 paper which his former partner had originally founded, I speak 
 of the London Engineering, had taken Mr. Hoi ley to their own 
 home; and when 1 heard of all the care and comforts that were 
 thrown around him by these brethren of ours on the other side of 
 the water, I must say that I felt heartily grateful to them for all 
 that they had done; and if any word I am saying now ever reaches 
 there, I hope it will convey at least my thanks for what the people 
 of England did for Mr. Holley while he was in such deep distress. 
 I think, Mr. President, that I can add nothing more, but I have 
 given this as a little tribute to his memory. 
 
 THE PRESIDENT : In the formation of this Society there was a 
 good deal of work done in preliminary organization, and, as I re- 
 marked at the opening, Mr. Holley had a great deal to do in that 
 preliminary work; but back of what is known and seen, there is a 
 history under the surface of things unknown and unseen. You re- 
 member that the call for the organization of the Society was issued 
 with Professor Sweet, I think, as the moving spirit in the organiza- 
 tion. He was assisted by two or three friends ; and among those 
 who have done so much in the preliminary work preparatory to 
 organization is one whose name I find on the list presented by the 
 committee as one of the gentlemen ready to, speak, an ex-officer of 
 the Society, the gentleman who took charge of our funds, and who 
 in his connection with the Society became, even more than formerly, 
 a very intimate friend of our deceased member, Mr. Moore. 
 
 L. B. MOORE, of New York city : In accepting, with diffidence, 
 and, I am not ashamed to say it, in accepting with tears, the oppor- 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 91 
 
 tunity to add a few words to the tributes already paid, if anything 
 can be -added that has not been better said, it has seemed to me that 
 there is no truer way to honor the dead than to point a moral for 
 the living. In the illustrious life, the close of which we meet this 
 day to commemorate, there are two or three characteristics which 
 have especially impressed my mind. One is the genial light-heart- 
 ed ness that not only made Holley so agreeable as a man, but that 
 also helped so largely to make him what he was as an engineer. 
 Nor was he one of those who, by nature doleful and sombre, strive 
 to cultivate a cheerfulness which they do not feel. To me it has 
 always seemed that Holley was one of those men who could never 
 by any stress of circumstances be borne down, or become perma- 
 nently soured, because he carried within him the ingredients that go 
 to make up mental health and moral sunshine. His mind was not 
 burdened by the habitual croakings and uncertainties and dejections 
 that are so often mistakenly deemed the ripe kernels of thought, 
 when they are only the husks that hide or smother them. Then, 
 too, closely connected with this trait of his character, and reacting 
 upon it, was entire freedom from the petty spites, and personal and 
 professional jealousies, which too often disfigure abilities of even 
 the highest order. Holley's career is additional proof that it is 
 mainly the light-hearted and buoyant-minded men who rule the 
 world. Another reminder that runs logically with this serves to 
 show us from Holley's example how largely the world's great enter- 
 prises are to-day in the hands of young men. Before the age of 
 thirty-three, Holley had practically grasped the steel-making secrets 
 which have since changed the methods of trade and transportation, 
 and have influenced all the arts and sciences that are built upon 
 these two great foundations. Let us learn anew from the life of 
 Holley, that though gray hairs are honorable, a great truth, or great 
 discovery, or great work, is not the less worthy because youth is 
 behind it, or at the bottom of it. 
 
 The only other thought regarding which I shall presume to add a 
 word of comment is this: Holley's career well illustrates the broad- 
 ened plane upon which men can in our day meet and study nature. 
 In our modern life creeds and customs are chiefly valued in propor- 
 tion as we are content to accept at second hand. A mind like 
 Holley's has little need of creeds, because it is one of the makers of 
 customs for mankind. Living, as he did, close to the universal 
 heart of nature, and reading her secrets as in a half-opened' book, 
 it was one of the privileges of Holley's genius to show us that 
 
92 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 there is in nature a beauty which even art cannot portray, because 
 in this beauty are embodied the forces which make art possible. 
 
 With your permission I should like to conclude this thought by 
 reading a few lines, the idea or suggestion of which, singularly 
 enough, dates from a commemorative gathering, at which Alexander 
 Lyman Holley was the moving spirit. Let me entitle it 
 
 THE NEW NATURE. 
 
 In the old days 
 
 Men walked with Nature in the quiet wood, 
 And found her features beautiful or good, 
 
 As were their ways. 
 
 Still do they look, 
 
 Painter and poet, seer and holy man, 
 For Nature's self, to find her where they can, 
 
 In field or brook. 
 
 But these new days 
 
 Ofttimes entice from breezy dale and down 
 Her wandering feet into the dingy town 
 
 Where chimneys blaze. 
 
 Are forge and flue, 
 
 Steeple and street, becoming in her sight 
 More dear than all the joys of day or night 
 
 That once she knew ? 
 
 That none may know ; 
 
 Her gifts are hers, to spend them as she will 
 Changed, or the same, Nature is Nature still, 
 
 And chooseth so. 
 
 Of all who seem 
 
 To seek her face, one asks, whom do her eyes 
 Kest kindliest on ? Nature herself replies 
 
 (So we may deem), 
 
 To him that asks : 
 
 " The wine is given to him that hath the cup ; 
 Use is but beauty, girded strongly up 
 
 For kindred tasks." 
 
 ALBERT H. EMERY, of New York city : So much has been said 
 that it would seem needless to add anything further; yet I should 
 do great violence to my feelings if, when the opportunity is offered, 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 93 
 
 I should neglect to add at least a word towards giving them ex- 
 pression. 
 
 In the construction of the testing-machine, with which my name 
 is identified, Mr. Holley was always ready to listen to my sugges- 
 tions, and always ready to carry them out, and when the machine 
 was finished he was the first to undertake to put its merits before 
 the public. Unasked by me, he wrote and published at his own 
 expense a little pamphlet, which he read before the Institute of 
 Mining Engineers, at their meeting at Baltimore. He was one of 
 the first to recommend Congress to pay me for the machine, and he 
 has done much more than I can tell you to put its merits before the 
 public. 
 
 Last summer, just before he started for Europe, I walked into his 
 office one morning. He said, " Emery, I am glad to see you. I am 
 going to Europe, and I want to know if you will allow me to go to 
 some of the European Governments this summer and put that test- 
 ing-machine before them, and get some contracts for you?" I said, 
 " Some other time, Mr. Holley ; but not now." I was so situated, 
 pecuniarily, at the time, owing to the Government not having paid 
 me as recommended, that I did not care to have him do what he 
 proposed then. But he seemed very anxious to put that machine 
 before those Governments. It was a work near his heart, and 
 although he served on that Board a good many days of toil, he 
 gave his valuable time to the public without a dollar of compensa- 
 tion, and when the Board was disbanded it went to his heart more 
 than any other thing I ever heard him speak of. He spoke of it 
 repeatedly, and with a great deal of feeling. He seemed deeply to 
 regret that the Board could not be continued, and he go on with 
 the others in the work which he had seen inaugurated. He has 
 done more for me than I can tell you, and I would like to say a 
 word in regard to this memorial which is proposed for him. It 
 seems to me that the best monument of him is his own work. Mr. 
 Holley has left a great monument, which must endure for all time. 
 But as a member of this Society, and sister societies with which he 
 was connected, as an American engineer, as one of those engineers 
 with whom he was associated in a profession which he has dpne 
 more to lift up abroad than any other man, as a citizen of this 
 country, the wealth of which he has done so much to increase, I 
 say much is due to Holley. I say it advisedly. None of us, I 
 believe, realize to what extent millions of dollars hundreds of 
 millions of dollars, nay, I think, if a careful estimate was made, 
 
94 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 thousands of millions of dollars would be found to have been added 
 to the wealth of this country to its industries, because of the 
 progress of Bessemer steel, which has given us that permanent way 
 which enables us to take our wheat from the Far West and lay it 
 down in the centre of Europe. Without that steel we could not 
 have done this. Without it those millions which have flowed into 
 this country for the last three or four years would not have so 
 flowed. Without it we would not have had this flood of commercial 
 prosperity. To Holley's individual efforts much of this prosperity 
 is due; and I, for one, shall be dissatisfied if this Society, if the 
 other two engineering societies, if those great Bessemer steel in- 
 terests, which he has helped to build up, if this great prosperous 
 country, which he has helped to make wealthy, do not unite in 
 raising a monument worthy of one who has done so much for the 
 world. I hope a monument may be put up which will be worthy 
 of this country, worthy of these societies, and worthy of Holley. 
 
 WILLIAM C. PARTRIDGE, of New York city : Listening to all 
 that has been said this afternoon, one who knew Mr. Holley only a 
 little and at a distance, as it were, finds the single note recurring 
 over and over again, disinterested helpfulness. It seemed as 
 though he had lifted everybody's load ; and I think I can do little 
 better than to give an instance of the way he would exercise his 
 wonderful inventive ability to do even a little thing. When he 
 wanted to make the Bessemer process known to the students 
 known to the world I received through a friend a little card, say- 
 ing that in Hoboken, at such a time, there would be a lecture, by 
 A. L. Holley, on the Bessemer process. I went there and found a 
 lecture-room arranged somewhat like this, with a goodly audience, 
 and a quiet, pleasant man came on the stage at one side. The whole 
 front was filled with a great screen for the lantern, and that pleasant 
 man commenced reading a delightful story of steel and its uses, and 
 began with the details of the Bessemer process, and referred to 
 Figure 1, and the lights went down, and while his voice went on 
 continuously, the lantern flashed out with a 15-foot diagram of 
 Figure 1 ; and as he referred to letter after letter, or part after part, 
 the black line of the pointer touched each one in succession. We 
 had to look and to listen. It went on, and Figure 2 was necessary, 
 and, without a pause, 2, 3, 4, and it went on to 7, 8, 9, and 10, and 
 they made their appearance in their regular order, and every part 
 that the lecturer mentioned was touched by that needle-like shadow. 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 95 
 
 It was teaching in its highest form. Only once in the whole lecture 
 did Hoi ley stop, and that was when, after referring backward to 
 Figure 2, and forward to Figure 7, he turned round to see whether 
 the man at the lantern was still keeping up the diagrams in order. 
 There was not a hitch from the beginning to the end of the lecture. 
 It was like magic. It was a system of illustrative lecturing so 
 superior to anything that I had ever seen before, or ever heard of, 
 that I thought it was enough to have made an ordinary lecturer's 
 fortune, and all to enable the student to understand easily the Bes- 
 semer process. 
 
 MR. SELLERS: I would like to ask if the Hon. Mr. Wayne 
 MacVeagh is here. 
 
 THE PRESIDENT : Is Mr. MacVeagh here ? 
 
 MR. SELLERS: A few days ago I met him and told him of this 
 memorial meeting, and he bowed his head with sorrow for his friend. 
 He said that he would try to be here; that nothing would give him 
 so much pleasure as to say a few words about one whom he valued 
 so highly, not only as a personal friend, but as a man who had done 
 so much for the industrial welfare of the country. If Mr. MacVeagh 
 is not here, I should like at least that there may be a record of what 
 he wished to say. 
 
 The following resolutions were unanimously adopted : 
 
 WHEREAS, We are called upon as a society to give expression to 
 profound and sincere sorrow in the death of our Vice-president and 
 friend, Alexander L. Holley, 
 
 Resolved, That we mourn the death of our friend as an irreparable 
 loss to the profession, and as a sad personal bereavement. 
 
 Resolved, That in the death of Alexander L. Holley, the country 
 has lost an engineer whose genius and industry have greatly aided 
 our industrial development, and to whom all branches of the en- 
 gineering profession are profoundly indebted. 
 
 Resolved, That we shall ever hold Alexander L. Holley in 
 cherished remembrance, as one whose life and example are an inspi- 
 ration to high views and worthy motives, and who gave a new dignity 
 to all branches of our profession, and that we remember our associa- 
 
96 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 tion with him as something which made our lives happier, and our 
 work lighter. 
 
 Resolved, That the secretary be directed to forward a copy of these 
 resolutions with a report of our memorial services to the family of 
 Mr. Holley, with assurances of the deep and tender sympathy we 
 feel for them in their bereavement, and that the committee of five 
 appointed by our council be directed to cooperate with the committees 
 appointed by other societies, in furthering the work of securing a 
 worthy and permanent Holley memorial, in whatever form may be 
 deemed most appropriate, and best calculated to keep his work and 
 example before the rising generation of engineers. 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 97 
 
 IV. 
 
 MEMORIAL RESOLUTIONS OF THE AMERICAN SO- 
 CIETY OF CIVIL ENGINEERS. 
 
 AT a regular meeting of the American Society of Civil Engineers, 
 held at the rooms of the Society, in the city of New York, March 
 1st, 1882, the following resolutions were unanimously adopted: 
 
 Resolved, That in the death of Alexander Lyraan Holley, formerly 
 Vice-President of the American Society of Civil Engineers, the 
 engineering profession at large, no less than our own Society, has 
 suffered a grievous loss. In him were combined not only the in- 
 ventive genius to discover and successfully apply new methods of 
 subduing the forces of nature for the benefit of mankind (as evinced 
 in the great industries which have been developed under his direc- 
 tion), but a rare literary facility for arranging and distributing stores 
 of information obtained through patient study of the works of 
 others. By the example of his life, in his gentleness, his industry, 
 his modesty, his deferential consideration of opposing counsels, com- 
 bined with integrity, indomitable energy and power of work r the 
 standard of our profession has been materially advanced, and a 
 spirit of good fellowship engendered, which has had the effect to 
 weld in harmonious continuity of interest the several branches of a 
 profession destined to play an increasingly important part in the 
 advancement of civilization. 
 
 Resolved, That a committee of five be appointed to act in con- 
 junction with similar committees which have been or may be ap- 
 pointed by the American Institute of Mining Engineers, and the 
 American Society of Mechanical Engineers, in any further measures 
 that may be deemed advisable in honor of the memory of our de- 
 parted brother. 
 
 Resolved, That we offer to the family of the deceased the assurance 
 of our earnest and respectful sympathy in their affliction. 
 
 Resolved, That the Secretary be instructed to transmit copies of 
 the above resolutions to the family, to the Secretary of the American 
 Institute of Mining Engineers, and to the Secretary of the American 
 Society of Mechanical Engineers. 
 
98 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 V. 
 JOINT ACTION OF THE THREE SOCIETIES. 
 
 IN accordance with the resolutions of the three societies, given in 
 the preceding pages, the following committees were appointed. 
 
 For the American Institute of Mining Engineers Messrs. R. W. 
 Raymond, Chester Griswold, John Fritz, Thomas Egleston, and G. 
 W. Maynard. 
 
 For the American Society of Mechanical Engineers Messrs. W. P. 
 Trowbridge, J. C. Bayles, James A. Burden, Eckley B. Coxe, and 
 R. W. Hunt. 
 
 For the American Society of Civil Engineers Messrs. Charles Mac- 
 donald, O. Chatmte, W. G. Hamilton, I. Newton, and T. C. Clarke. 
 
 These committees subsequently organized as a joint-committee, 
 electing R. W. Raymond as President, and Charles Macdonald as 
 Secretary. 
 
 A sub-committee, consisting of Messrs. Macdonald, Bayles and 
 Raymond, was appointed to collect subscriptions for a memorial of 
 A. L. Holley, to be placed in Central Park, New York City. 
 
 About ten thousand dollars has been collected for this purpose. 
 
 By the action of the three societies, it was determined that the 
 Memorial Address should be delivered before the Societies in joint 
 session, in New York City, November 1st, 1883. 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 99 
 
 VI. 
 
 MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 
 
 (DELIVERED IN THE TURF CLUB THEATRE, NEW YORK CITY, NOVEMBER 
 IST, 1883, BY K. W. EAYMOND.) 
 
 MR. PRESIDENT; GENTLEMEN OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OP 
 CIVIL ENGINEERS, THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF MECHAN- 
 ICAL ENGINEERS, AND THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF MINING 
 ENGINEERS ; LADIES AND GENTLEMEN : 
 
 The memorial session in Washington, at which I was first desig- 
 nated for the duty of this evening, was chiefly devoted to the multi- 
 form expression of sorrow. From a score of speakers, who had 
 known Mr. Holley in various stages of his career, came tributes of 
 affection, honorable alike to him and to them. Among them all, 
 none uttered words more heartfelt and impressive than did the 
 venerable Ashbel Welch, who, by reason of official position, as well 
 as years and character, would doubtless have been called to preside 
 over this meeting, had not a potent message summoned him mean- 
 while to a higher seat. Nestor mourned over Achilles, slain in the 
 midst of the battle ; and now Nestor too, from the peaceful life of 
 an honored old age, has passed away. 
 
 But neither this more recent, nor that earlier grief is the theme of 
 the present hour. However inadequate to the task the orator of to- 
 night may prove, it was fitting that some one, waiting until the first 
 outburst of emotion had died away, should attempt a calm review 
 of the life and works of Alexander Lyman Holley ; that Friendship, 
 bewailing her loss, should give way to History, counting her gain ; 
 that the achievements of the departed should be recognized and 
 valued, and his example studied. Was he greatly successful ? How 
 did he win success? How much of it was born with him; how 
 much thrust upon him ; how much earned by him ? And if his 
 own hands wrought out his fame, is there anything in the method 
 of his preparation and practice that others might imitate with profit? 
 
 Mr. Holley was born at Lakeville, in Salisbury, Conn., on the 
 twentieth of July, 1832. His father, Alexander H. Holley, subse- 
 quently Governor of that State, was a native of the same village. 
 
100 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 His mother, whose maiden name was Jane M. Lyman, was one of 
 the Lymans of Goshen. The experts in New England genealogies 
 will not need to be told that on both sides, he came of a good stock 
 such as, by a combination of enterprise, intelligence, and high 
 principle, has made New England great. The mother could, indeed, 
 bestow upon her son nothing more than the legacy of inherited 
 character, for she died a few weeks after his birth. But her place 
 was supplied by the second marriage of his father, three years later, 
 to Miss Marcia Coffing, whose affection bestowed freely upon her 
 stepson through twenty years, was as freely returned by him. Their 
 correspondence, some of which has been preserved, shows that their 
 personal intercourse was intimate, and that this excellent lady, 
 though burdened with the cares of a large and hospitable house- 
 hold, never forgot to be a true mother to this son of her adoption, 
 as well as to the children born of her. No doubt he was much in- 
 debted for noble impulses and principles to the influence of this 
 devoted woman. 
 
 For two or three years of his early boyhood, he attended the 
 district school near his father's house, and was then advanced to the 
 Academy, to which he walked, a little more than a mile and a half 
 every day, winter and summer. In later life, he was accustomed to 
 allude to this regular exercise as having laid the foundation of the 
 fine constitution which enabled him for so many years to work so 
 hard and yet so easily. 
 
 From the Academy in Salisbury, he went to another under the 
 care of Mr. Simeon Hart, at Farmington, Conn., and after a year or 
 more, to Williams Academy, then directed by Mr. E. W. B. Can- 
 ning, at Stockbridge, Mass. From Stockbridge he went to Bridge- 
 port, Conn., to prepare for Yale College, under Rev. Henry Jones. 
 According to the dates and internal evidence of his boyish letters, 
 the above order is not strictly correct. I find him at Stockbridge 
 in 1846 and 1847, at Farmington in 1848, at Bridgeport in 1849, 
 and back at Stockbridge in 1850. For our present purpose, the 
 question is not important, except as it shows an early trait in his 
 character a restlessness, born of versatility and genius, which 
 under less judicious training might have wasted his life. 
 
 Ample and interesting materials tempt me to more detailed de- 
 scription of his boyhood. But I must be content to mention, and 
 briefly illustrate, its leading characteristics. First among these must 
 be named the normal, healthy physical activity and the overflow 
 of mirth and high spirits which made him a leader in boyish sports 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 101 
 
 and adventures. Where the others climbed with ostentatious cour- 
 age up to the belfrey of the academy, he, at the first trial, mounted 
 above it and stood on the gilded ball, which no foot had pressed 
 before. He hangs over precipices, takes long foot-journeys, and 
 revels in the mere consciousness of life and strength. Strikingly 
 handsome as well as athletic, he is naturally a leader among his 
 comrades. In all sorts of home amusements, too, his merry inge- 
 nuity makes him invaluable. Many of these, such as charades and 
 rhyming games, were intellectual; others were mere pranks such 
 as the match between him and a friend, " who could eat the most 
 pancakes," of which the kitchen was the scene, the cook being 
 coaxed into complicity, while the dog, wagging his tail behind the 
 combatants, received from each as many segments as could be sur- 
 reptitiously bestowed without the knowledge of the other ; or the 
 occasion when, having constructed a rustic bridge over the brook, 
 Holley forced the entire family to march over it in solemn proces- 
 sion, while he sat by, fantastically dressed as a troubadour, and 
 played the guitar. 
 
 Let no one despise this light-hearted gayety. It was the early 
 form of that courage which carried him afterwards through many 
 struggles and even defeats, with an air of victory that was in itself 
 the promise of victory to come. 
 
 To this quality must be added a keen observation and an inborn 
 talent for drawing. These were specially, but not wholly, directed 
 toward machinery, in which he took the liveliest interest. His 
 father having established the well-known knife-manufactory at 
 Lakeville, the boy made himself familiar with all the machinery, 
 and during his youth made innumerable proposals of improvement 
 some of which, being really good, were adopted, while others 
 no doubt the greater number were crude and impracticable. When 
 but nine years old, he accompanied his father as far as Niagara, where 
 he was left for a few days with an uncle who was connected with 
 works employing machinery. During the father's absence, Alex- 
 ander was repeatedly missed by his uncle, who always found him 
 on such occasions in some place where there was a steam-engine, 
 and who long preserved, as a memento of the visit, a little bundle 
 of papers on which the boy of nine had made drawings of the dif- 
 ferent machines he had thus studied. In a letter written at about 
 the age of fourteen, he describes an excursion with his school-mates 
 to the old Bristol copper mine, six miles from Farmington, and 
 says: 
 
102 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 "The steam-engine attracted considerable of my attention, of 
 course. It was splendidly made and fitted, and went so still that 
 one would hardly know that it was in the room. Power, twenty- 
 horse. Mr. S. Hart [his teacher] told the gentleman that showed 
 us around that he would have me draw a plan of the engine from 
 memory, which I have done, and which Mr. H. is much pleased 
 with. He says he is going to send it to the aforesaid gentleman at 
 Bristol." 
 
 His letters overflow with revelations of his passionate interest in 
 machinery, and particularly in locomotives. In one of them, written 
 after returning to school from vacation, he indulges in some of the 
 truly good sentiments with which boys are wont to please parents, 
 but which are in this case redeemed from platitude by this pictur- 
 esque touch : 
 
 " It seems as if I should dive and dig and plow, and if that did 
 not succeed, back out and plow again, in my studies, as faithfully 
 as the locomotive, old ' Connecticut 7 did, this morning in the drifts, 
 with seven long cars, all alone/ 7 
 
 In another letter, he speaks of a locomotive which has been wrecked 
 on the Housatonic road ; calls it by name, as an acquaintance ; says 
 he has walked twice (a number of miles) to the place where it lies 
 at the bottom of a steep embankment; introduces a pen-and-ink 
 sketch of the scene, locomotive and all, to show how difficult will 
 be the return of the engine to the track ; and concludes, " I guess the 
 H. R. R. Co. will not make money by this operation." 
 
 He frequently declares his determination to master the science of 
 machinery, and I find one sentence, in a letter written at fifteen, 
 which seems to be an unconscious prophecy. He writes : 
 
 " I have seen, in a newspaper, an account of a man in England 
 who makes steel that will cut iron or any other hard substance with- 
 out dulling it. I should like to hire out to that man for a year or 
 so I wish I could learn the art of making steel." 
 
 Twelve years later, there was a man in England by the name of 
 Bessemer, of whom he took, in this art, lessons that were not 
 wasted I 
 
 In another letter, written from Stockbridge, he says : 
 
 " I have been devoting all my leisure time, for nearly two weeks, 
 in making sectional and perspective views of the internal works, 
 machinery, steam-works, etc., of the most improved locomotive en- 
 gines, showing how the steam is made, applied, and cut off at half- 
 stroke or not (a recent improvement) ; how the engine is worked 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 103 
 
 every way, in some seventeen different pictures, with explanations 
 filling some eight or ten pages. Mr. Canning is to have them 
 framed and. hung up in the Academy. I have explained them in 
 such a manner that any one can understand them, and I really 
 hope that people will look at them, for there is more ignorance 
 among scientific and educated men on this point than on any other. 
 People who pretend to ' know the ropes ' can not explain the sim- 
 plest form of a steam-engine, even with a model. Of mechanics and 
 chemistry, I intend to get the most thorough knowledge, if I have 
 the opportunity (and, in fact, I intend to get it any way), both prac- 
 tical and theoretical. These are. the studies I have always liked, 
 and I am bound to investigate and become master of them." 
 
 One other characteristic deserves special mention his talent for 
 debate and literary composition, and his consequent love for them. 
 Let it be said here that his was not an instance of dropsical pre- 
 cocity. His early efforts were not mature, or even surprisingly early. 
 At fourteen he joined, I believe, his first debating society. I have 
 found, in his handwriting, a constitution and by-laws of the Societas 
 Literarum (symbolized by a Greek Sigma), which bear date about 
 this time, and in their simplicity and brevity are worthy of imita- 
 tion. The constitution runs thus: 
 
 " 1. It shall be the duty of each member to try to sustain the 
 society. 
 
 " 2. Each member shall pledge his word of honor to keep all the 
 proceedings a secret. 
 
 " 3. The business of this society shall be debating and composi- 
 tion reading. 
 
 " 4. This society shall support a semi-monthly paper, called the 
 ." [Name omitted.] 
 
 And the following are the by-laws: 
 
 " 1. The officers of the society shall be a Secretary and President. 
 
 " 2. There shall be as many as eight members in the society. 
 
 " 3. It shall be unlawful to use vulgar or profane language." 
 
 It was not long, however, before, in this congenial sphere, he de- 
 veloped extraordinary activity. I cannot forbear to introduce, at 
 this point, the letter which appeared in the American Machinist of 
 March 18th, 1882, from Mr. Canning: 
 
 " The universal sorrow in the inventive and mechanical world 
 over the recent decease of A. L. Holley prompts me to jot down* a 
 
104 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 few particulars of his earlier school experiences, which go to prove 
 the truth of the proverb, ' the boy is father of the man/ 
 
 " Mr. Holley entered Williams Academy at Stockbridge, Mass., 
 in the fall of 1848,* then under my charge. He is still remembered 
 as a fair, fresh-cheeked, blue-eyed, wide-awake boy of sixteen, who 
 pursued studies preparatory to a college course. His geniality, gen- 
 erosity, and overflowing good humor made him popular with his 
 school-mates, and soon gave him the lead, both in and out of school. 
 He excelled in every branch of study ; but his chief interest centred 
 in Natural Philosophy and Mechanics. He was a prominent member 
 of a literary society of the institution called the ' Philologian/ in 
 which he manifested talent unusual for his years for debate and free 
 discussion ; while his fun-loving propensities found vent in conduct- 
 ing mock trials and in humorous essays and declamations. He estab- 
 lished and mainly conducted a periodical entitled The Gun Cotton, 
 issued fortnightly on -a large sheet in manuscript, which was read by 
 myself from the desk, and afforded great interest and amusement by 
 the variety and spice of its contents. This he edited during his stay 
 at the Academy. 
 
 "Though excelling in all the branches of study required of him, 
 his penchant for mechanics and invention developed itself markedly 
 when he attacked Natural Philosophy and Physics. Dissatisfied 
 with the meagre description in the text-books of the steam-engine, 
 with which he seemed to be better acquainted than the author of the 
 treatise, he at my request made drawings in detail of a stationary 
 engine and of a locomotive, with an accuracy and skill that would 
 have done credit to a professional engineer or draftsman. These I 
 used in demonstration, in preference to the imperfect model among 
 the school apparatus. During one of his vacations, he came up from 
 his Salisbury home expressly to show me a miniature engine of his 
 own building. It was complete in all respects, and of skilful work- 
 manship ; and, on being fired up, ran with admirable success. Thus 
 he foreshadowed the devotion to the mechanic arts which so emi- 
 nently characterized his manhood. One number of his Gun Cotton, 
 I remember, was devoted to the description of an aerial voyage made 
 by a machine of his own devising, whose practical workings were 
 related with as much interest as the details of the wonders of sight- 
 seeing it enabled its inventor to describe. This, he prophesied, 
 would be substantially the vehicle of locomotion in A. D. 1950. 
 
 * Mr. Canning forgets his first sojourn at the school. He was certainly there in 
 1846 also. 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 105 
 
 "His temperament prompted him to constant activity. There 
 was not a lazy bone or muscle in his body. In fact, his mind was 
 too powerful for his physique ; and, beyond doubt, the continued 
 high-pressure at which he drove his mental energy, during all his 
 busy life, materially shortened his days. 
 
 " In his reading he was fond though by no means exclusively so 
 of works of imagination. Every new invention that fell under 
 his eyes received due notice in his Gun Cotton. Imaginative works 
 seemed to be the whetstone on which he sharpened his own inventive 
 genius. It is rare that good sense and sound judgment succeed in 
 subduing the imagination to become the servant of the practical, to 
 the extent realized in the case of Mr. Holley. 
 
 " Your brief but comprehensive article in the American Machinist 
 of 18th of February follows the career of Mr. Holley subsequently 
 to his college life. Doffing the student's toga for the workman's 
 blouse, he put to the test the best theories of his book-learning, and 
 showed the world, to its immense benefit, the unusual example of a 
 man possessing the combination of enlarged education, inventive 
 talent, and practical common-sense. 
 
 E. W. B. CANNING. 
 
 " STOCKBRIDGE, MASS." 
 
 To this life-like picture no improving touch could be added, 
 unless by the hand of the subject himself. One or two quotations 
 from Holley's letters of this period will be their own sufficient 
 apology. 
 
 Writing from Bridgeport, at seventeen, and giving, as was his 
 custom, an account of his doings, he says: 
 
 " I have written the following compositions : 
 
 " 1st. A Dream, personifying Wisdom (a judge), History, Chem- 
 istry, Mathematics, and Philosophy, who speak of their respective 
 merits. Philosophy wins the prize. 6 pages of foolscap. 
 
 " 2d. A Fragment (revised from a former) containing a few 
 thoughts like those in Gray's Elegy. 2 pages. 
 
 "3d. History of Audax Promptusque. A novel. 26 pages. 
 
 " 4th. War (revised from a former). 4 \ pages. 
 
 " 5th. Pride (rather disconnected). 2 pages. 
 
 " 6th. A Picture. 6 J pages. On this I have spent in all at least 
 twelve hours' hard study, and it is the best composition I ever wrote. 
 I would like to have you read it. 
 
 8 
 
106 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 " 7th. A Dream and Consequent Wish. The best I ever wrote, 
 except No. 6. 
 
 "8th. A composition in blank verse. Unfinished." 
 
 In January, 1850, he writes from Stockbridge : 
 
 " I write you in great haste, to say, that at the close of the term 
 we're to have an exhibition. I was first chosen to write and speak 
 a valedictory oration. Then I have to write the Gun Cotton, and a 
 continuation of a treatise on the manufacture of pocket cutlery (which 
 I have been at several weeks), for the Experimenter, another paper 
 all this for the day of exhibition. Then the forenoon of the day is 
 to be occupied by a Lawsuit. The Philologian Society have, for that 
 occasion, resolved themselves into a ' high court of inquiry/ and I 
 am chosen for ' State's Attorney/ to prosecute a man for ' assault and 
 battery.' This will be public. Besides this, I have to write a con- 
 tinuation of my treatise on cutlery for the Experimenter next week, 
 and to write two numbers of another paper I publish, called the 
 Locomotive. Then I have to prepare also for a public trial next week 
 in the Philologiau, also to learn (probably) a part in a dialogue for 
 Exhibition, and all this in addition to Latin and Greek. My request 
 is this, that I may omit my music-lessons till next term, as I have 
 my hands full, and shall burn some of my irons, if I don't look 
 out. 
 
 " I shall also want a new coat to expatiate in on the great day. 
 Please send as soon as convenient." 
 
 The treatise on cutlery, above alluded to, was subsequently ac- 
 cepted by Poor's Railway Journal, and published in successive num- 
 bers of that paper during the summer of 1850. It is a curious com- 
 pound of learned extracts from such books of general chemistry, etc., 
 as were accessible to the young author, and admirably clear and vivid 
 descriptions of the actual processes of the manufacture with which 
 he was personally familiar. In his ambitious view,, the subject of 
 pen and pocket-cutlery includes the natural history and chemical 
 and physical relations of iron, steel, brass, copper, zinc, German sil- 
 ver, tortoise-shell, etc. No element is mentioned without a consci- 
 entious statement of its chemical equivalent, and the manner in which 
 it is produced or found in nature. But these adornments of the essay, 
 probably its principal merits in the author's opinion, are worthless 
 in comparison with the practical details, which no doubt chiefly 
 commended it to the publishers. 
 
 This was, I think, the first literary work for which he received 
 pay. In an exultant but apologetic letter written in July, 1850 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 107 
 
 (after the publication of the treatise had begun), he confesses that he 
 had made a surreptitious journey from Stock bridge to New York : 
 
 " I walked before sunrise to West Stockbridge, went to Hudson 
 and down the river on the Alida. Called on Mr. Poor, who was 
 sorry he had paid no attention to my dozen letters, and as a com- 
 pensation gave me the equivalent of about sixty dollars for my essay. 
 That is, he gave me $25 in cash, and 27 copies of every chapter of 
 
 the article, thus making probably 243 Railroad Journals He 
 
 says I had better enlarge the essay a little, and come down in vaca- 
 tion to New York, when he will introduce me to a house in New 
 York who are perhaps the largest publishing house in New York. 
 He thinks I can sell the copyright. I saw the steamship ' City of 
 Glasgow ? sail. City in mourning for General Taylor. Left city at 
 three o'clock. We had two locomotives, and eleven cars full out." 
 
 One further trait, and our picture will be as complete as circum- 
 stances will permit us to make it. I have already alluded to the 
 restlessness of Holley's mind. He is drawn by many tastes and 
 ambitions in many directions, though, through it all, his dominating 
 tendency may be perceived. He is impatient of processes, and longs 
 for results. Sometimes his distaste for the drudgery of books and 
 the discipline of school rises to despair. Thus, he writes from 
 Bridgeport in 1849, to his father a letter from which I take the 
 following extracts : 
 
 " I have had everything done for me that could be done every- 
 thing that kind parents could possibly do for a son. I have made 
 three trials, and each one has proved unsuccessful three trials to 
 get an education; and now, having spent so much of your money 
 and trouble, I wish to make one trial at work ; and I know I can 
 
 succeed It is a waste, sir, I think, to send me to school. It 
 
 is not in my nature to deprive myself of an education if I was able 
 to get it; but I see the folly of it. I have tried as hard as I could 
 to learn out of books, but it is folly in the extreme. If T have any 
 talent at all, it is for writing. When I lay myself out, and spend 
 many hours on a composition, I can, by copying all the good parts, 
 make out quite a piece ; but this is all the talent I have got, any 
 way. Now I have gat hands, and can work. ..... There is John 
 
 [his brother], a natural scholar, who could not bear hard work, and 
 who will make, by his mind alone, a great man ; but I can work, 
 and do nothing else to any advantage.. .... I am very anxious, 
 
 of course, to hear your decision, and will come if you say so, with a 
 right good-will ; but if not, it all looks dark ahead, and I do not 
 
108 MEMORIAL OP 
 
 know what I shall do P. S. Please write to-morrow, as I 
 
 am very anxious to hear." 
 
 The key to this exaggerated confession of failure doubtless lay 
 in the fact, that at this time he was preparing for the classical 
 course at Yale, and was giving a good deal of trouble to the Rev. 
 Mr. Jones. Moreover, going home to work meant escaping from 
 the bondage of Latin and Greek to the whirring wheels, the engines, 
 the forges, the tools of that knife-factory ! On one hand, purgatory ; 
 on the other, Paradise : what marvel that to his vision the disci- 
 plinary pains of the former took on the hopeless hues of utter despair ? 
 
