Engineering is not, as some are mistakenly apt to imagine, a comparatively recent introduction into Cambridge curricula. Professor William Farish, B.D. of Magdalene, Jacksonian Professor and our first President, contributed the first paper in Vol. I of our Transactions, “On Isometrical Perspective,” a method of which he appears to be the inventor. The reason for the invention he explains. He was evidently teaching engineering—or applied mechanics—so he wanted numerous models of machines and “would have found it difficult to procure a warehouse large enough to contain them.” So he obtained a number of interchangeable parts: loose brass wheels all gearing together, pulleys, axles, bars and frames from which different models could be built up, in fact he invented the forerunner of Meccano and all its competitors. His assistants needed drawings showing them how to assemble the parts for these different models, and he devised this very simple and readily comprehensible method for making such drawings.