FOR about six years during the construction of the East River Bridge, and for about two years as engineer of the Department of Tests and Experiments of Fairbanks & Co. of New York, the author has been engaged in developing and applying methods of testing the strength of materials. This volume explains such of his most successful methods as seem likely to be generally useful and interesting. A larger and perhaps more useful volume might have been made by extending its scope to embrace untried theories, but he has preferred to limit it to describing methods and ma chines in actual use. The volume opens with a brief history of what had been accomplished in this branch of engineering before the author became interested in it. Then follows an exposition of improvements that he has |