on+his+return

SUBJECT AREA: Automotive engineering, Steam and internal combustion engines

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Clerk began his engineering training at about the age of 15 in the drawing office of H.O.Robinson \& Company, Glasgow, and in his father's works. Meanwhile, he studied at the West of Scotland Technical College and then, from 1871 to 1876, at Anderson's College, Glasgow, and at the Yorkshire College of Science, Leeds. Here he worked under and then became assistant to the distinguished chemist T.E.Thorpe, who set him to work on the fractional distillation of petroleum, which was to be useful to him in his later work. At that time he had intended to become a chemical engineer, but seeing a Lenoir gas engine at work, after his return to Glasgow, turned his main interest to gas and other internal combustion engines. He pursued his investigations first at Thomson, Sterne \& Company (1877–85) and then at Tangyes of Birmingham (1886–88. In 1888 he began a lifelong partnership in Marks and Clerk, consulting engineers and patent agents, in London.

Beginning his work on gas engines in 1876, he achieved two patents in the two following years. In 1878 he made his principal invention, patented in 1881, of an engine working on the two-stroke cycle, in which the piston is powered during each revolution of the crankshaft, instead of alternate revolutions as in the Otto four-stroke cycle. In this engine, Clerk introduced supercharging, or increasing the pressure of the air intake. Many engines of the Clerk type were made but their popularity waned after the patent for the Otto engine expired in 1890. Interest was later revived, particularly for application to large gas engines, but Clerk's engine eventually came into its own where simple, low-power motors are needed, such as in motor cycles or motor mowers.

Clerk's work on the theory and design of gas engines bore fruit in the book The Gas Engine (1886), republished with an extended text in 1909 as The Gas, Petrol and Oil Engine; these and a number of papers in scientific journals won him international renown. During and after the First World War, Clerk widened the scope of his interests and served, often as chairman, on many bodies in the field of science and industry.

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SUBJECT AREA: Ports and shipping

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On leaving school in 1894, MacGregor was apprenticed to a famous local shipyard, the Palmers Shipbuilding and Iron Company of Jarrow-on-Tyne. After four years he was entered for the annual examination of the Worshipful Company of Shipwrights, coming out top and being nominated Queen's Prizeman. Shortly thereafter he moved around shipyards to gain experience, working in Glasgow, Hull, Newcastle and then Dunkirk. His mastery of French enabled him to obtain in 1906 the senior position of Chief Draughtsman at an Antwerp shipyard, where he remained until 1914. On his return to Britain, he took charge of the small yard of Dibbles in Southampton and commenced a period of great personal development and productivity. His fertile mind enabled him to register no fewer than ten patents in the years 1919 to 1923.

In 1924 he started out on his own as a naval architect, specializing in the coal trade of the North Sea. At that time, colliers had wooden hatch covers, which despite every caution could be smashed by heavy seas, and which in time of war added little to hull integrity after a torpedo strike. The International Loadline Committee of 1932 noted that 13 per cent of ship losses were through hatch failures. In 1927, designs for selftrimming colliers were developed, as well as designs for steel hatch covers. In 1928 the first patents were under way and the business was known for some years as MacGregor and King. During this period, steel hatch covers were fitted to 105 ships.

In 1937 MacGregor invited his brother Joseph (c. 1883–1967) to join him. Joseph had wide experience in ship repairs and had worked for many years as General Manager of the Prince of Wales Dry Docks in Swansea, a port noted for its coal exports. By 1939 they were operating from Whitley Bay with the name that was to become world famous: MacGregor and Company (Naval Architects) Ltd. The new company worked in association with the shipyards of Austin's of Sunderland and Burntisland of Fife, which were then developing the "flatiron" colliers for the up-river London coal trade. The MacGregor business gained a great boost when the massive coastal fleet of William Cory \& Son was fitted with steel hatches.

In 1945 the brothers appointed Henri Kummerman (b. 1908, Vienna; d. 1984, Geneva) as their sales agent in Europe. Over the years, Kummerman effected greater control on the MacGregor business and, through his astute business dealings and his well-organized sales drives worldwide, welded together an international company in hatch covers, cargo handling and associated work. Before his death, Robert MacGregor was to see mastery of the design of single-pull steel hatch covers and to witness the acceptance of MacGregor hatch covers worldwide. Most important of all, he had contributed to great increases in the safety and the quality of life at sea.

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See also: Ayre, Sir Amos Lowrey

SUBJECT AREA: Chemical technology

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Mansfield, the son of a country clergyman, was educated privately at first, then at Winchester College and at Cambridge; ill health, which dogged his early years, delayed his graduation until 1846. He was first inclined to medicine, but after settling in London, chemistry seemed to him to offer the true basis of the grand scheme of knowledge he aimed to establish. After completing the chemistry course at the Royal College of Chemistry in London, he followed the suggestion of its first director, A.W.von Hofmann, of investigating the chemistry of coal tar. This work led to a result of great importance for industry by demonstrating the valuable substances that could be extracted from coal tar. Mansfield obtained pure benzene, and toluene by a process for which he was granted a patent in 1848 and published in the Chemical Society's journal the same year The following year he published a pamphlet on the applications of benzene.

Blessed with a private income, Mansfield had no need to support himself by following a regular profession. He was therefore able to spread his brilliant talents in several directions instead of confining them to a single interest. During the period of unrest in 1848, he engaged in social work with a particular concern to improve sanitation. In 1850, a description of a balloon machine in Paris led him to study aeronautics for a while, which bore fruit in an influential book, Aerial Navigation (London, 1851). He then visited Paraguay, making a characteristically thorough and illuminating study of conditions there. Upon his return to London in 1853, Mansfield resumed his chemical studies, especially on salts. He published his results in 1855 as Theory of Salts, his most important contribution to chemical theory.

Mansfield was in the process of preparing specimens of benzene for the Paris Exhibition of 1855 when a naphtha still overflowed and caught fire. In carrying it to a place of safety, Mansfield sustained injuries which unfortunately proved fatal.

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SUBJECT AREA: Agricultural and food technology

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Little is known for certain about William Marshall's early life, other than that he was baptized at Sinnington in the West Riding of Yorkshire. On his own account he was involved in trade in the West Indies from the age of 15 for a period of fourteen years. It is assumed that he was financially successful in this, for on his return to England in 1774 he was able to purchase Addisham Farm in Surrey. Having sacked his bailiff he determined to keep a minute book relating to all transactions on the farm, which he was now managing for himself. On these entries he made additional comments. The publication of these writings was the beginning of a substantial review of agriculture in Britain and a criticism of existing practices. From 1779 he acted as agent on a Norfolk estate, and his five years in that position resulted in The Rural Economy of Norfolk, the first of a series of county reviews that he was to write, intending the somewhat ambitious task of surveying the whole country. By 1808 Marshall had accumulated sufficient capital to be able to purchase a substantial property in the Vale of Cleveland, where he lived for the rest of his life. At the time of his death he was engaged in the erection of a building to serve as an agricultural college; the same building is now a rural-life museum.

