Prideaux Syme (1 results)

soft cover. Condition: very good. [London, privately printed] 1857. Octavo disbound; 16pp. Inscribed 'With the Author's Compts.' This is not, as one might hope, the rant of a thwarted crackpot. Prideaux was a well established and well regarded engineer but there is no less bile and fury here for all that. This close account of the scurrilous and fraudulent behavior of those controlling the tests and their inexplicable loyalty to the current equipment is unweighted by too much technical data fortunately and we can read it as an entertaining and telling example of frustrating intransigence in the way of progress. Prideaux ends by offering to equip the navy with his invention without charge and take two years saving in costs as renumeration for the cost of fitting and as payment for the patent. At the end are testimonies including one by the Captain of the Imperieuse (who was not part of the conspiracy) and a couple of engineering heavyweights - Charles May and William Fairbairn.…