 I violate, in this one instance, the rule I have elsewhere pursued 
 in the treatment of private correspondence intrusted to me, by quoting 
 from the reply to the foregoing letter : 
 
 " I am very sorry to see you yielding to so desponding a tone of 
 spirit. You are not quite the dunce you would attempt to make 
 me believe you are,' nor have all your experiments to secure an edu- 
 cation failed, as you would intimate. You certainly know more 
 than you did, when you commenced your career abroad, about books, 
 and about men and things. I have certainly had two or three re- 
 ports to that effect. Why then do you despond ? I have not com- 
 plained of your scholarship in writing to you This complaint 
 
 has been on your part and not on mine No, my son, you 
 
 must not despond. If dark days now appear, brighter ones will 
 
 follow Have you not often heard me say how grateful I 
 
 always felt to my father, that he did not indulge me in my propensity 
 for change? I think I should have been a ruined man if I had been 
 permitted to hop from this thing to that, and hither and yon, just 
 as fancy for the time might dictate. I wished to leave the store 
 and engage in farming. He said no, and I felt hard about it; but 
 I have often since thanked him for that no. Besides, suppose you 
 were to leave school and engage in business systematically (which you 
 never have done yet) and were subject to the drill which you must 
 be, when that time does come, would not that after a while be as 
 irksome as anything else ? . . . . You are in the right way now, my 
 son, and your future happiness, usefulness, and respectability depend 
 upon a continuance in this. Of this I assure you, as a father most 
 earnestly desiring your happiness as well as usefulness. 
 
 " If you are not ready to enter college at the next commencement, 
 then go on till you are ready. There are more years to follow. 
 
 Only make good use of your time, and we shall all be satisfied 
 
 You say you think you have one talent at any rate. I think you 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 109 
 
 have more ; but cultivate that at all events, and do all you can toward 
 cultivating others. The cultivation of this very talent may yet be 
 essential to your success in life. 
 
 " But always remember one thing, my son. It is an injunction 
 of the Most High. Man is to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow. 
 From this there is no escape. Therefore we must keep on in our 
 employments, whatever they may be ; and the more cheerfully we do 
 so, the happier we shall be. Brighter days are before you, and you 
 will so see it ere long. Be contented then, and make us happy and 
 yourself happy, and all your friends happy, by a cheerful perseverance 
 in the duties before you, which are not always study, but in after 
 years the fruit of study, and all will be well." 
 
 An excellent letter; and there are many more of the same sort. 
 But wiser than wise words, was the step that followed ; for the father, 
 while holding a firm hand upon these wayward moods, was not blind 
 to the needs and impulses of the genius beneath them ; and in 1850, 
 Brown University having just established a scientific course, Alex- 
 ander was entered at Providence instead of New Haven. From this 
 time on, nothing was heard of discontent in study. In October, 
 1850, he writes : 
 
 " I have succeeded, by working nights and in. odd hours, in 
 making a painting of the fastest locomotive in the city, which I 
 showed to the Professor of Mathematics. He was pleased with it, 
 and asked me to go with him and look at the locomotive, and to ex- 
 plain to him a new invention in locomotive engineering, called ' link- 
 motion/ which I did satisfactorily. I considered this quite an honor, 
 as he has explained the steam-engine to classes for a dozen years or 
 more. He then took me into several factories where I could not have 
 gone without him." 
 
 Besides the picture above referred to, he finished a working-model 
 of a steam-engine, which the professors assured him was the best 
 they had ever seen. And, what was more important, he invented 
 a new cut-off, concerning which the following extracts are interesting : 
 
 "Brown University, November, 1851. . ... I have noticed 
 Professor Page's engine, of which father speaks. As he says, it will 
 eventually do away with steam, but not yet. I understand his mag- 
 netic engine perfectly. It is just as capable of improvement as the 
 steam-engine and more so. Machinists' work is also quite as neces- 
 sary for it as for steam-engines. At any rate, I have invented an im- 
 provement in steam-engines, and it is bound to be patented, if I 
 sell the coat on my back to pay for it, and go without any. I have 
 
110 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 showed my plans to a man who was four years with Messrs. Corliss & 
 Nightingale, of this place. These men have hi veil ted and are making 
 the most improved cut-off engine of the day, and this gentleman 
 says that my engine (that is to be) embraces all their improvements 
 and none of its disadvantages." 
 
 "January 14th, 1852. After many attempts to get time, I have 
 at last succeeded in putting my new cut-off on paper. Professor 
 Caswell says that it will work as well as Corliss's celebrated cut-off. 
 Professor Norton says it is very ingeniously contrived, and is better 
 than Corliss's. To-day I took it to Mr. Greene (of the firm of Thurston 
 & Greene, the most extensive engineers of the city), and he said it 
 would work as well as any cut-off he ever saw. He said I could not 
 get it patented, for this reason : A man some years ago got up a cut- 
 off, and in his patent it was provided that he should own all im- 
 provements in the cutting off of steam by the regulator, wherein the 
 valve-motion was obtained by any connection with the working part 
 of the engine. My cut-off is entirety different in principle and form 
 from his, and from all others; yet Corliss himself, whose cut-off is 
 different from his and mine, is to-day involved in a lawsuit with the 
 
 original inventor I feel satisfied at all events, that my plan 
 
 is entirely original, and as good as any body's I can have a 
 
 picture and description of'Holley's Improved Cut-Off 7 circulated 
 in Appleton's Engineers' Journal [he means the Mechanical Magazine^, 
 free of expense, and shall immediately do so. [This cut-off was 
 illustrated and described in the Mechanical Magazine in July, 1852. 
 It is a detached escapement, operated both directly by a cam (at the 
 end of the stroke), and indirectly from the governor, at any point 
 during the stroke.] .... You advised me when I was home, to 
 consult Mr. Adams, C. E., of New York, about my oscillating 
 engine. I did consult him, and found that my fundamental 
 improvement, on which the rest depended, was patented in England 
 by a celebrated engineer, some years ago. I thought it all out my- 
 self, and never heard of it till I had put it on paper myself." 
 
 Although such matters as these occupied much of his attention, 
 he was active in the literary society to which he belonged. A letter 
 to his step-mother pours out his wrath at the injustice to which the 
 college societies were subjected by the President and trustees, when, 
 desiring permission to meet in the evening instead of the afternoon, 
 they were flatly denied. A rebellion followed, but though some of the 
 hot-heads went so far as to incur the peril of expulsion, Hoi ley stopped 
 short. After all, what he wanted was to get an education, and to him 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. Ill 
 
 these minor issues were not important enough to justify the risk of 
 losing that. So he declined to abet further the revolutionary move- 
 ment with which he heartily sympathized, and turned his tumultuous 
 feelings into the safer channel of a long, eloquent, and indignant 
 letter home. 
 
 It was either before or just after his graduation, that he wrote an 
 elaborate essay on " Water Considered as a Carrier," which was pub- 
 lished in 1854 in successive numbers of the IMehfield Inquirer. It 
 is an exhaustive account of the functions and properties of water as 
 a conveyer of gases, mechanical sediments, dissolved salts, germs, 
 etc., in the vegetable, animal, and mineral kingdoms; of its agency 
 in geological formations, volcanic eruptions, etc. Curiously enough, 
 water is considered as a carrier of everything except heat. This 
 aspect is omitted altogether, though it is the one with which the 
 writer was at that time most familiar, and was afterwards to be 
 most largely concerned. The essay came from his reading, not 
 from his experience. It is creditable to a young collegian ; but 
 still more creditable is the fact that he never wrote another like it. 
 
 In September, 1853, he was graduated with the degree of Bachelor 
 of Philosophy. His oration, on "The Natural Motors," is in point 
 of style not notably different from the fervid and florid efforts common 
 to such occasions. Yet it betrays throughout the passion of the 
 speaker for locomotive machinery, terrestrial and marine; and two 
 passages, describing respectively a locomotive and a steamship, show 
 with what assiduous affection he has watched what he describes. 
 Less clear and forcible is his allusion to electricity, the employment 
 of which in the telegraph he represents with "commencement" 
 rhetoric, as " ambitious man, grasping the red right hand of Jupiter ! " 
 But he pays a compliment to the caloric engine, as an enterprise which 
 " may yet be consummated in a future neither chimerical nor distant," 
 This was just after the trial of Ericsson's steamer, and before the 
 general recognition of the fact that heated air is useful and economical 
 for small motors, though it cannot compete on a large scale with 
 steam. I use the words of the distinguished inventor of the caloric 
 engine a man whose brilliant list of great successes renders him well 
 able to afford the confession of a failure, and who, in the true spirit 
 of science, has drawn from this disappointment grounds for gratitude. 
 " The marine engineer," writes Mr. Ericsson, " has thus been en- 
 couraged to renew his efforts to perfect the steam-engine, without 
 fear of rivalry from a motor depending on the dilatation of at'mos- 
 
112 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 pheric air by heat." (Contributions to the Centennial Exhibition, 1876, 
 p. 438.) 
 
 Holley's faith in the genius of Ericsson was confirmed in later 
 years, in connection with the triumphs of the screw-propeller and 
 of the turreted iron-clad. And Ericsson's .generous appreciation 
 of Holley appears in a letter written since the death of the latter, 
 and speaking of him as " the brightest ornament of American engi- 
 neering." 
 
 After leaving college, Holley entered the shops of Corliss & Night- 
 ingale, at Providence. They were at the time engaged in the attempt 
 to apply to the locomotive engine the principles of the variable cut- 
 off, so successful in the stationary engine. Holley entered their 
 locomotive department, where he served both as draftsman and ma- 
 chinist, and subsequently took the "Advance" out on the Stonington 
 Railroad, where he ran it as engineer long enough to show the prac- 
 ticability of so doing, and, I believe, to effect a sale of the engine. 
 In economy of steam, as shown by indicator-diagrams, the " Advance " 
 was superior to existing link-motion and lap-valve locomotives. But 
 the detached variable cut-off was too delicate an arrangement to en- 
 dure the jar of such rough service. Another arrangement was sub- 
 stituted ; but this, too, rattled to pieces ; and even in the form finally 
 adopted, the " Advance " was not practically a machine to be enthusi- 
 astically welcomed, particularly upon such road-beds as were then 
 characteristic of America. 
 
 In his speech on " The Pursuit of Science," at the Hartford dinner 
 of the Society of Mechanical Engineers, Holley revived his reminis- 
 cences of the " Advance." Said he : 
 
 " The idea began to obtain that science should be pursued not in 
 books, but in things ; and I commenced the pursuit of science in and 
 on and under one of the awfullest things this world ever saw. It 
 was Corliss's original locomotive, euphoniously called ( The Old 
 Jigger.' This locomotive was possessed of a certain inborn cussed- 
 ness, which could hardly be the attribute of a mere machine her 
 spiritual nature was a sort of Mephistophelian cross with a Colorado 
 mule; and as to her physical constitution and membership, a cotton- 
 factory ' mule ' was simple in comparison. The Old Jigger had, as 
 nearly as I can remember, 365 valves, one to break down every day 
 in the year. And as to valve motion, well, nobody ever counted the 
 number of its pieces. They were as the sands of the sea-shore. 
 Most of them used to jar off, the first few trips of the week, after 
 which all the men in the shop could comparatively keep track of the 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 113 
 
 rest of them. I will say for the Old Jigger that she made the best 
 indicator-card I ever saw from a locomotive; clean cut-off, almost a 
 theoretical expansion-curve, and an exhaust as if she had knocked 
 out a cylinder-head. Well, once in a while, after she had been 
 jackassing over the road about four hours behind time, and we had 
 v pinch-barred her into the roundhouse, we used to pull out these 
 indicator-cards of hers, and talk them over right before her, and 
 we would look at her and ask one another why in thunder an engine 
 that could make a card like that would act as if the very old 
 chief-engineer was in her. And next morning she would rouse up 
 and pull the biggest train that had ever been over the road ahead 
 of time. 
 
 " But she was an inconstant old girl and lazy, too used to pre- 
 fer to work with one side, and always made some plausible excuse 
 for breaking down the other. I remember, one March morning, 
 when nobody was looking, she kicked off about two dozen pieces of 
 her starboard valve-gear, and brought up all standing, over a culvert 
 about ten feet wide and full of ice-water. As I was standing in this 
 culvert up to my middle, disconnecting her eccentric-straps, a college 
 professor came along, and rammed his umbrella into me, and asked 
 me to explain to him the difference between this locomotive and any 
 other locomotive ! I then delivered my first scientific lecture ; and I 
 am now of opinion that its diction would have been modified by a 
 divinity student. 
 
 " Continuing my pursuit of science, I left Corliss's works with a 
 knowledge of valve-motion which was simply sublime; and I then 
 proceeded to engraft this knowledge on a locomotive works in the 
 Middle States." 
 
 So far, the dinner speech, delivered in May, 1881. How lightly 
 does memory pass over the sad hours of the past ! Probably the 
 witty orator would have been as much startled as his hearers, if any 
 voice had recalled to him the period of despondency through which 
 he had passed after leaving the Corliss shop, and before finding em- 
 ployment elsewhere. Messrs. Corliss and Nightingale wrote, under 
 date of March 27th, 1855 : 
 
 " Mr. Holley has been employed for nearly eighteen months in 
 the locomotive department of our business. He is an accomplished 
 draftsman, and exhibits talent in the designing and application of 
 machinery. During the time he has been with us, he has enjoyed 
 every facility for becoming practically acquainted with the working 
 of locomotives. We should be glad to avail ourselves of his services 
 
114 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 in our regular business of manufacturing stationary engines. But 
 his mind is on locomotives ; and therefore, into that branch of mecha- 
 nism will he carry that spirit and aim that will insure success. As 
 we do not propose to pursue the locomotive-business at present, Mr. 
 Hoi ley leaves us, and carries with him our best wishes for his suc- 
 cess." 
 
 Armed with this and other introductions, he visited the principal 
 locomotive shops of the West in search of employment, with the re- 
 sult stated in the following letter, written about a month later, in 
 St. Louis. 
 
 "I am completely discouraged. I have applied at every place in 
 the Western country where they build locomotives, except one (at 
 Milwaukee), and I am informed that I shall find no opportunity at 
 that place. At Detroit, my letters were of no avail. They wanted 
 no draftsman, only made the locomotive-business a minor affair, and 
 did not propose to try to establish a reputation of their own as 
 nearly as I could understand it. Mr. , of Cleveland, had no place 
 for me, and said that if there was anything in the world he hated, it 
 was patented improvements. Niles & Co., of Cincinnati, had a first- 
 rate draftsman, and could not change & Co., of Cincinnati, 
 
 only built a few machines, and hired a draftsman, as they used a 
 turning-lathe, for mechanical labor only. They get some poor fellow 
 who will work a month or two, and then starve a month or two when 
 they do not want to use him. The Covington, Louisville, and Chi- 
 cago works have suspended. The shop at St. Louis is a good one ; 
 but they could give me no encouragement, though they seemed to be 
 anxious to drive business. They have no draftsman at all, and think 
 that people here are too ignorant to desire any change in the old form, 
 even though it might be an improvement. I even offered to work 
 for almost nothing, at almost anything, if they would take me in, 
 
 but was unsuccessful It is strange that when I have taken 
 
 such pains to represent myself modestly, and am willing to do any- 
 thing and work and persevere to the utmost extent, that when I have 
 got such strong letters, and that when I know that I can build a 
 better locomotive than all the rest of them put together even in the 
 face of all this, I cannot in the whole Western country get a place to 
 earn my daily bread. The idea is damning to a man's spirits ; though 
 sometimes it looks so ridiculous that I cannot but laugh at the world 
 generally. One thing is certain I will build locomotives ; and if 
 my life is spared, I will ultimately place myself in a position where 
 I can look down on every man who has neglected me, and laugh 
 
ALEXANDER LYL5AN HOLLEY. 115 
 
 with a good-will at the bad luck which the improvements they scorn 
 have brought upon them. It may be a long time before I shall get 
 my head out of water, and I sometimes fear that my spirit will fail 
 me before I see the daylight. If I sink, poor and unknown, I hon- 
 estly believe I shall drag down with me some ideas of which, how- 
 ever humble they may be, the world is not worthy I want to 
 
 visit the Philadelphia, Baltimore, and New Jersey works, and see if 
 I can convince myself and my friends that I am good for something. 
 If I fail in doing this, I am ready to sink ; for if there is anything 
 certain in this world, it is, that I'will NEVER do anything perma- 
 nently for a living, but just this one thing, namely, build locomo- 
 tives." 
 
 It was at the very end of his hopes in the locomotive works at 
 Jersey City that he found employment at last. And it was while 
 he was working there that he, most improvidently and most fortu- 
 nately, married. It is not my purpose in these remarks, devoted as 
 they must be to his professional career and works, to intrude upon 
 the sacredness of his domestic life. Yet the two are not altogether 
 separable. There are those who have not forgotten how the young 
 wife trudged daily with her husband to his experiments with coal- 
 burning locomotives on the Harlem road, or assisted him in the office 
 of the Railroad Advocate, or haunted the new Bessemer works at 
 Troy, until he was accustomed to say, when fears were expressed for 
 his health, "Don't be afraid; if I die, she can run the concern." 
 More than this : from the date of his marriage we find in his letters 
 no more outbursts of despair, but the cheerful and sanguine courage 
 of a heart anchored in a happy home. Into that home trouble and 
 death came, as whither do they not come? But they could not ban- 
 ish peace and hope. Many of you will remember Holley's humor- 
 ous and pathetic address at the Pittsburgh banquet of the Institute 
 of Mining Engineers in 1 879. Replying to the toast of " The Fel- 
 lows 7 Wives," he said, among other things : 
 
 "Young man of the school, full of lore and anxious for hire, what 
 is the vista of probabilities that fills your eye? Will you map out 
 the metalliferous veins under the fair landscape, from the ragged 
 outcrops of the upturned rocks? W'ill you span the canon, eroded 
 throughout aeons, with your gossamer steel bridge of yesterday? 
 Will you compel a river which denudes a continent to build out its 
 own ship-canal through its own delta with its own debris? Will 
 you sever continents to make a highway for commerce? Will you 
 coax out of ores with your deft alchemy the metals which the evo- 
 
116 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 lution of ages put in? Will you drive a train from the Orient to 
 the Occident, following the sun, and keeping company with the 
 hours ? Ah, my dear boy ! these things you may do ; but they are 
 only means to an end. And that end you shall see down the long 
 vista of the inevitable. There, with eloquent eyes, and folded arms, 
 sits a dear little woman. And, my boy, when those tender arms 
 shall enfold you, and those eloquent eyes shall flash into your soul 
 the potential caloric of a whole life, then you will know what it is 
 to be the lord of a fellow's wife. .... Two thousand years ago, the 
 philosopher Callimachus, wandering in the cemetery of Corinth, was 
 arrested by a vision of prophetic beauty. It was only an acanthus 
 plant, confined in a basket and covered with a tile, the struggling 
 leaves curling through the meshes and wreathing themselves in 
 graceful volutes under the covering stone. This was the decoration 
 of a child's grave ; but it was the prototype of the Corinthian capital. 
 As out of a little grave grew the glory of decorative art, so out of, 
 ah ! how many little graves, struggling through the meshes and re- 
 pressed by the cold marble, perennially bloom the graces and the 
 virtues of the higher life that long-suffering, that patience, that 
 elasticity, that sweetness, that association of the good and the beau- 
 tiful, which is but another name for the fellow \s wives!" 
 
 While yet at Corliss's works, Mr. Holley had written, both for 
 the Polytechnic Journal, and in Colburn's Railroad Advocate, articles 
 on the Corliss engines, which displayed marked ability. Probably 
 it was this which brought him to the notice of Zerah Colburn, the 
 inconstant, erratic, unfortunate, but brilliant and wonderful engineer 
 and author, whose fitful career would in itself be subject enough for 
 a volume. Mr. Colburn had been superintendent of the New Jersey 
 Locomotive Works, and had started in 1854 the Railroad Advocate, 
 which may be said to have inaugurated a new era in the technical 
 journalism of this country. From being a contributor to this paper, 
 Holley became a partner and editor. The two men had many things 
 in common. They were in love with the locomotive, and all that 
 pertained fo it. Their scientific knowledge had a foundation of 
 practical familiarity with the topics of which they wrote. Colburn 
 was the superior in the range and maturity of his professional knowl- 
 edge, and it is impossible not to recognize the great advantage, intel- 
 lectually, which his younger associate derived from this companion- 
 ship. But in other respects, Colburn was no comfortable yoke-fellow. 
 He could not bear harness. After a year, he sold out to Holley, 
 and from April 19th, 1856, the Advocate was published by Holley 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 117 
 
 & Co. In August of the same year, the name was changed to Hoi- 
 ley's Railroad Advocate, though Colburn still wrote for it occasionally, 
 and for about a year the burden, both of editorial and business man- 
 agement, was borne by Holley. His letters show that it was not 
 light. In January, 1857, he writes that the paper is "filling up 
 with advertisements at $24 an inch ; " in February, he is still san- 
 guine, but says that " like all other things, it is slow at first." He 
 adds, "I must be travelling most of the time, and picking up all that 
 is new, to keep up the interest in the paper, and must keep it full of 
 advertisements. I cannot edit. the paper in New York, or in any 
 less space than several millions of miles." In March, he writes from 
 Lynchburg, Ya., that he has progressed slowly, but thinks the trip 
 will be pretty successful. He will have some $300 worth of adver- 
 tising from Richmond. The country is not so dilapitated as he ex- 
 pected to find it. Things are lax and dirty, but there is a good deal 
 of enterprise in the larger towns. He expects to go on as far as New 
 Orleans and Cuba. 
 
 The Railroad Advocate, caught in the storm of a great commercial 
 crisis, was sadly battered, if not wrecked. It never fulfilled his 
 hopes, as a business; but we cannot fail to see what an education for 
 its proprietor and editor was furnished by this active and continuous 
 association with men and things as well as books and literary labor. 
 
 Meanwhile, Colburn, after several unsuccessful ventures in other 
 directions, returned to journalism. ' In July, 1857, Holley's Railroad 
 Advocate became Holley and Colburn's American Engineer, and in 
 the following September was suspended and never revived. The 
 cause of the suspension appears to have been the " hard times " of 
 1857; but the ingenuity and energy of the owners made this the 
 occasion of a new venture. Securing from a number of American 
 railway presidents and from private friends the necessary means, they 
 went to Europe, to study foreign rail way- practice and to report upon 
 those features of it which would be most important at home. This 
 was the first of thirteen journeys across the Atlantic, made by Holley, 
 every one of which was fruitful of benefit to his country. No Ameri- 
 can ever went abroad more thoroughly furnished for such a work by 
 nature and by training. If Colburn, on this first trip, showed him 
 how to do it, he needed no teaching afterward. 
 
 It was on the return voyage that the Ariel, in which Holley was 
 a passenger, was nearly wrecked, and obliged to put back. The 
 following vivid description is taken from an unpublished fragment 
 found in Holley's handwriting among his papers : 
 
118 MEMORIAL OP 
 
 " We merrily sailed out of the Solent, past the Needles, against a 
 stiffening breeze, just as eight bells sounded the New Year. But 
 the barometer fell and the sea rose for six days, and on the tempest- 
 uous morning of the seventh, we were awakened by the joint sen- 
 sation of ominous silence and new motion. The noisy but assuring 
 heart-beat of the engine-room had stopped, and we were rolling over 
 and over. The paddle-shaft was broken just outside the hull; one 
 wheel was banging against the planking, and likely to go to the 
 bottom with its counter-balancing weight ; the ship was in the trough 
 of the sea, and the gale had grown to a hurricane. They tried to 
 make sail enough to get steerage-way, but the fore-yard snapped in 
 two. Then the gallant Ludlow threw out a floating anchor called 
 a 'drag/ a big basin, made of a stout and weighted sail, stretched on 
 four spars. This, with our spanker, held her just so far out of the 
 trough that we only got ' pooped ' once then came in the stern- 
 windows, and a foot of water over the cabin-floor, washing away 
 babies, furniture and hope. I knew the engineer professionally, 
 and I crawled down to his den, and begged him to let me do some- 
 thing to occupy my mind, for I was afraid. But he said there was 
 little to do, except to keep the bilge-pumps running, for she had 
 sprung a leak. Then I crawled up into the cabin again, and saw 
 some men crying and wringing their hands, and some dear women, 
 brave and quiet, taking hold of each other's hands, and looking like 
 angels. That took away my fear ; and I made a sort of nest for 
 some little children who were tumbling about with the Ariel's lurches ; 
 and I told them stories and worshipped their innocence and their igno- 
 rance of engineering which I had spent half a life to learn. So passed 
 the dreadful day and night. We had no regular meals, of course; 
 but the cook scalded some potatoes and himself; and a few of us 
 went into his galley and cooked ourselves and some chops, and in 
 that fun we almost forgot our condition. The next day was Sunday. 
 The hurricane had not abated. The pumps had simply kept the 
 ship afloat. The greater number of the passengers wanted to have 
 a prayer-meeting, and ask the Deity to stop the storm. There was 
 no authorized representative on board, except a Catholic priest, and 
 he was one of the best and truest men I ever met. He kneeled down 
 in the cabin among us all, and, without any ritual or any Latin, he 
 described our peril and our wants in a few graphic and fervent words, 
 which put us in harmony with the situation. Then the storm broke, 
 and the next morning was bright and sunny. For ten days, we 
 sailed and paddled with our well wheel back to Queenstown." 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 119 
 
 Colburn and Holley's report a handsome folio, with 51 engraved 
 plates appeared in 1858, under the title, The Permanent Way and 
 Coal-burning Locomotive Boilers of European Railways, with a Com- 
 parison of the Working Economy of European and American Lines, 
 and the principles upon which Improvement must Proceed. This title 
 is admirable, because it exactly expresses the three-fold nature of 
 the work, which comprises a description of foreign plant and prac- 
 tice, a demonstration of American inferiority, and a recommenda- 
 tion of practicable improvements. 
 
 The book reflects much credit on its authors in many ways. 
 With characteristic courage and ambition, they issued it in a style 
 which they could ill afford, and which makes it even to this day 
 one of the handsomest of engineering books. It was a bold venture, 
 even outwardly, and its contents were bolder yet. When we re- 
 member that Colburn and Holley were abroad less than three 
 months, collecting the materials for it, we are astonished at its com- 
 pleteness and accuracy. They were " tremendous workers." Hoi- 
 ley's letters show that after a few days given .to the new delights of 
 travel, and the sights in London, he settled down to intense labor, 
 visiting railway-shops and offices, and devoting days and nights to 
 writing and drawing. The excellent descriptions thus prepared 
 might, however, have fallen unnoticed in the presence of a public 
 little able to appreciate mere engineering details. It was the " Com- 
 parison," made by Colburn, which appealed directly and irresistibly 
 to American railway managers "counting-room engineers," as 
 Holley was wont contemptuously to call them with its over- 
 whelming demonstration of the financial economy of the best con- 
 struction and the best machinery. In 1860, Holley wrote : 
 
 "The first half of the last decade was distinguished by the open- 
 ing, as if by magic, of thousands of miles of railway; the last half 
 has been distinguished in revealing the fact that the roads thus 
 open are yet to be built." 
 
 This revelation was effectually made by Colburn's " Comparison." 
 It was not enough to show that the annual operating expense of 
 American railways was $120,000,000, against $80,000,000 for the 
 same mileage in England an excess of $40,000,000 ; that the an- 
 nual maintenance of the road-bed cost $33,000,000 here, against 
 $12,500,000 there an excess of $20,500,000; that the cost of fuel 
 was $18,000,000, against $7,500,000, thus giving as total expenses, 
 $171,000,000 in America and $100,000,000 for the same mileage 
 abroad. Any industrious compiler could present such figures ; and 
 
120 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 the counting-room answer was ready. " Such comparisons could 
 not be made. The conditions were utterly different in the two 
 countries. English lines were very expensively built, and what 
 was saved in current expenses was paid out in interest on first cost. 
 The grades were lighter than ours ; the traffic was more favorable ; 
 there was cheap fuel and pauper labor." This sort of vague quali- 
 tative talk is what all reforms encounter; and it must be met with 
 quantitative demonstration. In all such questions, there is "truth on 
 both sides ; " but the scientific inquirer weighs the truth, and ascer- 
 tains on which side is the ultimate overweight. In this case, Col- 
 burn proceeded to discuss in detail all the varying conditions, and 
 to give a precise value to each. He showed that' of the superior 
 English economy of nearly sixty per cent, in the maintenance of 
 permanent way, only about half was due to favoring 6ircumstances ; 
 that of the 44 per cent, superior economy in fuel, only 15 per cent, 
 could be thus explained ; that the necessary difference in first cost 
 was far less than had been supposed. By an exhaustive analysis, 
 he tracked the saving to its sources, and proved these to be chiefly 
 the locomotive and the permanent way. This was an argument 
 which financiers could understand. The press took it up, and drove 
 it home. The leading New York dailies came out with long 
 leaders (mostly contributed by Hoi ley) on the causes of the depre- 
 ciation in railroad property, and drew from this book overwhelming 
 proofs. The English press, of course, rejoiced in its acknowledg- 
 ment of English superiority. Even the patriotic rage displayed by 
 some of our journals, regarding this conceited attack on American 
 institutions, helped to advertise the book. Taken together with its 
 successor, Holley's Railway Practice (of which I will speak pres- 
 ently), it inaugurated, and did much to effect, a revolution. As to 
 the completeness of the mechanical part of it (which was Holley's 
 special portion), I may here quote a remark once made to me by a 
 leading railway engineer of this country. Said he, " I keep the 
 book in my office still; and frequently, when inventors call on me 
 with their new ideas about rails, and joints, and sleepers, and 
 boilers, and so on, I open Colburn and Holley, and show them their 
 inventions, already described and discussed." 
 
 From Holley's letters during 1858, it is evident that he travelled 
 extensively, soliciting subscriptions from railway companies to defray 
 the cost of publishing the report, and also .selling other scientific 
 books on commission to cover his expenses. Probably during this 
 period he made the acquaintance of Mr. Henry J. Raymond, founder 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 121 
 
 and editor of the New York Times. His first article in that paper 
 was a vigorous editorial on railway management, published Novem- 
 ber 9th, 1858. 
 
 Mr. Raymond was characteristically quick to recognize, encour- 
 age, and attach to his corps of editors, reporters, and correspondents 
 young men of talent and ambition. He realized that he had found 
 a prize in Holley, who speedily became a frequent contributor to the 
 Times. I have found 276 articles from his pen, published in that 
 paper, of which about 200 appeared between 1858 and 1863, and 
 the remainder at rarer intervals to 1875, the last being the leading 
 editorial of April 27th, 1875, on the recently-appointed United 
 States Testing Board. The range of these articles is indicated by 
 the following classification : Setting aside 52 miscellaneous articles 
 (descriptive, political, etc.), and 30 which may be called "scatter- 
 ing," though devoted to engineering topics, we have 194, divided as 
 follows: Railways (including street railways), 49; steam naviga- 
 tion, 42; war ships and armor, 30; the Stevens battery, 22; arms 
 and ordnance, 19; boiler explosions, 11; and steam engines, 7. 
 The most important and remarkable of these articles were, perhaps, 
 those on the Great Eastern, written under the signature of " Tubal 
 Cain." In 1859, he accompanied Mr, Raymond to Europe as a 
 Times correspondent, made the acquaintance of Brunei and Scott 
 Russell, and thoroughly studied the structure and details of the 
 great ship. His description (October, 1859) of the vessel audits 
 machinery (accompanied with drawings), his account of the trial trip, 
 the accidental explosion occurring on that occasion, the coroner's 
 inquest, etc., and his discussion of various engineering and commer- 
 cial questions thus suggested, present a wonderful combination of 
 technical, critical, and literary skill. The articles attracted atten- 
 tion on both sides of the Atlantic,, and the Times assumed a position 
 of authority on engineering topics not before or since occupied by a 
 New York daily newspaper. 
 
 In 1860, Holley again went to Europe for the Times, and returned 
 on the first transatlantic trip of the Great Eastern. This time his 
 equally remarkable letters were divided between the Times and the 
 American Railway Review, of which in the mean time he had be- 
 come editor of the mechanical department. The Review was a New 
 York weekly. His connection with it began with its second volume 
 in January, 18oO, and lasted about eighteen months. Among the 
 first things he contributed to* it was a description and explanation 
 of the Giffard injector, then a novelty. An examination; of the col- 
 
 9 
 
122 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 umns of this paper and of the Times throws an interesting light on 
 the manner in which he contrived to do so much literary and pro- 
 fessional work. He made one hand wash the other. The topics 
 treated for the general public in the Times were served up in more 
 technical form in the Review. The anonymous editor in the Times 
 frequently quoted and commented upon the avowed editor of the 
 Review, and vice versa. But all this was merely the incidental, 
 though necessary, occupation of this period. He wrote to earn 
 money, and he wrote with the rapidity and versatility of a Bohemian ; 
 but all the time his eye was upon his profession, and his articles 
 were but the chips thrown off in the labor of preparing his Ameri- 
 can and European Railway Practice, which appeared at the close of 
 1860. This was, so far as the subject of permanent way is con- 
 cerned, a digest. of the report of Colburn and Holley ; but it was a 
 great deal more. The subjects of the combustion of coal, its use in 
 locomotives, the economical generation of steam, the proper con- 
 struction of boilers, etc., were thoroughly discussed, and the whole 
 problem was treated with the precision of a judge combined with 
 the earnestness of an advocate. The defects of American railway 
 management in these particulars were exposed with satire arid in- 
 dignation. The book was, in even a higher degree than its prede- 
 cessor, an epoch-making one. Our railway practice in the branches 
 of which it treats has done little more than follow its guidance, and 
 its recommendations and warnings are not yet out of date. 
 
 In the preface to this work, Holley acknowledges assistance re- 
 ceived from Mr. J. K. Fisher, well known to New Yorkers as an 
 engineer of talent and an inventor who tried hard and failed to 
 introduce steam-carriages on common roads. In the latter experi- 
 ment, Holley gave him some professional and financial assistance. 
 The money was lost; but out of this, as out of all other experiences 
 of his life, he drew a dividend of added knowledge. I believe he 
 never ceased to consider the steam-carriage and traction-engine as 
 technically an accomplished success, and certain eventually to find a 
 wide use in this country. To discuss the causes which have fal- 
 sified, thus far, that expectation, and have left us apparently more 
 distant than ever from its fulfilment, would be beyond the limits of 
 this occasion. Suffice it to say, that in my judgment, the immense 
 extension of railroads is one of them. 
 
 Another matter to which Mr. Fisher had given great attention 
 was that of steam fire-engines. How quickly and thoroughly Hol- 
 ley appreciated this problem may be seen in several of his Times 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 123 
 
 articles notably a long one, published December 10th, 1858. It 
 is a model of clear and epigrammatic statement, abounding in such 
 sentences as these : 
 
 " The size of a fire-engine is limited by the size of the men who 
 handle the hose. We can build an engine that will throw a river 
 over a mountain who will hold the butt?" .... 
 
 "Boilers which can raise steam from cold water in three minutes, 
 can do almost any thing else in the next three minutes, if they are 
 not closely watched." 
 
 There is ample evidence that the outward rewards of all his 
 labors so far had been mainly in growing reputation, not in money. 
 He was still struggling for a living. In April, 1859, he took out 
 two patents, one for a variable cut-off gear for steam-engines, and 
 the other for railway chairs. 
 
 Of the railway-chair patent he writes at the time, " My rail-joint 
 seems to be liked; and I shall doubtless make something out of it." 
 It preserved the continuity of the rail-ends by brackets, so attached 
 to the spliced pieces and tension-plates that the weight of the wheels 
 of the train on the rail kept the splices tightly in their places, 
 without the aid of plates, nuts, keys, or rivets. It was illustrated 
 in his Railway Practice, and in the Railway Review. It was tried 
 by one or two roads (I believe with satisfactory results) ; but it did 
 not come into wide use, partly, as, I judge, because reforms in rail- 
 sections and permanent way made the simple fish-plate adequate to 
 all demands. As Holley wrote in the Review, "The practical diffi- 
 culty with the fish-joint is not the form of the fishing-piece, but the 
 form of the rail." 
 