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SUBJECT AREA: Weapons and armour

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De Mole's father was an architect and surveyor and he himself followed a similar avenue as a draughtsman working on mining, surveying and engineering projects in Australia. It was in 1911, while surveying in particularly rough terrain in Western Australia, that he first conceived the idea of the tank as a tracked, armoured vehicle capable of traversing the most difficult ground. He drew up detailed plans and submitted them to the War Office in London the following year, but although they were rejected, not all the plans were returned to him. When war broke out in 1914 he tried without success to interest the Australian authorities, even after he had constructed a model at their request. A further blow came in 1916, when the first tanks, built by the British, appeared on the battlefields of France and looked remarkably similar in design to his own. Believing that he could play a significant role in further tank development, but lacking the funds to travel to Britain, de Mole eventually succeeded, after an initial rejection by a medical board, in enlisting in the Australian Army, which got him to England at the beginning of 1918. He immediately took his model to the British Inventions Committee, who were sufficiently impressed to pass it to the Tank Board, who promptly mislaid it for six weeks. Meanwhile, in March 1918, Private de Mole was ordered to France and was unable to take matters further. On his return to England in early 1919 he made a formal claim for a reward for his invention, but this was turned down on the grounds that no direct link could be established between his design and the first tanks that were built. Even so, the Inventions Committee did authorize a sum of money to cover his expenses, and in 1920 de Mole was a made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

Returning to Australia, de Mole worked as an engineer in the design branch of the Sydney Water Board. He continued to invent, but none of his designs, which covered a wide range of items, were ever taken up.

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SUBJECT AREA: Aerospace

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Alberto Santos-Dumont, the son of a wealthy Brazilian coffee planter, was sent to Paris to study engineering but developed a passion for flying. After several balloon flights he turned his attention to powered airships. His first small airship, powered by a motorcycle engine, flew in 1898. A series of airships followed and his flights over Paris—and his narrow escapes—generated much public interest. A large cash prize had been offered for the first person to fly from Saint-Cloud around the Eiffel Tower and back inside thirty minutes. Santos-Dumont made two attempts in his airship No. 5, but engine failures caused him to crash, once in a tree and once on a hotel roof. Undismayed, he prepared airship No. 6 and on 19 October 1901 he set out and rounded the Tower, only to suffer yet another engine failure. This time he managed to restart the engine and claim the prize. This flight created a sensation in Paris and beyond. Santos-Dumont continued to create news with a series of airship exploits, and by 1906 he had built a total of fourteen airships. In 1904 Santos-Dumont visited the United States and met Octave Chanute, who described to him the achievements of the Wright brothers. On his return to Paris he set about designing an aeroplane which was unlike any other aeroplane of the period. It had box-kite-like wings and tail, and flew tail-first (a canard) powered by an Antoinette engine at the rear. It was built for him by Gabriel Voisin and was known as the "14 bis" because it was air-tested suspended beneath airship No. 14. It made its first free take-off on 13 September 1906, and then a series of short hops, including one of 220 m (720 ft) which won Santos-Dumont an Aero-Club prize and recognition for the first aeroplane flight in Europe; indeed, it was the first officially witnessed aeroplane flight in the world. Santos-Dumont's most successful aeroplane was his No. 20 of 1909, known as the Demoiselle: a tiny machine popular with sporting pilots. About this time, however, Santos-Dumont became ill and had to abandon his aeronautical activities. Although he had not made any great technical breakthroughs, Santos-Dumont had played a major role in arousing public interest in flying.

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SUBJECT AREA: Ports and shipping

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Taylor's first years were spent on a farm in Virginia, but at the age of 13 he went to RandolphMacon College, graduating in 1881, and from there to the US Naval Academy, Annapolis. He graduated at the head of his class, had some sea time, and then went to the Royal Naval College in Greenwich, England, where in 1888 he again came top of the class with the highest-ever marks of any student, British or overseas.

On his return to the United States he held various posts as a constructor, ending this period at the Mare Island Navy Yard in California. In 1894 he was transferred to Washington, where he joined the Bureau of Construction and started to interest the Navy in ship model testing. Under his direction, the first ship model tank in the United States was built at Washington and for fourteen years operated under his control. The work of this establishment gave him the necessary information to write the highly acclaimed text The Speed and Power of Ships, which with revisions is still in use. By the outbreak of the First World War he was one of the world's most respected naval architects, and had been retained as a consultant by the British Government in the celebrated case of the collision between the White Star Liner Olympic and HMS Hawke.

In December 1914 Taylor became a Rear-Admiral and was appointed Chief Constructor of the US Navy. His term of office was extremely stressful, with over 1,000 ships constructed for the war effort and with the work of the fledgling Bureau for Aeronautics also under his control. The problems were not over in 1918 as the Washington Treaty required drastic pruning of the Navy and a careful reshaping of the defence force.

Admiral Taylor retired from active service at the beginning of 1923 but retained several consultancies in aeronautics, shipping and naval architecture. For many years he served as consultant to the ship-design company now known as Gibbs and Cox. Many honours came his way, but the most singular must be the perpetuation of his name in the David Taylor Medal, the highest award of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers in the United States. Similarly, the Navy named its ship test tank facility, which was opened in Maryland in 1937, the David W. Taylor Model Basin.

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on [ɒn]

sur ⇒ 1A (a)-(d), 1A (f), 1B (a), 1C (a), 1C (d), 1D (a)-(c), 1D (j) à ⇒ 1A (c), 1D (f), 1D (h), 1D (i), 1D (j), 1F (c), 1F (f) en ⇒ 1A (c), 1F (g) par rapport à ⇒ 1C (e) selon ⇒ 1D (d) de ⇒ 1F (d) allumé ⇒ 3 (a) ouvert ⇒ 3 (a) en marche ⇒ 3 (a) de garde ⇒ 3 (c) de service ⇒ 3 (c)

1 preposition

A.

(a) (specifying position) sur;

∎ the vase is on the shelf le vase est sur l'étagère;

∎ put it on the shelf mets-le sur l'étagère;

∎ on the floor par terre;

∎ on the ceiling au plafond;

∎ there are posters on the walls il y a des affiches aux ou sur les murs;

∎ there was blood on the walls il y avait du sang sur les murs;

∎ a coat was hanging on the hook un manteau était accroché à la patère;

∎ the post with the seagull on it le poteau sur lequel il y a la mouette;

∎ he has a ring on his finger il a une bague au doigt;

∎ to lie on one's back/side être allongé sur le dos/côté;

∎ on this side de ce côté;

∎ on the other side of the page de l'autre côté de la page;

∎ on page four à la quatrième page, à la page quatre;

∎ on the left/right à gauche/droite

(b) (indicating writing or painting surface) sur;

∎ I had nothing to write on je n'avais rien sur quoi écrire;

∎ red on a green background rouge sur un fond vert

(c) (indicating general location, area)

∎ he works on a building site il travaille sur un chantier;

∎ they live on a farm ils habitent une ferme;

∎ there's been an accident on the M1 il y a eu un accident sur la M1;

∎ room on the second floor chambre au second (étage);

∎ on Arran/the Isle of Wight sur Arran/l'île de Wight;

∎ on Corsica/Crete en Corse/Crète;

∎ on Majorca/Minorca à Majorque/Minorque

(d) (indicating part of body touched) sur;

∎ I kissed him on the cheek je l'ai embrassé sur la joue;

∎ someone tapped me on the shoulder quelqu'un m'a tapé sur l'épaule

(e) (close to)

∎ the village is right on the lake/sea le village est juste au bord du lac/de la mer

(f) (indicating movement, direction)

∎ the mirror fell on the floor la glace est tombée par terre;

∎ to climb on(to) a wall grimper sur un mur;

∎ they marched on the capital ils marchèrent sur la capitale;

∎ don't tread on it ne marchez pas dessus

B.

