Pearson K. The Elastical Researches of Barre de Saint-Venant

Karl Pearson, M.A. — Cambridge: Clay and sons, Cambridge University Press warehouse, Ave Maria line, 1889. — 364 p.Il appartenait a cette noble race d'esprits tout a la fois force, ornement et consolation de notre espece, qui, ensemble ou isoles, laissent apres eux, dans 1'histoire, une trainee lumineuse, a laquelle s'allument sans cesse de nouvelles intelligences, pour former un courant toujours plus vaste de vraie et haute civilisation.
The University of Cambridge through the Committee formed in the Old Country to aid in replacing the loss caused by the Disastrous Fire.
THE portion of the second volume of the History of Elasticity now published as an extract is devoted solely to the later re-searches of Saint-Venant. It may appear to the reader that an undue amount of space has been allotted to this one scientist, but it must be remembered that these researches extend over a period of thirty-five years, and in a certain sense contain in themselves the history of elasticity during those years. Their importance arises not only from what they themselves contribute to our subject, but from the fact that so much of the important work of the last three decades has been suggested by or has followed the lines of Saint-Venant's papers. The contributions of such elasticians as Kirchhoff and Clebsch, as Boussinesq and Levy to both elasticity and plasticity frequently take their starting point from an idea of Saint-Venant's, while a host of minor memoirs help to fill up the gaps in his work. Thus our Chapter X. may be taken as the frame, the stoutness and solidity of which will enable us the more readily to build up the remainder of our history. By explaining the ideas, definitions and methods of the modern science of elasticity, it allows of a more succinct and orderly account of the contemporary work.