 Meanwhile, the pressure of outward necessities continued, but 
 Holley's courage and hope rose to meet it. The denser the medium 
 through which he made his way, the greater his relative buoyancy. 
 In March, 1861, he writes : 
 
 " I have an engagement with the publishers of Webster's Una- 
 bridged Dictionary, to write a lot of engineering words and defini- 
 tions, to make some illustrations, and to correct engineering defini- 
 tions, for a new edition of that work, for which I get my name put 
 in the book, and $200. The former part of the pay will be pretty 
 valuable, and the latter part very timely in these awful days of panic 
 and poverty. I am at work at this as hard as possible, to get it 
 done in time, and to get the money." 
 
 A few days later he writes, referring to the slow sale of his book, 
 and other difficulties : 
 
124 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 
 
 " These unexpected hard times have certainly and fairly inter- 
 rupted my plans. Under normal circumstances, things would have 
 come out as I expected they would. Therefore, I do not think it 
 bad management, but bad luck, that I am still in an undesirable 
 position. But I am making my expenses as light as possible, and 
 getting what professional work I can to do. I yesterday completed 
 an arrangement with the Camden & Amboy Railroad Company, to 
 alter an engine of theirs to burn coal. I am to be paid eight dol- 
 lars per day, and to be employed thirty or forty days. Mr. Stevens, 
 the President, has been for some years engaged on a battery for the 
 Government, about which you know, of course. He says he shall 
 probably be called on to fimsh it by this administration, and that 
 he may want to employ me, here and in Europe, for this and other 
 matters. I am also getting some business as an expert, which pays 
 first-rate am writing for the dictionary, and gradually getting the 
 business offered, after which I have so long been seeking. So, on 
 the whole, I do not despair of getting back the money I have been 
 investing for the last ten years in education, and of securing some- 
 thing to live on." 
 
 Up to this time I find no proof that Holley interested himself 
 specially in politics. He seems rather to have regarded with disgust 
 the manner in which the slavery question, in one form or another, 
 engrossed the attention of Congress, leaving great matters of internal 
 improvement, the regulation of commerce, the safety of travel, the 
 construction and maintenance of public works, to be dealt with by 
 crude and hasty legislation. Thus he writes in the Times, May 3d, 
 1860: 
 
 " As the law-makers tread the decks of steamers, they will need 
 no expert to unfold the probable causes of danger. Let them but 
 look and tremble : a single compartment with a wooden shell 
 Heaven only knows how weak and rotten quivering with each Stroke 
 of the engine between them and death : fires roaring and lamps 
 swinging within the very embrace of seasoned combustibles boiler- 
 plate of questionable tenacity, straining under undue pressure fire- 
 pumps and hose, bilge-pumps and life-boats, lashed and stowed away 
 for the voyage like so much cargo or permanent ballast; sailing ves- 
 sels, without light or signal, bearing down into our very path : should 
 sudden danger overtake us, what are the probabilities of deliverance? 
 The chances are, that there will be a collision that a hole in any 
 part of the hull will admit the sea to every cranny of the fabric ; 
 that the furnace-fires will be quenched bei'ore the steam-pumps can 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 125 
 
 be set at work ; that the ship will founder before all the boats can 
 be cleared and launched ; that all the boats will not hold half the 
 people ; that there is no material for rafts ; that the vessel will take 
 fire; that the fire will get the advantage before the pumps can be 
 got at work and the hose adjusted ; that the deficient means of 
 overcoming danger, and especially the delay in applying the means 
 provided, will give accident and carelessness the winning start of 
 defence and caution. 
 
 " Urgent and reasonable as are the demands of the case, it is found 
 practically impossible to meet them fully and fairly with legislative 
 enactments. Sectionalism, State rights, spoils, corruption, selfishness, 
 and the whole catalogue of personal and party motives and influences, 
 menace alike the interests of the white man and the negro the Af- 
 rican traveller and the Red River slave." 
 
 Like the vast majority of our citizens, he did not realize the serious 
 and instant peril of the country. As late as March, 1861, after the 
 inauguration of Lincoln, when the government of the Southern Con- 
 federacy under Jefferson Davis had been fully organized, Holley be- 
 came a candidate for the position of U. S. supervising inspector of 
 passenger steamers. The letters forwarded in recommendation of 
 his appointment to the President were subsequently returned, and 
 after his death I found them among his papers. I do not wonder 
 he preserved them. They constitute an astonishing testimonial to 
 the professional standing of a man not yet thirty years old. A host 
 of firms and individuals, including the presidents and engineers of 
 the principal American railways, and the managers of great shops 
 for the construction of steam machinery, bear witness to the extra- 
 ordinary ability and fitness of Mr. Holley. If I repeat before this 
 audience the names of J. Edgar Thomson, Erastus Corning, John 
 Taylor Johnston, Sam Sloan, Charles Mi not, Allan Campbell, S. 
 W. Roberts, Amasa Stone, John C. Cresson, W. H. Clements, David 
 Hoadley, George H. Corliss, J. S. Rogers, M. W. Baldwin, Richard 
 Norris, W. W. Fairbanks, Horatio Allen, Benjamin F. Thurston, 
 Peter Cooper, Abram S. Hewitt, Edward Cooper, J. G. Barnard, 
 William G. Hamilton, Cyrus W. Field, Samuel J. Reeves, Mont- 
 gomery C. Meigs, to say nothing of college and West Point professors, 
 or editors like Henry J. Raymond, and personal friends of the Presi- 
 dent and cabinet, I need add nothing to prove the unusual force of 
 these credentials. In a private letter, dated April 3d, 1861, Mr. 
 Holley says : 
 
 " I was in Washington the other day, about the inspectorship ; but 
 
126 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 I do not expect to get it. I have as fine a list of engineering names 
 as could be offered ; but I have no hard-working New York City 
 political backers, except Mr. Raymond. Another candidate is more 
 of a politician than an engineer, and he will probably get the place. 
 However, I may get it. I shall certainly not go and bore the Presi- 
 dent and departments. If they can't take my papers as evidence, 
 they ought not to take my own statement." 
 
 Those who remember him in the brightness of his youthful prime 
 cannot but feel that his personal application, adding magnetism to 
 the weight of the professional indorsements he presented, would not 
 have bored even the tired officials at Washington, but would have 
 inspired them with the desire to win for the public service his skill 
 and enthusiasm would have enabled them to find delight in duty. 
 But it was not thus to be and so far as we can now discern, what 
 was to be was better. 
 
 The letters of those gentlemen I have named, with many others, 
 were subsequently recovered from Washington, and arranged and 
 filed by Mr. Hoi ley. On a blank page at the end, he wrote in his 
 bold hand these significant words : " What came of it? Mr. Holley 
 was not appointed. 77 Yet through all his life he was proud of the 
 indorsement he had thus received ; and to-night we may safely say 
 that those who gave it need not be ashamed. 
 
 Besides the ordinary fatuity which presides over Governmental 
 appointments, and the special pressure of party politics in the case 
 of a new administration, receiving the powers and privileges of fed- 
 eral office for the first time from the hands of its party opponents, 
 there were in this instance peculiar reasons for the apparent neglect 
 of Holley 7 s application. Events were then occurring which might 
 well cause those in power to overlook the inspectorship of steamboats. 
 The attention of all was concentrated, not upon the possible accidents 
 that might happen to vessels navigating the Hudson or the Sound, 
 but upon the beginnings of civil war in the South. The firing upon 
 our flag in Sumter and Baltimore excited to their highest pitch the 
 feelings of the North. Many of you must remember the scenes that 
 transformed the metropolis : the vast meeting at Union Square, with 
 its many platforms and orators, and its surging, shouting multitude 
 of hearers and spectators. What enthusiasm attended the passionate 
 appeal of Mitchel and Baker, as they pledged their lives to the ser- 
 vice pledges redeemed by both, after a few short months, in blood ! 
 And what frenzy of applause followed the reply of one of the orators, 
 when, being asked from the crowd, "How about the Seventh Regi- 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 127 
 
 ment ? " he answered, " They have just been heard from by telegraph 
 at Philadelphia. It is proposed that they go by sea to Washington ; 
 but they prefer to march through Baltimore I " 
 
 The sudden change in the sentiments of many who up to that time 
 had hoped for compromise, is well illustrated in the case of Holley. 
 In January, 1861, he had written: 
 
 "I suppose we have got to have a war; but it is a pity to fight 
 for what isn't worth fighting for. It seems our duty to have a 
 general convention of the people and let the beggars go." 
 
 But the events of the next three month were for him, as for the 
 majority of his Northern countrymen, a rapid political education ; and 
 on the 23d of April, 1861, he wrote to Secretary Chase the following 
 letter, substantial duplicates of which were sent to the War and Navy 
 departments also : 
 
 "I am an applicant, indorsed by a large number of prominent 
 engineers, for the office of United States Supervising Inspector of 
 Steamers. 
 
 "In the present state of affairs, I am anxious to bring such 
 engineering facilities as I may command into the service of the 
 Government. 
 
 " I have an intimate acquaintance with Mr. Scott Russell and many 
 other English engineers and shipbuilders, having been sent to Europe 
 several times on engineering business. 
 
 " If I can do the Government any good with reference to the 
 construction or purchase of ships or arms, the construction of bat- 
 teries, gun-boats, or iron vessels of light draught, the application of 
 armor to ships, etc., I hereby offer my services, without compensation, 
 desiring only that my necessary expenses be paid, as I have not the 
 money to pay them. 
 
 " I know that I have peculiar facilities for gaining the latest in- 
 formation relative to the construction of iron ships and boats and 
 their engines : without waste of time. 
 
 " I refer you to the names appended to my application aforesaid. 
 I am ready at an hour's notice." 
 
 On the same sheet, Mr. Raymond added these words : " I know 
 Mr. Holley intimately, and KNOW him to be in every respect one 
 of the very best men whose services the Government can command." 
 
 From another source, I learn that at this time Mr. Holley was 
 ready as what patriotic young American was not? to enlist in 
 the Army or Navy, but that a little reflection convinced him ,of the 
 greater usefulness which lay in his professional skill. 
 
123 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 The letter I have quoted was filed at the Treasury department (as 
 the clerical indorsement upon it shows) together with the other papers 
 concerning Mr. Holley's previous application for office. Neither 
 it, nor the similar letters addressed to the Navy and War depart- 
 ments, were ever acknowledged. Probably there was no time in 
 those crowded days for mere politeness and thanks. Probably 
 thousands of other men were tendering their services, even without 
 pay. Moreover, experienced administrators know very well that the 
 acceptance of such gratuitous service is in most cases no advantage 
 to the public. Officers under salary, and no others, can be held to 
 strict responsibility. The honorary employes of the state demoral- 
 ize the rest. They despise red tape, which is, on the whole, essential, 
 however harmfully it may now and then be tangled ; and, to speak 
 plainly, no tangle is so mischievous as that produced by a volunteer 
 shuttle, flying lawlessly across the web of a regular system. Kail- 
 road engineers know how many trains must be delayed, when 
 some swift " special " demands the track, in spite of the time-table. 
 
 Doubtless these calm considerations did not comfort the soul of 
 the ardent young volunteer, conscious of the power he freely offered 
 to his country. There is a touch of bitterness in the words he in- 
 dorsed upon the papers I have quoted: "What came of it? The 
 letters received no attention. The foregoing application to Secretary 
 Chase was found filed with the application for the Inspectorship, at 
 the Treasury. The End." To which, indeed, History adds, "Not 
 the End, but the Beginning." 
 
 Both his patriotism and his professional ability found an immediate 
 object in the Stevens battery, and in other plans which Mr. Edwin 
 A. Stevens proposed to the Government. That remarkable man and 
 his brother, Robert L. Stevens, were the originators of most of the 
 modern improvements in naval warfare. Their father, Col. John 
 Stevens, built in 1805 a steam-vessel with twin screws a feature 
 adopted in the Stevens battery, and in the Naugatuck (a vessel pre- 
 sented to the U. S. Treasury Department during the war by Edwin 
 A. Stevens), and subsequently employed in the war-ships of England. 
 The armored ironclad known as the Stevens battery was proposed by 
 the brothers Stevens to the United States Government as early as 1841 . 
 It was not until 1854 that the work was commenced ; and in 1861, 
 twenty years after its suggestion, it was still unfinished, the Govern- 
 ment having refused for more than eighteen years to do anything about 
 it. Half a million of public money had been spent upon it; Mr. 
 Stevens had spent $200,000 besides ; and he now asked from Congress 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 129 
 
 an appropriation of $500,000 to finish the whole work. The proposal 
 met with unexpected opposition. Holley states the case in a Times 
 editorial, August 13th, 1861, as follows: 
 
 " Here is an iron screw ship of 6000 tons, made of the best selected 
 material, with as beautiful a model as ever floated, with engines and 
 boilers of a pattern superior to that of most modern steamers, and 
 capable of developing the whole horse-power of the Great Eastern, 
 and a speed of twenty mites an hour a ship that can turn on her 
 own centre in perhaps a minute outrun any known enemy fire 
 with her eight guns a heavier broadside than the Warrior fire three 
 of these guns at a time parallel to the keel sink to the gun-deck 
 during action, and so leave only her cover, as it were, to be-protected 
 by plates carry 6}-inch armor, inclined at 30, and coal enough to 
 cross the Atlantic at ordinary speed a ship up to the best commercial 
 practice in every important detail, and ahead of the best naval 
 practice in nearly all and this. is the vessel that some of our con- 
 temporaries advise the Government to abandon as a failure, while 
 Congress debates bills for the construction of modern ironclad ships ! " 
 
 It is impracticable on this occasion to trace the course of the discus- 
 sions, examinations, reports, negotiations, and intrigues which con- 
 stitute the subsequent history of the Stevens battery. Holley's work, 
 in connection with it, turned out to be rather literary than technical. 
 Mr. Stevens, whose age and health disinclined him to engage actively 
 in a fight for the privilege of serving his country with his knowledge 
 and experience, left this part largely to Holley, who wrote memorials, 
 arguments, criticisms, editorials, with untiring zeal, bringing to bear 
 science, wit, eloquence, and anger in a manner peculiarly his own. 
 Whatever may be said of Stevens's battery, Holley's battery was 
 unquestionably a powerful one ; and so far as words could win the 
 battle, he won it. But the victory cost too much time, and when 
 won, it was fruitless. 
 
 The peculiar features of the Hoboken ship have been elsewhere 
 adopted and in turn superseded. The principal effect of this episode 
 upon Holley's career was the attention it caused him to give to the 
 subject of ordnance and armor. 
 
 Sent abroad in 1862, by Mr. Stevens, to investigate this subject, 
 he found the facts he needed scattered in official documents, mono- 
 graphs, unpublished records, etc., and speedily his own note-book 
 became a more comprehensive and accurate collection of them than 
 any printed book. He obtained his information with some dif- 
 ficulty. I find, for instance, the following letter from his friend, 
 
130 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 J. Scott Russell, referring to certain ordnance works or experiments 
 of the British Government : 
 
 September 24, 1862. 
 
 a MY DEAR HOLLEY: 
 
 " I have applied in the proper quarters, and find that special in- 
 structions have been given that you are to be refused admittance. 
 " As you have achieved this distinction, you will, I am sure, have 
 
 no wish to put yourself in a false position 
 
 Yours sincerely, 
 
 J. SCOTT RUSSELL." 
 
 On another occasion, Holley desired to study the lines of a new 
 British ironclad, then in process of construction. One of the con- 
 tractors, whom he had made (as usual) first an acquaintance and then 
 straightway a friend, said to him, " If you can manage to get i^to 
 the yard, I will show you all you want to see. But I am powerless 
 to procure admission for you, and I am sure it will be refused if you 
 ask it." It must be admitted that, in spite of the confidence of his 
 friend, Mr. Scott Russell, Holley did, on this occasion, " place him- 
 self in a false position ; " for he hired a stylish carriage, arranged 
 himself in solitary state with folded arms on the back-seat, gave the 
 necessary instructions to the coachman, and drove straight through 
 the big gate into the yard, acknowledging with a bow the presented 
 arms of the guard, as proudly as any other Lord of the Admiralty. 
 Once inside, he found his friend, and satisfied his curiosity. This 
 story, now published for the first time, is respectfully dedicated to 
 Her Majesty's Government ! 
 
 We can hardly wonder at the occasional exclusion of Holley from 
 important works at that time. He was certain to send to his own 
 Government whatever new facts he observed. On the whole, how- 
 ever, he was treated with liberality, and his note-book became, at the 
 close of 1864, a treatise on Ordnance and Armor. 
 
 This work has, perhaps, been overrated. It is in reality a clever 
 piece of book-making, remarkable as showing with what rapidity 
 and accuracy a trained reporter, employing both pen and pencil, can 
 collect and arrange a mass of data. Holley's independent criticisms 
 and suggestions are not made prominent; though, when they occur, 
 they are sensible and timely. The book is simply an attempt on his 
 part to supply the need which he had felt on approaching the subject 
 of ordnance and armor the need of a summary of the existing state 
 of the art. It was translated into French, and became everywhere 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 131 
 
 a recognized authority just as a dictionary or a directory is recog- 
 nized authority, particularly if it is large and thorough, and intelli- 
 gently arranged, and the only one to be had. It is out of date now. 
 The arts of warfare have made great progress since it appeared ; and 
 though it is still indispensable as a record, it is, to me at least, chiefly 
 interesting as a specimen of Holley's method of work ; his ability to 
 grasp the leading principles of any mechanical problem ; the facility 
 with which he seized the details of an apparatus or an experiment, 
 putting them down for future reference in words or in sketches, as 
 might be most convenient; and the system with which he indexed 
 everything he had once noted, so that he could at any moment recur 
 to it again without delay. 
 
 While he was thus studying ordnance and armor, the columns of 
 the Times coruscated with brilliant articles from his pen on these 
 topics, and the bureaus at Washington had frequent reason to regret 
 that his genius was not directly enlisted in their assistance, instead 
 of employing the free lance of destructive criticism. 
 
 An interesting and able summary of this subject appeared in the 
 National Almanac of 1863, under the title, " Iron-Clad War Ves- 
 sels;" and the Atlantic Monthly of January, 1863, contained an 
 article from his pen on "Iron-Clad Ships and Heavy Ordnance." 
 At the close of this article, he speaks of a more extended work, about 
 to be published by Van Nostrand, of New York, thus showing that 
 at that time Ordnance and Armor was almost completed, though it 
 did not publicly appear for nearly two years. 
 
 Before it saw the light, his activity had turned into a new and still 
 more important channel. In May, 1863, he writes: 
 
 " It is a matter of regret to me, on many accounts, that I .have to 
 go to England again this summer ; but this is no pleasure-trip, but 
 a trip preparatory, I hope, to something settled. Precisely what I 
 am going for, I am not at liberty to say, except that I am going to 
 get information for Corning, Winslow & Co. about a new manufac- 
 ture. If I succeed, they are going to establish the business, which 
 will be in nature allied to, but in a business way separate from, their 
 present manufacture. They then wish me to become a partner in 
 the new business, .... and expect, if I succeed, to spend about 
 $30,000 in establishing the new manufacture." 
 
 Imagine starting in the Bessemer business with $30,000 ! 
 
 His mission was successful. The Bessemer patents were purchased, 
 and subsequently combined with the conflicting American patents of 
 Kelly. The works at Troy were built and started in 1865, and en- 
 
132 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 larged in 1867. From this time on, the career of Holley was sub- 
 stantially the history of the Bessemer manufacture in the United 
 States. In 1867, he built the works at Harrisburg. About a year 
 later, he was recalled to Troy, to rebuild the works there, which had 
 been destroyed by fire. 'Still later, he planned the works at North 
 Chicago and Joliet, the Edgar Thomson works at Pittsburg, and the 
 Vulcan at St. Louis, besides acting as consulting engineer in the de- 
 signing of the Cambria, Bethlehem, and Scranton works. 
 
 It is not my purpose to describe in detail the improvements he 
 introduced into the Bessemer plant. They have been admirably 
 summarized by Mr. Robert W. Hunt, in his paper (Trans. Am. I. 
 of M. E., Vol. V., p. 201 ) on the History of the Bessemer Manufac- 
 ture in America. It is fair to say that they put an entirely new face 
 on the commercial relations of that manufacture, by enormously in- 
 creasing its productive capacity, and proportionately decreasing its 
 cost. Whoever would appreciate their nature and effect, need do 
 but two things : First, compare the pictures of the ^Bessemer plant 
 and its arrangement, as given in English text-books and journals of 
 that period, with the plans of American works; secondly, compare 
 the records of foreign works with the records of our own. Mr. Hunt 
 says : 
 
 " The result of his thought gave us the present accepted type of 
 American Bessemer plant. He did away with the English deep pit, 
 and raised the vessels so as to get working space under them on the 
 ground-floor; he substituted top-supported hydraulic cranes for the 
 more expensive counter-weighted English ones, and put three ingot 
 cranes around the pit instead of two, and thereby obtained greater 
 area of power ; he changed the location of the vessel as related to the 
 pit and melting-house; he modified the ladle-crane, and worked all 
 the cranes and vessels from a single-point; he substituted cupolas for 
 reverberatory furnaces; and last, but by no means least, introduced 
 the intermediate or accumulating ladle, which is placed on scales, 
 and thus insures accuracy of operation by rendering possible the 
 weighing of each charge of melted iron, before pouring it into the 
 converter. These points cover the radical features of his innovations. 
 After building such a plant, he began to meet the difficulties of de- 
 tails in manufacture, among the most serious of which was the short 
 duration of the vessel-bottoms, and the time required to cool off the 
 vessels to a point at which it was possible for workmen to enter 
 and make new bottoms. After many experiments, the result was 
 the Holley vessel-bottom, which, either in its form as patented, or in 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 123 
 
 a modification of it as now used in all American works, has rendered 
 possible, as much as any other one thing, the present immense pro- 
 duction.' 7 
 
 Concerning the increasing productiveness of the American Besse- 
 mer plant, it may be said in round numbers that it lias been raised 
 from the capacity (per two converters) of about 900 tons per month 
 to more than 10,000 tons for the same period an exceptional maxi- 
 mum of over 14,000 tons of ingots in a single month having been 
 reached by the Edgar Thomson works. Hoi ley's arrangement of 
 buildings and machinery, to secure convenience in handling mate- 
 rials, and his movable converter-bottom and other devices, to reduce 
 the time lost in repairs, were undoubtedly the basis of this great ad- 
 vance, though valuable contributions have been made by the able 
 engineers who followed his lead. 
 
 But turning for a moment from technical details, I cannot forbear 
 quoting from an article written by Holley, in 1865, for the Troy Daily 
 Times, the description of a Bessemer "blow" at night. It is not 
 only admirable in itself, but interesting as a proof of his keen per- 
 ception of the picturesque and artistic elements in his profession : 
 
 "The cavernous room is dark, the air sulphurous, the sounds of 
 suppressed power are melancholy and deep. Half-revealed monsters 
 with piercing eyes crouch in the corners, spectral shapes ever flit 
 about the wall, and lurid beams of light anon flash in your face as 
 some remorseless beast opens its red-hot jaws for its iron ration. 
 Then the melter thrusts a spear between the joints of its armor, and 
 a glistening, yellow stream spurts out for a moment, and then all is 
 dark once more. Again and again he stabs it, till six tons of its hot 
 and smoking blood have filled a great caldron to the brim. Then 
 the foreman shouts to a thirty -foot giant in the corner, who straight- 
 way stretches out his iron arm and gently lifts the caldron away up 
 into the air and turns out the yellow blood in a hissing, sparkling 
 stream, which dives into the white-hot jaws of another monster a 
 monster as bigas an elephant, with a head like a frog, and scaly hide. 
 The foreman shouts again, at which up rises the monster on his 
 haunches, growling and snorting sparks and flame. 
 
 " What a conflict of the elements is going on in that vast labora- 
 tory ! A million balls of melted iron, tearing away from the liquid 
 mass, surging from side to side, and plunging down again, only to 
 be blown out more hot and angry than before column upon column 
 of air, squeezed solid like rods of glass by the power of five hundred 
 horses, piercing and shattering the iron at evt-ry point, chasing it up 
 
134 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 and down, robbing it of its treasures only to be itself decomposed, 
 and hurled out into the night in roaring blaze. 
 
 " As the combustion progresses, the surging mass within grows 
 hotter, throwing out splashes of liquid slag ; and the discharge from 
 its mouth changes from sparks and streaks of red and yellow gas to 
 thick, full, white, howling, dazzling flame. But such battles cannot 
 last long. In a quarter of an hour, the iron is stripped of every 
 combustible alloy, and hangs out the white flag. The converter is 
 then turned upon its side, the blast shut off, and the recarburizer 
 run in. Then for a moment the war of the elements rages again ; 
 the mass boils and flames with higher intensity, and with a rapidity 
 of chemical reaction, sometimes throwing it violently out of the con- 
 verter-mouth ; then all is quiet, and the product is steel liquid, 
 milky steel, that pours out into the ladle from under its roof of slag, 
 smooth, shining, and almost transparent." 
 
 It is scarcely possible to exaggerate the importance, to this country 
 and to the world, of the Bessemer manufacture, and particularly of 
 that manufacture on the vast scale which Holley's improvements 
 helped it to assume. The end is not yet. The structural uses of 
 steel are still in their infancy. But in one branch of engineering 
 the branch of Holley's early choice and love a world-shaking revo- 
 lution has been accomplished. The permanent way of whicli he 
 wrote so much has received its final perfecting touch in the steel rail 
 and cheap transportation has been the result. The farmers and 
 cattle-breeders of Great Britain find themselves brought into compe- 
 tition with regions of the very existence of which they had scarcely 
 heard before. The invention of an English chemist, perfected and 
 applied in America, reacts upon the whole social fabric. The gi- 
 gantic spectre of the land question itself reveals through its dread 
 garments a skeleton of Bessemer steel ! 
 
 To Holley personally, the entrance upon these new labors was the 
 greatest change of his life. His chance, for which he had so patiently 
 waited and so thoroughly prepared himself, had come at last. His 
 work changed from the critical to the creative; and a whole side of 
 his genius, repressed hitherto, sprang into joyous power. 
 
 All his life he had been fond of designing. The fertility of his 
 imagination and his artistic taste were shown in a thousand ways 
 in the drawings with which he adorned albums and scrap-books ; in 
 the design he made for the charter-oak chair of state, which still wins 
 admiration in the capitol of Connecticut ; in his love of old cathedrals 
 and masterpieces of painting and sculpture. But he was not be- 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 135 
 
 witched by the surface of beauty alone. Looking below the surface, 
 he recognized the beauty of adaptation. He recognized the great 
 scientific truth that the line of economy is the line of grace. The 
 arch, the truss, were no unmeaning forms to him. And beneath a 
 strong, light roof, or before a well-designed machine, or in the midst 
 of a well-arranged plant, he found the satisfaction of an artist as well 
 as an engineer. I think he took more pride in the Edgar Thomson 
 works than in any other which he helped to build, because, as he 
 once said to me, he began at the beginning with them, taking a clean 
 sheet of paper, drawing on it first the railway-tracks, and then plac- 
 ing the buildings and the contents of each building with prime regard 
 to the facile handling of material ; so that the whole became a body, 
 shaped by its bones and muscles, rather than a box, into which bones 
 and muscles had to be packed. 
 
 Yet this new activity was not substituted for the older ones ; it 
 was rather superadded to them. In January, 1869, he took charge 
 of Van Nostrand's Eclectic Engineering Magazine, which he edited 
 for a year. In August of that year, he wrote from Troy : 
 
 " I have not got along far enough in life to look back on much 
 work or much fruit from it; but I have lived long enough to con- 
 clude with certainty, that leisure is the hardest thing in life to get 
 along with. I try to have as little of it as possible." 
 
 In the subject of technical education, as I need not tell the mem- 
 bers of these societies, he was deeply interested. Elected in 1865 a 
 member of the Board of Trustees of the Rensselaer Polytechnic In- 
 stitute, he made his influence felt in favor of an improved curriculum, 
 keeping pace with the demands of the times. While it is impossible 
 to discuss at this time the views on technical education which he 
 subsequently announced, it is worth mention, in passing, that the 
 system he so eloquently advocated, of a practical training preceding 
 the scientific instruction, was not the one under which his own genius 
 had developed itself. He went from the school to the shop, not 
 from the shop to the school. 
 
 If I pass swiftly over the latest and most fruitful years of his life, 
 it is not because I fail to recognize their importance. They were in 
 every way his best working years. His rapidly growing fame, his 
 widening circle of friends, his own matured power, combined to give 
 value to his labors and to win for them adequate reward. In fact, 
 this is the answer to those impetuous ones who think it better, as 
 they say, u to wear out than to rust out/ 7 and declare that if they do 
 twice as much, and only live half as long, the world at least will be 
 
136 MEMORIAL OP 
 
 no loser. This is not true. A true man's last work is his best. Two 
 bushels of green apples to-day are not the adequate substitute for one 
 bushel of ripe ones, when Time shall have brought them to perfection. 
 And this ripening effect of Time is in human character the one thing 
 that cannot be hurried. Wisdom the degree conferred upon 
 faithful students in the University of Life, cannot be had in the 
 sophomore year. 
 
 But the work of these wisest and intellectually strongest years of 
 Holley's life is, for the most part, either familiarly known to all of 
 you, or it is still under the lock and key of his professional relations, 
 in confidential reports. His papers and addresses in the Institute of 
 Mining Engineers, of which he became a member in 1872 and Presi-' 
 dent in 1875, the Society of Civil Engineers, of which he was a Yice- 
 President in 1876, the Society of Mechanical Engineers, of which 
 together with the honored chairman of this meeting he was a founder, 
 and the British Iron and Steel Institute, and Institution of Civil 
 Engineers, of, which he was a member; the admirable paper on Iron 
 and Steel, contributed by him to the Reports of the Judges of the 
 Centennial Exposition in 1876; the series of illustrated articles on 
 American iron and steel- works, prepared by him together with Mr. 
 Lenox Smith for London Engineering, from 1877 to 1880; his 
 masterly treatise on sleel, published in 1880 in Appleton's Cyclo- 
 paedia of Mechanics; and, in another sphere, his breezy description 
 in Scribner's Monthly for May, 1878, under the title "Camps and 
 Tramps about Katadin," of a health-giving summer excursion, in 
 genial artist company, to the forests and mountains of Maine these 
 are both familiar and accessible to you all. But more voluminous, 
 and in many respects still more valuable, were the reports which he 
 printed and issued confidentially to his clients (for the last five years 
 tu the mcmbeis of the Bessemer Association only) on the various 
 branches of % steel manufacture. No doubt, when the immediate 
 business value of these reports shall have passed away, they will 
 become accessible to engineers generally; and they will be found a 
 mine of clear, precise, well-arranged, and well-discussed information. 
 I know that he regarded them as his best work, and that he put his 
 life into them. 
 
 Of all the later labors to which I have alluded, and of other works 
 of his pen, I shall publish as an appendix to this address a catalogue, 
 which I believe is complete, and which in itself constitutes a striking 
 picture of his intense and various industry. 
 
 It was probably about 1875 that his elastic strength began to 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 137 
 
 fail. In that year he wrote: "I have been so hard at work for 
 so long that I am getting pretty tired and ' played out/ I am 
 going in a week to one of the Elizabeth Islands, off New Bedford, 
 where there is neither mail nor telegraph, to lie on the sea-shore for 
 a week and try to get strong and sleepy." That last word tells the 
 story. 
 
 In June, 1875, he was appointed a member of the United States 
 Board for Testing Structural Materials. He had been unweariedly 
 active in promoting the formation of this Board ; he was not the 
 least laborious of its members ; and down to the end of his life, he 
 ceased not to strive that its work, so promising, so fruitful, so un- 
 fortunately interrupted, should be revived and continued. In our 
 endeavors to advance that great work against ignorance, indolence, 
 and prejudice in quarters high and low, we shall sorely miss hence- 
 forward his voice and pen. 
 
 In 1879, he accepted an appointment to lecture at the School 
 of Mines, Columbia College, on the manufacture of iron and steel. 
 He wrote these lectures with great care, printed a complete synop- 
 sis of them for the use of the students, and took as much pains to 
 assure himself of the proficiency of his class, by rigorous examina- 
 tions, as if he had been a resident-professor, and this his chief busi- 
 ness. 
 
 Besides the two early patents which I have already mentioned, Mr. 
 Holley obtained fourteen others. Ten of these refer to his improve- 
 ments in the Bessemer process and plant; two of them to roll-trains 
 and their feed-tables ; and the remaining two are those of July 18th, 
 1876, and March 1st, 1881, the first for a water-cooled furnace-roof, 
 and the latter for a steam-boiler furnace, with gaseous fuel. These 
 are both important ; and the first of them, in which the pipes cooling 
 the arch of a furnace constitute at the same time the skeleton support- 
 ing it, is highly ingenious in conception and detail. It is not un- 
 likely to be the " furnace 'of the future" for many purposes. The 
 last of his Bessemer patents (purchased since his death by the Besse- 
 mer Association), that of the detachable converter-shell (April 26th, 
 1881), is perhaps the most important of all, after the old converter- 
 bottom patented August 9th, 1870. I will not describe it here. It 
 is discussed by its inventor in a manner to leave nothing more to be 
 said, in a paper read in November, 1880, before the American Society 
 of Mechanical Engineers. 
 
 It is pleasant to remember that in these later years he began to 
 receive the public and professional recognition which his genius and 
 
 10 
 
138 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 perseverance deserved. In 1878, on the twenty-fifth anniversary of 
 his graduation, his Alma Mater bestowed on him the honorary degree 
 of Doctor of Laws. A still more appropriate honor, the Bessemer 
 medal, given in cordial though late appreciation of his services and 
 merits, can be placed, not, alas ! in his hand, but only on his tomb. But 
 these things are but trivial symbols of the warm, unanimous, uni- 
 versal love and respect with which he was regarded by the engineers 
 of two worlds. 
 
 This has been more adequately shown by the outburst of sorrow 
 and of eulogy on both sides of the Atlantic, which followed his death. 
 Yet scarcely less significant was the cordial welcome which, while he 
 yet lived and labored, awaited him everywhere on his journeys. All 
 doors even those which were inscribed with " No admittance" 
 opened before him. One of his friends who has been travelling this 
 year among foreign iron and steel-works, writes that Holley's name 
 has been everywhere a potent charm, securing for him an eager 
 courtesy of reception. 
 
 I have resolved to make this address, as far as may be, purely 
 professional and critical ; and there has been no lack of testimony to 
 Holley's private virtues and personal magnetism, so that I need not 
 dwell at length upon these. But even in a cold estimate of his pro- 
 fessional achievements, these qualities cannot be passed over. Gen- 
 erosity, honor, tact, unselfish interest in the welfare of others, high 
 devotion to great causes, unstinted service to the interest of em- 
 ployers, a full performance nay, an overflowing performance of 
 every duty : these qualities win love and trust; and to win love and 
 trust, in our profession, as in every other, is the very heart of success. 
 
 We may answer now the questions with which we began. This 
 life was successful. It was filled with the joy of labor; it was sur- 
 rounded at the last with comfort and fame and troops of friends. 
 But the success was not of accident, or luck, or sudden growth. It 
 was earned, inch by inch ; won out of innumerable delays and 
 defeats; held at the cost of constant vigilance and toil. Homer 
 sings of warriors who were invulnerable and irresistible; but Homer 
 gives them the assistance of the gods, fighting invisibly beside them; 
 and to my mind, his noblest heroes are those who stand up bravely 
 against such odds, and die where they stand. Again, the tales of 
 chivalry are full of triumphant champions, whose lances in melee or 
 tourney nothing can resist. But history tells . us that, apart from 
 the exaggerations of the legend, these all-conquering heroes were 
 arrant humbugs princes, whose prowess it was the part of courtiers 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 139 
 
 to help them to exhibit ; that their invariable triumph was the farce 
 of hired players. Our hero was no such gay cavalier. Neither 
 miracle nor connivance made his lance omnipotent. His armor was 
 bruised and dented in earnest ; he knew the shock, the overthrow, 
 the retreat, the struggle again and again renewed, the victory that 
 called for new conflicts with new risk of defeat. 
 