(a) (indicating thing carried) sur;

∎ I only had £10 on me je n'avais que 10 livres sur moi;

∎ she's got a gun on her elle est armée

(b) (indicating facial expression)

∎ he had a scornful smile on his face il affichait un sourire plein de mépris

C.

(a) (indicating purpose of money, time, effort spent) sur;

∎ I spent hours on that essay j'ai passé des heures sur cette dissertation;

∎ she spent £1,000 on her new stereo elle a dépensé 1000 livres pour acheter sa nouvelle chaîne hi-fi;

∎ to put money on a horse parier ou miser sur un cheval;

∎ what are you working on at the moment? sur quoi travaillez-vous en ce moment?

(b) (indicating activity undertaken)

∎ I am here on business je suis ici pour affaires;

∎ to be on strike être en grève;

∎ he's off on a trip to Brazil il part pour un voyage au Brésil;

∎ to go on safari faire un safari;

∎ she was sent on a course on l'a envoyée suivre des cours;

∎ I'm on nights next week je suis de nuit la semaine prochaine;

∎ he's on lunch/a break il est en train de déjeuner/faire la pause;

∎ she's been on the committee for years ça fait des années qu'elle siège au comité

(c) (indicating special interest, pursuit)

∎ she's keen on music elle a la passion de la musique;

∎ he's good on modern history il excelle en histoire moderne;

∎ she's very big on equal opportunities l'égalité des chances, c'est son cheval de bataille

(d) (indicating scale of activity)

∎ on a large/small scale sur une grande/petite échelle

(e) (compared with) par rapport à;

∎ imports are up/down on last year les importations sont en hausse/en baisse par rapport à l'année dernière;

∎ it's an improvement on the old system c'est une amélioration par rapport à l'ancien système

D.

(a) (about, on the subject of) sur;

∎ a book/film on the French Revolution un livre/film sur la Révolution française;

∎ we all agree on that point nous sommes tous d'accord sur ce point;

∎ I need some advice on a legal matter j'ai besoin de conseils sur un point légal;

∎ could I speak to you on a matter of some delicacy? pourrais-je vous parler d'une affaire assez délicate?;

∎ the police have nothing on him la police n'a rien sur lui

(b) (indicating person, thing affected) sur;

∎ it has no effect on them cela n'a aucun effet sur eux;

∎ a tax on alcohol une taxe sur les boissons alcoolisées;

∎ try it on your parents essaie-le sur tes parents;

∎ the government must act on inflation le gouvernement doit prendre des mesures contre l'inflation;

∎ he has survived two attempts on his life il a échappé à deux tentatives d'assassinat;

∎ it's unfair on women c'est injuste envers les femmes;

∎ the joke's on you! c'est toi qui as l'air ridicule!

(c) (indicating cause of injury)

∎ I cut my finger on a piece of glass je me suis coupé le doigt sur un morceau de verre

(d) (according to) selon;

∎ everyone will be judged on their merits chacun sera jugé selon ses mérites;

∎ candidates are selected on their examination results les candidats sont choisis en fonction des résultats qu'ils ont obtenus à l'examen

(e) (indicating reason, motive for action)

∎ on impulse sur un coup de tête;

∎ the police acted on information from abroad la police est intervenue après avoir reçu des renseignements de l'étranger;

∎ I shall refuse on principle je refuserai par principe

(f) (included in, forming part of)

∎ your name isn't on the list votre nom n'est pas sur la liste;

∎ the books on the syllabus les livres au programme;

∎ on the agenda à l'ordre du jour

(g) (indicating method, system)

∎ they work on a rota system ils travaillent par roulement;

∎ reorganized on a more rational basis réorganisé sur une base plus rationnelle

(h) (indicating means of transport)

∎ on foot/horseback à pied/cheval;

∎ on the bus/train dans le bus/train;

∎ she arrived on the midday bus/train elle est arrivée par le bus/train de midi;

∎ on a bicycle à bicyclette

(i) (indicating instrument played)

∎ to play a tune on the flute jouer un air à la flûte;

∎ who's on guitar/on drums? qui est à la guitare/à la batterie?

(j) Radio

∎ , Television & Theatre I heard it on the radio/on television je l'ai entendu à la radio/à la télévision;

∎ it's the first time she's been on television c'est la première fois qu'elle passe à la télévision;

∎ what's on the other channel or side? qu'est-ce qu'il y a sur l'autre chaîne?;

∎ on stage sur scène

(k) (indicating where information is stored)

∎ it's all on computer tout est sur ordinateur;

∎ on file sur fichier

E.

INDICATING DATE, TIME ETC

∎ on the 6th of July le 6 juillet;

∎ on or about the 12th vers le 12;

∎ on Christmas Day le jour de Noël;

∎ I'll see her on Monday je la vois lundi;

∎ on Monday morning lundi matin;

∎ I don't work on Mondays je ne travaille pas le lundi;

∎ on a Monday morning in February un lundi matin (du mois) de février;

∎ on a fine day in June par une belle journée de juin;

∎ on time à l'heure;

∎ every hour on the hour à chaque heure;

∎ it's just on five o'clock il est cinq heures pile;

∎ just on a year ago (approximately) il y a près d'un an

F.

(a) (indicating source of payment)

∎ have a drink on me prenez un verre, c'est moi qui offre;

∎ the drinks are on me/the house! c'est ma tournée/la tournée du patron!;

∎ you can get it on the National Health ≃ c'est remboursé par la Sécurité sociale

(b) (indicating source or amount of income)

∎ to live on one's private income/a student grant vivre de ses rentes/d'une bourse d'études;

∎ you can't live on such a low wage on ne peut pas vivre avec des revenus aussi modestes;

∎ familiar they're on the dole or on unemployment benefit ils vivent du chômage ou des allocations de chômage^□ ;

∎ to retire on a pension of £5,000 a year prendre sa retraite avec une pension de 5000 livres par an

(c) (indicating source of power) à;

∎ it works on electricity ça marche à l'électricité

(d) (indicating source of nourishment) de;

∎ they live on cereals ils se nourrissent de céréales;

∎ we dined on oysters and champagne nous avons dîné d'huîtres et de champagne

(e) (indicating drugs, medicine prescribed)

∎ is she on the pill? est-ce qu'elle prend la pilule?;

∎ I'm still on antibiotics je suis toujours sous antibiotiques;

∎ the doctor put her on tranquillizers le médecin lui a prescrit des tranquillisants;

∎ he's on insulin/heroin il prend de l'insuline/de l'héroïne;

∎ he's on drugs il se drogue;

∎ familiar figurative what's he on? il se sent bien?

