Page:Engineering as a vocation (IA cu31924004245605).pdf/33

 pleasingly." To build pleasingly the material must be recognized. The long spans of Grecian architraves were possible with the strong stone used by the Greeks and imitations in the weaker limestones and sandstones of other countries were but imitations after all, beautiful as some were. The greatest buildings were erected and architecture made advances only when the engineer and architect worked together or were one and the same person. With the invention of the steelframed building, the introduction of reinforced concrete and structural tile, all due to the engineer, architecture has been reborn and the moderns, in America, at least, are developing styles which will some day eventuate in something as good as the Greek pillar and lintel, the arch of the Etruscans and Romans and the pillared vaults of the Goths. Since the engineer has joined hands with the unwilling architect there is no limit to the possibilities of realizing dreams and embodying them in lasting materials.

The old-time civil engineer also improved rivers and harbors and constructed canals. This ends the list of his achievements. He, of course, had to know how to make surveys so he could lay out his work and make estimates of cost and prepare plans. It is well known that the science of geometry arose from the necessity for recovering land lines and boundaries buried in the mud at the times of the annual rises of the Nile. The