 If Holley's genius was such as to forbid us from hoping by mere 
 effort to attain equal heights, yet, on the other hand, there is ample 
 encouragement and instruction in his career for all young engineers. 
 Let me, in closing, barely mention its chief lessons. 
 
 The first is the great benefit of uniting theory and practice. It is 
 less important how these are to be combined than that the student 
 of either should not despise the other. Every word that Holley 
 spoke, every line he wrote, betrayed his familiarity with the practi- 
 cal operations, tools, difficulties, and needs of his business. A great 
 inventor once said to me (when I talked to him of some fancied dis- 
 covery of my own) : " My boy, half the art of invention consists in 
 knowing what needs to be invented." Holley's career illustrates 
 this principle, and bears witness also how deeply he felt what he 
 called the inadequate union of engineering science and art, and how 
 ardently he labored to make it closer and more complete. Not his 
 eloquent words merely, but the eloquence of his whole life speaks 
 one language the language of the brotherhood of brain-workers 
 and hand- workers. And what he was, even more than what he 
 said or did to promote such union, wrought mightily to that great 
 end. For the end is to be found in the multiplication of such men 
 as he men who do not merely preach harmony to the two classes, 
 but actually belong to both. 
 
 It is important to observe that the foundation of his training was 
 wholly American. Far be it from me to disparage the advantages 
 of foreign study. I would not speak such treason to my own Alma 
 Mater in a far land. But I say without hesitation, that he brings 
 most from travel and study abroad who carries most to them. Many 
 a precious graft they have furnished, and will yet furnish, to our 
 native stock; but the stock is as important as the shoot, and there 
 are too many young men returning with their hands full of scions 
 and nothing to graft them on. How illustriously different was 
 Holley's career ! 
 
 Another important matter is the early cultivation of the observing 
 powers, and, as incidental thereto, the art of drawing. Holley's 
 facility in these respects was an inestimable advantage to him. He 
 
140 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 inclined to graphic methods of stating and solving engineering 
 problems; and his eye, thus trained, became an intuitive judge and 
 calculator. 
 
 Then cornel, in natural succession, the habit of instant, rapid, 
 accurate, methodical recording of observations. It was Holley's 
 practice to do this constantly ; to make every record so clear and 
 complete that it could be comprehended and used after years had 
 passed ; and to index his note-books and scrap-books so that they 
 became thoroughly available at any moment. This is no trifling 
 matter. When the officers of our Corps of Engineers are examined 
 as to their fitness for promotion, they are obliged not only to an- 
 swer questions and prepare u projects," but also to exhibit the note- 
 books they have kept during their terms of service. No other rev- 
 elation of character is more significant, no test more severe. The 
 work that a man does in a hurry, and unobserved, and for himself, 
 not the public, tells -the story of his method and temperament. Hoi- 
 ley's note-books are models of fullness and order. 
 
 But neither observing, nor recording, nor studying, nor the com- 
 bination of all these with practical training, completely furnish the 
 engineer for the highest place. For he has to deal, not merely with 
 matter and mathematics, but also with men. They must be made 
 to recognize his skill, to back his enterprise, to cooperate in his 
 achievements. Influence, influence that is the secret of power. 
 Genius may seize opportunities ; influence brings them. And the 
 chief vehicle of influence is language. The mastery of language, 
 therefore, is no superfluous accomplishment to the engineer. The 
 young man who deliberately and of choice says, u I mean to be 
 scientific, but not ' literary ; ' " or the parent who says, " My boy is 
 not going to need a liberal culture; he is going to be an engineer," 
 is ignorant of the most potent principle of modern life the solid- 
 arity of the race, the dependence of each upon all, the necessity of a 
 wide foundation for a high fame, the universal law that every occu- 
 pation deals ultimately with men even more than with things, and 
 that the ability to shape things is almost barren without the power 
 to move men. 
 
 But language, as the means of this power, is effective in propor- 
 tion as it is filled with appeals to the responsive associations of 
 human minds. A host of things in fancy, poetry, history, and gen- 
 eral literature, concerning which people are interested, may be trivial 
 in themselves: it is nevertheless worth while to know them and to 
 use them, as a means of commanding the interest and assent of men. 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN I10LLEY. 141 
 
 In other words, a wide culture, in sympathy with the age in which 
 we live, is an element of power. It is true that all this, belonging 
 to the art of expression, is wasted in the hands of him who has noth- 
 ing to express. Men may be arrested to listen, but they will soon 
 find out that behind the skillful utterance there is neither character 
 nor knowledge. They may be fascinated by the instrument, until 
 they find out there is nothing in the tune. But when real genius 
 and noble ambition utter themselves through the channels of art in 
 language, how gladly hears the world ! 
 
 Holley's versatility and intellectual sympathy with many lines of 
 thought prevented him from sinking to the level of drudgery, 
 though he worked harder than many a drudge; they made him, not 
 merely a bricklayer, but an architect for his generation. Controlled 
 and reinforced by a mighty perseverance, softened and brightened 
 by an unfailing gentleness of soul, they added to his genius that 
 which made him great. For what we call greatness in any sphere 
 is simply recognized excellence. The excellence may be spurious, 
 the recognition may be factitious and ephemeral then the greatness 
 is false, and the great of to-day are forgotten to-morrow. But when 
 a noble character has been nobly exhibited ; when genuine power has 
 won genuine praise; when fame soars not for a brief flight into the 
 windy air, but stands firm-footed on the solid pyramid of achieve- 
 ment, to sound through her silver trump the name of her victorious 
 son conqueror of nature, leader of men this greatness will en- 
 dure. 
 
 Build him a monument that shall testify our love and his renown. 
 Let the world understand that not alone the plots of politics or the 
 luck of war may give title to such public memorials. This witness, 
 addressing as it does the imagination, the ambition, the worthy 
 pride of the greatest number of men, is conspicuously appropriate to 
 a life so many-sided and complete, so simple and sincere, yet so pop- 
 ular and influential. 
 
 He did not, as once he feared he might, go down poor and un- 
 known, carrying with him thoughts of which the world was not 
 worthy. He was heard, believed, accepted, rewarded with no 
 greater delay or difficulty than sufficed to bring out to their full 
 extent his own best powers. It was given to him to do grand 
 things in the sight of all men. And beneath all our words and 
 pictures and statues of him lies forever, a sure foundation, the work 
 that he did for his time. 
 
 Foresters tell us that a tree once marked will retain the mark, 
 
142 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 though a hundred years of growth may have overlaid it with later 
 coverings. What may be the future spread and stature of the stately 
 oak of American engineering we cannot presume to foretell. But 
 there will come no time when the historian, stripping off the bark, 
 and cutting through the rings of many generations, will not find at 
 the heart that name which with keen blade and skillful hand was 
 carved by Alexander Lyman Holley. 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 143 
 
 VII. 
 
 CATALOGUE OF THE BOOKS, PROFESSIONAL PAPERS, 
 ETC., WRITTEN BY ALEXANDER L. HOLLEY.* 
 
 I. BOOKS. 
 
 THE PERMANENT WAY AND COAL-BURNING LOCOMOTIVES OF 
 EUROPEAN RAILWAYS ; with a Comparison of the Working Economy 
 of European and American Lines, and the Principles upon which 
 Improvement must Proceed. By Zerah Colburn and Alexander L. 
 Holley. With fifty-one plates by J. Bien. New York : Holley 
 and Colburn, 1858. Folio, 168 pp. of text. 
 
 AMERICAN AND EUROPEAN RAILWAY PRACTICE in the Economi- 
 cal Generation of Steam, including the Materials and Construction of 
 Coal-burning Boilers, Combustion, the Variable Blast, Vaporization, 
 Circulation, Superheating, Supplying and Heating Feed-water, etc., 
 and the Adaptation of Wood and Coke-burning Engines to Coal-burn- 
 ing ; and in Permanent Way, including Road-bed, Sleepers, Rails, 
 Joint- fastenings, Street Railways, etc. By Alexander L. Holley, B. P. 
 With seventy-seven plates, engraved by J. Bien. New York : D. 
 Van Nostrand; London : Sampson Low, Son & Co., 1860. (Second 
 Edition 1867.) Folio, 192 pp. of text, 
 
 A TREATISE ON ORDNANCE AND ARMOR : Embracing Descrip- 
 tions, Discussions and Professional Opinions concerning the Material, 
 Fabrication, Requirements, Capabilities and Endurance of European 
 and American Guns for Naval, Sea- coast and Ironclad Warfare, and 
 their Rifling, Projectiles and Breech-loading. Also, Results of Experi- 
 ments against Armor, from Official Records. With an Appendix, 
 
 * Mr. Holley's articles in the Railway Advocate, the American Engineer, and the 
 American Railway Review, and his editorial paragraphs in Van Nostrand's Eclectic 
 Engineering Magazine are not included in this list. Their number, and the diffi- 
 culty of identifying them with certainty, forbids the attempt to catalogue them. 
 But the files of the Railway Advocate for 1855, 1856 and 1857, the American Engineer 
 for a brief period in 1857, and the mechanical department of the American Railway 
 Review for 1860 and the first half of 1831, abound in his work. He was editor of 
 Van Nostrand's from its foundation in January 1869, for one year. [R. W. R.] 
 
144 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 Referring to Gun-Cotton, Hooped &uns t etc. With 493 Illustrations. 
 New York : D. Van Nostrand ; London : Triibner & Company, 1865. 
 Octavo, 900 pp. 
 
 II. ADDRESSES AND PROFESSIONAL PAPERS. 
 
 An Essay on Pen and Pocket Cutlery, Embracing a Detailed De- 
 scription of the Mechanical, Chemical and Manual Operations Per- 
 formed on Certain Raw Materials, to Convert them into the Means, 
 Implements and Materials for Manufacturing Pen and Pocket Knives. 
 By A. L. Holley. Published in Poor's American Railroad Journal, 
 New York, during May, June and July, 1850. 
 
 The Natural Motors. Graduating Oration (unpublished), delivered 
 September 7th, 1853, at Brown University, Providence, R. I. 
 
 Water Considered as a Carrier: the Properties upon which its 
 Qualification for the Office Depends. By Dr. Hugag. Published in 
 the Litchfield Enquirer, January 26th, 1854. 
 
 Corliss's Stationary Steam Engine. Published in the Polytechnic 
 Journal, New York City, 1854. 10 pp., with diagrams. 
 
 The Dominion of Mind. An Oration, Delivered before the Theta 
 Delta Chi Fraternity at their Annual Convention, by Alexander L. 
 Holley, June 1st, 1855. Providence, B. T. Albro, Printer, 185,". 
 Octavo pamphlet, 18 pp. 
 
 Ironclad War Vessels. By A. L. Holley. Published in the 
 National Almanac for 1863. About 6 pp., small octavo. 
 
 Ironclad Ships and Heavy Ordnance. Published in the Atlantic 
 Monthly for January 1863. 10 pp., octavo. 
 
 Steel, and the Bessemer Process. A paper read before the Poly- 
 technic Association of the American Institute, New York City, Octo- 
 ber 12th, 1865. Published in the American Artisan. 
 
 
 
 The Bessemer Process and Works in the United States. (Originally 
 an Article in the Troy Daily Times, July 27th, 1868.) New York : 
 D. Van Nostrand, 1868. Octavo pamphlet, 39 pp. 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 145 
 
 Rolling versus Hammering Ingots. A paper read before the 
 American Institute of Mining Engineers, February 21st, 1872. 
 Published in the Transactions, Vol I., p. 203. Octavo, 3 pp. 
 
 Three-high Rolls. A paper read before the American Institute of 
 Mining Engineers, October 17th, 1872. Published in the Transac- 
 tions, Vol. I., p. 287. Octavo, 6 pp., with plate. 
 
 Tests of Steel. A paper read before the American Institute of 
 Mining Engineers, October 22d, 1872. Published in the Transac- 
 tions, Vol. II., p. 116. Octavo, 6 pp. 
 
 Bessemer Machinery. A lecture delivered before the students of 
 the Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, N. J., in 1873. Pub- 
 1 ished i n the Journal of the .Franklin Institute, Vol. LXI V. Octavo, 
 30 pp., with plates. 
 
 Recent Improvements in .Bessemer Machinery. A paper read be- 
 fore the American Institute of Mining Engineers, February 24th, 
 
 1874. Published in the Transactions, Vol. II., p. 263. Octavo, 10 
 pp., with plates. 
 
 On American Rolling Mills. A paper read before the Iron and 
 Steel Institute of Great Britain. Published in the Journal of the 
 Institute, No. II. for 1874. Octavo, 19 pp., with plates. 
 
 Setting Bessemer Converter-Bottoms. A paper read before the 
 Iron and Steel Institute of Great Britain. Published in the Journal 
 of the Institute, No. II. for 1874. Octavo 6 pp., with plates. 
 
 The Porter-Allen Engine: Report on its Practical Performance, 
 Economy, Durability, etc., with a View to Establishing its Manu- 
 facture. By A. L. Holley, C. E. New York : D. Van Nostrand, 
 
 1875. Octavo pamphlet, 11 pp. 
 
 On the Use of Natural Gas for Puddling and Heating, at Leech- 
 burg, Pennsylvania. A paper read before the American" Institute of 
 Mining Engineers, May 27th, 1875. Published in the Transactions, 
 Vol. IV., p. 32. Octavo, 3 pp. 
 
 The Form, Weight, Manufacture and Life of Rails. Remarks 
 before the American Society of Civil Engineers, June, 1875. Pub- 
 lished in the Transactions, Vol. IV., p. 233. Octavo, 3 pp. 
 
146 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 Tests and Testing -Machines. Remarks before the American 
 Society of Civil Engineers, June, 1875. Published in the Transac- 
 tions, Vol. IV., p. 265. Octavo, 44 pp. 
 
 Some Pressing Needs of our Iron and Steel Manufactures. Presi- 
 dential Address before the American Institute of Mining Engineers, 
 October 26th, 1875. Published in the Transactions, Vol. IV., p. 
 77. Octavo, 23 pp. 
 
 What is Steel ? A paper read before the American Institute of 
 Mining Engineers, October 29th, 1875. Published in the Transac- 
 tions, Vol. IV., p. 138. Octavo, 12 pp. 
 
 The Inadequate Union of Engineering Science and Art. Presi- 
 dential Address before the American Institute of Mining Engineers, 
 February 22d, 1876. Published in the Transactions, Vol. IV., p. 
 191. Octavo, 17 pp. 
 
 Iron and Steel at Philadelphia. A series of articles by A. L. 
 Holley and Lenox Smith, published in London Engineering as fol- 
 lows : 
 
 I. Iron and Steel at Philadelphia, November 10th, 1876. 
 II. Swedish Exhibits, December 6th, 1876. 
 
 III. Belgian and French Exhibits, January 5th, 1877. 
 
 IV. German Exhibits, January 19th, 1877. 
 
 V. The Exhibits of Great Britain, February 9th, 1877. 
 VI. American Exhibits, March 2d, 1877. 
 
 American Iron and Steel Works. A series of illustrated articles, 
 by A. L. Holley and Lenox Smith, published in London Engineering, 
 as follows : 
 
 I. An Analysis of the American Bessemer Plant, Illustrated by 
 the Vulcan Works, St. Louis, March 9th, 1877. 
 
 II. An Analysis of the American Bessemer Plant, Illustrated by 
 the Vulcan Works, St. Louis, March 16th, 1877. 
 
 III. The Midvale Steel Works, Philadelphia, March 30th, 1877. 
 
 IV. The Works of Park, Brothers & Co., May 4th, 1877. 
 
 V. The Union Iron Works, Buffalo, N. Y., June 22d, 1877. 
 
 VI. The Otis Iron and Steel Works, Cleveland, O., July 27th, 
 1877. 
 
 VII. The Works of the Bethlehem Iron Co., Bethlehem, Pa., 
 August 24th, 1877. 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 147 
 
 VIII. The Works of the Bethlehem Iron Co., Bethlehem, Pa., 
 August 31st, 1877. 
 
 IX. The Works of the Bethlehem Iron Co., Bethlehem, Pa., Sep- 
 tember 14th, 1877. 
 
 X. The Works of the Bethlehem Iron Co., Bethlehem, Pa., Octo- 
 ber 19th, 1877. 
 
 XI. The Works of the Bethlehem Iron Co., Bethlehem, Pa., 
 October 26th, 1877. 
 
 XII. The Crescent Steel Works, Pittsburg, Pa., November 23d, 
 1877. 
 
 XIII. The Cedar Point Iron Company's Works, December 21st, 
 1877. 
 
 XIV. The North Chicago Rolling Mill Company's Works, Janu- 
 ary, 18th, 1877. 
 
 XV. The North Chicago Rolling Mill Company's Works, Feb- 
 ruary, 8th, 1878. 
 
 XVI. Rail Mill of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad, Read- 
 ing, Pa., February 22d, 1878. 
 
 XVII. Mines and Works of the Crown Point Iron Company, 
 N. Y., March 15th, 1878. 
 
 XVIII. Mines and Works of the Crown Point Iron Company, 
 N. Y., March 22d, 1878. 
 
 XIX. The Diamond Furnace Ferro-manganese Manufacture 
 in the United States, March 29th, 1878. 
 
 XX. Works of the Cleveland Rolling Mill Company, O., April 
 5th, 1878. 
 
 XXI. Works of the Edgar Thomson Steel Company, Limited, 
 Pittsburg, Pa., April 9th, 1878. 
 
 XXII. Works of the Edgar Thomson Steel Company, Limited, 
 Pittsburg, Pa., April 26th, 1878. 
 
 XXIII. Works of the Edgar Thomson Steel Company, Limited, 
 Pittsburg, Pa., May 17th, 1878. 
 
 XXIV. Plate Mill of the Bay State Iron Company, Boston, Mass., 
 May 24th, 1878. 
 
 XXV. The Cambria Iron and Steel Works, Johnstown, Pa., May 
 31st, 1878. 
 
 XXVI. The Cambria Iron and Steel Works, Johnstown, Pa., 
 June 21st, 1878. 
 
 XXVII. The Cambria Iron and Steel Works, Johnstown, Pa., 
 July 12th, 1878. 
 
148 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 XXVIII. The Cambria Iron and Steel Works, Johnstown, Pa., 
 July 19th, 1878. 
 
 XXIX. The Cambria Iron and Steel Works, Johnstown, Pa., 
 August 23d, 1878. 
 
 XXX. The Cambria Iron and Steel Works, Johnstown, Pa., 
 September 30th, 1878. 
 
 XXXI. The American Iron Works of Jones & Laughlin, Pitts- 
 burg, Pa., November 1st, 1878. 
 
 XXXII. The Lucy Furnaces, Pittsburg, Pa., November 22d, 
 1878. 
 
 XXXIII. The Union Iron Mills, Pittsburg, Pa., January 10th, 
 1879. 
 
 XXXIV. The Works of Cooper, Hewitt & Company, Trenton, 
 N. J., and Riegelsville, Pa., January 31st, 1879. 
 
 XXXV. The Works of Cooper,' Hewitt & Co., Trenton, N. J.. 
 and Riegelsville, Pa., February 21st, 1879. 
 
 XXXVI. The Works of the Meier Iron Company, April 18th, 
 1879. 
 
 XXXVII. Salisbury Iron ; and the Works of the Barnuin 
 Richardson Company, May 30th, 1879. 
 
 XXXVIII. The Works of the Phoenix Iron Company, Phoenix- 
 ville, Pa., February 6th, 1880. 
 
 XXXIX. The Springfield Iron Works, Springfield, 111., May 
 14th, 1880. 
 
 XL. The Albany and Rensselaer Iron and Steel Works, Troy, 
 N. Y., December 24th, 1880. 
 
 XLI. The Albany and Rensselaer Iron and Steel Works, Troy, 
 N. Y., December 31st, 1880. 
 
 Notes on the Salisbury, Conn., Iron Mines and Works. A paper 
 read before the American Institute of Mining Engineers, October 
 23d, 1877. Published in the Transactions, Vol. VL, p. 220. 
 Octavo, 4 pp. 
 
 Notes on the Iron Ore and Anthracite Coal of Rhode Island and 
 Massachusetts. A paper read before the American Institute of Mining 
 Engineers, October 24th, 1877. Published in the Transactions, Vol. 
 VL, p. 224. Octavo, 3 pp. 
 
 The Strength of Wrought Iron, as Affected by its Composition, and 
 by its Reduction in Rolling. A paper read before the American 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 149 
 
 Institute of Mining Engineers, February 27th, 1878. Published 
 in the Transactions, Vol. VI., p. 101. Octavo, 24 pp. 
 
 Solid Steel Casting s for Ordnance, Structures and General Machinery 
 by the Terrenoire Process. Published in the Metallurgical Review, 
 New York, May, June and July, 1878. Octavo, 48 pp. 
 
 Chemical and Physical Analyses of Phosphoric Steel. A paper 
 read before the Institution of Civil Engineers (England). Published 
 in the Proceedings, Vol. VIII., Session 1877-78. Part III. 
 London 1878. Octavo, 28 pp. 
 
 The United States Testing Machine at Watertown Arsenal. A paper 
 read before the American Institute of Mining Engineers, February 
 18th, 1879. Published in the Transactions, Vol. VII., p. 256. 
 Octavo, 9 pp. 
 
 The Pernot Furnace. A paper read before the American Institute 
 of Mining Engineers, February 19th, 1879. Published in the 
 Transactions, Vol. VII., p. 241. Octavo, 14 pp., with plates. 
 
 The Tessie Gas Producer. A paper read before the American 
 Institute of Mining Engineers, May 13th, 1879. Published in the 
 transactions, Vol. VIII., p. 27. Octavo, 7 pp., with plates. 
 
 Washing Phosphoric Pig-Iron for the Open-hearth and Puddling 
 Processes. A paper read before the American Institute of Mining 
 Engineers, September 17th, 1879. Octavo, 9 pp., with plates. 
 
 The Field of Mechanical Engineering. An address delivered at 
 the preliminary meeting of the American Society of Mechanical 
 Engineers, February 16th^ 1880. Published in the Transactions, 
 Vol. I., p. 7 (in the earliest copies it is at p. 28). Octavo, 5 pp. 
 
 Notes on the Siemens Direct Process. A paper read before the 
 American Institute of Mining Engineers, February 19th, 1880. 
 Published in the Transactions, Vol. VIII., p. 321. Octavo, 4 pp., 
 with plates. 
 
 Engineering, the Intermediate Power between Nature and Civilization. 
 An address delivered at the banquet in honor of Count Ferdinand 
 
150 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 de Lesseps, New York, March 1st, 1880. Published, with other 
 addresses on the same occasion, by D. Appleton & Company, New 
 York, 1880. 
 
 An Adaptation of Bessemer Plant to the Basic Process. A paper 
 read before the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Novem- 
 ber, 1880. Published in the Transactions, Vol. I., p. 124. Octavo, 
 8 pp., with plates. 
 
 Steel An article in Appleton 7 s Cyclopaedia of Mechanics, New 
 York, 1880. Octavo, 15 pp. 
 
 On Pail Patterns. A paper read before the American Institute 
 of Mining Engineers, February 17th, 1881. Published in the 
 Transactions, Vol. IX., p. 360. Octavo, 16 pp., with plates and 
 tables. 
 
 The Bethlehem Iron and Steel Works. An article in London 
 Engineering, October 28th, 1881. 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN UOLLEY. 151 
 
 YIIL 
 
 ACTION OF THE CLEVELAND CIVIL ENGINEERS' 
 
 CLUB. 
 
 At a meeting of the Club held at Cleveland, O., February 14th, 
 1882, the following resolutions were unanimously adopted: 
 
 Resolved, That the members of the Cleveland Civil Engineers' 
 Club have heard of the death of Alexander L. Holley with profound 
 sorrow and regret. 
 
 Resolved, That in the death of Mr. Holley, the engineering pro- 
 fession of the world has lost one who not only contributed largely 
 to the success of all industries connected in any way with metallurgy, 
 being the father, as it were, of the Bessemer steel process in this 
 country, whilst he also added largely to the highest order of our 
 literature. 
 
 Resolved, That while he held a position among the highest of our 
 profession, he will ever be remembered and mourned on account of 
 his great personal worth and purity of character. 
 
 In presenting these resolutions, Mr. J. F. Holloway spoke as 
 follows : 
 
 Mr. President : In presenting the resolutions at the opening of this 
 meeting, I felt certain that I was but giving voice to the feelings of 
 all members of this club who have had the pleasure of Mr. Holley's 
 personal acquaintance, as well as those who knew him only by his 
 published books, and by his accomplished works in the various steel 
 and iron-mills of our country. To those of you who have felt the 
 warm, hearty grasp of his hand, who have seen upon his face the 
 ever-present genial smile, and who have listened to the sympathetic 
 tones of his voice, a voice no less pleasant when expounding the 
 most intricate theories of science, as when it sparkled with wit and 
 humor, the news of his death will come with peculiar sadness. 
 It is not my purpose to occupy the time of this Society with a recital 
 of Mr. Holley's professional career ; the technical journals and maga- 
 zines that lie upon your tables have with more or less accuracy in- 
 
152 MEMORIAL OP 
 
 formed you respecting that. Neither do I intend to speak of his 
 standing as an engineer in other and foreign lands; the papers that 
 will in a few days reach you, will tell of that also far better than I 
 would be able. to. 
 
 There is one aspect of his life and mission I think I may call it 
 a mission about which I would gladly speak ; and that is the rare 
 combination there was in him, of the science of the savant, the prac- 
 tical knowledge of the workman, and the courtliness of the gentleman. 
 Not content with possessing these rare qualifications in himself, he 
 occupied the later years of his life in bringing about a new and better 
 era of fellowship between science and practice in others. Standing 
 as he did, the peer of anyone in the ranks of either, he made himself 
 the connecting link between men whose lives had been passed among 
 books only, and the man of practice, who picked his uncertain way 
 over hard and flinty roads, with patient toil and trial. It was his 
 mission to bring the scientific man out from the libraries, colleges, 
 and the laboratories, into the smoke and grime of the world's work- 
 shop. On the other hand, standing beside his fellow- workmen in 
 the mine, the furnace, and the workshop, he told them that by study, 
 by investigation, and by interviews with men of science, they could 
 find many a clew to the difficulties that beset them from day today. 
 He told them, if they would go with him to the laboratory with their 
 troublesome ores and metals, that the man of science would, by ways 
 of his own, hunt and drive out the demons that so troubled and 
 baffled them in the furnace, the forge, and* the foundry, and in the 
 various processes through which they so blindly chased them. And 
 the man of practice, though ever distrustful of science, taking the 
 advice of a fellow-workman, took his ores and his metals to the 
 laboratory, where the man of science calcined them, triturated them, 
 and sublimated them ; he bathed them in acids, dried them in alkalis, 
 and, melting them in crucibles, brought out a tiny button of metal, 
 and a folio of profoundly written formulas, replete with figures which 
 divided a unit into ten thousand parts. Out of all this, by comparing 
 the results without understanding them, the workman saw that the 
 more he had of some things, and the less he had of others, the better 
 would be his iron and his steel, and in the end he had a higher re- 
 gard for science, and a greater respect for the man of books; while 
 on the other hand, the college professor, wandering among the mills, 
 furnaces, and workshops, was struck with the ingenuity and good 
 sense displayed by the engineer, and thought the more highly of him. 
 
 But the mission of Alexander L. Holley meant more than this. 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 153 
 
 He was not satisfied to simply bring each class to a better under- 
 standing and admiration of each other, he interested himself in the 
 formation of societies where men of different professions but kindred 
 pursuits, might meet together to tell of the work they had in hand. 
 Sometimes to speak of their success, often of their troubles and their 
 failures. By the discussions which have taken place in these societies, 
 all have been made wiser. Indeed it is safe to say that out of the 
 greatest failures often has come the greatest good. In these societies 
 are often found members who, in long years of practice, have gath- 
 ered valuable stores of knowledge, but being unaccustomed to put 
 their thoughts into words, were simply silent though interested 
 listeners. These were induced to write papers which also came be- 
 fore the societies for discussion, and record, and thus their printed 
 transactions have come to be volumes of rare and valuable informa- 
 tion, which not only does credit to their authors, but as well to the 
 engineering literature of our country. 
 
 But there was still a further step taken. Mr. Holley in his nu- 
 merous trips abroad, oftentimes the guest of similar societies, early 
 saw the advantage that would accrue to the industries of our country, 
 as well as to the men to whose labors these industries owe their ori- 
 gin and success, if they could only be induced to leave their -daily 
 round of duties, and joining with others, make excursions among the 
 mills and workshops of their fellow- work men. Just how much good 
 has grown out of this new departure can never be fully known, f But 
 it was not enough that the members of the societies should go, they 
 must bring their wives with them, and those only who have availed 
 themselves of these excursions, which have so happily combined 
 business, instruction, and social intercourse, can in the least manner 
 understand how enjoyable they have been, or how pleasant the ac- 
 quaintances thus formed. I have spoken thus somewhat at length, 
 but by no means exhaustively, of the modern scientist, engineer, and 
 workman, that I might the more fully exemplify the part Mr. Hol- 
 ley has taken in bringing about so pleasant a state of affairs between 
 them ; and I do not hesitate to say that no man, no matter how high 
 his position or his attainments, has done as much as did Alexander 
 L. Holley to bind in one bond of kindly feeling and fellowship those 
 who, as members and associates, have thus mingled together. 
 
 Among the many things he had doubtless planned for the future, 
 and which, alas, are now unaccomplished, there was at least one, of 
 which I knew, that it must have pained him to have left undone. 
 It was this : he had hoped at some time in the near future to have 
 
 11 
 
154 MEMORIAL OP 
 
 brought before the various scientific and engineering societies of 
 America, of which he was a member, a scheme by which they, join- 
 ing together, should invite similar societies in England and on the 
 Continent, to send large delegations of their membership to unite in 
 a grand tour through the United States, to be passed from State to 
 State, and from city to city, seeing in each their different and distinct 
 industries, to be taken down into our mines, carried on our broad 
 rivers, borne upon our vast inland seas, and across wide prairies, far 
 westward through States and Territories teeming with untold wealth, 
 to the very portals of the Golden Gate. It was to be the excursion 
 of all excursions, it was to excel by its extended field of observation, 
 its immensity of proportions, and the standing and character of its 
 members, the grandeur and brilliancy of all past time. It was to 
 be a millennium of good feeling, and of good cheer. All of you who 
 have come in contact with, and enjoyed the companionship of that 
 wonderfully genial and kind-hearted man, can easily imagine what 
 a success it would have been, and how largely his personal endeavors 
 would have contributed to make it so. But the times were not yet 
 ripe for its accomplishment. Perhaps the severe illness that over- 
 took him abroad a year or more ago and the enfeebled state of his 
 health since had warned him it was not to be ; but let us at least 
 give him credit for that largeness of heart which conceived the idea. 
 I have not said, neither did I intend to say, anything about what 
 Mr. Holley has accomplished as an engineer. His works are his 
 monuments. In many a valley from the Hudson to the Mississippi, 
 from the mouths of numerous converters the lurid flames light up 
 the hillsides, and write upon the midnight sky the wonders of his 
 achievements. It was of Mr. Holley the man that I wished to speak ; 
 and as I remember his cheerful humor, his ready wit, the keen retort 
 that left no wound behind, I feel how powerless I am to convey to 
 ears unaccustomed to his voice, the magic of its tones. There was 
 ever about him a coterie of choice spirits, and to have been a listener 
 to the flow of good things that fell so unpremeditated from his lips 
 was indeed a treat. There are times and occasions when words fitly 
 chosen, harmonizing with the circumstances which surround speaker 
 and listeners touched with a cadence of feeling and earnestness, bring 
 to the heart of the hearer something deeper and wider in their sig- 
 nificance than the same words would do spoken by other tongues 
 and with different surroundings. And yet, knowing this as I do, I 
 am tempted to relate an incident in Mr. Holley's life which I, in 
 common with many others, witnessed and which none will ever for- 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 155 
 
 get. It was on an occasion during the Pittsburgh meeting of the In- 
 stitute of Mining Engineers, when a few personal friends of Mr. 
 Holley who had been engaged with him one way and another in the 
 study, erection, and working of the modern Bessemer steel plant, 
 desired to present him with a beautiful and costly piece of plate. 
 The presentation was to take place at the elegant country seat of 
 William P. Shinn, at that time the president of the society. It came 
 at the close of several days of most enjoyable meetings and excursions ; 
 but, as the evening upon which it was to take place came on, there 
 came with it a drizzling rain-storm. Mr. Holley, who had not been 
 well during the meetings, seemed quite used up, and making up his 
 mind to forego the pleasure of the evening reception, went to bed at 
 his hotel. So quietly and carefully had the projected presentation 
 been planned, that neither Mr. Holley nor his wife, and but a very 
 few members of the Institute had any suspicion or knowledge of what 
 was about to be done. With the rain falling outside, and Holley 
 sick in bed, the promoters of the scheme were at their wits' end. 
 At last, as they saw no possible way out of it, they took Mrs. Holley 
 into their confidence, and told her all that they had hoped to do, 
 and how disappointed they all were. Realizing as she did the gen- 
 erous feeling and love for her husband, which prompted the act, and 
 seeing, too, how sadly disappointed they all felt over the situation, 
 she promised to see what could be done. Going to the bedside of 
 her husband she told him how disappointed Mr. and Mrs. Shinn 
 were that he could not attend their reception ; and that many of the 
 members, hearing that he would not be there, were half inclined to 
 stay away also. Holley heard her in silence. At last, with an effort 
 he roused himself, and, thinking only of his disappointed friends, 
 said, " Help me to dress, and send down word that we are corning." 
 A close carriage was procured, and, carefully wrapped up, he made 
 the journey and appeared in the parlors of his friends amid a wild 
 huzza of delight from all present. I need not recount the strategy 
 by which he was at last brought up to the table, whereon, inclosed 
 in a beautiful case, the still more elegant present lay enshrined. I 
 could not, much as I might desire to do so, repeat the beautiful and 
 touching address made him by Mr. Shinn in behalf of the donors. 
 As he closed, and, uplifting the cover, revealed the testimonial be- 
 neath, enriched as it was with the. memories that clustered about the 
 names written thereon, Holley was for a moment silent; the ever- 
 ready tongue failed to interpret his thoughts: at length, amid a 
 silence that was profound, he began his reply. He spoke of the love 
 
156 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 he "had for his profession, and of his earlier efforts as an engineer; 
 then, coming to a later period of his life, he accorded high and gen- 
 erous praise to those friends who had so much aided, and encouraged 
 him in his various undertakings. As he proceeded, it seemed as if 
 a gleam of the future opened up before him; and he sp'oke of his 
 work as about accomplished ; then casting, as it were, a retrospective 
 glance over the past, thinking doubtless, as indeed we all must at 
 times think, how it might have been purer, better, there flashed across 
 his mind the beautiful simile of the converter, the converter about 
 which he had so much dreamed, and planned, and he remembered 
 how it, taking the impure and crude materials of the earth, earthy, 
 through its alchemy, transmutes them, purified and purged from all 
 defects, into a pure and noble metal. So, too, of our lives; might 
 not they, chastened, purified, and freed from all earthly dross and 
 stains, come at last to be remolded anew into higher and nobler 
 forms? But words fail to convey the beauty of his thoughts. The 
 pathos of his voice, the pallor that was on his cheek, the far-away 
 look that was in his eyes, will never be forgotten by those who with 
 tear-dimmed eyes stood grouped about him. But he is dead ; and 
 as a warm friend and an eminent writer has well said : " Tears shed 
 for such a man are no evidence of weakness. The world will go 
 on, and another will take up the work he has left unfinished; but 
 Holley's place in the hearts of his friends will never be filled." 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 157 
 
 IX. 
 
 ACTION OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE 
 
 RENSSELAER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE, 
 
 TROY, N. Y. 
 
 AT a meeting of the Board of Trustees, held Friday, February 10, 
 1882, the following resolution was adopted. 
 
 Resolved, That the accompanying memoranda respecting Alexander 
 L. Holley be adopted, and that they be entered on the records of this 
 Board, and that a copy of them be sent to his family. 
 