(f) (at the same time as) à;

∎ he'll deal with it on his return il s'en occupera à son retour;

∎ looters will be shot on sight les pillards seront abattus sans sommation;

∎ on the death of his mother à la mort de sa mère;

∎ on my first/last visit lors de ma première/dernière visite;

∎ on the count of three à trois

(g) (with present participle) en;

∎ on hearing the news en apprenant la nouvelle;

∎ on completing the test candidates should… quand ils auront fini l'examen les candidats devront…

2 adverb

(a) (in place)

∎ the lid wasn't on le couvercle n'était pas mis;

∎ put the top back on afterwards remets le capuchon ensuite

(b) (referring to clothes)

∎ why have you got your gloves on? pourquoi as-tu mis tes gants?;

∎ the woman with the blue dress on la femme en robe bleue;

∎ what had she got on? qu'est-ce qu'elle portait?, comment était-elle habillée?;

∎ he's got nothing on il est nu

(c) (indicating continued action)

∎ to read on continuer à lire;

∎ the car drove on la voiture ne s'est pas arrêtée;

∎ they walked on ils poursuivirent leur chemin;

∎ from now or this moment or this time on désormais;

∎ from that day on à partir ou dater de ce jour;

∎ well on in years d'un âge avancé;

∎ earlier/later/further on plus tôt/tard/loin;

∎ on with the show! que le spectacle continue!

(d) (indicating activity)

∎ I've got a lot on this week je suis très occupé cette semaine;

∎ have you got anything on tonight? tu fais quelque chose ce soir?

(e) (functioning, running)

∎ put or turn or switch the television on allume la télévision;

∎ turn the tap on ouvre le robinet;

∎ the lights had been left on les lumières étaient restées allumées;

∎ the tap had been left on le robinet était resté ouvert;

∎ the car had its headlights on les phares de la voiture étaient allumés

(f) (in betting)

∎ I have a bet on j'ai fait un pari

(g) familiar (idiom)

∎ to be or go on about sth parler de qch sans arrêt^□ ;

∎ he's on about his new car again le voilà reparti sur sa nouvelle voiture;

∎ what's she on about? qu'est-ce qu'elle raconte?;

∎ he's always on about the war/teenagers il n'arrête pas de déblatérer sur la guerre/les adolescents;

∎ my parents are always on at me about my hair mes parents n'arrêtent pas de m'embêter avec mes cheveux;

∎ I've been on at them for months to get it fixed cela fait des mois que je suis sur leur dos pour qu'ils le fassent réparer

3 adjective

(a) (working → electricity, light, radio, TV) allumé; (→ gas, tap) ouvert; (→ engine, machine) en marche; (→ handbrake) serré; (→ alarm) enclenché;

∎ the radio was on very loud la radio hurlait;

∎ make sure the switches are in the "on" position vérifiez que les interrupteurs sont sur (la position) "marche";

∎ the "on" button le bouton de mise en marche

(b) (happening, under way)

∎ to be on (actor) être en scène;

∎ we're on in ten minutes c'est à nous dans dix minutes;

∎ there's a conference on next week il y a une conférence la semaine prochaine;

∎ the meeting is on right now la réunion est en train de se dérouler;

∎ the match is still on (on TV) le match n'est pas terminé; (going ahead) le match n'a pas été annulé;

∎ it's on at the local cinema ça passe au cinéma du quartier;

∎ the play was on for weeks la pièce a tenu l'affiche pendant des semaines;

∎ your favourite TV programme is on tonight il y a ton émission préférée à la télé ce soir;

∎ there's nothing good on (on TV, radio) il n'y a rien de bien;

∎ is the party still on? est-ce que la soirée se fait toujours?;

∎ is our deal still on? est-ce que notre affaire tient toujours?;

∎ the kettle's on for tea j'ai mis de l'eau à chauffer pour le thé;

∎ hurry up, your dinner's on dépêche-toi, ton dîner va être prêt

(c) (on duty → in hospital, surgery) de garde; (→ in shop, administration) de service;

∎ I'm on at three o'clock, then off at nine o'clock je commence à trois heures et je finis à neuf heures

(d) (in betting)

∎ the odds are twenty to one on la cote est de vingt contre un

(e) familiar (unacceptable)

∎ such behaviour just isn't on! une telle conduite est tout à fait inadmissible!^□ ;

∎ British it's not on! ça va pas du tout!

(f) familiar (feasible, possible)

∎ we'll never be ready by tomorrow, it just isn't on nous ne serons jamais prêts pour demain, c'est tout bonnement impossible

(g) familiar (in agreement)

∎ are you still on for dinner tonight? ça marche toujours pour le dîner de ce soir?;

∎ shall we say £10? - you're on! disons 10 livres? - d'accord ou tope là!;

∎ if you wash the dishes, I'll dry them - you're on! si tu fais la vaisselle, je l'essuie - ça marche!

(h) British familiar

∎ to be on (menstruating) avoir ses ragnagnas

4 on and off adverb

∎ we went out together on and off for a year on a eu une relation irrégulière pendant un an

5 on and on adverb

sans arrêt;

∎ he goes on and on about his minor ailments il nous rebat les oreilles avec ses petits problèmes de santé;

∎ the play dragged on and on la pièce n'en finissait plus

SUBJECT AREA: Chemical technology, Domestic appliances and interiors, Public utilities

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Son of a clockmaker, he studied physics and chemistry under H.-D. de Saussure (1740– 99). In 1775 he moved to Paris, where he taught chemistry and presented a paper on electrical phenomena to the Académie Royale des Sciences. He assisted the Montgolfier brothers in their Paris balloon ascents.

From 1780 Argand spent some time in Montpellier, where he conceived the idea of the lamp that was to make him famous. It was an oil lamp with gravity oil feed, in which the flame was enlarged by burning it in a current of air induced by two concentric iron tubes. It produced ten times the illumination of the simple oil lamp. From the autumn of 1783 to summer 1785, Argand travelled to London and Birmingham to promote the manufacture and sale of his lamp. Upon his return to Paris, he found that his design had been plagiarized; with others, Argand sought to establish his priority, and Paul Abeille published a tract, Déscouverte des lampes à courant d'air et à cylindre (1785). As a result, the Académie granted Argand a licence to manufacture the lamp. However, during the Revolution, Argand's factories were destroyed and his licence annulled. He withdrew to Versoix, near Geneva. In 1793, the English persuaded him to take refuge in England and tried, apparently without success, to obtain recompense for his losses.

Argand is also remembered for his work on distillation and on the water distributor or hydraulic ram, which was conceived with Joseph Montgolfier in 1797 and recognized by the grant of a patent in the same year.

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SUBJECT AREA: Weapons and armour

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The youngest of nine children, Shrapnel was commissioned into the Royal Artillery in July 1779. His early military service was in Newfoundland and it was on his return to England in 1784 that he began to interest himself in artillery ammunition. His particular concern was to develop a round that would be more effective against infantry than the existing solid cannon-ball and canister round. The result was a hollow, spherical shell filled with lead musket balls and fitted with a bursting charge and fuse. His development of the shell was interrupted by active service in the Low Countries in 1793–4, during which he was wounded, and duty in the West Indies. Nevertheless, in 1803 the British Army adopted his shell, which during the next twelve years played a significant part on the battlefield.

