Books in Cambridge Library Collection - Egyptology series

Leveson Francis Vernon-Harcourt (1839-1907) drew on a distinguished career in canal and river engineering for this illustrated two-volume survey, here reissued in its enlarged 1896 second edition. Having started as an assistant to the civil engineer John Hawkshaw, Vernon-Harcourt was appointed resident engineer in 1866 for new works on London's East and West India docks. Later, as a consulting engineer, he specialised in the design and construction of harbours, docks, canals and river works, and he was elected professor of civil engineering at University College London in 1882. This publication covers the design and construction of tidal and flood defences, canals, locks, and irrigation works. Volume 1 covers the physical characteristics of rivers and estuaries, and the control of their flow through dredging and flood defences. Volume 2 covers the construction of canals, locks and irrigation works. Vernon-Harcourt's Harbours and Docks (1885) is also reissued in this series.

Thomas Stevenson (1818-1887) was the son of the engineer Robert Stevenson, and father of the writer Robert Louis Stevenson. Like his brothers David and Alan, he became a lighthouse designer, being responsible for over thirty examples around Scotland. Throughout his career he was interested in the theory as well as the practice of his profession, and published over sixty articles on engineering and meteorology. He was an international expert on lighthouses, and advised on projects in India, China, Japan, New Zealand and Canada. Lighthouse Construction and Illumination, published in 1881, was an expanded version of his Lighthouse Illumination of 1859, and remained a standard text. Many of his improvements in illumination came into universal use. According to his son, as a result of Thomas' work 'the great sea lights in every quarter of the world now shine more brightly'.

In later life the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize for his humanitarian work, the explorer and scientist Fridtjof Nansen (1861-1930) encouraged and supported the 1901 voyage of his fellow Norwegian Roald Amundsen (1872-1928), publishing this account of its scientific findings in 1906. Amundsen had just purchased his famous boat, the Gjøa, and wanted to test her in Arctic waters. He planned to pay for the expedition by hunting seals, but wanted to carry out scientific work at the same time. On Nansen's advice, he decided to make oceanographic observations. After a six-month voyage, he returned with both observations and samples of water and plankton which considerably enlarged understanding of the bottom waters of the Norwegian Sea and the play of current in the area. Nansen's work supplies technical details, diagrams and maps from this remarkable scientific survey.

George Poulett Scrope (1797-1876) was a British geologist who studied at Cambridge, where his teachers included Adam Sedgwick, and who became a close colleague of Charles Lyell. As an undergraduate he developed a lifelong fascination with volcanos, inspired by visits to Vesuvius and Etna. After graduating in 1821 he spent six months exploring extinct volcanos of the Massif Central in France, and he returned to Naples to witness the 1822 eruption of Vesuvius. In 1825 he published Considerations on Volcanos (also reissued in this series), and in 1826 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. His pioneering work on France was originally published in 1827 as Memoir on the Geology of Central France and later revised for the 1858 edition reissued here. It contains detailed descriptions and illustrations of volcanos, and argues that the concept of geological time is important for the understanding of mineralogy and volcanism.

As a result of being asked to give public lectures on the subject, the eminent physicist Oliver Lodge (1851-1940) published in 1892 a pioneering study of the protection of buildings, cables and telegraphic instruments from the devastation caused by lightning strikes. This work led him almost immediately to the discovery of electromagnetic wave transmission and ultimately to the development of a version of radio telegraphy. Lodge also saw that many of the current theories about the nature of lightning were seriously in error, and his investigations led to a number of significant changes in the design of lightning conductors and lightning guards. Some of the methods and procedures that Lodge advocated have since become standard practice. They are described with Lodge's characteristic flair and accompanied by a wealth of illustrations that give a fascinating insight into how contemporary scientists and engineers tackled this significant problem.