 Alexander L. Holley was born at Lakeville, Conn., in 1832, and 
 died at Brooklyn, N. Y., January 29, 1882. Having become tem- 
 porarily a resident of this city, he in 1865 was elected a member of 
 this Board, which position he held until his resignation, two years 
 later. He was again elected a trustee in 1870, and served in that 
 capacity until his death. His connection with the Bessemer manu- 
 facture, commencing in theautumnof 1862 when, being in England, 
 he became convinced of its great importance and extending through 
 his whole subsequent career, has given him a place, among iron sci- 
 entists, of high honor, and distinguishes him as the most efficient 
 among those who have developed the Bessemer process in this 
 country. 
 
 In Mr. Holley's character were combined thought and use, in 
 well-balanced proportion. Every theory which followed as the evo- 
 lution of thought, was tried in the alembic of resultant use, and was 
 either abandoned, modified or adopted, in accordance with the event. 
 Thus it happened that men came to place confidence in his opinion, 
 whenever he gave to it expression, and to value his judgment above 
 that of every contemporary in this broad land, in all matters per- 
 taining to the process already named. Beneath his manipulation, 
 the deification of iron among metals has been rendered complete. 
 
 While connected with this Board, he undertook a great part of the 
 labor of preparing the "Report of the Committee of the Trustees," 
 concerning the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, w^hich report was 
 published in 1870. This very thorough treatise exhibits at once the 
 
158 MEMORIAL OP 
 
 logical character of Mr. Holley's mind, and manifests his power of 
 presenting a given subject in varied aspects and with aggregation of 
 valuable suggestion. Starting with the statement that "the objects 
 for which the Institute exists are, not merely to provide young men 
 with a knowledge of mathematics, and to familiarize them with 
 learned text-books, but to qualify them for the practical application 
 of science to the useful arts " starting with this comprehensive defi- 
 nition of the work of the Institute, the report, with admirable clear- 
 ness, developed step by step the most efficient modes of realizing and 
 effecting this " practical application." 
 
 Endowed by nature with a pleasing person, which enshrined a 
 mind to which came easily and gracefully the development that fol- 
 lows a lofty training ; respected and beloved among men for his 
 manly, noble and definite avowal, under all circumstances, of devo- 
 tion to right principles and right action ; renowned among scientists 
 for the thoroughness of his investigation in fields of novel research, 
 and for the certainty with which he builded upon theories which he 
 had adopted ; cheerful, modest, brave and determined ; thus realiz- 
 ing his gifts and his acquirements, and knowing his great worth, we 
 ask the young men of this generation, and especially the young men 
 of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, to study his career and re- 
 flect upon the'valuable work he has accomplished during a well-spent 
 life. 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 159 
 
 X. 
 
 ACTION OF THE CENTURY ASSOCIATION, NEW 
 YORK CITY. 
 
 AT a meeting of the Century, held February 4, 1882, the follow- 
 ing resolutions, offered by Mr. R. W. Raymond and seconded by 
 Mr. O. Chanute, were, after appropriate remarks by Messrs. S. H. 
 Wales and Charles Macdonald, unanimously adopted : 
 
 Resolved, That in the death of Alexander Lyman Holley the Cen- 
 tury Association deplores the loss of one of its most honored and 
 beloved members, whose varied accomplishments and great achieve- 
 ments commanded the admiration, as his tireless activity and stain- 
 less honor won the respect, of all; while to innumerable friends, 
 privileged to know in cordial intercourse his brave, joyous, generous 
 character, the sense of public and professional bereavement is hidden 
 in the deeper shadows of personal grief. 
 
 Resolved, That the Secretary be instructed to enter these resolutions 
 in the minutes of the Association, and to communicate them to the 
 family of Mr. Holley, together with the assurance of our heart-felt 
 sympathy. 
 
160 MEMORIAL OP 
 
 XI. 
 
 ACTION OF THE IRON AND STEEL INSTITUTE OF 
 GREAT BRITAIN. 
 
 AT the annual meeting of the Iron and Steel Institute, held at 
 London, May 10, 1882, the General Secretary read the thirteenth 
 annual report of the Council, in which the following passage occurs : 
 
 "In Mr. Holley's recent decease we have to deplore the loss of a 
 member who occupied a most conspicuous place in connection with 
 the iron and steel industry of the United States, and whose active 
 interest in the affairs of this Institute was shown on many occasions 
 during his membership, which extended from 1873 to the time of 
 his death. 
 
 " In recognition of Mr. Holley's great services, the Council have 
 decided to forward to his family the Bessemer medal for 1882." 
 
 Upon the presentation of the report of the Council, the President, 
 Josiah T. Smith, Esq., spoke in part as follows : 
 
 " The report unfortunately indicates the death of a very large 
 number of members; but it would not be wise or desirable on these 
 periodical occasions to harrow the feelings of friends by alluding at' 
 length to the losses they have sustained. At the same time, there 
 are names amongst those who have gone to which it would be highly 
 improper not to allude before adopting the report. Amongst these, I 
 refer more especially to the death of the distinguished American, Mr. 
 Holley. That gentleman gave himself an infinite amount of trouble 
 to attend our meetings; and the clear and straightforward manner 
 in which he always explained to us the development of the trade of 
 his own country, at the same time modestly keeping in the back- 
 ground his own efforts, elicited our admiration and thanks. Those 
 efforts were so highly appreciated that the Council felt that the Bes- 
 semer medal was due to Mr. Holley, and hoped to have the pleasure 
 of presenting it to him at this meeting. They have now, however, 
 to hand it to his representatives.'' 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 161 
 
 On the same day, the Bessemer medal was delivered by a deputa- 
 tion of the Council to Hon. J. Russell Lowell, the American Ambas- 
 sador, and was subsequently transmitted, through the Department 
 of State at Washington, to the family of Mr. Holley. 
 
 The Journal of the Iron and Steel Institute (No. II., 1882) con- 
 tains an extended obituary notice of Mr. Holley, which concludes 
 (after biographical and professional details which need not be repeated 
 here, since they are contained in greater fulness elsewhere in this 
 volume) with the following words : 
 
 " Of Mr. Holley's many-sided character, apart from his career as 
 an engineer and metallurgist, the scope of this too brief sketch does 
 not allow of much being said. The universal esteem in which he 
 was held has been sufficiently evidenced by the manifold tributes of 
 sorrow and regard which have been paid to his memory, since his 
 decease, by the leading men of the iron trade on the two continents, 
 between which his genius and his amiability tended so greatly to 
 establish an entente cordiale," 
 
162 MEMORIAL OP 
 
 XII. 
 THE PITTSBURGH TESTIMONIAL. 
 
 REPEATED reference having been made in the foregoing pages to 
 this testimonial, it is deemed proper to insert here a brief account 
 of it, and a report of the remarks made on the occasion, taken from 
 a volume printed at the time for private distribution. 
 
 The "testimonial" itself consisted in a handsome silver pitcher 
 and salver, presented in token of appreciation and regard to Alexander 
 Lyman Holley from. his friends, 
 
 William R. Jones, Daniel J. Morrell, James Park, Jr., 
 
 Erastus Corning, William P. Shinn, Charles C. Teeter, 
 
 Chester Griswold, William Metealf, D. S. Hines, 
 
 Robert W. Hunt, S. T. Wellman, John E. Fry, 
 
 Charles Kennedy, Daniel N. Jones, Selden E. Marvin, 
 
 John W. Hartman, Alexander Hamilton, John H. Rieketson, 
 
 Thomas H. Lapsley, James Hemphill, Robert Forsyth, 
 
 Henry R. Worthington, O. W. Potter, E. V. McCandless, 
 
 William A. Perry, John Fritz, John Rinard. 
 
 The occasion selected for the presentation was a social reception 
 given to the American Institute of Mining Engineers, during its 
 Pittsburgh meeting, at Home Lawn, the residence of Mr. William P. 
 Shinn, East End, Pittsburgh, on the evening of Thursday, May 15th, 
 1879. The affair was kept secret from Mr. Holley until the last 
 moment ; and indeed, there was a narrow escape from disappoint- 
 ment through his absence ; since, exhausted by the labors of the 
 meeting, he had decided not to attend the reception, unconscious that 
 so much depended upon his presence. Being persuaded at last to 
 change his determination, he left his bed to join his assembled friends. 
 
 Mr. Shinn, in making the presentation, spoke in behalf of the 
 donors as follows : 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen: Allow me to claim your attention for a 
 few moments. A once prominent railroad official was known to de- 
 fine an engineer as a " man who knew what he wanted to do and how 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 163 
 
 to do it," and he added, by way of illustration, that he was an engi- 
 neer in that sense. The definition is not so wide of the mark as the 
 application. This gentleman was well known as never knowing 
 either what he wanted to do or how to do it. It must, therefore, 
 be evident that a " mining engineer " is one who wants to mine, and 
 knows how. In this sense, I fear that many of us are in the same 
 category with the railroad official referred to. Some of us sport the 
 title of " civil engineer." It is presumably a reasonable requirement 
 of all engineers to be civil, yet some of us find even that task diffi- 
 cult. There are yet others who masquerade under the designation 
 of " mechanical engineers," and there is one of our number who has 
 imposed upon a too credulous and confiding public with this title 
 and sundry others, to which I will refer, until " forbearance has 
 ceased to be a virtue," and it has fallen upon me to expose him before 
 this intelligent audience. 
 
 This gentleman appeared in this vicinity some years ago and his 
 theme was " blowing Bessemer steel." His ambition appeared to be 
 to blow about something, and his greatest desire was to "blow a 
 heat." This gentleman was always descanting upon converting 
 things and people. He made some converts and some converters, 
 but such a failure was he in this direction, that those who came in 
 contact with his converters found themselves consigned to a hotter 
 place than they had ever reached before. The most remarkable 
 characteristic of the converts of this gentleman's converters, is that 
 they are always inclined to steel. This gentleman also indulges in 
 the title of " consulting engineer," and frequently favors his victims 
 whom he is pleased to call his " clients " with a visit for con- 
 sultation. This visit results in his finding out all we know, and in 
 return he confidentially tells all that he don't know ; and there is 
 so much of the latter, that he seems to doubt whether what he gets 
 from us is a full equivalent ! 
 
 He occasionally goes abroad, to England and the Continent, and 
 favors our foreign friends by " consulting " them in like manner. 
 Anon, he talks of " basic linings," as if his ordinary schemes were 
 not base enough ; and you have heard him, at this very meeting, 
 hold forth upon " economical gas-producers," as if such articles were 
 valuable anywhere outside of Congress and our State Legislatures. 
 But his propositions are so plausible, his manner so winning, his 
 countenance so frank and " open-hearth " like, and his gas so over- 
 powering, that he has admirers who still insist upon doing him honor ; 
 and it is because of this that I have sought to place before you the 
 
164 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 facts in regard to this gentleman's true characteristics, lest you might 
 be misled into that confidence, the burden of which these misguided 
 persons have laid upon me this evening. 
 
 This gentleman's name you perhaps have heard, for it has a habit 
 of getting into print it is Alexander Lyman Holley. After all, 
 Mr. Holley's blowing has been for Bessemer, for Siemens, for Tessie 
 du Motay, for anybody and everybody except Holley, and that 
 victimized few, as whose representative I appear here to-night, 
 have resolved that one blow at least shall be struck for Alexander 
 Lyman Holley. 
 
 Mr. Holley! In behalf of a few of those whose lives you have 
 made a burden by teaching them the pathway to success in making 
 Bessemer steel, and then leaving them to the mercy of the mathema- 
 tician and the chemists with their "analyses" and their "formula," 
 their "moments" of this and their "units" of that I present you 
 this testimonial, which I find characterized in the official catalogue 
 as a "pitcher upon a plateau." Which is the "pitcher," you can 
 doubtless perceive ; which is the " plateau," I leave for your patient 
 and careful investigation, believing that, as in other cases which you 
 have undertaken, science will finally triumph and the " plateau" 
 will be discovered. The catalogue further states that the figures on 
 the pitcher are a symbolical representation of "art chasing nature." 
 It is an undoubted fact that nature needs chasing, as witness the too 
 plentiful phosphorus in the convenient pig-iron ; and- as the art of 
 Thomas and Gilchrist has now succeeded in chasing it out, so has 
 your art chased nature out of many of her strongholds and forced 
 her to deliver up her secrets to science. 
 
 In behalf of those whose names are recorded herein, I beg that 
 you will accept this testimonial as but a slight evidence of their 
 appreciation of your great professional ability, your high moral 
 worth, and as an indication of their steadfast friendship. 
 
 The gift was uncovered, and after a moment of embarrassed silence, 
 Mr. Holley, with tremulous voice, responded as follows : 
 
 I thank yon for the kind and elegant manner in which you have 
 presented this lovely gift; it is not only a surprise but an astonish- 
 ment, so much so that I am utterly unprepared to properly respond. 
 
 My kind friends have intended this delightful presentation as a 
 recognition of my contribution to the development of our Bessemer 
 manufacture. I am disposed to be a modest man ; but there is one 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 165 
 
 thing which I certainly do claim to know more intimately than 
 most people, and that is, Who contributed to that somewhat remark- 
 able development, and what each one contributed. I am proud to 
 be recognized as one of the dozen men here (pointing to Captain 
 W. R. Jones) is a conspicuous member of that dozen who, in the 
 way of good mechanical engineering on the part of some of us, and 
 good management on the part of others, have put the Bessemer 
 process in the high and successful position which it occupies to-day. 
 
 But, sir, one of the first principles of our profession is to make 
 constructions only upon mature working-rlrawings. This surprise is 
 so complete that I have had no chance to work up drawings and 
 specifications of a suitable response ; but that I will endeavor to do 
 when I can more completely express my overwhelming feelings. 
 
 Among us all who are working hard in our noble profession, and 
 are keeping the fires of metallurgy aglow, such occasions as this 
 should also kindle a flame of good fellowship and affection which will 
 burn to the end. 
 
 Burn to the end ! perhaps some of us should think of that, who 
 are " burning the candle at both ends." Ah ! well, may it so happen 
 to us that when at last this vital spark is oxidized, when this com- 
 bustible has put on incombustion, when this living fire flutters thin 
 and pale at the lips, sornp kindly hand may " turn us down," not 
 " underblown " by all means not " overblown " some loving hand 
 may turn us down, that we may perhaps be cast in a better mould. 
 
 At the Banquet of the American Institute of Mining Engineers, 
 held in Pittsburgh on the following evening, one of the speakers, 
 after alluding to the above-mentioned testimonial, and expressing 
 the heart-felt sympathy of the Institute with its spirit and purpose, 
 although the members as a body .had had no knowledge of the testi- 
 monial and had not been privileged to take part in it, except as spec- 
 tators, read the following lines : 
 
 O noblest war of earth or time, 
 
 Conquest unstained with blood or tears, 
 
 Thy bells of joy melodious chime, 
 
 And make no victim groan that hears! 
 
 Along the sky thy banner streams ; 
 
 Its vapory white, its smoky hue 
 Transfused with fire, it glows and gleams 
 
 Against the background of the blue. 
 
166 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 But underneath its waving folds 
 No wasted field, no ruined home 
 
 Mute, cursing hands to heaven upholds, 
 Proving such glory is but gloom ! 
 
 The prisoned giants of the deep, 
 
 Surprised, o'ercome and rescued, yield ; 
 
 Break glad from silence and from sleep, 
 To serve their victor in the field. 
 
 They whirl his wheels; they fan his fire; 
 
 They flash his thoughts o'er land and sea, 
 Outrunning, in their fierce desire, 
 
 What boldest dreamers dreamed might be. 
 
 "Behold," they cry, "our willing hands! 
 
 "Behold our swift and tireless feet! 
 "Let him but come who understands : 
 
 "Our service shall be strong and fleet !" 
 
 Thus Nature's voices call for Man : 
 Thrice worthy he, who, born to rule, 
 
 Perceives the call, creates the plan, 
 Inspires with life the lifeless tool. 
 
 The Macedonian wept with rage 
 For other worlds to overrun ; 
 
 The hero of a nobler age 
 
 Has found and claimed them, one by one. 
 
 Realm after realm of fruitful thought 
 Has hailed our ALEXANDER king; 
 
 But crowns of conquest all are naught 
 To those our loyal hearts would bring. 
 
 For weakness at the victor's feet, 
 Or reason, may reluctant bend ; 
 
 But love's surrender is complete 
 The utter gift of friend to friend. 
 
 O brother, known in many lands, 
 And master called in many arts ! 
 
 Behold, we stretch to you our hands 
 With nothing in them, save our hearts ! 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 167 
 
 XIII. 
 SPEECH AT THE DE LESSEES BANQUET. 
 
 As a specimen of Mr. Holley's graceful "after-dinner oratory," 
 the following remarks are presented. They were made at a banquet, 
 given in honor of Count Ferdinand de Lesseps, at New York, March 
 1st, 1880. Mr. Holley responded as follows to the sentiment, 
 
 ENGINEERING, THE INTERMEDIATE POWER BETWEEN NATURE 
 AND CIVILIZATION. 
 
 MR. CHAIRMAN: The sentiment you propose so completely de- 
 fines the master art of engineering that it needs no historian, no 
 prophet, no defender. It were better, to-night, that we magnify its 
 splendid achievements, as we celebrate the advent of its illustrious 
 apostle. It is such grand conceptions as his, such triumphs over 
 difficulty, such faithful and brilliant execution, that draw the mem- 
 bers of our profession to him ; but our profession it is that draws the 
 whole world in its triumphal march. The ways and means of trans- 
 portation, of mining, metallurgy, manufactures, defense, agriculture, 
 architecture all the round of vital and useful arts are but phases 
 of engineering effort. 
 
 But engineers are not proud ; they simply cannot help it that they 
 are the way, the vehicle, the power of civilization. They even 
 acknowledge the incidental value of other professions. Chemistry is 
 a noble art full of promise but only complementary to engineering. 
 Engineers are, for this reason, sometimes complimentary to chemists ! 
 Commerce, banking, jurisprudence, political economy, government, 
 are more or less useful systems- for what? For formulating and 
 realizing the potentiality of engineering. And so the noble art 
 stimulating labor, promoting comfort, founding prosperity, diffusing 
 happiness, establishing knowledge blends, in its own potency, the 
 aims of the three learned professions of old, and itself leads on to 
 universal health, equity, and virtue. 
 
 I do not wish to be understood, sir, as claiming much for engi- 
 neering ; so sensitive is the modesty of my colleagues that they would 
 not tolerate an overstatement of its claims ! 
 
 Viewed from my own department of the profession, there is but 
 one aspect in which the achievements of our distinguished guest are 
 
168 MEMORIAL OP 
 
 not supremely beneficent. He delves in rock and earth ; alas ! he 
 constructs not in iron and steel. Unhappy iron and steel ! Could 
 he but restrain his insatiable ambition to reconstruct this planet; 
 could he but intersperse his mighty works with some trifling steel 
 railway from New York to China; some trivial steel bridge from 
 his own beloved shores to Albion, he would be enshrined as little 
 less than a divinity, even in Pennsylvania. But, although not a 
 constructor in steel himself, he is a cause of steel construction in others. 
 The canal breeds ships. 
 
 And here I may, perhaps, be permitted to emphasize one engineer- 
 ing condition of a transcontinental canal, common alike to all 
 countries and to all routes. The ship grows from year to year. 
 The early Atlantic steamers were of a thousand tons ; the Atlantic 
 steamers now building are of eight thousand tons. This growth is 
 by a law as inevitable as that of the tides. Doubling the linear 
 dimensions of a ship -increases her resistance fourfold, but it increases 
 her carrying capacity eightfold. The larger ship can thus transport 
 the greater cargo, at the higher speed, and at the minimum cost. 
 There is but one practical limit to this economy it is the size and 
 directness of the water-way. 
 
 I was not called upon, however, to discuss engineering, but to 
 praise it. Do we ever realize the gigantic difficulties it overcomes 
 its uncompromising struggle with nature, oft baffled, ever renewed, 
 to ferret out the secrets of her power? Do we ever picture to our- 
 selves the engineer, toilfully planting his colossal works on precipitous 
 mountains, in the open sea, under the river bed, in the bowels of the 
 earth, on bottomless and pestilential swamps, amid perils of miasm 
 and fire-damp, wind and wave, caisson and explosion with every 
 toppling avalanche, and every subterranean stream, and every pent 
 up freshet just waiting to crack his bones and wipe out his works? 
 
 As you hold on to some headland against the hurricane, and feel 
 the breakers shake the masonry of nature, his steamship plows 
 its huge canal through forty thousand tons of that maelstrom in 
 one single minute, with the coal one man can carry. The treasure- 
 house of nature he despoils with his hydraulic engine; he raises 
 from the dead the iron she had burned up through the ages. He 
 disparts her continents to make way for his argosies, and spans her 
 seas for his chariots of fire. Thus is engineering truly the inter- 
 mediate power between nature and civilization ; and from this high 
 plane we recognize the guiding genius of our illustrious guest, and 
 bid him hail ! 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 169 
 
 XIV. 
 A METALLURGIST'S ODE TO SPRING. 
 
 THE following verses were read by Mr. Holley at the dinner of 
 the American Institute of Mining Engineers, at Baltimore, on the 
 evening of February 21st, 1879. 
 
 Hail, coming Spring, the metallurgist's boon ! 
 Kelaxing mines and streams closed all too soon 
 By cold unchemic, which alike defeats 
 Reactions, fusions, malleable heats ! 
 
 Refractory winter to the solving sun 
 
 Yields its cold gangue while fluid offerings run, 
 
 And nature's furnace, scaffolded within, 
 
 By coming Spring is once again blown in. 
 
 Now draws the pump upon the river shore, 
 Now o'er the wheel the new-freed waters pour; 
 The frost shall burst hydraulic pipes no more, 
 Nor Pat slow pick the ice-bound piles of ore. 
 
 No more shall piston-heads on water pound 
 From steam condensed in pipes meandering round ; 
 The supple belt shall to the pulley bend, 
 The oil-cup to the shaft its unguent send. 
 
 The furnace charged with coal and ore sans snow, 
 The gas-producer and the "cupalo " 
 These now their functions normal shall perform, 
 As summer zephyrs keep their bottoms warm. 
 
 Thus while the sun these chiefest blessings sends, 
 It spares some heat to secondary ends ; 
 The seed-time to the husbandman it grants, 
 His sisters and his cousins and his aunts. 
 
 The bursting buds of nature's gasogene, 
 Her sand-bath and the sprouting seeds within, 
 The exuding slag from maple saccharine, 
 The " spiegel" concentrating in the vine. 
 
 12 * 
 
170 MEMORIAL OP 
 
 The flowers resplendent to the visual sense 
 As all the spectra of the elements, 
 And their reactions all, by Spring begun, 
 Shall be wash-heated by the August sun. 
 
 The verdant foliage in a blooming-train, 
 Where the Spring suri doth roll his beams again, 
 O'erspreads the fields wet down by tempering rain 
 From clouds hydraulic lifted from the main. 
 
 Anon the direct process nature takes, ^ 
 And o'er and o'er her spongy products makes 
 Her open-hearth with blasts reverberates, 
 And casts in mineral molds her various shapes. 
 
 And now the cock doth sound his liquid lay; 
 The bulldog seize the ox hide in his play ; 
 The bear within his silex cell shall dig, 
 And in the puddle roll the sow and pig. 
 
 So genial Spring doth all things put in gear ; 
 Eccentric there, with fly-wheel action here. 
 Producers thrive, the merchant rolls in wealth ; 
 And here's a ladle to our miners' health ! 
 
\ 
 ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 171 
 
 XV. 
 
 THE NOMENCLATURE OF IRON AND STEEL. 
 
 THE following paper, read by Mr. Holley, before the American 
 Institute of Mining Engineers, at Cleveland, in October, 1875, was 
 called forth by a series of articles on the same subject, contributed 
 by Mr. II. M. Howe to the Engineering and Mining Journal. These 
 articles may be found in the numbers of that journal for August 28th, 
 September 4th, September llth, and September 18th, 1875. As is 
 well known to the earlier members of the Institute, the discussion 
 thus inaugurated acquired an absorbing interest, and was continued 
 in many papers and speeches (see Transactions, iv., 138, 328; v., 
 10, 309, 311, 355, 515), involving the appointment of an Interna- 
 tional Committee, and a lively debate over. its report. The present 
 purpose being, not to present both sides of the question, but to illus- 
 trate Mr. Holley's style in controversy, only the paper with which 
 he opened it is given in this place. 
 
 WHAT IS STEEL? 
 
 The general usage of engineers, manufacturers, and merchants, is 
 gradually, but surely, fixing the answer to this question. In every 
 country, rails, boiler-plates, and machinery bars, whether hard or 
 soft, are almost universally called steel, when they are made from 
 cast ingots. Other names for the softer steels, such as " homoge- 
 neous metal," u Bessemer iron," "Martin iron/ 7 and the like, have 
 failed to obtain general recognition. 
 
 The meaning of the term steel, before it was enlarged to cover 
 newly developing varieties, has been traced, by a recent writer, down 
 through Peicy, Shakespeare and the Bible, in a most interesting 
 manner, from an archaeological point of view. Undoubtedly it did 
 characterize hardness and other qualities imparted by carbon. It is 
 within the memory of most of us, that all steels were tool-steels, 
 and that the soft, structural varieties were introduced varieties 
 which harden but little, which bend cold, and which, in many, phys- 
 ical properties, are akin rather to wrought-iron than to tool-steel. 
 
172 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 But, since both the hard and the soft steels are made by the same 
 processes, and have their great distinguishing structural feature in 
 common, viz., homogeneity resulting from fluidity, it has come to 
 pass, despite every other proposed nomenclature, that all the com- 
 pounds of iron which have been cast in malleable masses, are called 
 steel, the term wrought-iron being still confined to malleable iron 
 made from pasty masses, and hence laminated in structure. 
 
 No inconvenience has been found, so far, in distinguishing be- 
 tween the more or less carburized products, in general, by the terms 
 " high-steel/ 7 " low-steel," " tool-steel," etc., and, in particular, by 
 prefixing the percentage of carbon and other ingredients, to the term 
 steel. Steels which contain distinguishing ingredients other than 
 carbon, are called " chrome-steel," "titanium-steel," and the like, 
 just as variously compounded bronzes are called "phosphor-bronze," 
 "aluminium-bronze," etc. Thus the combination of several words 
 or symbols, and figures, may completely disclose the characters of 
 the metal, in terms that are subject to no misunderstanding. 
 
 But inasmuch as several high metallurgical authorities and clever 
 writers have of late proposed to disturb this natural and somewhat 
 settled nomenclature, it seems important to consider the claims of 
 the various classifications. I shall attempt, in this paper, to show 
 that the existing classification is more scientific and more convenient 
 than any other, and that those others which have been most promi- 
 nently brought into public notice are radically defective. 
 
 The most common objection to the existing enlargement of the 
 term " steel," so as to include the soft steels, is that it "pirates" 
 a time-honored term, and applies it to a thing which is very different 
 in many of its qualities. People who know nothing about steel, 
 except as they use it in cutting instruments, or read about it in 
 classic authors, say that it is brittle, hard, and resilient, and they 
 are much shocked to hear that it may also be soft and ductile; just 
 as any one who knows nothing about india-rubber, except in the 
 form of springs, would be astonished to find that one change in 
 manufacture turns it into water-proof clothing, and another, into 
 hard crystalline instruments and jewelry. The terms " hard-rubber" 
 and "soft -rubber," as used in technical literature and commerce, 
 have not given rise to any serious misunderstandings. People who 
 do not know that the great bulk of the material made by steel-pro- 
 cesses, and having every ingredient and structural arrangement of 
 the old steels, is, nevertheless, soft and ductile, and that it would be 
 unsuitable for rails, plates, and the like, if it were not soft and 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 173 
 
 ductile, are not to be considered authorities in this discussion, any 
 more than a decorative artist in coal-tar would for that reason be an 
 authority on aniline colors. 
 
 Where a material is gradually developed into new forms and 
 qualities, there must be some general name to cover the various 
 classes of metal ; and whether it is better to enlarge the boundaries 
 of the old one, or to arbitrarily make a new one, which new one 
 must, from the nature of the case, merge into the old one, there 
 being no natural dividing line, will be further considered through- 
 out this paper. I venture to assert here that the charge, specially 
 brought by the inventors of new definitions, against the existing use 
 of the term "steel " the charge of upsetting the recognized order 
 of things is wholly without foundation. Nobody invented the term 
 "steel/ 7 as applied to the soft homogeneous products. There has 
 been no natural or obvious place in the gradual gradation from hard 
 to soft steels, to inject a new definition. As the possibilities of the 
 crucible process were enlarged, the first soft product was hardly 
 more than a variation from standard carburization ; the early Bes- 
 semer and Martin steels, as produced in a successful commercial way, 
 were hard ; and, in fact, it is only quite recently that refractory ma- 
 terials have been adopted, by means of which the slowly receding 
 standard of carbon in cheap steels has reached a tenth of one per 
 cent. The same general name has been thus necessarily preserved 
 for the products of the same process ; but its boundaries have been 
 enlarged to admit new varieties, and a gradual growth of subclassi- 
 fication. So that whatever the merits of any arbitrarily devised 
 nomenclature may be, it must bear the demerit, .whatever that is, of 
 upsetting existing order and development. 
 
 A more common form of this objection is that a blacksmith 
 would not recognize the soft metal as steel. " A blacksmith/ 7 it is 
 said, " calls that steel which will harden and temper, and black- 
 smiths ought to know what steel is." There are various answers to 
 this objection : 
 
 If familiarity with soft coking coal teaches a blacksmith how 
 to burn highly carburized anthracite in his smithy, then his knowl- 
 edge of highly carburized tool-steel ought to teach him what soft 
 steel is. Hard coal is none the less coal because it does not respond, 
 like soft coal, to a blacksmith's coking process, nor is soft steel any 
 the less steel, because it does not respond, like tool-steel, to his 
 hardening process. Anthracite coal was introduced long after bitu- 
 minous coal was in general use, and the " pirating " of the time- 
 
174 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 honored name "coal," to describe this material which is so different 
 in many of its qualities, has not led to any vast inconveniences. It 
 may be said that the parallel is incomplete, because both hard and 
 soft coals are really the same thing only changed in composition and 
 structure by natural processes, and that they both respond to the 
 practical test the influences of heat and oxygen. So are hard and 
 soft steel the same thing, only changed in composition and structure 
 by natural laws; and so do they both respond to the influences of 
 heat and oxygen. Coals are, in fact, more diverse than steels in their 
 carburization, structure, and strength, and in their requirements of 
 treatment. If old nomenclature is to be held as a final criterion, 
 then the modern condensing steam-engine should be a " low-pressure 
 engine." The fact is, on the contrary, that it is as often "high- 
 pressure" as any non-condensing engine. 
 
 The determination of previously unknown intermediate forms and 
 functions is constantly enlarging the boundaries of all general classi- 
 fications, and introducing subdivisions ; hence the criterion of old 
 classifications is inadequate and worthless. 
 
 If hardening in water is the determining characteristic of steel, 
 who is to define "hardening?" As a matter of fact, all products 
 of the crucible, Bessemer vessel, open-hearth furnace, and puddling 
 furnace, containing about a quarter of one per cent, of carbon, will 
 perceptibly harden in water, just in proportion to the carbon con- 
 tained; and every one of them, however little carbon it contains, 
 will harden in some degree, as far as existing tests can determine. 
 " If the product will make a tool, it is steel," says the blacksmith. 
 What kind of a tool ? Is an agricultural tool iron, and a cold-chisel 
 steel ; or does steel begin between cold-chisels and razors, and if so, 
 where? A water-hardened tool perfectly adapted to certain uses 
 may be made of Bessemer steel containing a half per cent, of carbon. 
 The same Bessemer ingot may make a good rail. If one-half the 
 ingot is steel, why is the other half iron ? The line must be so 
 defined that people will agree upon it. Does it lie between thirty 
 hundredths and thirty-one hundredths of carbon,* or between ninety- 
 nine hundredths and one per cent.? 
 
 Obviously, no two men can agree on the amount of any hardening 
 element which may constitute steel. And if they could agree, it 
 would only be after a quantitative analysis had been made in all 
 close cases. 
 
 A recent writer in the Engineering and Mining Journal (August 
 28th to September 18th, 1875) makes a number of ingenious objec- 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 175 
 
 tions to the use of the word " steel " for all compounds of iron which 
 are cast into malleable masses. 
 
 I. The term "steel " is said to be so vague that some words must 
 be added to it to indicate the very dissimilar classes of steel, and the 
 necessity for this explanation is deemed objectionable. 
 
 This objection is best answered by its author, who says, in the 
 same column, that it is desirable to discriminate between the differ- 
 ent classes of iron, and proposes the following brief and convenient 
 nomenclature : "Cast steel, welded steel, homogeneous wrought-iron, 
 homogeneous iron, welded wrought-iron, puddled steel, puddled 
 iron, blistered steel, Bessemer steel, Bessemer wrought-iron, open- 
 hearth wrought-iron, Uchatius steel, Uchatius wrought-iron, crucible 
 steel, crucible homogeneous iron, etc." This classification, he says, 
 shows whether the metal " has the properties given by carbon." 
 Now, every one of these metals has properties given by carbon. 
 The percentage of carbon must be mentioned anyhow ; so why not 
 briefly say twenty-carbon steel or forty-carbon steel, and so denote 
 both its carbon-value and its homogeneity? 
 
 The objection, in its common form, is that the one word "steel" 
 does not, without farther explanation, define the various classes of 
 metal referred to. Neither do the words " oil," " coal," "rock," 
 "brass," or great numbers of general names express the sub-classes 
 referred to; nor can any word or any simple sentence define them 
 all. The objection holds equally against all possible general classifi- 
 cations; and the only way to avoid it here is not to have any general 
 classification in the iron-business. 
 
 II. The writer referred to objects to calling the soft homogeneous 
 compounds " steel," because it is sometimes difficult to tell whether 
 they were made from cast or from pasty masses. It is true that a 
 well-worked puddled iron, rather high in carbon, and a low steel 
 with about the same carbon, cannot be distinguished very easily by 
 means of ordinary observation and simple tests. 
 
 I will in answer to this objection quote the same writer, who ad- 
 mits the impossibility of any perfectly adequate definition by saying 
 that "classifications are based on important differences between the 
 classes they separate, and not on the facility of distinguishing those 
 classes sharply." Now there are important structural differences 
 between puddled irons and cast steels which look alike differences 
 which will make themselves known after sufficient stress and wear ; 
 but is the difference between two steels varying only by a hundredth 
 
176 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 of one per cent, of carbon, one of these " important differences," 
 upon which an adequate classification may be based ? 
 
 The real answer to the objection, however, is this : Admitting for 
 the sake of argument, that a considerable range of wrought-irons 
 and low steels cannot be distinguished by the observation of their 
 fracture, nor by bending, nor by the usual quick mechanical tests 
 people do not largely purchase iron and steel by sampling individual 
 pieces, as they would cigars ; they purchase by specification of manu- 
 facture, for instance, the Pennsylvania Railroad Company specifies 
 0.35 carbon ste'el for its rails, meaning by " steel, 7 ' that it shall be 
 homogeneous or cast ; and from 0.30 to 0.40 carbon is recognized 
 by makers and users generally as the proper percentage for rails. 
 I note this fact here, to correct the writer whose objection I am 
 quoting. In trying to explain away the fact that such rails are 
 recognized as steel, he says : " Railway managers do not care much 
 about the degree of carburization of rails said to be steel, provided 
 they are absolutely weldiess." 
 
 The practical usefulness of a name does not, therefore, lie so much 
 in its discrimination between metals after they are made, as in speci- 
 fying the method and quality of their manufacture. Rails, plates, 
 bars, and iron and steel generally, are ordered on the understanding 
 that they shall be fabricated by processes and of ingredients which 
 are known to have yielded certain endurances to long-continued 
 stress and wear. If purchasers do not themselves specify the ingre- 
 dient and processes they want, they specify a name and grade of 
 metal, such as U 0.60 carbon Martin steel," which refers the manu- 
 facturer to such ingredients and process ; so that the name completely 
 meets the requirements of the case. 
 