In 1804 Shrapnel was appointed Assistant Inspector of Artillery and made further contributions to the science of gunnery, drawing up a series of range tables to improve accuracy of fire, inventing the brass tangent slide for better sighting of guns, and improving the production of howitzers and mortars by way of the invention of parabolic chambers. His services were recognized in 1814 by a Treasury grant of £1,200 per annum for life. He was promoted Major-General in 1819 and appointed a Colonel-Commandant of the Royal Artillery in 1827, and in the 1830s there was talk of him being made a baronet, but nothing came of it. Shrapnel remains a current military term, although modern bursting shells rely on the fragmentation of the casing of the projectile for their effect rather than his original concept of having shot inside them.

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SUBJECT AREA: Land transport, Railways and locomotives

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Vignoles, who was of Huguenot descent, was orphaned in infancy and brought up in the family of his grandfather, Dr Charles Hutton FRS, Professor of Mathematics at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. After service in the Army he travelled to America, arriving in South Carolina in 1817. He was appointed Assistant to the state's Civil Engineer and surveyed much of South Carolina and subsequently Florida. After his return to England in 1823 he established himself as a civil engineer in London, and obtained work from the brothers George and John Rennie.

In 1825 the promoters of the Liverpool \& Manchester Railway (L \& MR) lost their application for an Act of Parliament, discharged their engineer George Stephenson and appointed the Rennie brothers in his place. They in turn employed Vignoles to resurvey the railway, taking a route that would minimize objections. With Vignoles's route, the company obtained its Act in 1826 and appointed Vignoles to supervise the start of construction. After Stephenson was reappointed Chief Engineer, however, he and Vignoles proved incompatible, with the result that Vignoles left the L \& MR early in 1827.

Nevertheless, Vignoles did not sever all connection with the L \& MR. He supported John Braithwaite and John Ericsson in the construction of the locomotive Novelty and was present when it competed in the Rainhill Trials in 1829. He attended the opening of the L \& MR in 1830 and was appointed Engineer to two railways which connected with it, the St Helens \& Runcorn Gap and the Wigan Branch (later extended to Preston as the North Union); he supervised the construction of these.

After the death of the Engineer to the Dublin \& Kingstown Railway, Vignoles supervised construction: the railway, the first in Ireland, was opened in 1834. He was subsequently employed in surveying and constructing many railways in the British Isles and on the European continent; these included the Eastern Counties, the Midland Counties, the Sheffield, Ashton-under-Lyme \& Manchester (which proved for him a financial disaster from which he took many years to recover), and the Waterford \& Limerick. He probably discussed rail of flat-bottom section with R.L. Stevens during the winter of 1830–1 and brought it into use in the UK for the first time in 1836 on the London \& Croydon Railway: subsequently rail of this section became known as "Vignoles rail". He considered that a broader gauge than 4 ft 8½ in. (1.44 m) was desirable for railways, although most of those he built were to this gauge so that they might connect with others. He supported the atmospheric system of propulsion during the 1840s and was instrumental in its early installation on the Dublin \& Kingstown Railway's Dalkey extension. Between 1847 and 1853 he designed and built the noted multi-span suspension bridge at Kiev, Russia, over the River Dnieper, which is more than half a mile (800 m) wide at that point.

Between 1857 and 1863 he surveyed and then supervised the construction of the 155- mile (250 km) Tudela \& Bilbao Railway, which crosses the Cantabrian Pyrenees at an altitude of 2,163 ft (659 m) above sea level. Vignoles outlived his most famous contemporaries to become the grand old man of his profession.

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See also: Samuda, Joseph d'Aguilar

[frɒm, frəm, Am frɑ:m, frəm] prep

1) ( off) von +dat;

please get me that letter \from the table gib mir bitte den Brief von dem Tisch;

( out of) aus +dat;

he took a handkerchief \from his pocket er nahm ein Taschentuch aus seiner Hosentasche after vb

I'm so happy that the baby eats \from the table already ich bin so froh, dass das Baby jetzt schon am Tisch isst

2) ( as seen from) von dat... [aus];

you can see the island \from here von hier aus kann man die Insel sehen; ( fig)

she was talking \from her own experience of the problem sie sprach aus eigener Erfahrung mit dem Problem;

\from sb's point of view aus jds Sicht

3) after vb ( as starting location) von +dat;

the wind comes \from the north der Wind kommt von Norden;

a flight leaving \from the nearest airport ein Flug vom nächstgelegenen Flughafen after n

the flight \from Amsterdam der Flug von Amsterdam;

the water bubbled out \from the spring das Wasser sprudelte aus der Quelle;

\from sth to sth ( between places) von etw dat nach etw dat;

my dad goes often \from Washington to Florida mein Vater reist oft von Washington nach Florida;

( indicating desultoriness) von etw dat in etw dat;

the woman walked \from room to room die Frau lief vom einen Raum in den anderen

4) ( as starting time) von +dat, ab +dat;

the price will rise by 3p a litre \from tomorrow der Preis steigt ab morgen um 3 Pence pro Liter;

\from the thirteenth century aus dem dreizehnten Jahrhundert;

\from sth to sth von etw dat bis etw dat;

the show will run \from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. die Show dauert von 10.00 Uhr bis 14.00 Uhr;

\from start to finish vom Anfang bis zum Ende;

\from day to day von Tag zu Tag, täglich;

her strength improved steadily \from day to day sie wurden jeden Tag ein bisschen stärker;

\from hour to hour von Stunde zu Stunde, stündlich;

\from time to time von Zeit zu Zeit, ab und zu;

\from that day [or time] on[wards] von diesem Tag [an], seitdem;

they were friends \from that day on seit diesem Tag sind sie Freunde;

\from now/ then on von da an, seither;

as \from... ( esp Brit) ab... +dat;

as \from 1 January, a free market will be created ab dem 1. Januar haben wir einen freien Markt

5) ( as starting condition) bei +dat;

prices start \from £2.99 die Preise beginnen bei 2,99 Pfund;

\from sth to sth von etw dat auf etw dat;

the number has risen \from 25 to 200 in three years die Anzahl ist in drei Jahren von 25 auf 200 gestiegen;

she translated into German \from the Latin text sie übersetzte aus dem Lateinischen ins Deutsche;

things went \from bad to worse die Situation wurde noch schlimmer;

\from strength to strength immer besser;

she has gone \from strength to strength sie eilte von Erfolg zu Erfolg;

tickets will cost \from $10 to $45 die Karten kosten zwischen $10 und $45;

\from soup to nuts alles zusammen;

the whole dinner, \from soup to nuts, costs $55 das ganze Essen mit allem drum und dran kostet $55;

anything \from geography to history alles von A bis Z

6) after n ( at distance to) von +dat;

we're about a mile \from home wir sind ca. eine Meile von zu Hause entfernt;

a day's walk \from her camping spot eine Tageswanderung von ihrem Zeltplatz;

\from sth to sth von etw dat zu etw dat;

it's about two kilometres \from the airport to your hotel der Flughafen ist rund zwei Kilometer vom Hotel entfernt

7) ( originating in)

