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Thurston, Robert Henry

was born Oct. 25, 1839, in Providence, R. I.

He was trained in the workshops of his father, Robert Lawton Thurston, and graduated from Brown university in 1859. In 1861 he entered the navy as an officer of engineers and served during the civil war on various vessels.

In 1865 he was detailed as assistant professor of natural and experimental philosophy at the United States naval academy of Annapolis, where he also acted as lecturer of chemistry and physics. In 1870 he visited Europe for the purpose of studying the British iron manufacturing districts, and in 1871 was appointed professor of mechanical engineering at the Stevens institute of Technology; and has written numerous papers on technical subjects, which have appeared in scientific journals in Europe and America. In 1878 he was made vice-president of the American Institute of Mining Engineers, and is at present director of the Sibley college, Cornell university, dean of the faculty and professor of mechanical engineering. He is the author of Friction and Lubrication; Manual of the Steam Engine; Manual of Steam Boilers; Engine and Boiler Trials; History of the Growth of the Steam Engine; Materials of Engineering; Friction and Lost Work; Steam-Boiler Explosions in Theory and Practice; Heat as a Form of Energy; and Robert Fulton, His Life and Its Results.

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