 Supposing even that it should be, not difficult, but impossible to 
 distinguish between certain grades of steel and wrought-iron by the 
 most searching mechanical and chemical analyses it can probably 
 be determined in all cases from synthesis. Lawsuits arise as to the 
 composition of material substances about which we have no syn- 
 thetical record, such as a late suit about a certain paving-stone, based 
 on the question as to whether it was trap-rock, or a sandstone altered 
 by the trap-rock that flowed over it. But there are almost always 
 sufficient records of manufacture to determine whether a metal has 
 been cast or welded. This, however^ is an extreme case ; perhaps 
 it is one that could never occur. Destructive tests can, I believe, 
 determine in every case whether a metal was cast or welded. In the 
 great majority of cases the most simple tests can distinguish iron 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 177 
 
 from steel, as at present defined, so that practically the existing 
 classification is entirely adequate. 
 
 III. The writer we are quoting misinterprets the current defini- 
 tion of steel, as calling for a product which is better than wrought 
 iron ; and then he attacks the definition by saying : " Who would 
 call cold-short Bessemer ingots, on the whole, superior to the best 
 Swedish iron ?" Now, as cold-short ingots are altogether nil until 
 they have been reconstructed, we must admit that "a living dog is 
 better than a dead lion." The bearings of his observation do not 
 lie in its application. 
 
 IV. Another objection from the same source, that the current 
 definition excludes certain classes of iron heretofore called steel, such 
 as " blistered steel," "puddled steel/' etc., is at first sight a valid 
 one. But should not the same objection also be valid against the 
 old and limited meaning of the term "steel ?" Does the mere fact 
 that " puddled steel," so called, is carburized more than the usual 
 products of the puddling furnace, although less than tool-steels 
 does this mere fact of a little more carburization really define steel, 
 according to the old restrictions of the term, despite the fact that the 
 product, so called, has a totally different structure which renders it 
 unfit for tools and for most other things that steel is used for? If 
 then the term " puddled steel " should be excluded under the old 
 classification, surely the classification now current must not be held 
 responsible for its exclusion. 
 
 V. Again, classing homogeneous irons high in carbon and those 
 low in carbon, under the same name "steel" is objected to, be- 
 cause the range of properties and uses due to variations in - carbon, 
 are much greater than those due to variations in homogeneity. Hence 
 the classification, it is said, should be based on carbon and not on 
 homogeneity. Every malleable iron, whatever it is called, contains 
 carbon in some proportions, from a trace to the highest attainable 
 solution ; and since these combinations and the properties they im- 
 part, form a regular series of variations, running into each other, 
 there can be no general carbon-classification, except by drawing an 
 arbitrary line at some carbon-percentage. Now, 1st, as the irons for 
 some distance on both sides of this line cannot be thus distinguished, 
 except by minute analysis in every instance ; 2d, since synthesis, 
 which is the practical matter, cannot be based on a carbon specifica- 
 tion alone, because it would omit the vital feature of homogeneity, 
 upon which depend, for instance, the advantages of steel rails, over 
 iron rails ; and 3d, since a classification based on homogeneity fur- 
 
178 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 nishes means for distinguishing between products, while it also 
 affords, with the addition of the carbon-percentage, a perfect basis 
 for synthesis for these reasons, I fail to see why a carbon-basis, 
 which must be arbitrary and revolutionary, could be useful or desir- 
 able. 4th. No less prominent an authority than Whitworth has 
 proposed to divide wrought-iron from steel at the point of twenty- 
 eight tons tensile strength. This classification is open to all the 
 objections we have urged against the equally unnatural and arbi- 
 trary carbon-classification. How would Mr. Whitworth like to 
 order gun-steel by this definition ? Any steel-maker can produce a 
 metal so full of phosphorus and silicon that it will fly into pieces 
 under a sudden blow, and yet it will stand over twenty-eight tons 
 statical pull. A steel made with very small proportions of carbon 
 and manganese, to the almost entire exclusion of phosphorus and 
 silicon, would safely stand the severest blows, and stretch perhaps 
 thirty per cent, before breaking; but still it might barely reach 
 twenty-eight tons tensile strength. A puddled iron totally unfit for 
 guns, plates, and rails, might stand twenty-eight tons statical tension, 
 while the most pure and costly product of the crucible might fall under 
 it. The former, according to this classification, would be steel the 
 latter wrought-iron. 5th. It has been stated that what is known as 
 "malleable iron" will confuse the existing classification. Seeing 
 that iron is remanufactured into malleable iron by a subsequent pro- 
 cess, and not cast while in a fluid state into a malleable mass, as our 
 specification demands, this objection is absurd. 
 
 Without answering the more trivial objections, let us consider 
 what we are to do if we give up the existing classification. 
 
 a. The old and restricted term " steel " indicated certain proper- 
 ties, such as resilience, hardness, etc., in an indefinite degree, which 
 were imparted by that indefinite amount of carbon which gave har- 
 dening and tempering qualities. Now what shall we call the struc- 
 tural steels ? We cannot call them wrought-iron, because they have 
 all the enumerated features, even hardening and tempering in a 
 gradually lessening degree, as carbon is diminished ; and these features 
 are not characteristic of wrought-iron. Besides, wrought-iron totally 
 differs in the feature of homogeneity, and is rapidly going out of 
 use to make room for the homogeneous compound. 
 
 b. We may call these compounds " homogeneous iron," but we 
 must then add the percentage of carbon, and designate them as "ten 
 carbon homogeneous iron," up to say, " fifty carbon homogeneous 
 iron," for there is a vast range of grades and uses between these car- 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 179 
 
 burizations. Now, is it not easier to say " ten carbon steel " up to 
 a one hundred and fifty carbon steel," thus including all the varieties 
 of ingot-metal ? And is the general public likely to agree that 
 " homogeneous iron " means metals made from ingots, up to a certain 
 arbitrary point of carbon, which nobody can determine without 
 analysis, when beyond this point, ingot-metal, made in exactly the 
 same way and by the same furnaces and processes, is " steel ?" The 
 inconvenience of such a nomenclature is illustrated by certain streets 
 in London, which are called by one name up to a certain number, 
 and by another name the rest of the way a very inadequate illus- 
 tration, for one can sometimes find a label on a street, without mak- 
 ing a quantitative analysis. 
 
 VI. As the author referred to, whose objections I have endeavored 
 to answer, has offered, not dogmatically, but for discussion, a new 
 definition of steel, and has advocated its claims with much learning 
 and ingenuity, I think we ought to examine it in some detail. He 
 defines steel as "a compound or. alloy of iron whose modulus of 
 resilience can be rendered, by proper mechanical treatment, as great 
 as that of a compound of 99.70 per cent, of iron with 0.30 of carbon 
 can be by tempering." This is substantially an arbitrary division 
 at the carbon-point, 0.30 per cent., of all malleable iron-compounds, 
 whether made by wrought-iron processes or by steel processes. The 
 chief reasons appear to be: 1st, That this division somewhat corre- 
 sponds to the distinction made between wrought-iron and steel at a 
 time when there were no soft steels; 2d, that the carbon-point, 0.30 
 per cent., is a " somewhat critical point in the curve representing 
 the degrees to which differently carbonized varieties of iron possess 
 the properties which are most affected by carbon ;" 3d, that resilience 
 being the chief attribute of steel, it should for this reason form a 
 basis of classification. 
 
 1. It is difficult to understand why scientific men should be will- 
 ing to sacrifice a natural classification, which has grown out of the 
 necessities of the case, for one that is unnatural and arbitrary, on 
 the ground that it embraces species which are unlike the earlier 
 species, although of the same genus. It is hardly necessary to re- 
 peat what has been said again and again in the foregoing pages on 
 this subject. 
 
 2. If the 0.30 carbon-point is a critical one, which I have not 
 practically noticed, and which, for the purposes of this paper, need 
 not be discussed, it is stated to be a point in a curve, which must be 
 
T80 MEMORIAL OP 
 
 arbitrarily placed, and not the point of an angle, which might dis- 
 tinguish homogeneous from welded masses. 
 
 3. As to resilience being the most important quality of steels, 
 and for that reason the proper basis of classification, it is unneces- 
 sary to discuss this claim for resilience here. The question is 
 whether the importance of a quality can make existence of that 
 quality a definite basis of classification when it exists in both classes, 
 gradually increasing in one and decreasing in the other, and being 
 practically the same near the dividing line. 
 
 To sum up once more the answer to this and to all the cases of 
 arbitrary classification : Exact definitions must be based on differ- 
 ences which always exist in every form and phase of the materials 
 defined, and not on differences which, however great they may be in 
 certain forms and phases of the materials, run together at one point, 
 and there cease to be differences. If we divide steel from wrought- 
 iron by an arbitrary line of percentage of any ingredient or of modi- 
 fication due to any ingredient, there must be some point at which 
 the difference between steel and wrought-iron is infinitely small. 
 If, however, we define steel as a compound made homogeneous by 
 fusion, while wrought-iron, although the same in composition, is 
 heterogeneous from welding, there is always, and at every grade of 
 the respective materials, a large and radical difference. Casting fluid 
 steel and welding pasty iron are always distinct in their characters 
 and results ; they do not at any point shade into each other.. The 
 latter classification is therefore exact and complete. 
 
 4. A very serious objection to the proposed division is, that it 
 occurs at a point about midway in the range of structural steels. 
 It would be less inconvenient, though not less unscientific, if it 
 divided the general class of structural steels from the more ordinary 
 grades of tool-steels. Of a pair of locomotive-tires, both made by 
 the same process, out of the same materials, and containing as nearly 
 as practicable 0.30 carbon, one might be steel and the other wrought- 
 iron ; or, a pair of locomotive-tires might both be steel, the one 
 having been welded up from scrap, and the other drawn from a 
 cast ingot ; or, one end of the same ingot might be steel, and the 
 other end wrought-iron, the first having been hardened, and the 
 other annealed. The convenience of such a nomenclature is not 
 obvious at first sight. 
 
 The author of the proposed definition we are criticising, has so 
 vividly portrayed the disastrous confusion which would arise from 
 changing a settled nomenclature that I can hardly do better than 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 
 
 quote him in this connection. He says : "It is a complete change 
 in the meaning of a word that is in every man's mouth a change 
 in which the interests of the whole civilized world are affected, and 
 in contemplating which, the convenience of all mankind is to be 
 
 considered The natural conservatism of language would 
 
 prolong this painful period of change, to a most unpleasant length. 
 Moreover, the confusion would not end, till the change had been 
 well established in the other languages of the civilized world. In 
 meeting the word ( steel/ in specifications, contracts, and indeed all 
 literature, whether technical or not, whether English or foreign, it 
 would be necessary to determine w r hether it had been written before 
 or after the change had been affected." 
 
 In conclusion, it seems hardly necessary to again sum up what 
 has been chiefly a reiteration, in different forms, of answers to criti- 
 cisms on the present enlarged use of the term " steel/' and of the 
 one great objection to the nomenclatures, that they are fatally in- 
 definite. 
 
 The names of new materials and processes, like the laws of trade, 
 are not fixed by the arbitrary edicts of philosophers, but they are 
 gradually developed, to meet the general convenience. 
 
182 MEMORIAL OP 
 
 XVI. 
 THE MANUFACTURE OF IRON AND STEEL. 
 
 THE following address was delivered by Mr. Holley at the open- 
 ing of the Cleveland meeting, October, 1875, of the American Insti- 
 tute of Mining Engineers. As a specimen of comprehensive and 
 acute criticism, it is not surpassed by any of his works. It recalls 
 the trenchant comments which he visited in earlier days upon Amer- 
 ican railway practice. But the President of the Institute, speaking 
 with the yet greater authority of a wide experience and a splendid 
 fame, was far more certain of an appreciative hearing than had been 
 the ambitious and comparatively unknown young engineer ; and the 
 tone of this address shows that he no longer needed to speak loudly 
 in order to be heard. Mr. Holley entitled this address : 
 
 SOME PKESSING NEEDS OF OUR IRON AND STEEL 
 MANUFACTURES. 
 
 In selecting for this occasion a subject necessarily connected with 
 the iron and steel industries, I have thought that a review of these 
 manufactures, with reference to some of their more pressing needs 
 for improvement, will be more timely than a general or statistical 
 paper. It is, I am aware, comparatively easy and positively useless, 
 if not a little impertinent, for me to preach in general terms to tell 
 manufacturers that they should work more economically, and make 
 better products, and utilize waste, and develop labor-saving machin- 
 ery. I shall endeavor to confine my remarks to a few specific defects 
 of practice and management, and to their equally specific and more 
 or less developed remedies. 
 
 That serious defects exist ; that they must be remedied ; that the 
 manufacture is indeed already on the verge of transition, will be gen- 
 erally admitted. But it cannot be revolutionized all at once, how- 
 ever desirable the technical results might be ; for that would bank- 
 rupt the business at large. We cannot afford to pull down and re- 
 build all our blast-furnaces that do not make a ton of pig-iron with 25 
 cwt.of fuel ; nor to replace all our hand-puddling furnaces with revolv- 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 183 
 
 ing ones, even if we could select the best revolver. Although the 
 soft steels promise to supplant iron for most structural purposes, 
 there is neither money nor present market to warrant all at once 
 replacing our iron-works, or half of them, with steel-works. 
 
 Since, then, these manufactures can neither stand still nor be sud- 
 denly metamorphosed, their managers are saying to one another : 
 " We must feel our way into larger development; we must work 
 gradually into better practice ; we must improve a little at a time." 
 All very true but some of us have been saying it so long and so 
 complacently, that it is rather acquiring the flavor of a pretext for 
 doing next to nothing at all. 
 
 Whatever economies may be made by little improvements of old 
 tools and processes, the grand results are to come from thorough and 
 radical changes, not necessarily in all departments at once, but sweep- 
 ing when they are introduced. Putting a slightly less wire-drawing 
 cut-off upon an old steam-engine, promoting a little better combus- 
 tion in a heating-furnace, empirically experimenting with refractory 
 materials and purifying compounds, are all more or less useful, but 
 the "survival of the fittest" is to be decided on larger issues than 
 these. 
 
 Among the more important and decided improvements demanded 
 in this critical situation of affairs, are the following : 
 
 I. Cheap Power. The cost of coal to drive the machinery of an 
 average American Bessemer plant, when applied through engines 
 requiring, as they generally do, 5 or 6 pounds of it per hour for one 
 horse-power, averages about $1.50 per ton of ingots. Engine-buil- 
 ders are ready to guarantee a duty of 2J pounds per hour per horse- 
 power, and it is perfectly well known that a large number of engines, 
 stationary and marine, are running at from 2J to 3 pounds. The 
 saving of one-half the steam-coal in a Bessemer works would pay 
 for a quarter of the total labor in the manufacture of ingots, or for 
 all the refractory materials employed, or for all the royalties. In 
 some works it would not be less than $50,000 per year. 
 
 The average cost of coal required to drive a rail and blooming 
 mill is nearly $1.50 per ton of rails. Although mill-engines have 
 the advantage over blowing-engines, of high speed, and are often of 
 good type, yet it is probable that taking all our steel-rail mills to- 
 gether, a third of this cost could be readily saved, and this saving 
 would be an aggregate of $175,000 per year. 
 
 The economies effected by better steam-engines are not exceptional 
 they are of every-day occurrence. They have revolutionized the 
 
184 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 ocean-service and have completely changed the land-service, especially 
 in New England, where fuel is dear. As one of many examples, I 
 quote the Troy steel-rail mill-engine. This had a cylinder of 51 
 inches diameter by 3-foot stroke, and required the firing of 5 auxil- 
 iary boilers. A 44-inch Corliss cylinder was substituted, 9 per cent, 
 of speed and 30 per cent, of work were added, and yet 3 boilers 
 were thrown off, and the economy in fuel was about $25,000 per 
 year. 
 
 It will not be questioned, I think, that regenerative furnaces will, 
 gradually but inevitably, take the place of the ordinary heating, 
 puddling and melting-furnaces, thus preventing the application of 
 unspent furnace-heat to steam -generation. For this reason, econom- 
 ical boilers and engines are all the more important. When every 
 rolling-mill and forge comes to burn coal for steam, the saving of a 
 couple of pounds per hour per horse-power will be something enor- 
 mous in the aggregate. Again, while many schemes for blast-fur- 
 nace improvement are speculative, almost any expense to increase 
 the economy of blowing-engines is warranted. Maki ng uniform iron 
 out of raw materials that cannot be uniform, requires reserve of 
 power both in the temperature and the force and volume of blast. 
 As coke and anthracite furnish barely gas enough under the best 
 circumstances, combustion under boilers and the use of steam must 
 be in the highest degree economical to meet the worst circumstances. 
 
 The blowing-engines of the country are usually very wasteful of 
 steam, by reason of wire-drawing valve-gear, and especially of slow 
 piston-speed. The latter is perhaps the greatest, and the least recog- 
 nized, of all steam-engine defects. When steam enters the cylinder 
 at say 75 pounds pressure and 320 temperature, a part of it is con- 
 densed into water before it can heat the walls of the cylinder to the 
 same temperature. As the steam then expands from the point of 
 cut-off down to the atmospheric pressure, its temperature falls from 
 320 to 212, and as it falls, this water is reevaporated by the heat 
 in the walls of the cylinder, thus cooling them down to 212. The 
 steam thus formed passes off with the exhaust into the atmosphere, 
 and is lost. At the next stroke, steam at 320, impinging against 
 walls at 2l2, is condensed, as before, and so this perpetual waste 
 goes on. Now, we can conceive of a piston moving so fast that the 
 walls of the cylinder would not have time to be measurably cooled ; 
 and we can imagine a piston moving so slowly that nearly all the 
 steam would be condensed. In practice, the indicator-card, which 
 reveals the real work of the steam in the cylinder, shows a very 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 185 
 
 slight loss from condensation in the high-speed engine, but it shows 
 in engines moving at very slow speeds more heat wasted by conden- 
 sation than there is utilized. 
 
 Many of the rolling-mill-engines of the country are of good type, 
 but most of them will use 6 pounds of coal per horse-power, despite 
 their comparatively high speed. What shall we say of mill-engines 
 without cut-offs or condensation, where coal is dear, and where steam 
 is made by firing under boilers? 
 
 Now, why does this general wastefulness of steam go on from year 
 to year? Mill-managers have a ready answer. They want "a 
 strong, simple engine, that will stand the rough attendance it gets in 
 a mill, and that won't break down." The first reason is ridicu- 
 lous; yet, you can find plenty of mill-engines with leaky pistons, 
 out of line, and wasting their cost every year, to save a dollar a day 
 more pay to an engine-driver. The second reason is perfectly sound. 
 An engine may better waste a few thousand tons of coal, if it only 
 makes a regular business of it, than to go to pieces without notice, 
 in the middle of a time-contract. But the inference that an engine 
 which is economical of steam, is, for that reason, more likely to break 
 down, is totally without foundation. The commerce of the Atlantic 
 Ocean is largely done by compound engines, which are just twice as 
 " complicated " as single-cylinder-engines, and which run with 2J 
 to 3 pounds of coal, and which are subject, at every pitch of the ship 
 many thousands of times every voyage to the violent strains of 
 the severe plunging in and out of water strains which often shake 
 the ship from stem to stern ; but we rarely hear of these engines 
 breaking down. I have recently taken time to examine, in detail, 
 the working of eleven specimens of 'one of the most economical., 
 highly-finished, and delicately-adjusted engines ever built the Por- 
 ter-Allen engine and I find them notably free from breakdowns and 
 abnormal wear. They had been running from 2J to 6 years, and in 
 some cases the working parts had not been readjusted at all. It is 
 true that some of the earlier Corliss mill-engines were too light, but 
 this had nothing whatever to do with their economical steam-distri- 
 bution. Probably there are more successful engines of this type than 
 of any other. 
 
 The stability and durability of an engine is simply a question of 
 good proportions, materials and workmanship. Of course, a piston 
 that takes the boiler-pressure at the first opening of the valve, re- 
 ceives more force than one which gets only 60 or 70 per cent, 'of it, 
 and that not till quarter-stroke, of which there are many examples. 
 
 13 
 
186 MEMORIAL OP 
 
 But on the Porter-Allen demonstration, this force is required to 
 start the very heavy reciprocating parts, which, in turn, give it out 
 to the crank during the decrease of cylinder pressure by expansion, 
 so that the strains on the crank-pin are not necessarily greater with 
 good than with bad steam-admission. If the sudden impact of steam 
 is hard on machinery, what should be the result of a 10-ton hammer- 
 head, falling G or 8 feet upon an 80-ton anvil? And yet, steam- 
 hammers are made to run for years. Some of the most economical 
 valve-gears are not complex ; the complex ones a boy can work by 
 hand, so that they are not under dangerous strains, and rarely break 
 down. Finally, the mill-engine, by means of the interposed fly- 
 wheel, is relieved from all violent shocks, while the marine-engine 
 has no such protection. 
 
 The objection, therefore, that engines are liable to breakdowns 
 and delays, because they are economical of steam, will not hold. If 
 the builders of such engines do not make them strong enough, the 
 engineer of an iron or steel-works ought to know it beforehand, and 
 to know what changes to specify. There are numerous examples of 
 sturdy engines which he can study. I will venture the opinion 
 that more breakdowns are caused by accepting the lowest bid for 
 engines, than by all other causes combined. 
 
 There is a great temptation to save the heavy cost of radical 
 change, by patching up old engines, attaching condensers, applying 
 cut-off valves, enlarging cylinders to get more expansion, running 
 faster by means of change of gearing or belts. All these things may 
 save fuel, but do they not stand in the way of a greater economy, by 
 constantly adding cost to the old engine, and so giving it a long lease 
 of life? No man ever throws out an engine which he has just re- 
 built, however bad it may be. The way to get the greatest possible 
 profit out of an engine of bad type, is to melt it down in a cupola. 
 The excuse is often made that a new engine cannot be afforded. 
 One would suppose that an establishment which can afford to waste 
 $20,000 a year in steam-coal, might afford to lay up half that sum 
 every year to invest in better engines. 
 
 The blowing-engine presents a larger problem than mere perfection 
 of valve gear. The air-piston should not run fast ; the steam-piston 
 must not run slow. Gearing a pair of small engines, making, say, 
 150 revolutions, to a large air-piston making 25, entirely overcomes 
 the objectionable features of gearing, which only works harshly when 
 the small wheel is driven. There is a possibility by this arrange- 
 ment, of saving more steam than can be done even by compounding, 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 187 
 
 which would cost about the same. Compound engines have cer- 
 tainly achieved a very great success for marine, pumping, blowing 
 and other large scale uses. They, however, involve condensation, and 
 either a large water-supply or extensive cooling-ponds, both of which 
 are often very costly, and in some cases impracticable. 
 
 The use of the indicator not the vile instrument made only to 
 sell, but Elliott Bro's. Richards indicator should be a matter of 
 regular practice. I will venture to say that a high degree of steam- 
 engine economy cannot be maintained without the regular applica- 
 tion of the indicator, to show whether or not the condition and func- 
 tions of the machine are normal and healthy. Beyond a few 
 hundred dollars cost in preparation, the expense of taking cards once 
 a week is absolutely nothing. 
 
 There are vast numbers of bad boilers, as any one will conclude 
 who takes pains to observe the innumerable proportions of grate, 
 combustion-chamber and heating-surface in use for the same kind of 
 fuel. Fortunately for mill-owners, great improvements rarely re- 
 quire such sweeping changes in boilers as in engines. The changes, 
 however, should be scientifically devised. Altering the style of a 
 grate when its surface is insufficient, or increasing draft when com- 
 bustion-room is too small, will not promote much economy. The 
 employment of a commission of experts to ascertain the real nature 
 of the defect would be a paying investment in a great many cases. 
 The diseases of boilers and their setting are often obscure, and the 
 diagnosis of a cheap engine-driver is not infallible. Perfect combus- 
 tion, while boilers are being fired by hand, is probably impracticable, 
 but bad combustion all the time is entirely unnecessary. Steam-in- 
 duced air-jets sweeping over the surface of the fire, where there is 
 heat enough to ignite the combustible mixture thus formed, is an 
 effective and cheap arrangement. Mechanical firing, as done at 
 Barrow and other works abroad, promotes almost continuously per- 
 fect combustion. I cannot dwell upon this subject it would require 
 a treatise by itself. 
 
 II. Improved Heating Furnaces. The commercial importance of 
 this subject is no less than that of the preceding. The coal-fired 
 reverberatory furnace, however skilfully managed, must be wasteful 
 of both fuel and metal. Much of the coal placed on the grate is lost 
 through the grate ; the very irregular volume of air passing uncon- 
 sumed through the solid fuel is at one time insufficient to unite with 
 the combustible gases over it, and at another time great and undis- 
 tributed enough to go bodily over the bridge and consume the metal 
 
188 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 on the hearth; combustion cannot be perfected when firing is clone 
 by hand, without an excess of air which will waste the. metal, so that 
 the flarne must always be smoky. The heat passing out of the fur- 
 nace may be utilized under boilers, but not as economically as the 
 same quantity of heat can be under coal-fired boilers, nor any better 
 than waste heat can be utilized in regenerators. 
 
 Do iron-makers realize the enormous loss due to oxidation? An 
 iron-rail mill making 40,000 tons of product, heating all the mate- 
 rial twice, and oxidizing not less than 8 per cent, of it at each heat, 
 would, at present prices, burn up more than $200,000 worth of iron 
 in a year. Upon averaging a number of results, I find the saving 
 in the oxidation of iron in regenerative gas-furnaces, as compared 
 with coal-furnaces, to be over 3 per cent. In one case of first-rate 
 practice with both furnaces, on small iron billets, it is 3.32 percent. ; 
 in another case of good average practice on large iron piles, it is 4.45 
 per cent. Jn heatin'g iron piles for plates, the waste in the ordinary 
 furnace has been in some cases as high as 15 per cent., while in 
 Siemens' furnaces, which have been substituted in the same works, 
 it has been as low as 4 per cent. The smaller of these savings would 
 amount, in the rail practice we are considering, to some $70,000 per 
 year, which would pay for half the labor on rails, or it would pay 
 above 20 per cent, on the cost of a rail-mill. The oxidation of steel 
 is somewhat less in either furnace, because the required temperature 
 is lower; but the proportion of loss appears to be about the same, 
 so that the economy of the gas-furnace is also very important in 
 heating steel. 
 
 The amounts of fuel used in gas-furnaces are surprisingly various 
 in different works. They run from 350 to 650 pounds per ton of 
 rail-piles and blooms, and steam-coal varies similarly. These figures 
 indicate very bad working of furnaces in some cases ; and the absence 
 of all definite data in some other cases, as to steam and gas-fuel used, 
 indicates, at least, that bad working may be going on without the 
 knowledge of the management. The fuel for heating rail-piles and 
 blooms in ordinary coal-furnaces also varies from 700 to 1200 pounds 
 per ton, the differences not being wholly due to plant or management, 
 but to quality of coal. With ordinarily bad boilers and engines, the 
 saving of fuel, including steam-coal, by the use of the gas-furnace, 
 varies from 5 to 25 per cent. A fair comparison of the two furnaces 
 should be based on the best practice in both cases. If coal-furnaces 
 lose heat enough up chimney to make steam for wasteful engines, 
 no economy of fuel is attained by using economical ones. But as 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 189 
 
 regenerative gas-furnaces, which make no .steam, are necessary to the 
 minimum oxidation of the metal heated, steam must be generated by 
 firing under boilers, so that good engines in this case have an unlim- 
 ited opportunity to save fuel. Thus the gas-furnace economizes, 
 first, and chiefly, in oxidation; second, in fuel directly; third, in 
 fuel indirectly, bv giving economical engines a chance; and fourth, 
 it also saves largely in quality of fuel, as cheap slack and small coal 
 may, in most cases, be burned in gas-producers, but not in coal-fur- 
 naces. To these advantages must be added decreased loss of coal 
 due to burning it in one concentrated nest of producers, rather than 
 all over a rolling-mill, and the general convenience and economy of 
 avoiding the handling and storage of coal in various parts of the 
 works. Still another important advantage of the regenerative gas- 
 furnace is the facility it affords for varying the chemical character 
 of the flame, and more especially for maintaining the neutrality and 
 perfect uniformity of the flame. This furnace seems essential to the 
 production of the high temperatures required in the Martin steel 
 process. The Siemens furnace has, within the last few years, been 
 so highly perfected in its proportions and details, that its adaptation 
 and working are no longer subject to any unusual risk or embar- 
 rassments. 
 
 The most imperfect feature of the gas-fuel system, at least in the 
 English and American practice, is the gas-producer, which has not 
 been materially improved for years. As it is simply a fire-box 
 with a grate below, and is subject to variation in firing, in stirring, 
 in the caking of the coal, in the holes in the fire through which car- 
 bonic acid gas and air may pass up into the chamber, and in air-ad- 
 mission, due to the irregular formation and removal of clinkers, the 
 most careful attendance cannot insure the regular production of good 
 gas, nor prevent the burning of some gas above the coal-bed. The 
 Ponsard producer, on the continent, and in some experimental prac- 
 tice here, promises well. It dispenses with the grate, promotes 
 uniformity of combustion, and furnishes gas to the furnace at a 
 higher temperature. The gazogen of Mr. Tessie du Motay is said 
 to be very successful abroad; fourteen are running at the works of 
 M. de Wendel, in Lorraine. The same producer is employed for the 
 production of illuminating gas at the new works in Buffalo, Troy, 
 and New York. There are many other schemes for the improve- 
 ment of gas-generation, which I cannot even refer to within the 
 limits of this paper. It thus seems probable that a considerable 
 
190 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 economy will be shortly added to the gas-furnace through the im- 
 provement of the producer. 
 
 There are cases in which the replacement of old furnaces by re- 
 generative gas-furnaces may not be the most economical proceeding, 
 as in works situated but a few feet above water, and requiring costly 
 tanks for the whole producer-department, as well as for the regen- 
 erators, or else the raising of the whole floor and machinery. But 
 it by no means follows that the old furnaces should be left as they 
 are, in any works, whatever its circumstances. Among the various 
 improvements which may be added to existing furnaces, or at least 
 applied without the entire removal of the old plants, are those of 
 Mr. Sweet, of Syracuse, N. Y., and of Mr. Price, of Sunderland, 
 England. Mr. Sweet has already described his furnace and its 
 working in a paper before the Institute. It is certainly doing well 
 at his own establishment. The furnace of Mr. Price and its results 
 have been made the 'subject of a recent paper before the Iron and 
 Steel Institute, by Mr. Lowthian Bell, with which our members are 
 doubtless familiar. I will not, therefore, occupy your time with 
 their discussion, but will very briefly state the facts about the Price 
 furnace. Solid fuel is burned on a grate; but it is heated (the gases 
 being thus partially distilled), and the air for combustion is also 
 heated by the waste heat, before it enters the chimney. The inflow 
 of the gas thus produced, and of solid carbon, to the grate, and of 
 air under the grate, is thus uniform and at high temperature, so that 
 combustion is uniform and comparatively complete. It is thus, in 
 some sense, a regenerative furnace. The saving of fuel is about one- 
 'third in puddling, and one-half in reheating iron, as compared with 
 the ordinary furnace; but the cost of steam-coal, otherwise com- 
 pletely or partially saved by means of boilers over the common 
 furnace, must be deducted from the above-mentioned economy. In 
 respect of fuel, the Price furnace would seem to be nearly the equal 
 of the gas-furnace, but it cannot compete with the latter in intensity 
 of temperature. Mr. Bell states that the character of the flame may 
 be controlled, and that a reducing flame may be maintained. There 
 must, therefore, be an important saving in oxidation. The pulver- 
 ized-fuel puddling-furnace of Mr. Crarnpton may also be mentioned. 
 There is no doubt as to the excellent working and economy of this 
 furnace in respect of fuel. Mr. Crampton tells me, however, that 
 his experiments do not, so far, warrant the belief that he can apply 
 pulverized fuel successfully to furnaces which do not have a readily 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 191 
 
 renewable oxide lining. The particles of coal blown into the fur- 
 nace cut and flux brick fire-chambers. 
 
 An adequate discussion of so vast a subject as metallurgical fur- 
 naces could hardly be mapped out within the limits of a single 
 paper. My object has been simply to draw the attention of iron 
 and steel-makers to the great waste in fuel and the enormous waste 
 in metals, which are constantly going on in most of our works 
 losses which draw a respectable dividend every year from the profits, 
 and which may be prevented by thoroughly developed improve- 
 ments. In view of such serious defects, and such ample and ade- 
 q'uate remedies, it seems hardly worth while for our manufacturers 
 to potter with trivial contrivances to add a little heat to the blast, 
 and to check a little smoke, and to save a little fuel, and so eke out 
 the wasteful life of a furnace-system which is radically bad. 
 
 III. Refractory Materials. Improvements in this direction are 
 probably the most important that can be considered, and they in- 
 crease in importance as iron and steel processes become cheapened, 
 and as products become more refined. A better blast- furnace-lining 
 would be desirable; better heating-furnace-walls would be very val- 
 uable ; better Bessemer vessel-linings would lead to great economy ; 
 better open-hearth furnace-roofs are absolutely essential to cheap 
 Martin steel-manufacture, and better refractory materials generally 
 must be provided, before the Siemens direct process, high-pressure 
 furnaces, the cheap compounding of various metals with iron, and 
 many other promising processes, can be carried on at all with com- 
 mercial success. It is not too much to say that a better and cheaper 
 fire-brick will be the key to the situation. 
 
 The cost of maintaining refractory linings and fixtures in the Bes- 
 semer process averages nearly $1 per ton of ingots, of which the 
 cost of vessel-bottoms is about one-third. Merely doubling the life 
 of bottoms would save some $6000 per year in a single works. As 
 the life of a bottom frequently exceeds double the average life, it 
 should not seem impossible to raise the average in this proportion. 
 The cost of refractory materials and maintenance in the American 
 Siemens Martin manufacture is not far from $5 per ton of ingots, 
 while in Wales arid in France it is about $1. This difference lies 
 largely between bricks, which cost $50 to $60 per 1000 and stand 
 50 to 70 heats, here, and those which cost $18 to $20 and endure 
 200 to 2 .0 heats, abroad. Merely equalling the foreign practice 
 would of itself make a good business profit. 
 
 Our metal-manufacturers seem less serious and methodical in their 
 
192 MEMORIAL OP 
 
 attempts at this than at any other improvement. They can copy the 
 steam-engine results of others, but the refractory-material problem 
 is all their own. That it is difficult cannot be denied; but the av- 
 erage attempts to solve it, which consist largely in travelling round 
 in a circle, are wholly inadequate, and unworthy of the profession. 
 Bricks, tuyeres, and fire-clay mixtures generally, have not been no- 
 tably improved for a decade, except here and there, accidentally, by 
 the discovery of better clays, or, empirically, by trying all sorts of 
 mixtures hap-hazard. There have, of course, been some attempts at 
 scientific improvement. Mr. Snelus gives the following facts in his 
 late valuable paper before the Iron and Steel Institute : The pres- 
 ence of 2 or 3 per cent, of oxide of iron renders bricks unfit for 
 open-hearth furnace-roofs, and 1 per cent, of alkalies makes them 
 fusible at high temperatures. There are some apparent anomalies: 
 lime fluxes ordinary fire-bricks, but 1 per cent, of it uspd to bind 
 together pure silica -sand makes the most durable furnace-roofs 
 known. Alumina by itself, and in the proportion with silica of 30 
 to 38 per cent., as in some of the best clays, is extremely refractory, 
 but 3 per cent, of it in a silica brick will flux it at high tempera- 
 tures. These facts explain the bewilderment and discouragement 
 that usually attend experimenting on a limited scale ; they also show 
 the necessity of combining the results of a vast number of experi- 
 ments and analyses ; and they especially show that the direction of 
 these experiments should be in accordance with chemical probabili- 
 ties. ' Merely varying mixtures, even with a knowledge of their con- 
 stituent parts, might never lead to improvement, if the laws of 
 chemical affinity were misunderstood or ignored. 
 
 The same conclusions may be drawn from another group of facts, 
 viz. : the very different behavior of refractory linings in contact 
 with different metals, slags, and ores, such as the cutting of sand 
 bottom in the pig-and-ore opeurhearth process. The best furnace - 
 roof brick we know of as nearly pure silica as possible is the 
 worst brick to stand the manganese-reactions in a spiegel-cupola. 
 In the first case, it might endure 250 charges at an excessively high 
 temperature; in the second, it would hardly stand 25 heats at a low 
 temperature. 
 