\from sth aus +dat;

though \from working-class parents, he made it to the Fortune 500 list obwohl er als Arbeiterkind aufwuchs, ist er heute unter den 500 Reichsten der Welt;

my mother is \from France meine Mutter stammt aus Frankreich;

I'm \from New York ich komme aus New York;

daylight comes \from the sun das Tageslicht kommt von der Sonne

8) after vb ( in temporary location) von +dat, aus +dat;

he hasn't returned \from work yet er ist noch nicht von der Arbeit zurück;

she called him \from the hotel sie rief mich aus dem Hotel an after adj

they're here fresh \from the States sie sind gerade aus den USA angekommen after n

his return \from the army was celebrated seine Rückkehr aus der Armee wurde gefeiert;

sb \from sth von +dat;

they sent someone \from the local newspaper sie schickten jemanden von der örtlichen Zeitung

9) after vb ( as source) von +dat;

can I borrow $10 \from you? kann ich mir 10 Dollar von dir leihen?;

the vegetables come \from an organic farm das Gemüse kommt von einem Biobauernhof after n

sth \from sb [to sb/sth] etw von jdm (für jdn/etw);

I wonder who this card is \from ich frage mich, von wem wohl diese Karte ist;

this is a present \from me to you das ist ein Geschenk von mir für dich

10) ( made of)

\from sth aus etw dat;

the seats are made \from leather die Sitze sind aus Leder after n

in America, most people buy toys \from plastic in Amerika kaufen die meisten Leute Spielzeug aus Plastik

11) after vb ( removed from) aus +dat;

to extract usable fuel \from crude oil verwertbaren Brennstoff aus Rohöl gewinnen;

they took the child \from its parents sie nahmen das Kind von seinen Eltern weg after adj

he knows right \from wrong er kann gut und böse unterscheiden;

sth [subtracted] \from sth math etw minus etw dat;

three \from sixteen is thirteen sechzehn minus drei ist dreizehn

12) ( considering) aufgrund +gen, wegen +gen;

to conclude \from the evidence that aufgrund des Beweismaterials zu dem Schluss kommen, dass;

to make a conclusion from sth wegen etw gen zu einem Schluss kommen;

information obtained \from papers and books Informationen aus Zeitungen und Büchern;

\from looking at the clouds, I would say it's going to rain wenn ich mir die Wolken so ansehe, würde ich sagen, es wird Regen geben

13) after vb ( caused by) an +dat;

he died \from his injuries er starb an seinen Verletzungen;

she suffers \from arthritis sie leidet unter Arthritis;

to do sth \from sth etw aus etw dat tun;

he did it \from jealousy er hat es aus Eifersucht getan;

to do sth \from doing sth etw durch etw akk tun;

she made her fortune \from investing in property sie hat ihr Vermögen durch Investitionen in Grundstücke gemacht after adj

to get sick \from salmonella sich akk mit Salmonellen infizieren after n

to reduce the risk \from radiation das Risiko einer Verstrahlung reduzieren;

they got a lot of happiness \from hearing the news sie haben sich über die Neuigkeiten unheimlich gefreut

14) after vb ( indicating protection) vor +dat;

to guard sb \from sth jdn vor etw dat schützen;

they insulated their house \from the cold sie dämmten ihr Haus gegen die Kälte after n

they found shelter \from the storm sie fanden Schutz vor dem Sturm

15) after vb ( indicating prevention) vor +dat;

the truth was kept \from the public die Wahrheit wurde vor der Öffentlichkeit geheim gehalten;

the bank loan saved her company \from bankruptcy das Bankdarlehen rettete die Firma vor der Pleite;

he saved him \from death er rettete ihm das Leben;

he has been banned \from driving for six months er darf sechs Monate lang nicht Auto fahren;

\from doing sth von etw dat;

he boss tried to discourage her \from looking for a new job ihr Chef versuchte, sie davon abzubringen, nach einem neuen Job zu suchen

16) after vb ( indicating distinction) von +dat;

conditions vary \from one employer to another die Bedingungen sind von Arbeitgeber zu Arbeitgeber unterschiedlich;

he knows his friends \from his enemies er kann seine Freunde von seinen Feinden unterscheiden after adj

his opinion could hardly be more different \from mine unsere Meinungen können kaum noch unterschiedlicher sein

\from the bottom of one's heart aus tiefstem Herzen

(1929-1987)

   Balladeer, singer, poet, musician, composer, and teacher. Known to the public simply as "Zeca" or "José Afonso," he was a student poet, singer, and musician in the 1950s, and premier interpreter of Coimbra fado, creator of a new school of fado music, and leader of a reform movement in popular music. Using his distinctive musical compositions, appealing baritone singing voice, and iconoclastic lyrics of resistance to tyranny, Afonso Santos employed his poetic and musical gifts as instruments of resistance and opposition to the enduring Estado Novo. Two recorded songs became early shots in this war: Balada de Outono (Autumn's Ballad) and Menino d'Oiro (Golden Boy). With diverse, subversive meanings usually disguised in allegory, his lyrics and style eschewed the traditional Coimbra fado's fare of broad sentiment and unrequited love. Instead, Afonso presented new ballads with contemporary resonance. In the mid-1960s, when so many Portuguese youth were drafted and mobilized for Portugal's colonial wars in Africa, he lived and taught school in Mozambique, where he organized opposition to the regime. Later in that colony, he was arrested by the PIDE.

   After his return to Portugal, Afonso's reputation as a rebel ballad-eer grew; among his most celebrated recorded ballads were Cantigas de Maio (Songs of May, 1971) and Venham Mais Cinco (Five More Came, 1973). His famous revolutionary, rallying song, Grândola, Vila Morena, banned by the Estado Novo before 1974, became the single most famous piece of Portuguese revolutionary music in the second half of the 20th century. Grândola featured Afonso's voice and lyrics and expressed a clearly leftist ideology and resistance to tyranny, to the background sounds of marching feet growing louder. Selected by the coup planners of the Armed Forces Movement as a signal for action, a secret password sign to be played over Lisbon radio at about midnight on 24/25 April 1974, this remarkable song acquired new fame and a place in history as both an actual signal for rebel military operations to begin and an enduring revolutionary rallying cry. After the Revolution of 25 April 1974, Grândola became the most potent symbol of the move to topple the Estado Novo and open the way for profound change, as well as a musical icon, equaled only by the iconographic red carnation. The first stanza of Afonso's lyrics, translated from the Portuguese, is: Grândola, dark-brown town, Homeland of Brotherhood The people have more power within you, oh city....

(1910-1996)

   Senior army general, hero of Portugal's wars of African insurgency, and first president of the provisional government after the Revolution of 25 April 1974. A career army officer who became involved in politics after a long career of war service and administration overseas, Spinola had a role in the 1974 coup and revolution that was somewhat analogous to that of General Gomes da Costa in the 1926 coup.

   Spinola served in important posts as a volunteer in Portugal's intervention in the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), a military observer on the Russian front with the Third Reich's armed forces in World War II, and a top officer in the Guarda Nacional Republicana (GNR). His chief significance in contemporary affairs, however, came following his military assignments and tours of duty in Portugal's colonial wars in Africa after 1961.

   Spinola fought first in Angola and later in Guinea- Bissau, where, during 1968-73, he was both commanding general of Portugal's forces and high commissioner (administrator of the territory). His Guinean service tour was significant for at least two reasons: Spinola's dynamic influence upon a circle of younger career officers on his staff in Guinea, men who later joined together in the Armed Forces Movement (MFA), and Spinola's experience of failure in winning the Guinea war militarily or finding a political means for compromise or negotiation with the Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC), the African insurgent movement that had fought a war with Portugal since 1963, largely in the forested tropical interior of the territory. Spinola became discouraged after failure to win permission to negotiate secretly for a political solution to the war with the PAIGC and was reprimanded by Prime Minister Marcello Caetano.

   After his return—not in triumph—from Guinea in 1973, Spinola was appointed chief of staff of the armed forces, but he resigned in a dispute with the government. With the assistance of younger officers who also had African experience of costly but seemingly endless war, Spinola wrote a book, Portugal and the Future, which was published in February 1974, despite official censorship and red tape. Next to the Bible and editions of Luís de Camoes's The Lusi- ads, Spinola's controversial book was briefly the best-selling work in Portugal's modern age. While not intimately involved with the budding conspiracy among career army majors, captains, and others, Spinola was prepared to head such a movement, and the planners depended on his famous name and position as senior army officer with the right credentials to win over both military and civil opinion when and where it counted.

   When the Revolution of 25 April 1974 succeeded, Spinola was named head of the Junta of National Salvation and eventually provisional president of Portugal. Among the military revolutionaries, though, there was wide disagreement about the precise goals of the revolution and how to achieve them. Spinola's path-breaking book had subtly proposed three new goals: the democratization of authoritarian Portugal, a political solution to the African colonial wars, and liberalization of the economic system. The MFA immediately proclaimed, not coincidentally, the same goals, but without specifying the means to attain them.

   The officers who ran the newly emerging system fell out with Spinola over many issues, but especially over how to decolonize Portugal's besieged empire. Spinola proposed a gradualist policy that featured a free referendum by all colonial voters to decide between a loose federation with Portugal or complete independence. MFA leaders wanted more or less immediate decolonization, a transfer of power to leading African movements, and a pullout of Portugal's nearly 200,000 troops in three colonies. After a series of crises and arguments, Spinola resigned as president in September 1974. He conspired for a conservative coup to oust the leftists in power, but the effort failed in March 1975, and Spinola was forced to flee to Spain and then to Brazil. Some years later, he returned to Portugal, lived in quiet retirement, and could be seen enjoying horseback riding. In the early 1980s, he was promoted to the rank of marshal, in retirement.

SUBJECT AREA: Weapons and armour

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The son of a textile manufacturer, as a youth Colt displayed an interest in chemistry, largely through bleaching and dyeing processes used in his father's business, and lectured to lay audiences on it. In 1832 he took ship as a deckhand on a voyage to India; the concept of the revolver is supposed to have come to him from watching the ship's wheel.

Upon his return to the USA he described the idea to the US Patent Office, but did not register it until four years later, having taken out patents in Britain and France during a visit to Europe in 1835. He formed a company to manufacture his invention, but it failed in 1842. Even so, note had been taken of his weapon, and in 1846, upon the outbreak of the war with Mexico, the US Government placed an order for his revolver that was executed by the Eli Whitney arms factory in his native Hartford. Thereafter Colt set up another company, this time successfully. He also took an interest in other fields, experimenting with a submarine battery and electrically detonated mines, and opened a submarine telegraph between New York and Coney Island in 1843.

SUBJECT AREA: Broadcasting, Electronics and information technology

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Zworykin studied engineering at the Institute of Technology in St Petersburg under Boris Rosing, assisting the latter with his early experiments with television. After graduating in 1912, he spent a time doing X-ray research at the Collège de France in Paris before returning to join the Russian Marconi Company, initially in St Petersburg and then in Moscow. On the outbreak of war in 1917, he joined the Russian Army Signal Corps, but when the war ended in the chaos of the Revolution he set off on his travels, ending up in the USA, where he joined the Westinghouse Corporation. There, in 1923, he filed the first of many patents for a complete system of electronic television, including one for an all-electronic scanning pick-up tube that he called the iconoscope. In 1924 he became a US citizen and invented the kinescope, a hard-vacuum cathode ray tube (CRT) for the display of television pictures, and the following year he patented a camera tube with a mosaic of photoelectric elements and gave a demonstration of still-picture TV. In 1926 he was awarded a PhD by the University of Pittsburgh and in 1928 he was granted a patent for a colour TV system.

In 1929 he embarked on a tour of Europe to study TV developments; on his return he joined the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) as Director of the Electronics Research Group, first at Camden and then Princeton, New Jersey. Securing a budget to develop an improved CRT picture tube, he soon produced a kinescope with a hard vacuum, an indirectly heated cathode, a signal-modulation grid and electrostatic focusing. In 1933 an improved iconoscope camera tube was produced, and under his direction RCA went on to produce other improved types of camera tube, including the image iconoscope, the orthicon and image orthicon and the vidicon. The secondary-emission effect used in many of these tubes was also used in a scintillation radiation counter. In 1941 he was responsible for the development of the first industrial electron microscope, but for most of the Second World War he directed work concerned with radar, aircraft fire-control and TV-guided missiles.

After the war he worked for a time on high-speed memories and medical electronics, becoming Vice-President and Technical Consultant in 1947. He "retired" from RCA and was made an honorary vice-president in 1954, but he retained an office and continued to work there almost up until his death; he also served as Director of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research from 1954 until 1962.

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See also: Baird, John Logie; Farnsworth, Philo Taylor; Jenkins, Charles Francis

(1502-1574)

   Portuguese Renaissance humanist writer, cosmopolite, diplomat, and royal servant. The son of a Portuguese noble father and a mother of Flemish descent, De Góis was widely traveled in Europe and studied for four years at the University of Padua, Italy. Later, he became associated with Martin Luther and Erasmus. For a period, he settled in Louvain. For a while in Antwerp, De Góis was employed at the Portuguese Factory. After his return to Portugal and his authorship of the famous Crônica dedicated to King Manuel I, he was persecuted by conservative, jealous nobles as well as by the Portuguese Inquisition. As a writer, correspondent, and lay humanist, De Góis, although a late student of Latin, cultivated the use of Latin in his extensive correspondence with other humanists, such as Erasmus, as well as in his historical works. Arrested by the Inquisition in 1571 and accused of heterodoxy, De Góis died at his home some years later, under mysterious circumstances.

SUBJECT AREA: Civil engineering, Ports and shipping

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Following education at the Royal High School of Edinburgh, Bell served an apprenticeship with a Mr Bertram, engineer and shipwright of Leith, before continuing as a regular pupil with Bell and Miller, the well-known civil engineers of Glasgow. A short period at Pelton Colliery in County Durham followed, and then at the early age of 20 Bell was appointed Resident Engineer on the construction of the Meadowside Graving Dock in Glasgow.