 In view of these complications, and of the obvious necessity for 
 prolonged and searching chemical work of the highest class, and for 
 a systematic series of experiments also, in view of the extremely 
 limited progress which has been made by present methods, it really 
 seems that the time has come for a new departure. No individual 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 193 
 
 works can, or should, afford the cost of such an investigation, which 
 would be for the general benefit. A clay-bank owner, or a brick- 
 maker, can hardly be expected to do more than develop his own 
 products, since complete experiments might prove them inferior. 
 Why should not the iron and steel-makers of the country unite in 
 carrying out a series of investigations which, if properly managed, 
 would inevitably lead to important savings in the old processes, and 
 to revolutionary economies in the new and developing ones? It has 
 been objected to this kind of effort, that " what is everybody's busi- 
 ness is nobody's," and that valuable results rarely follow mixing up 
 the interests of independent companies. If these remarks are ever 
 true, they do not apply to this case. In general, the history of as- 
 sociated effort is the history of civilization ; and, in particular, the 
 association of individuals, through governmental and private or- 
 ganizations, to test the strength of metals, to inspect boilers, to an- 
 alyze ores, to collect facts, and to do numerous things of general and 
 of special interest, is often the foundation of success in commerce 
 and the arts. The proposed investigation would be entirely relieved 
 from those uncertainties which embarrass combinations to sell prod- 
 ucts under certain limitations of price and quantity. It would be 
 simply a search after physical facts, by a corps of experts in whose 
 ability and integrity all parties would have confidence. However 
 difficult the problem may be, the manner of its solution is plain, and 
 the means of experiment are numerous. 
 
 Not to anticipate the proceed ings of such a commission, but merely 
 to observe how large and hopeful is the field for investigation, let 
 us for a moment consider the situation and probabilities. 
 
 1. The comparative failure of previous attempts to improve re- 
 fractory materials has been due to the varying presence of unknown 
 elements. Three materials each make a good fire-brick; mixing the 
 first with the second makes a better one; but mixing the first with 
 the third makes an inferior one, and the experimenter is all adrift. 
 The more alumina, between 40 and 60 per cent., we mix with silica, 
 the better the result; but, the more alumina, between 3 and 10 per 
 cent., we mix with silica, the worse the result. Repeating apparently 
 the same mixture sometimes gives different results. But there are 
 no anomalies in nature; apparent contradictions are merely want of 
 knowledge. Therefore, one important step in this inquiry would 
 be to variously compound pure silica, alumina, and other substances, 
 to imitate nature in their mixing, and then to try their refractory 
 qualities, rather than to confine experiments to variable natural 
 
194 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 mixtures. Even if we must use materials as we find them com- 
 pounded in nature, it is better to know, first, exactly what we want, 
 by means of artificial mixtures of pure materials, and then to come 
 as near it as we can. 
 
 It is not certain, however, that we shall be confined to natural 
 mixtures, just as we find them. The chief ingredients of that re- 
 markable refractory material bauxite (which is somewhat rare and 
 expensive), alumina and oxide of iron, can be obtained more free 
 from other substances than bauxite is. Why cannot artificial bauxite 
 be made? The intimacy of mixture, indeed, has much to do with 
 the character of the product. We know that 5 per cent, of alumina, 
 incorporated by nature with siliceous sand, gives more adhesiveness, 
 both wet and glazed, than three times that amount as ordinarily 
 mixed by hand. The artificial distribution of manganese ore with 
 iron-ore in a furnace makes iron pigs and manganiferousslag, while, 
 if the manganese-ore' had been rubbed into the iron-ore by. nature, 
 the result would have been spiegeleisen. More than intimacy of 
 mixture may be necessary in some cases. Dr. Sterry Hunt has sug- 
 gested that the difference in the behavior of silica in furnaces may 
 be somewhat due to the manner of its formation either as an ani- 
 mal secretion, or as found in igneous rocks, or in rocks stratified from 
 their debris. The shape of sand-grains has also much to do with 
 their binding qualities, angular fragments being better than rounded 
 ones. There is, however, a strong probability that refractory ma- 
 terials may be artificially compounded out of pure, or nearly pure, 
 substances, more uniformly than they are compounded by nature. 
 So that the synthetical method we are considering should be useful, 
 not only in showing what we want, but in enabling us to produce it. 
 
 2. Other substances than silica and alumina are extremely re- 
 fractory, indeed indestructible by mere heat, such as lime, magnesia, 
 and carbon. The great difficulty has been to form them into com- 
 pact bricks without adding such binding substances as will flux 
 them and so impair their refractory qualities. But as pulverized 
 silica a rope of sand is sufficiently held together by 1 J per cent, 
 of lime, to make the best heat-resisting brick we know of, the 
 other incoherent refractories should offer a promising field for ex- 
 periment. 
 
 We may learn much on this subject from the experience with cru- 
 cibles. The two required qualities to be chiefly considered are, 1st, 
 resistance to softening, or to melting by contact with neutral flame 
 by mere heat; 2d, resistance to the chemical action of "metal lie 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 195 
 
 oxides, slags, and free oxide. Both these qualities are attained by 
 lining a crucible that will resist fire well with one that will resist 
 chemical action well. For instance, a carbon crucible wastes more 
 rapidly than an earthen one in the fire, but, by lining an earthen 
 crucible with carbon, it perfectly resists the action of manganese 
 oxide, which would soon destroy any vessel containing much silica. 
 Carbon mixtures, however, are affected by oxygen in a surprisingly 
 small degree. The endurance of graphite crucibles in a fire of coke 
 driven by a powerful blast, and graphite Bessemer tuyeres in con- 
 tact with air-blast and oxide under intense heat, are examples. The 
 use of carbon, even in the form of wood, is already on trial by Mr. 
 Siemens, and, in another form, by one of our members. 
 
 Lime is extremely refractory, never having been fused by mere 
 heat. Crucibles cut from blocks of well-burned, slightly hydrated lime 
 are used to melt platinum. Magnesia is also infusible at the highest 
 attainable temperatures. Mr. Tessie du Motay, of Paris, has made 
 some remarkable magnesia bricks, of which I have specimens. They 
 are, certainly, expensive, but they are said to resist not only heat 
 but the dissolving effect of manganese oxide and various corroding 
 slags. There is a prospect of this manufacture being started in this 
 country. Dr. Percy says of this material, in his new Metallurgy : 
 " Reverberatory furnaces for melting steel may be lined with a 
 paste formed of the prepared magnesia and water, which will un- 
 dergo the necessary drying and firing after the furnace is lighted, 
 without any special precautions being required.' 7 He also gives 
 directions for preparing magnesia for use in crucibles and bricks. 
 This material is also used at Creusot in Bessemer vessel-linings. The 
 only difficulty is to make it sufficiently coherent. 
 
 Still another requirement of Bessemer vessel-lining and revolving 
 open-hearth linings, is hardness, to resist the mechanical erosion of 
 the contained metal. All the foregoing considerations, indeed, point 
 to the importance of making refractory materials hard and dense, 
 without running into the other extreme of increasing their liability 
 to crack and crumble on the exposed surfaces. But even this ten- 
 dency may be prevented by proper treatment. Silica bricks require 
 slow heating. In some Bessemer vessel-linings, made of natural 
 siliceous stones trimmed like bricks to make a wall, which are now 
 in successful use, the "spalling off" was permanently stopped by 
 glazing the wall at its first heat by blowing a charge of metal 
 within it. 
 
 3. It is, further, possible that refractory linings must, in many 
 
196 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 cases, be made where they are used. This is already the case with 
 the silica bricks we have mentioned, as at Landore and Terrenoire. 
 They are too tender to bear transportation, but are remarkably re- 
 fractory when once set in a wall. The apparatus for making them 
 is not very costly nor elaborate. The quartz is crushed to fine sand, 
 wetted down with lime-cream (1 J to 2 percent, of lime), and moulded 
 by hand into bricks. These are dried and burned in kilns, contain- 
 ing 32,000 each, for seven days. Bessemer vessel-linings are also 
 necessarily made where they are used, and it seems reasonable to 
 believe that the use of monolithic linings will become more general 
 in all kinds of furnaces. It is very obvious that the cost of a fur- 
 nace roof and sides, rammed up like a Bessemer vessel, dried out 
 and glazed, would be much less than that of bricks individually 
 moulded, pressed, dried, burned, trimmed, and set. And if the ma- 
 terial is equally good, the continuous wall should stand much longer, 
 because it has no joints, which are always the first parts to fail. .We 
 know that such linings in Bessemer vessels will outlast a dozen lin- 
 ings made of any fire-bricks yet tried. The vessel-lining is, indeed, 
 a continuous arch of small radius, while the furnace roof is nearly 
 flat, and, consequently, more liable to fall by shrinkage due to va- 
 riation of temperature. But could not a flat arch be sustained by a 
 lathing of water-pipes, either in tension or in compression, which 
 would also cool it, .and thus increase its endurance? This subject 
 will be further considered under the following head. 
 
 4. It has been a matter of surprise to me, that the cooling of 
 refractory linings by means of water-jackets has not been developed 
 in heating and open-hearth furnaces, when it has been so remarkably 
 successful in blast furnaces, puddling furnaces, and, especially, in 
 Seller's and in Crampton's revolving puddlers. I have seen the 
 fettling of the Crampton furnace purposely knocked off for more 
 than a square foot of the shell and front ring, during the boiling of 
 the metal. The naked iron plates were thus exposed to the molten 
 iron and slag on one side, and to water on the other ; in a very few 
 moments the lining was completely renewed by the chilling action 
 of the jacket.. Some jacketed cupolas are running with success, but 
 where increased durability is most needed, as in Bessemer cupolas, 
 the attempt has not been carried out, although it has been fre- 
 quently planned. 
 
 If a firebox-sheet of naked iron, in immediate contact with a 
 white-hot anthracite-fire, will remain sound for years, it is probable 
 that it would be nearly indestructible under a four-inch coating of 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN IIOLLEY. 197 
 
 fire-brick. Of course, the cooler the bricks are kept, the more heat 
 will go into the water ; but, as we can melt down a gas furnace-roof 
 in an hour or two, there is, evidently, reserved power enough to 
 furnish the necessary units of heat to the bath, while passing as 
 many other units, at the same temperature, through the roof. Nor 
 would water-jacketing, say, an open-hearth furnace, be comparatively 
 wasteful. Even if a quarter more fuel were thus required, half a 
 dollar per ton of ingots (at average rates of fuel) would pay for it, 
 while even doubling the endurance of furnace-bricks would save 
 four or five times this sum. 
 
 Water-jacketing should protect the bricks not only from destruc- 
 tion by mere heat, but from cheniical dissolution, as this is generally 
 a question of temperature. 
 
 The effects of heat are notably lessened as walls become thinner, 
 so as to conduct heat more rapidly to the atmosphere. The thick- 
 ness at which a lining will remain in the Crampton revolving fur- 
 nace, for instance, is exactly regulated by the amount of cooling. 
 Where the lining is knocked off, the fluid slag quickly sets up to a 
 certain thickness, but beyond this thickness the water cannot chill 
 it, and it cannot, therefore, accumulate. The amount of cooling by 
 water can be perfectly regulated. The two features requiring experi- 
 ment are, 1st, decreasing the water supply in such a regular manner, 
 when the furnace has to be stopped, that the lining shall be neither 
 overheated nor rapidly cooled; 2d, how to sustain very thin linings. 
 Water-jacketing a furnace roof a foot thick would not do the maxi- 
 mum good until it was nearly burned out and then it would fall in. 
 As before mentioned, I believe that a roof composed of groups of 
 wrought-iron water-pipes, either in tension for a drooping one, or in 
 arch form for a convex one, each group having its separate water- 
 connections, the whole to be filled in and rammed with a ganister. 
 mixture, like that of a Bessemer vessel, or with a natural or artificial 
 bauxite, would be very durable. Certainly, there might be some 
 very promising experimenting in this direction. 
 
 In concluding these observations on refractory linings, I must 
 again call attention to the importance the necessity, I believe of 
 putting this whole subject into the hands of a commission of chemists 
 who are familiar with the requirements of metallurgical processes. 
 It really ranks in importance with government- tests of metals and 
 boilers; but, as governments can with difficulty be got to sustain 
 experiments which seem to be of greater public interest, the ex- 
 penses of refractory-material tests would have to be borne chiefly by 
 
198 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 iron and steel-makers. They can well afford to do it ; and some 
 important results can doubtless be determined without a very large 
 expenditure. But such a commission should be nothing if not 
 thorough. Immature conclusions would do more harm than good, 
 as they have done heretofore in iron and steel tests. 
 
 IV. Enlarging the Range of Manufacture and Utilizing Waste 
 Products. The wrought-iron manufacture, by reason of its long 
 period of development, and the ease with which old and defective 
 materials and scrap can be reworked, has adapted its products, in a 
 remarkable degree, to every branch of construction, very largely 
 crowding out cast-iron from such important works as large columns 
 and long-span bridges. The following remarks will, therefore, 
 apply chiefly to the steel-manufacture, which has within it the ele- 
 ments of superseding wrought-iron in a still more remarkable degree. 
 
 The rapid adaptation of steel to large structural uses, other than 
 rails, in foreign countries, should be more seriously considered by 
 our steel-makers. For instance, three French men-of-war, built 
 mostly out of Bessemer and Martin steels, were so successfully con- 
 structed in 1873, that three more large ships were ordered in 1874, 
 to be built from the same materials. Notwithstanding the objec- 
 tions so strongly urged against steel ship-plates in England, partly 
 from the conservatism of " practical " men, and more largely from 
 their improper treatment of this material in heating, shaping and 
 applying it, the English government has recently ordered three 
 vessels to be built wholly of steel, and many private shipbuilders 
 are working in more or less of this better material. Several Besse- 
 mer works in England are running exclusively on a general mer- 
 chant product, having a large range of graces and uses, and taking 
 the place of both crucible-steel and wrought-iron. The Continental 
 Works are turning, probably, a third of their Bessemer product, and 
 nearly all their Martin product, into other forms than rails. All 
 the late locomotives many hundreds on the London and North- 
 western Railway are built of Bessemer steel, excepting only the 
 wheels and necessary castings. Everywhere abroad Bessemer and 
 Martin steels are more and more satisfactorily employed for plates, 
 beams, channels and angles for ships, bridges, and other structures, 
 and for railway tuyeres and axles, general shafting, agricultural im- 
 plements, and the multitudinous forms of machinery bars and forg- 
 ings. In the railway and machine-shops, the bridge-works ^and 
 shipyards of Europe, and of France especially, the method of treat- 
 ing steel, of heating and shaping it, and of building it successfully 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 199 
 
 into machinery and engineering structures, has become, what it 
 must everywhere become before this material can be employed to 
 the best advantage, a distinct and highly developed art. 
 
 We learn the following facts from Mr. Menelaus's recent address 
 before the Iron and Steel Institute : Krupp, after successfully mak- 
 ing thousands of steel cannon, large and small, is now fabricating 
 14-inch guns, of fifty-seven tons weight, to carry nine hundred-weight 
 shot nine miles, and is about to build others of double this weight ; 
 Mr. Keid, late Naval Constructor, believes that there will henceforth 
 be no obstruction to the large development of steel for shipbuild- 
 ing, and that the special arrangements required for steel shipbuild- 
 ing present no real difficulties to a careful builder; steel bridges of 
 large span are successfully constructed in Holland, and elsewhere on 
 the continent, and steel bridgebuilding in England is hampered 
 chiefly by the Board of Trade regulation, that the material shall not 
 be loaded above five tons in tension, and four tons in compression. 
 The Bolton Bessemer Works have produced between nine and ten 
 thousand tons of steel plates, three-fourths of which have been used 
 in boilers. Mr. Adamson, the eminent engineer, has built between 
 600 and 700 boilers out of Bessemer steel, and uses no other material 
 for this purpose. 
 
 What, on the contrary, is the condition of the manufacture at 
 home? Out of a Bessemer product of some 350,000 tons per year, 
 probably less than 6000 tons are used for other purposes than rails. 
 Very few Bessemer works have any machinery for producing the 
 various constructive shapes required, or any experience in making 
 steel of high or low grades. Bessemer manufacturers are talking 
 about reducing product, in the fear that rail orders will fall below 
 the capacity of their works. Martin steel is now made in American 
 works, regularly and successfully, of all grades, from springs down 
 to boiler-plates, thus furnishing every constructive grade required. 
 Engineers and machinists are generally asking for just such material 
 as steel has proved to be abroad, but are yet hesitating about the 
 use of steel, because our Bessemer manufacturers have not got much 
 into the way of making other grades than rail steel, and Martin 
 manufacturers have not, until quite recently, begun to adopt those 
 improvements in plant and practice which will make steel sell 
 cheaply, and, also, because our artisans have not, in most cases, 
 made any study of the art of working steel, and are, therefore, afraid 
 of it. Experts say that the use of wood, not only in ocean-vessels, 
 bat in river and lake-boats and barges, must soon give way to the 
 
200 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 use of metal, as it has done abroad, and is beginning to do here ; and 
 there are thousands of wooden bridges on our railways and high- 
 ways which must soon be replaced by metal ; so that for these two 
 large uses, not to speak of general machine-construction, there is 
 growing up a vast market for a better material than iron. Excel- 
 lent pig, for the production of cheap steel, is obtainable in all parts 
 of the country, and ferro- manganese, upon which important quali- 
 ties of constructive steel depend, is now cheap enough to warrant its 
 general use. In short, with every facility for making the product 
 so largely needed here and so largely used abroad, with the best 
 steel works in the world, and working organizations in them which 
 have increased product and decreased cost in a remarkable degree, 
 we are devoting more concentrated action to schemes for preventing 
 over-production, than we are to adapting grades and shapes of pro- 
 duct to the various constructive uses, and to teaching artisans how 
 to heat, shape, and apply them. 
 
 The remedies for this state of things are various and obvious, and 
 are indicated in the foregoing statement of the case. 
 
 1 . It is, undoubtedly, the policy of every Bessemer works, whether 
 it has the machinery for rolling merchant-steel or not, to make, from 
 time to time, experimental charges of high-quality steel, both hard and 
 soft, so as to learn the proper ingredients arid treatment. As such 
 steel should be better than the average make, it can be disposed of for 
 rails, if it is of the right grade, and if of softer or harder grades, what 
 little would be made experimentally could be sold in one place or 
 another. There might be no immediate profit in it, but it would give 
 the maker knowledge of his resources, facts about cost, experience in 
 treatment, ancl confidence in his ability ; in short, it would put him 
 in a position to take and execute orders. Steel-makers cannot ex- 
 pect a very brisk demand for materials which they do not know 
 whether they can make or not, nor what they will cost, or be like 
 when they are made. An equally great advantage of this experi- 
 mental steel-making would be an opportunity to test the exact value 
 of their new products in tension, compression, and elasticity. I have 
 seen Bessemer plate made and tested at Terrenoire, out of common 
 Bessemer pig and ferro-manganese, which stretched 19 per cent., 
 and had but 0.16 per cent, of carbon. Some crude Bessemer plate, 
 that I saw made and had analyzed, stood every mechanical test, and 
 had 0.21 carbon, 0.029 silicon, and 0.054 phosphorus, which shows 
 what may be done by selecting good materials. If our present pigs 
 are not sufficiently siliconized to blow hot, the addition of manga- 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 201 
 
 nese in the vessel, in the shape of good spiegel, will answer the same 
 purpose, and help rather than harm the product. The reason 
 why our Bessemer men do not make soft steels and those adapted to 
 a larger range of uses, is because they do not try. But they must try 
 and succeed, and know what they can guarantee, before they can 
 get orders. 
 
 2. It is, also, obvious that Bessemer steel makers should increase 
 their facilities for turning out the various shapes required, and for 
 putting rail-ends and bloom-ends into marketable forms. Probably, 
 a stand of billeting-rolls attached to the rail-train, a 14-inch train 
 and direct engine and a 9-inch train belted from the same engine 
 would best cover all up to rail- sizes. Judging from what the one 
 or two works are doing, which have these facilities, one or the other 
 of these small trains should very soon be kept busy on special steels 
 and reworking rail-ends. Probably, the best means of re-rolling 
 old steel rails and rail-ends is the very ingenious device of Edwards 
 & Rogers, of Cleveland^ placing the grooves at an angle with the 
 axes of the rolls. The whole rail-end can thus be utilized, while 
 slitting off the flange and stem makes pieces that are too short for 
 economical use. Re-rolling old steel rails and long ends into smaller 
 rails is done successfully abroad. Even small pieces may be util- 
 ized better than by remelting, if they are of proper grade and sound- 
 ness. The Troy Works, for instance, are making steel cut-nails, 
 which will drive through an oak plank and clinch. 
 
 The large use of steel for structural purposes, however, will be in 
 bars, which will require a 21 to 21-inch train, such as angles and 
 small channels, I-beams and deck-beams, and large flats, rounds and 
 squares. To change the rolls of a rail-train to fill orders, which 
 would necessarily be small at first, for this kind of work, would be 
 very expensive. But a couple of stands of rolls on the end of a rail- 
 train could be changed as often as necessary, without interfering 
 with the regular rail-production. The same stands would take the 
 billeting-rolls before mentioned. It is probable that boiler-plates 
 can be made cheaper and better in the long run by the Martin or 
 by the crucible processes, but ship, bridge and tank-plates are suc- 
 cessfully made by the Bessemer process. The existing blooming- 
 trains can, I believe, be changed from time to time into excellent 
 and fast-working plate-trains by the mere substitution of suitable 
 rolls and fixtures. This feature was considered in the original de- 
 sign of the mill. 
 
 3. It will also be necessary for steel-makers to take the initiative 
 
 14 
 
202 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 in practicing, perfecting and disseminating the new art of working 
 steel for structural purposes. The high degree of success which 
 attended the treatment and use of steel in the French ships referred 
 to, was due to an elaborate series of experiments, before and during 
 their construction, on the injury done to plates, bars and beams by 
 hardening, and the remedies hardening, not by cooling only, but 
 by pressure, as by punching, shearing and cold hammering. It has 
 not, probably, occurred to many boiler-makers, who could do noth- 
 ing with these grades of steel, and so have condemned steel altogether, 
 that shearing and locally hammering plates puts them in a condition 
 similar to that produced by cold-punching, which reduces the 
 strength of the parts above 20 per cent. These injuries, however, 
 are entirely local, although their effects, if not remedied, may be- 
 come general. It has been demonstrated at the Barrow Works (as 
 set forth by the manager, Mr. Josiah T. Smith, in a late paper be- 
 fore the Institute of -Civil Engineers), and most completely proved 
 by these French experiments, that the injury done to steels of rail- 
 grade and below, by cold-punching, is confined to the skin of the 
 hole (yg-g- inch thick in the French test), and that this injury is only 
 hardening by pressure, which may be completely removed by tem- 
 pering or annealing, or by reaming out this thin ring of hardened 
 metal. The same is true of shearing ; the hardened skin may be re- 
 moved by planing, or restored by annealing. The Bessemer and 
 Martin steels employed were not the softest grades; they had at 
 least 0.25 carbon, and stood 30 tons tensile strain. They were easily 
 hardened, and readily acquired dangerous internal strains ; yet, they 
 were made so completely tractable by proper treatment, t,hat they 
 did not fail in manufacture as often as iron did, and gave promise 
 of vastly longer endurance in service. With proper appliances, 
 these necessary additions to ordinary iron-working processes need 
 add but little to the cost of construction. There are still other fea- 
 tures of the treatment of steel, especially the effects of heat, which 
 form an important feature of this new art. I will omit its further 
 consideration at this time, from the fact that we are to have a valu- 
 able paper, at another session, which will present this subject in 
 detail. 
 
 The adaptability of steel to constructive purposes was specially 
 shown in stamped work, such as pieces shaped like a low-crowned 
 hat, of which seven hundred were produced, without losing one, 
 while not one good piece could be stamped out of iron. The fact 
 that steel crystallizes less than iron, by heating without working, and 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 203 
 
 that steel plates have practically the same strength with and across 
 the " grain/ 7 were also demonstrated. The conduct and result of 
 these experiments have been published by M. Barba, and are re- 
 published by Van Nostrand in New York. 
 
 4. But the advantages of steel as a constructive material, and of its 
 improved treatment, cannot be monopolized by the present steel- 
 makers. There are many iron, merchant and rail-mills, now short 
 of work, and likely to lose business every year, as steel is developed, 
 which have nearly all the appliances for working up steel into 
 shapes for implements and structural uses. Such works, abroad, 
 and, to some extent, here, are insuring the utilization of all this 
 machinery and the permanence of their business by working their 
 way into the steel manufacture by means of the open-hearth furnace. 
 The Siemens-Martin process has, in such cases, the advantage of 
 working economically on a small scale. Where it is best carried 
 out, the product is cheap enough to warrant its substitution for iron 
 in a large number of uses, and it is particularly economical in that 
 the raw material employed may be largely scrap-iron and steel, of 
 good quality, if rich ferro-manganese is used instead of spiegeleisen. 
 Martin steel rails, in successful service in France and Russia, con- 
 tain 0.38 of phosphorus, neutralized by 0.75 to 1.00 of manganese, 
 which replaces the usual carbon. Of carbon, there is but 0.12 per 
 cent. 
 
 5. Finally, one of the most obvious and important methods by 
 which steel-makers can promote, not only the adaptation of better 
 materials to structural uses, but the increased use of iron and steel 
 structures, is to aid in the government- tests of metals, which have 
 recently been inaugurated. Many thousands of tons of iron are an- 
 nually put into bridges and ship-frames, for instance, when bridge 
 and shipbuilders know and admit that steel is stronger and probably 
 better in everv way; but they are afraid to use it because they do 
 not know just what the strength, elasticity and ductility of the va- 
 rious grades are. In default of such knowledge, they will take no 
 risks. Now, this is just the knowledge which this government 
 commission will supply. If steel-makers will take hold of the matter 
 heartily and make it their business to supply specimens of various 
 grades, and to contribute in all ways to the thoroughness of the in- 
 vestigations, they will benefit themselves even more than they will 
 serve the public. This commission intends to avoid the mistake 
 which has made similar attempts, heretofore, of partial and limited 
 value the mistake of ascertaining only the physical qualities of 
 
204: MEMORIAL OF 
 
 metals, the chemical constituents of which are practically unknown. 
 They intend to determine what it is, not only in composition, but 
 in treatment, that makes iron and steel good or bad, or well or ill- 
 adapted to uses in building and in the arts. This information must 
 be of the greatest value to both iron and steel-makers. And the 
 final result must inevitably be, not only the adaptation of better 
 materials to current uses, but the vastly increased employment of 
 both iron and steel for new uses. 
 
 In conclusion, while it cannot be denied that the foregoing criti- 
 cisms are applicable in more than a majority of cases, it would be 
 not only ungracious, but unfair, to put forward their objects as rep- 
 resentative and characteristic of American practice and management. 
 Our economies, in some departments, have been remarkable, while 
 our general steel works and rolling-mill practice is, on the whole, 
 superior to that abroad. While the introduction of economical mill- 
 engines is making slow but measurable headway here, the increas- 
 ing use of reversing-engines in England is a step to the rear. The 
 gas-furnace and the -utilization of waste heat are quite as generally 
 employed at home as in other countries. 
 
 In this connection, I cannot close these remarks without bearing 
 testimony to the gallant manner in which the commercial promoters 
 of our early Bessemer works poured out money and encouragement 
 to us, who were so long floundering in the slough of technical un- 
 certainties. I refer especially, but by no means exclusively, to the 
 tljree establishments which first resisted the upper and nether mill- 
 stones of inadequate professional knowledge and popular prejudice 
 against steel, the works at Troy, Cleveland, and Harrisburg. And 
 it is with a feeling equally of pleasure and of justice that I also re- 
 fer to the remarkable production of steel, and to the notable econo- 
 mies in its manufacture, which have been accomplished by the tech- 
 nical knowledge, the workfulness and the common-sense of the 
 superintendents of our various steel-works. Let shareholders and 
 directors, remembering the outcome of the troublous past, bear in 
 mind what results the future should bring forth, when technical 
 management of this quality is reinforced by that system of improve- 
 ments which this paper has but too inadequately set forth. 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 205 
 
 XVII. 
 TECHNICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 As abundantly appears in the preceding pages from the testimony 
 of numerous engineers, Mr. Holley felt a profound interest and ex- 
 ercised an important influence in the progress of technical education 
 in this country. Not only his faithful work as an instructor, but 
 numerous public expressions of his views, bear witness to his zeal 
 and wisdom in this field. As one of the most impressive of these 
 utterances, the following address delivered at Washington, D. C., 
 February 22, 1876, before the American Institute of Mining Engi- 
 neers, of which Mr. Holley was at that time President, is here repro- 
 duced. It is, at the same time, a good example of the eJoquence and 
 logical force with which he handled themes of this character. 
 
 THE INADEQUATE UNION OF ENGINEERING SCIENCE AND ART. 
 
 The application of scientific methods to the investigation of natu- 
 ral laws and to the conduct of the useful arts which are founded upon 
 them, is year by year mitigating the asperity and enlarging the out- 
 come of human endeavor. More notably, perhaps, are these the facts 
 in that system of productive and constructive arts of which Engi- 
 neering is the general name. In metallurgical engineering especially, 
 within the period of our own recollection, how rapid has been the 
 rate and how wide the scope of progress the scientific discovery and 
 mining of metalliferous veins ; the economical separation and reduc- 
 tion of ores of every grade; the production and regulation of high, 
 temperatures; the varied improvements in the manufacture of iron, 
 in saved heat and work, in uniformity and range of products; and 
 most important of all, the creation and the utilization, to be counted 
 by the million tons a year, of the cheap constructive steels I. 
 
 Wonderful as this range and degree of development may appear 
 to the public eye, the close and thoughtful observer must neverthe- 
 less conclude that neither the profession nor the craft of engineering 
 may congratulate themselves too complaisantly, but that they should 
 
206 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 rather acknowledge to each other the embarrassing incompleteness 
 of the union between Engineering Science and Art. 
 
 There is a small but most truly scientific and most truly practical 
 school of philosophers whom we may designate as original investi- 
 gators men who come close to nature, who search into first princi- 
 ples, and who follow in all things that scientific, and therefore fruit- 
 ful, method by which the relations of matter and force are discovered, 
 classified, and brought within the reach of practice. These wonder- 
 ful men do not indeed create the laws of nature, as they sometimes 
 almost seem to, but they go up into the trembling mountain and the 
 thick darkness, and bring down the tables upon which they are 
 written. 
 
 There is a large class of men whom we may designate as the school- 
 men, a class popularly, and, to a great extent, correctly recognized 
 as the scientific element of human progress ; men who are learned in 
 the researches and conclusions of others, and skilled in reasoning or 
 speculating from these or from abstract data upon the certain or 
 probable results of physical and chemical combinations. 
 
 And there is the great army of practicians, almost infinite in its 
 degrees of quality, ranging from the mere human mechanism by 
 which mind lays hold of matter and force, through all the grades of 
 practical judgment and power an indispensable link between 
 nature's forces, as the philosopher thinks they are, and nature's ma- 
 terials, as the practician knows they are. 
 
 As the art precedes the science (however the science may afterwards 
 revolutionize the art), let us first consider the matter from the arti- 
 san's the "practical " man's standpoint. While every day's expe- 
 rience could teach him a more helpful lesson, it could hardly teach 
 him one of greater general importance than that the men who spec- 
 ulate, from second-hand data, upon the probable results of combina- 
 tions of forces and materials, are not the men who can best make 
 these combinations in practice, who intuitively know all the concealed 
 pitfalls, such as friction that trick of nature, which, like the thou- 
 sandth part of phosphorus, alters all the conditions of use in iron 
 nor are they the men who can determine the completeness of these 
 combinations, or read the record of their results, as in the character 
 of a flame, in the feeling of a refractory mixture, in the behavior of 
 a metal under treatment ; nor are they the men who, by familiarity 
 with objects and phenomena, are best fitted to pursue that original 
 investigation which is the foundation of even theoretical progress. 
 The expert who delights to call himself "practical," is honestly 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 207 
 
 amazed at the attempts of experts of school-graduation who have not 
 been graduated- in works, to solve .the engineering problems of the 
 day. And from his stand-point there are numerous and conspicuous 
 illustrations. While metallurgists are still disputing over the nature 
 and sequence of reactions in combustion and reduction, the practical 
 iron-smelter has felt his way from the barbarous practice of a century 
 ago, to the vast and economical production of to-day. The attain- 
 ment of powerful and sufficiently hot blast by means of waste heat, 
 the adaptation of shape and proportion of stack to different fuels and 
 ores, labor-saving appliances and arrangements all these have grown 
 out of the constant handling, not of books, but of furnaces. 
 
 Proceeding upon a chemical knowledge little superior to that of 
 the average schoolboy, Bessemer developed his revolutionary process. 
 Not knowing for years that the combustion of silicon or of manganese 
 are the chief sources of the necessary heat, ignoring the fact that not 
 alone the reaction but the presence of manganese is a cause of sound- 
 ness and malleability in steel, magnifying the hypothesis that silicon 
 should promote soundness, instructing his licensees to avoid all irons 
 containing above 0.02 per cent, of phosphorus, and sharing the igno- 
 rance of the whole metallurgical profession as to the sequence of re- 
 actions in the converter, and the probability of changing their char- 
 acter, Bessemer and his followers, during the first 15 years of their 
 practice, nevertheless brought this difficult art, which the metallur- 
 gical schools call a chemical art, to a high degree of commercial suc- 
 cess, and this in the absence of any metallurgical change or chemical 
 improvement whatever, in the treatment of the metal. During all 
 this time, there was almost no literature of the Bessemer manufac- 
 ture, and no instructor save that grim sphynx the converter, and the 
 well-nigh inscrutable process. It was a hand-to-hand fight, involv- 
 ing mechanical details, refractory linings, celerity of operations, reg- 
 ularity of melting and conversion, and economy of labor. With 
 every fact written in his book, the closeted scientist could no more 
 adequately prescribe the practical conditions of improvement, than 
 could the student in optics specify in words and formulse the glory 
 of an Italian sunset. 
 
 Here is a cupola-furnace, an old and exceedingly simple device; 
 but one may know all the laws of combustion and fluxing that are 
 written in the encyclopaedias, and yet fail to change its working at 
 will, or fail to detect the coming change, until by long familiarity 
 the phenomena reveal themselves as it were instinctively. One may 
 have learned every law of the reaction of oxides and fluxes upon a 
 
208 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 refractory material, yet until his practiced hand and eye and ear can 
 nicely detect its physical qualities and measure the results of new 
 ingredients and temperatures, he may wander for years in a maze of 
 uncertainties. Notwithstanding all our previous knowledge about 
 the inevitable combustion of carbon and oxygen in the presence of 
 heat enough to ignite them, the Siemens-Martin process, both in its 
 calorific and in its metallurgical aspects, was as purely unpractical 
 as the direct utilization of sun-heat is to-day, until after years of 
 patient observation, not chiefly by scientists, but by men unacquainted 
 with books, and knowing nothing at second-hand, innumerable small 
 increments of improvement at last produced a sufficient temperature 
 in a durable furnace. 
 
 In the development of machinery, the same history is repeated. 
 The proportions of parts, in fact, the modern formula? themselves 
 are derived from the study of innumerable experiments. The adap- 
 tation of machinery can only be perfected by him who, as it were, 
 enters into it, making it an incarnation of himself. This enlarge- 
 ment of a man's organism is most strikingly illustrated in the loco- 
 motive. Oliver Wendell Holmes has happily described this putting 
 of his life into his "shell " boat, his every volition extending as per- 
 fectly into his oars as if his spinal cord ran down the centre of its 
 keel, and the nerves of his arms tingled in the oar-blades. The 
 thoughtful locomotive-driver is clothed upon, not with the mere 
 machinery of a larger organism, but with all the attributes of a power 
 superior to his own, except volition. Every faculty is stimulated 
 and every sense exalted. An unusual sound amid the roaring ex- 
 haust and the clattering wheels, tells him instantly the place and 
 degree of danger, as would a pain in his own flesh. The conscious- 
 ness of a certain jarring of the foot-plate, a chattering of a valve stern, 
 a halt in the exhaust, a peculiar smell of burning, a sudden pounding 
 of the piston, an ominous wheeze of the blast, a hissing of a water- 
 guage warning him respectively of a broken spring-hanger, a cut- 
 ting valve, a slipped eccentric, a hot journal, the priming of the 
 boiler, high water, low water or failing steam these sensations, as 
 it were, of his outer body, become so intermingled with the sensa- 
 tions of his inner body, that this wheeled and fire-feeding man feels 
 rather than perceives the vary ing stresses upon his mighty organism. 
 
 Mere familiarity with steam-engines is not, indeed, a cause of im- 
 proved steam-engineering, but it is a condition. The mechanical 
 laws of heat were not developed in an engine-house, yet without the 
 mechanism which the knowledge derived through this familiarity has 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 209 
 
 created and adapted, the study of heat would have been an orna- 
 mental rather than a useful pursuit. So in other departments : when 
 one can feel the completion of a Bessemer " blow" without looking 
 at the flame, or number the remaining minutes of a Martin steel 
 charge from the bubbling of the bath, or foretell the changes in the 
 working of a blast-furnace by watching the colors and structure of 
 the slag, or note the carburization of steel by examining its fracture, 
 or say what an ore will yield from its appearance and weight in the 
 hand, or predict the lifetime of a machine by feeling its pulse ; when 
 one in any art can make a diagnosis by looking the patient in the 
 face rather than by reading about similar cases in a book, then only 
 may he hope to practically apply such improvements as theory may 
 suggest, or to lead in those original investigations upon which suc- 
 cessful theories shall be founded. 
 
 These are the conclusions of the " practical " man, and they are 
 none the less true because they are not the whole truth. That they 
 are too little considered by the schoolmen and the graduates of 
 schools is also true, but, happily, less conspicuously so as the years 
 advance. 
 
 The evil consequences of this mistake develop themselves in 
 various ways. The recent graduates of schools do not, indeed, ex- 
 pect immediate positions of responsibility and authority, but they 
 often demand them after too short a term of object-teaching. Per- 
 haps the greatest advantage of their scientific training is that they 
 can learn from objects and phenomena faster than can the mere work- 
 man, who, although full of the elements of new and useful conclu- 
 sions, lacks, if I may so say, the scientific reagent which precipitates 
 the rubbish and leaves a clear solution of the problem. It is, how- 
 ever, true in the iron- manufacture, perhaps, especially true that 
 men of wide learning and of great mental dexterity, unless they 
 have studied at least as many years in the works as they have in 
 the school, do not successfully compete for the desirable places with 
 the men that have come up from the ranks. Narrow, unsystematic, 
 and fruitless of new results as his knowledge may be, he who has 
 grown up steadily from the position even of puddler's helper, will 
 be selected to take the manager's post in preference to him whose 
 reputation is founded solely on the school. 
 
 Nor does this prove, as the schoolmen too often believe, that the 
 owners and directors of metallurgical enterprises are always unap- 
 preciative of scientific culture. It rather proves that the lowest func- 
 tions, as in the case of pure humanity, must first be considered that 
 
210 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 the conditions of maintenance and regular working, which constant 
 familiarity with objects and phenomena alone can provide, are earliest 
 in order. Conservation first and improvement afterwards. 
 
 Another consideration in this connection, is that scientific aid ap- 
 pears to be more readily provided for the "practical" man, than 
 practical aid for the "scientific" man. The trained scholar can the 
 more readily adapt himself to the situation. He should suggest 
 many more improvements than would ever crystallize in an equally 
 good, but undisciplined mind. Yet his attempt, with mere scholas- 
 tic aids, to carry these improvements out, might disorganize a whole 
 establishment. As there must be one final authority, judgment 
 founded on experience almost universally ranks the wider and more 
 fruitful culture of the school. And if we ask those great masters 
 whose experimental knowledge is as wide as their scientific culture, 
 they will tell us, that as the inert and clumsy fly-wheel, that typical 
 conservator, is more helpful to a steam-engine in the long run, than 
 a valve-gear so highly organized that it seems to know what it ought 
 to do so in their own undertakings, plodding, practical economics 
 must sit in judgment upon Theory and limit the reaches of Imagi- 
 nation. 
 
 Another evil growing out of the inadequate regard of mere school- 
 men for practice, is the frequent failure of their works or their ina- 
 bility to complete them. Inventions and constructions designed 
 after a scientific method and under the light of organized facts and 
 detailed history as laid down in books, may fail simply in default 
 of a practical knowledge of how far the capital at hand will reach, 
 or what the means at hand will do, or what the materials at hand 
 will stand, or what the labor and assistance at hand can be relied on 
 to accomplish. A vast number of facts about the operation of forces 
 in materials are so subtle, or so incompletely revealed or disentangled 
 from groups of phenomena, that they cannot be defined in words, 
 nor understood if they could be formulated. But after long famil- 
 iarity with the general behavior of materials under stress, a practical 
 expert can, by a process more like instinct than reason, judge how 
 far and in what directions he may safely push his new combinations. 
 Thus while the unschooled practician usually wastes his energies 
 in unscientific methods and on impossible combinations, but generally 
 carries into successful use his comparatively few well-founded at- 
 tempts, the student merely of principles and abstract facts usually 
 originates the ideas upon which progress is founded, and rarely 
 clothes them with practical bodies. In this chasm between science 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 211 
 
 and art, how much effort and treasure, and even life, are swallowed 
 up year by year ! 
 
 These are not theoretical considerations. The blast-furnace, the 
 converter and the open-hearth have already been referred to; let us 
 observe some other illustrations. A bridge-builder will tell us that 
 few structures in his department of engineering fail by reason of 
 mistakes in calculating the strain-sheet, but that the majority of fail- 
 ures arise from vibrations, buckling, rapid wear of important parts, 
 shapes that weaken the material inequalities in the material, and 
 similar causes which are not stated in books, which assume different 
 aspects under every change of proportions and dimensions, and which 
 can only be inferred by means of a long familiarity with the behavior 
 of similar structures during varying periods of service, and with the 
 processes by which materials and members are fabricated. The 
 builder of a machine like a marine-engine, or a locomotive, or a roll- 
 train, or a steam-hammer will tell us that, in designing new adapta- 
 tions, after every stress that can be distinctly analyzed is provided 
 for, mass to resist vibration, changes of shape to insure sound casting, 
 and various modifications which cannot be formulated for the want 
 of even approximately complete knowledge of their conditions, must 
 still be supplied, simply by judgment founded on long observation 
 of phenomena under similar conditions. And he will thus explain 
 nine-tenths of the failures. Who can imagine the volume of a book, 
 or of an author which should adequately teach the principles of con- 
 struction as affected by. the chiefest of all practical considerations 
 the economics of the foundry, the forge, and the machine-shop? 
 With the tools and facilities at hand, what divisions of a particular 
 structure, what shapes and sizes and methods of joining will be 
 cheap as well as strong and efficient, in all the infinite forms of 
 mechanism ? Obtaining such facts from any other source than per- 
 sonal practice, would be like an oarsman studying a book to know 
 when and how in the race he must husband his power, or like a 
 wrestler looking out in a cyclopaedia the probable feints of his an- 
 tagonist. 
 
 The successful constructor will assure us that no possible training 
 in the school nor any genius in invention can build economically 
 without such a knowledge of the shop as the athlete has of the pos- 
 sibilities of muscular strength and agility. 
 
 These arts have been selected as examples, not because they chiefly 
 depend on skill, but because they so largely involve the highest, 
 formulated mathematical knowledge. How much more important, 
 
212 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 then, is practical training in those departments where physical laws 
 are very incompletely understood and formulated. How far short 
 of practical success will abstract science stop in sinking pneumatic 
 piles through wrecks and boulders, in tunneling rocks traversed by 
 subterranean streams and beds of quicksand, in cheaply applying 
 hoisting, ventilating, and draining machinery to mines where the 
 scene and conditions of operation are constantly shifting, in firmly 
 founding heavy and vibrating machinery on treacherous ground, in 
 handling and casting melted steel, in constructing refractory metal- 
 lurgical vessels, in delivering bars red-hot and crooked in infinite 
 directions to a roll-train, in fabricating durable breech-loading can- 
 non, in building boilers that shall provide for vaporization, circu- 
 lation, separation, cleaning, and durability, in designing enginery 
 like the horse-shoe machine to shape metals, in proportioning gas- 
 furnaces, in submarine warfare, in aerial navigation, in machine- 
 tools, in traction-engines, in scaffolding and erection, in railway run- 
 ning-gear, in forming artificial stone under water, in permanent way, 
 in coal-cutting, in dredging-machinery, in moulding and casting, in 
 brick-machinery, in tube-drawing, in coal-burning, in pavements? 
 Limited or impossible as would be the progress of engineering arts 
 in the absence of that knowledge and those methods which are im- 
 parted in schools, delay and failure would hardly be less conspicuous 
 if the schoolmen should stay in the schools and thence attempt the 
 application of abstract science, or expect mere workmen to apply it 
 by hearkening to their directions. 
 
 I hope it may not seem that the dignity of abstract scientific in- 
 vestigation is undervalued by the utilizers of nature's powers and 
 materials, or that any considerations of profit obscure even in the 
 average commercial mind, the splendor of those achievements made 
 in the mere love of truth, with thought of neither commercial appli- 
 cation nor pecuniary reward achievements which distinguish such 
 names as Faraday, Bunsen, Leverrier, Mayer, Joule, Henry, Darwin, 
 and Tyndall. Do not their successes rather encourage us, in our 
 lower sphere, to more persistently pursue the method of these great 
 discoverers the original investigation of Nature's truths ? Not less 
 literally than in the poet's fancy, 
 
 "To him who in the love of Nature 'holds 
 Communion with her visible forms, she speaks 
 A various language." 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 213 
 
 To the skilled artisan she reveals herself as truly, though not as 
 widely, as to the philosopher. In the aphorism of Goethe, 
 
 " Mankind dwells in her and she in them. 
 With all men she plays a game for love, 
 And rejoices the more they win." 
 
 But the undervaluation of the study of objects and phenomena by 
 schoolmen, is not the principal hindrance to the complete union of 
 science and art. A greater obstacle is the combined misapprehension 
 and ignorance on the part of a large class of " practical" men, of 
 what they are pleased to call u theory," meaning by theory, something 
 which is likely to be discordant with fact or possibly with the in- 
 terests of the craft. We can hardly complain that their objection is 
 ill-grounded, in so far as it is grounded upon the practice of theoreti- 
 cal men, but the world has a right to complain of their narrowness 
 of observation, of their stolid incomprehension of the results of sci- 
 ence, of that pride of ignorance, of that bigotry, of that positive fear 
 of the diffusion of knowledge, the normal condition of those who 
 range only within the sphere of their own practice, and to whom 
 analysis and generalization, in their business affairs, as well as in 
 morals and politics, are an unknown thing. It is unfortunately true 
 that a large number of managers in metallurgical enterprises men 
 who are deemed indispensable, and who, probably, are indispensable, 
 in the average state of practical science, are thus not incorrectly char- 
 acterized. Conscious of their power as conservators, ignorant of the 
 elements of improvement, and not unfrequently jealous and blindly 
 fearful for the interests of their craft, they sit triumphant on an 
 eminence (the steady undermining of which they cannot observe), 
 and sneer at the too frequently condescending magniloquence of re- 
 cent graduates and bookmen. The best of this class are the work fill 
 and painstaking men who come up from the ranks men who are 
 plucky in emergencies and regulative of labor men whose un- 
 conscious reasoning or intuition covers the ordinary exigencies, and 
 who, perhaps for this very reason, never inform themselves outside 
 of their own range of observation, nor observe in a methodical or 
 fruitful manner. 
 
 There is also a class of practicians who do secretly and abstractly 
 respect the labors of the scientific investigator, and are unwillingly 
 governed, more or less, by his conclusions'; but their minds are so 
 barren of general facts and so untrained in the scientific methods of 
 
214 MEMORIAL OP 
 
 utilizing facts, and, hence, so distrustful of any ideas which reach 
 beyond their own practice, that they, also, are impediments rather 
 than helpers in the union of Science and Art. 
 
 It is often said, I am aware, that there is never any real antagonism 
 between Science and Art, and that all men respect, even if they do 
 not promote, the efforts of both scientists and practicians, to forward 
 the useful arts. What then shall we say of that phase of trades- 
 unionism, which not only tends to repress improvement but which, 
 often, violently defeats the works of progressive thinkers, and some- 
 times destroys their authors ? Let us also observe an extreme, but 
 not isolated, case of the executive treatment of science. Long before 
 the professional career of most of us began, the Erie Railway Com- 
 pany commenced a series of experiments in civil and mechanical 
 engineering, sometimes elaborate, like those of Zerah Colburn on 
 traction, and always useful; many of them incorporated with and 
 improving the practice of the road for a quarter of a century. The 
 voluminous drawings and records of this experimental practice, 
 always preserved by the engineers of the road, were just beginning 
 to be remembered by young and inquiring engineers, as a mine of 
 professional information, when it was discovered you will hardly 
 believe me that the engineer of the Erie road having been turned 
 out, the whole of this priceless accumulation of reports and drawings 
 w r as dragged off by the cartload to a paper mill, and destroyed by 
 James Fisk, Jr. In reviewing the railway history of the country, 
 many of you will remember that this act of vandalism has been by 
 no means the worst blow which engineering has received from so-called 
 a practical " men. 
 
 I have referred to these exceptional cases, merely to correct a 
 modern idea that engineering progress., especially by scientific methods, 
 is, as yet, the creature of popular favor. It is refreshing to turn 
 from such considerations to the still exceptional but happily growing 
 appreciation and helpful respect of practitioners and scientists for 
 each other, as sometimes exemplified in the various departments of 
 mining engineering. When we see recent graduates patiently leading 
 the untrained, confused, but determined mind of the workman, pain- 
 fully wrestling with hard names and occult processes, into methodical 
 habits of thought and the rudiments of organized knowledge ; when 
 we see the grimy workman, not standing aloof for fear of his craft 
 or of his trades-master, but dragging the recent graduate into mines 
 and furnaces, and patiently teaching him how to recognize that 
 matter, in mass and under mighty forces, which he had heretofore 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 215 
 
 contemplated in cabinet specimens, and chiefly in ideas; when we 
 see the commercial manager of metallurgical enterprises opening his 
 works to the graduates of schools, and giving them a chance, not 
 only to complete their education, but, by judicious application of 
 their efforts, to earn a living, meanwhile ; when we see such things, 
 as happily we may, here and there in metallurgical works, we may 
 assure ourselves that one way has been discovered to promote the 
 union of Science and Art. 
 
 In the enlargement of this method of mutual respect and instruc- 
 tion, to a certain extent, lies the solution of the problem under con- 
 sideration ; but it is a complex method, only actively operative under 
 several important conditions, such as : 
 
 1st. A public opinion among schoolmen that a course of object 
 and phenomena-study in works is not to be reckoned a matter 
 of mere business sequence, but a large and equal feature of that 
 curriculum which is essential to a degree of professional graduation. 
 
 2d. A diffusion, among the class which we have termed the "prac- 
 tical" class, of a real appreciation of an organized system >f informa- 
 tion and of the scientific method of making this information useful 
 to all classes of men, and noxious or unimportant to none ; such a 
 general explanation to that vast, preponderating class of workmen, 
 and of foremen and managers who are foremen and managers simply 
 because they have been efficient workmen, as will ever prevent their 
 indiscriminate and contemptuous application of the term "theory" 
 to whatever a schoolman proposes. 
 
 3d. An understanding among the owners/ directors, and com- 
 mercial managers of engineering enterprises, that it is not a matter 
 of favor, but a matter of as much interest to themselves as to any 
 class, that young men of suitable ability, and of suitable preliminary 
 culture, however acquired, should have opportunity and encourage- 
 ment to master the practical feature of technical education in works, 
 not as mere apprentices, but under reasonable facilities for economy 
 of time and completeness of research. 
 
 But these conditions do not largely exist, and are only growing 
 with general civilization. They must be hastened and magnified by 
 some better means than merely stating the case again and again, as 
 some of us, I confess, are too fond of doing, perpetually repeating, 
 in a manner more sentimental than efficient, that scientists should 
 appreciate practice, and practicians should appreciate science, and 
 capital should join the hands of science and practice, saying,- "Bless 
 you, my children," in the expectation that this will prove a fruitful 
 
216 MEMORIAL OP 
 
 union. Let us rather inquire if some new order of procedure in 
 technical education, some revolutionary innovation, if need be, will 
 not put the coming race of engineers on a plane which is lifted 
 above the embarrassments from which we are slowly emerging. 
 
 1st. In order that the technical school should be in the highest 
 degree useful, fruitful, and economical, it must instruct not men of 
 good general education, but artisans of good general education. The 
 art must precede the science. The man must first feel the necessity, 
 and know the directions of a larger knowledge, and then he will 
 master it through and through. Mark how rapidly the more capable 
 and ambitious of practical men advance in knowledge derivable from 
 books, as compared with the progress of bookmen either in books or 
 in practice. Many men have acquired a more useful knowledge of 
 chemistry, in the spare evenings of a year, than the average graduate 
 has compassed during his whole course. These men realized that 
 success was hanging on their better knowledge. Familiar with every 
 changing look of objects and phenomena, they detected the constant 
 play of the unknown forces which underlie them, and longed for a 
 guide to their operation, as a mariner longs for a beacon light. Their 
 practical familiarity and judgment at once revealed the importance 
 of scientific facts and methods, promoted their acquisition and guided 
 their application. Under what comparative facilities does the mere 
 recitation-room student, or even the mere analyst of the hundred 
 bottles, study applied chemistry ? It is to these, a matter of routine 
 duty, without a soul; they are neither stimulated nor directed by 
 a previously created want. Beginning with theoretical and abstract 
 knowledge, is no less an inverted process in the useful arts than in 
 the fine arts as it would be to take a course of Ruskin within brick 
 walls, as preparatory to opening a studio, and then climbing the 
 mountains to square nature with the book. 
 
 Undoubtedly, there may be extremes in any form of educational 
 method. For a youth to begin the special business of technical edu- 
 cation by any method, practical or otherwise, before he has acquired 
 not only a common school education, but, at least, such a knowledge 
 of polite literature and general science, including, of course, mathe- 
 matics, as would fit him to enter one of the classical universities, 
 should be strongly discouraged, for various reasons. It is useless to 
 disguise the fact that the want, not of high scholarship, but of liberal 
 and general education, is to-day the greatest of all the embarrassments 
 which the majority of existing engineering experts and managers 
 encounter. This statement cannot be deemed uncomplimentary to 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 217 
 
 the class, seeing that they have risen to power despite the embarrass- 
 ment. At the present day, the high-school systems founded by States 
 and by private enterprise, bring such an education within the reach 
 of every one; and it seems of the first importance to promote, if not 
 almost to create, a public opinion that liberal and general culture is 
 as high an element of success in engineering, as it is in any profession 
 or calling. 
 
 But this is not all. Professional and business success are not, even 
 in America, the chief end of life. All the social and political rela- 
 tions and even personal happiness are governed, not by the specialties, 
 but by the balance of mental culture. What then shall we say of the 
 policy of wealthy parents not indeed general, but too frequent of 
 placing an uncultured boy in a technical school, and then in works 
 and business, without giving him one chance to acquire a general and 
 polite culture ? 
 
 Many young men display a liking, and others a marked talent in 
 some special direction. There is no danger that these will be crowded 
 out of existence by the culture necessary to make a well-balanced 
 mind ; and the nearer the talent approaches genius, the less imminent 
 will be any such danger. 
 
 The proposition then is, not that mere common school-boys shall 
 go into works and then into technical schools, but that young men of 
 more advanced general culture, when they do begin the business of 
 technical education, shall apply to nature first and to the schoolmaster 
 afterwards. 
 
 It may be urged in favor of beginning in the technical school 
 rather than in the works, that mental capacity for the after acquisi- 
 tion and application of facts and principles, is thus developed. But 
 mental training is not the product of the technical school alone. 
 Habits of logical thinking and power of analysis and generalization 
 may be acquired in any school. And a positive objection to be- 
 ginning with the technical school, is that it cannot stop at logical 
 methods and sciences which are essentially abstract. It also attempts 
 to teach about objects and phenomena, the first knowledge of which, 
 if it is to be broad and genuine, must corne from the fountain-head. 
 
 These considerations may be farther illustrated by the course of 
 the inexpert graduate, when he enters works as a matter of business 
 or of study. We have seen that the practical man can, at least, keep 
 the wheels running and the fires burning, and that when he is of a 
 certain grade of ability and ambition, he will most rapidly 'acquire 
 the scientific knowledge and culture which, joined to his practical 
 
 15 
 
218 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 judgment, make him a master. The unpracticed graduate, however, 
 can keep neither wheels turning nor fires burning he has not even 
 the capacity of a conservator. Nor can he for a long time recognize 
 in the whirl and heat of full-sized practice, the course and movement 
 of those forces about which his abstract knowledge may be profound. 
 The youngest apprentices are more useful in an emergency. He 
 must begin with the lowest manual processes, not indeed to become 
 simply dexterous, but, as it were, to learn the alphabet of a new lan- 
 guage. He has started in the middle of his course instead of at the 
 beginning. He must go back before he can advance, while the prac- 
 tician goes straight on. The knowledge of the schoolman about 
 physical science, however often he may have visited works and 
 mines a-nd engines, during school excursions, is essentially abstract; 
 it no more stimulates desire and power of practical research, than 
 the calculus creates a passion or a capacity for studying the actual 
 work of steam in an engine, or the actual endurance of a truss in a 
 bridge. 
 
 The disappointment of inexpert graduates at finding themselves so 
 far from being experts, their inability ofttimes to pay for farther 
 schooling, the necessity that they should now begin to earn money, 
 as they had persuaded themselves they could so readily do upon 
 graduation, discourage many from pursuing engineering, and what 
 is worse, send many out into practice, who never do complete their 
 technical education, but who, by the character of their work, lower 
 the professional standard. 
 
 It can hardly be urged against the precedence of practical culture, 
 that the student will get " out of practice " while he is in the school. 
 He may indeed lose dexterity, but not the better fruits of experience. 
 In fact, those who begin as practicians, almost instinctively keep up 
 their intimacy with the current practice. 
 
 A most signal advantage of beginning technical education in the 
 works, is that the mind is brought into early and intimate considera- 
 tion of those great elements of success which cannot be imparted in 
 any other way the management of labor and the general principles 
 of economy in construction, maintenance, and working. An early 
 knowledge of these subjects moulds the whole character of subsequent 
 education and practice. There seems to be no corresponding advan- 
 tage in beginning with the technical school. The fundamental 
 mathematics and general information on physical science may be ac- 
 quired in the preliminary school. 
 
 There is little doubt that the managers of technical schools will 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 219 
 
 favor this order of study. They want to graduate not half educated 
 men, but experts. They desire of all qualifications in the student, 
 that enthusiasm which can only spring from a well-defined want of 
 specific knowledge. 
 
 2d. But the order of education is not the only desirable change. 
 Whether before or after their course in the school, the hundreds of 
 young men who are every year entering engineering pursuits, are 
 wasting their time in bad methods of practical study, or if after the 
 school course, they are more frequently doing bad work as engineers, 
 when they should still be only students. While the teaching of 
 general facts and principles and of scientific method is highly devel- 
 oped, there is no organized system for guiding students to direct 
 knowledge of objects and phenomena. This statement requires two 
 explanations; I. Apprenticeship is a school of skill in a specialty 
 rather than a school of liberal art. It is intended for a class of men 
 who propose to remain mere workmen, and not for the class who 
 intend to improve and direct engineering enterprises. It imparts a 
 degree of dexterity far beyond the requirements of the general expert, 
 while it would hardly impart in a lifetime his required range of prac- 
 tical knowledge. II. A school of engineering practice, such as that 
 of research in zoology which was established by Agassiz, at Penekeese 
 Island, would be wholly impracticable, because it could be nothing 
 less than a vast and successful establishment for construction and 
 operation in nearly all the departments of engineering. If such a 
 school were not commercially successful, and if its range were not 
 comprehensive, it would be unsuitable and inadequate. Hardly two 
 engineers acquire any part of their practical knowledge in the same 
 curriculum. They pick it up as best they may, usually in a manner 
 that is wasteful of time or damaging to the public. 
 
 Now, if there can be a system of instruction in the one school, there 
 can be in the other. The same discipline and responsibility, the 
 same guidance as to precedence of study, quality of evidence, and 
 correctness of conclusion should hold good in both cases. To say 
 otherwise would be to say that all knowledge should come from un- 
 aided original research, and that every investigator should begin, not 
 where a former investigator left off, but where he began. It, there- 
 fore, appears that there can be a school of practical engineering, but 
 that it cannot be mere apprenticeship in engineering practice, nor a 
 system of engineering construction and operation maintained merely 
 for the purposes of a school. 
 
 The only alternative is to establish organized schools in the various 
 
220 MEMORIAL OF 
 
 existing engineering works. At first, this idea would seem subversive 
 of all discipline and economy, but I am assured, by experts in several 
 branches of engineering, that such would not be the case. , Let us 
 take, for example, a Bessemer works. A score of students under the 
 discipline, as well as under the technical guidance of a master, could 
 be distributed among its various departments, not only without detri- 
 ment, but with some immediate advantage to the owner, for while 
 receiving no pay, they would become skillful, at least as soon as the 
 common laborers who form the usual reinforcement. Students should, 
 of course, be expected not to work when and in what manner they 
 might choose, but to do good and full work during specific hours. 
 This responsibility, as workmen, would rapidly impart not only the 
 knowledge sought in the works, but a desire for higher knowledge 
 and culture. 
 
 These considerations are not merely theoretical. Several students 
 at a time, subjected t'o no discipline, sometimes working hard, and 
 sometimes not at all, may often be found in a Bessemer works, and I 
 have yet to hear of their embarrassing the management in any way. 
 The laborer has no cause for interference, as the students are not 
 under pay, and whatever they accomplish is clear gain to three 
 parties concerned the owner, the student, and the operative. A 
 large number of young men may be found studying in machine shops, 
 and sometimes earning small pay, besides having opportunity to 
 work in all departments. 
 
 The proposition is to enlarge and systematize the existing desultory 
 study in works to increase its usefulness to the student, and, at the 
 same time, to make the granting of such facilities to students an 
 object immediately as well as remotely, to the owners of works. 
 To this end, the schoolmaster should be not only well read in the 
 professional literature, but a practical expert who could take charge 
 of the works himself, so that whilst best aiding the students, he could 
 prevent their interference with the regular and economical operations. 
 His functions would be, not those of an instructor, nor, to any great 
 extent, of a clinical lecturer, but those of a disciplinarian. The 
 students should acquire skill, in order that they might acquire judg- 
 ment of skill, and original knowledge of materials and forces, and 
 the master should see that they did acquire. them all. He might 
 do some service by stated examination and current criticism and 
 suggestion, but his chief office would be to promote honest work, 
 and to provide opportunity for work in all departments with refer- 
 ence to the economy of the student's time, and the owner's interests. 
 
ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 221 
 
 It should thus appear that these somewhat radical changes in the 
 curriculum of engineering study first, a hand-to-hand knowledge, 
 acquired not desultorily, but by an organized system, and afterwards 
 the investigation of abstract and general facts, and their relations, 
 would largely economize the student's time, and better the quality 
 of his knowledge. The novice is nearly as valuable a student in 
 works as the graduate, but he is a vastly less apt scholar in the 
 school. My own belief, founded on the study of many typical cases, 
 is, that this order of procedure would produce a better class of experts 
 in little more than half the time required by the reverse order; that 
 it would always make experts ; that it would discourage none from 
 finishing an engineering education which would be complete in its 
 parts, even if insufficient time were taken to fully develop it. A 
 well-balanced culture will naturally grow in scope and in fruitful- 
 ness. 
 
 In this connection it seems proper to say a word about the royal 
 road to learning, which a few ill-advised students attempt to pursue. 
 I do not refer to their availing themselves of professional data and 
 drawings on file in engineering offices, but I do refer to their asking 
 engineers and managers to furnish them special reports on subjects 
 regarding which their own observation would be vastly more useful 
 to the applicants, and quite as convenient to the respondents reports 
 on the number and duties of workmen in each department, and the 
 particulars of operation and relative cost, which can only be profitably 
 investigated by a student, when not only the facts but the reasons 
 are ferreted out by himself, rather than transmitted to the academic 
 grove through the post office. 
 
 In conclusion, if it should appear, upon larger observation, to the 
 profession in general, as it does appear to many of its members, that 
 this want of coalescence, ranging from indifference to antagonism 
 between its scientific and practical branches, is a real and substantial 
 fact, a larger effort would, undoubtedly, be made to change a condi- 
 tion so damaging to the profession and to the public. This inappre- 
 ciation of one department by the other is not unnatural neither side 
 has taken sufficient pains to observe what the other side has done. 
 The mere scientist instinctively believes that the achievements of the 
 profession are so far due to the deductions of scientists that all other 
 causes fade into insignificance; and the practician knows that just as 
 far as animal life is from the disembodied spirit, so far is utilization 
 of nature from the formulae of heat, chemical affinity, and mathe- 
 matics itself. 
 
222 MEMORIAL OF ALEXANDER LYMAN HOLLEY. 
 
 The first step is to recognize the fact, and I beg engineers, especially 
 those who, from their scholastic habits, see leasjb of the every-day 
 embarrassments which are encountered by the executive departments 
 of the profession, to take into account, not only the pride of class 
 power, which the artisan feels as keenly as the scientist, but those 
 baser elements of disunion, ranging from trades-unionism to counting- 
 room dictation in technical affairs. 
 
 Having recognized the grave and comprehensive character of the 
 evil, the next step should be, not, I think, to attempt any violent 
 alteration in the existing conduct of engineering by the men who 
 are now in active service, but to change, if I may so say, the envi- 
 ronment of the young men who are so soon to take our places, 
 in order that their development may be larger, higher and in better 
 balance. Two cooperative methods have been suggested reversing 
 the order of study, and organizing the practical school. 
 
 Whatever the course of improvement may be, it becomes us to 
 leave some heritage of unity to the coming race. How shall we more 
 fitly crown a century of engineering a century in which our noble 
 profession has risen from comparative potentiality to living energy. 
 And as its force is multiplied by the general advance of science, it 
 becomes the momentum which evermore shall actuate the enginery 
 of civilization. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 American Institute of Mining Engineers, Memorial Session, 18. 
 American Society of Civil Engineers, Resolutions of, 97. 
 American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Memorial Session, 56. 
 
 Barnes, Mr. P , Remarks of, 46. 
 
 Bayles, Mr. James 0., Address of, 61. 
 
 Beecher, Rev. H. W., Remarks at Funeral, 11. 
 
 Bergmannsgruss, 44. 
 
 Bessemer Medal, The, 161. 
 
 Books and Professional Papers of A. L. Holley, 144. 
 
 Catalogue of the Books, etc., written by A. L. Holley, 143. 
 
 Century Association, Action of, 159. 
 
 Chanute, Mr. O., Remarks of, 39. 
 
 Civil Engineers, American Society of, Resolutions of, 97. 
 
 Civil Engineers' Club, Cleveland, Action of, 151. 
 
 Civil Engineers, the Institution of, Telegram of, 49. 
 
 Clarke, Mr. T. C., Remarks of, 37. 
 
 Cleveland Civil Engineers' Club, Action of, 151. 
 
 Coryell. Mr. Martin, Remarks of, 37. 
 
 Coxe, Mr. Eckley B., Remarks of, 42, 76. 
 
 Coxe, Mr. W. E.' C., Telegram from, 52. 
 
 Dutton, Captain C. E., Remarks of, 29. 
 
 Egleston, Dr. Thomas, Remarks of, 33. 
 
 Emery, Mr. Albert H., Remarks of, 92. 
 
 Engineering Science and Art, the Inadequate Union of, 205. 
 
 Engineering, the Intermediate Power between Nature and Civilization, 167. 
 
 Fernie, Mr. John, Remarks of, 75. 
 Forrest, Mr. James, Letter of, 50. 
 Fritz, Mr. John, Remarks of, 45. 
 Funeral Services, 9. 
 
 Great Britain, Action of Iron and Steel Institute of, 160. 
 
 Hewitt, Hon. A. S., Remarks of, 23. 
 
 Hoadley, Mr. J. C., Remarks of, 82. 
 
 Holley, Mr. A. L., Remarks of, at the Pittsburgh Testimonial Presentation, ] 64 ; 
 Lines to, 165 ; Remarks of, at the De Lesseps Banquet, 167 ; Verses of, at the 
 Baltimore Dinner of the Institute, 169 ; Paper of, on the Nomenclature of Iron 
 and Steel, 171 ; Address of, on the Manufacture of Iron and Steel, 182; On Tech- 
 nical Education, 205. Metallurgist's Ode to Spring, 169. 
 
 Holley, Mrs. Mary H., Letter of, 54. 
 
 Holloway, Mr. J. F.. Remarks of, 40, 84, 151. 
 
 Hunt, Mr. Robert W., Remarks of, 30, 77. 
 
 Hunt, Dr. T. Sterry, Remarks of, 21. 
 
224 INDEX. 
 
 Inadequate Union of Engineering Science and Art, 205. 
 Iron and Steel Institute of Great Britain, Action of, 160. 
 Iron and Steel Manufactures, some Pressing Needs of our, 182. 
 Iron and Steel, Nomenclature of, 171; Manufacture of, 182. 
 
 Jones, Mr. W. R., Remarks of, 46. 
 
 Leavitt, Mr. E. D., Jr., Remarks of, 28. 
 Lewis, Mr. James F., Remarks of, 44. 
 Longsdon, Mr. Alfred, Letter of, 51. 
 
 Macdonald, Mr. Charles, Remarks of, 40. 
 
 Manufacture of Iron and Steel, 182. 
 
 Martin, Mr. E. P., Telegram from, 50. 
 
 Mattes, Mr. W. F., Remarks of, 48. 
 
 Maynard, Mr. G. W., Remarks of, 35. 
 
 Mechanical Engineers, American Society of, Memorial Session, 56. 
 
 Metcalf, Mr. William, Remarks of, 18, 79. 
 
 Mining Engineers, American Institute of, Memorial Session, 18. 
 
 Moore, Mr. L. B., Remarks of, 90. 
 
 Nomenclature of Iron and Steel, 171. 
 
 Partridge, Mr. William C. r Remarks of, 94. 
 Pechin, Mr. E. C., Remarks of, 47. 
 Pittsburgh Testimonial, The, 162. 
 Porter, Mr. Charles T., Remarks of, 81. 
 
 Raymond, Dr. R. W., Remarks of, 19 ; Memorial Address of, 99. 
 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, N. Y., Action of Trustees of, 157. 
 Richards, Mr. Windsor, Telegram from, 50. 
 Ricketson, Mr. John H., Remarks of, 38. 
 Rothwell, Mr. R. P., Telegram from, 51. 
 
 Sandberg, Mr. C. P., Telegram from, 50. 
 
 Schneider, Mr. H., Letter of, 51. 
 
 Sellers, Mr. Coleman, Remarks of, 87. 
 
 Shinn, Mr. W. P., Remarks of, 25, 162. 
 
 Smith, Mr. Josiah T., Remarks of, 160. 
 
 Smith, Mr. M. V., Remarks of, 48. 
 
 Snelus, Mr. G. J., Telegram from, 50. 
 
 Some Pressing Needs of our Iron and Steel Manufactures, 182. 
 
 Steel, What is? 171. 
 
 Taylor, Mr. W. J., Remarks of, 47. 
 Technical Education, 205. 
 Thomas, Mr. Sidney G., Telegram from, 50. 
 Thurston, Professor R. H , Remarks of, 49, 56. 
 TvvichelJ, Rev. Joseph, Remarks at Funeral, 9. 
 
 W r eeks, Mr. J. D., Remarks of, 52. 
 Welch, Mr. Ashbel, Remarks of, 26. 
 What is Steel? 171. 
 
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