The Meadowside Dry Dock was opened on 28 January 1858 and was a remarkable act of faith by the proprietors Messrs Tod and McGregor, one of the earliest companies in iron shipbuilding in the British Isles. It was the first dry dock in the City of Glasgow and used the mouth of the river Kelvin for canting ships; at the time the dimensions of 144×19×5.5m depth were regarded as quite daring. This dock was to remain in regular operation for nearly 105 years and is testimony to the skills of Imrie Bell and his colleagues.

In the following years he worked for the East India Railway Company, where he was in charge of the southern half of the Jumna Railway Bridge at Allahabad, before going on to other exciting civil engineering contracts in India. On his return home, Bell became Engineer to Leith Docks, and three years later he became Executive Engineer to the States of Jersey, where he constructed St Helier's Harbour and the lighthouse at La Corbiere—the first in Britain to be built with Portland cement. In 1878 he rejoined his old firm of Bell and Miller, and ultimately worked from their Westminster office. One of his last jobs in Scotland was supervising the building of the Great Western Road Bridge in Glasgow, one of the beautiful bridges in the West End of the city.

Bell retired from business in 1898 and lived in Surrey for the rest of his life.

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SUBJECT AREA: Chemical technology

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Bunsen's father was Librarian and Professor of Linguistics at Göttingen University and Bunsen himself studied chemistry there. Obtaining his doctorate at the age of only 19, he travelled widely, meeting some of the leading chemists of the day and visiting many engineering works. On his return he held various academic posts, finally as Professor of Chemistry at Heidelberg in 1852, a post he held until his retirement in 1889.

During 1837–41 Bunsen studied a series of compounds shown to contain the cacodyl (CH3)2As-group or radical. The elucidation of the structure of these compounds gave support to the radical theory in organic chemistry and earned him fame, but it also cost him the sight of an eye and other ill effects resulting from these dangerous and evil-smelling substances. With the chemist Gustav Robert Kirchhoff (1824–87), Bunsen pioneered the use of spectroscopy in chemical analysis from 1859, and with its aid he discovered the elements caesium and rubidium. He developed the Bunsen cell, a zinc-carbon primary cell, with which he isolated a number of alkali and other metals by electrodeposition from solution or electrolysis of fused chlorides.

Bunsen's main work was in chemical analysis, in the course of which he devised some important laboratory equipment, such as a filter pump. The celebrated Bunsen gas burner was probably devised by his technician Peter Desdega. During 1838–44 Bunsen applied his methods of gas analysis to the study of the gases produced by blast furnaces for the production of cast iron. He demonstrated that no less than 80 per cent of the heat was lost during smelting, and that valuable gaseous by-products, such as ammonia, were also lost. Lyon Playfair in England was working along similar lines, and in 1848 the two men issued a paper, "On the gases evolved from iron furnaces", to draw attention to these drawbacks.

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SUBJECT AREA: Land transport, Railways and locomotives, Steam and internal combustion engines

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Orphaned as a child, Hamilton went to work for Southern Pacific Railroad in his teens, and then worked for several other companies. In his spare time he learned mathematics and physics from a retired professor. In 1911 he joined the White Motor Company, makers of road motor vehicles in Denver, Colorado, where he had gone to recuperate from malaria. He remained there until 1922, apart from an eighteenth-month break for war service.

Upon his return from war service, Hamilton found White selling petrol-engined railbuses with mechanical transmission, based on road vehicles, to railways. He noted that they were not robust enough and that the success of petrol railcars with electric transmission, built by General Electric since 1906, was limited as they were complex to drive and maintain. In 1922 Hamilton formed, and became President of, the Electro- Motive Engineering Corporation (later Electro-Motive Corporation) to design and produce petrol-electric rail cars. Needing an engine larger than those used in road vehicles, yet lighter and faster than marine engines, he approached the Win ton Engine Company to develop a suitable engine; in addition, General Electric provided electric transmission with a simplified control system. Using these components, Hamilton arranged for his petrol-electric railcars to be built by the St Louis Car Company, with the first being completed in 1924. It was the beginning of a highly successful series. Fuel costs were lower than for steam trains and initial costs were kept down by using standardized vehicles instead of designing for individual railways. Maintenance costs were minimized because Electro-Motive kept stocks of spare parts and supplied replacement units when necessary. As more powerful, 800 hp (600 kW) railcars were produced, railways tended to use them to haul trailer vehicles, although that practice reduced the fuel saving. By the end of the decade Electro-Motive needed engines more powerful still and therefore had to use cheap fuel. Diesel engines of the period, such as those that Winton had made for some years, were too heavy in relation to their power, and too slow and sluggish for rail use. Their fuel-injection system was erratic and insufficiently robust and Hamilton concluded that a separate injector was needed for each cylinder.

In 1930 Electro-Motive Corporation and Winton were acquired by General Motors in pursuance of their aim to develop a diesel engine suitable for rail traction, with the use of unit fuel injectors; Hamilton retained his position as President. At this time, industrial depression had combined with road and air competition to undermine railway-passenger business, and Ralph Budd, President of the Chicago, Burlington \& Quincy Railroad, thought that traffic could be recovered by way of high-speed, luxury motor trains; hence the Pioneer Zephyr was built for the Burlington. This comprised a 600 hp (450 kW), lightweight, two-stroke, diesel engine developed by General Motors (model 201 A), with electric transmission, that powered a streamlined train of three articulated coaches. This train demonstrated its powers on 26 May 1934 by running non-stop from Denver to Chicago, a distance of 1,015 miles (1,635 km), in 13 hours and 6 minutes, when the fastest steam schedule was 26 hours. Hamilton and Budd were among those on board the train, and it ushered in an era of high-speed diesel trains in the USA. By then Hamilton, with General Motors backing, was planning to use the lightweight engine to power diesel-electric locomotives. Their layout was derived not from steam locomotives, but from the standard American boxcar. The power plant was mounted within the body and powered the bogies, and driver's cabs were at each end. Two 900 hp (670 kW) engines were mounted in a single car to become an 1,800 hp (l,340 kW) locomotive, which could be operated in multiple by a single driver to form a 3,600 hp (2,680 kW) locomotive. To keep costs down, standard locomotives could be mass-produced rather than needing individual designs for each railway, as with steam locomotives. Two units of this type were completed in 1935 and sent on trial throughout much of the USA. They were able to match steam locomotive performance, with considerable economies: fuel costs alone were halved and there was much less wear on the track. In the same year, Electro-Motive began manufacturing diesel-electrie locomotives at La Grange, Illinois, with design modifications: the driver was placed high up above a projecting nose, which improved visibility and provided protection in the event of collision on unguarded level crossings; six-wheeled bogies were introduced, to reduce axle loading and improve stability. The first production passenger locomotives emerged from La Grange in 1937, and by early 1939 seventy units were in service. Meanwhile, improved engines had been developed and were being made at La Grange, and late in 1939 a prototype, four-unit, 5,400 hp (4,000 kW) diesel-electric locomotive for freight trains was produced and sent out on test from coast to coast; production versions appeared late in 1940. After an interval from 1941 to 1943, when Electro-Motive produced diesel engines for military and naval use, locomotive production resumed in quantity in 1944, and within a few years diesel power replaced steam on most railways in the USA.

Hal Hamilton remained President of Electro-Motive Corporation until 1942, when it became a division of General Motors, of which he became Vice-President.

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