Lighting the Town

938 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE developers of both turbines and hydroelectric plants; a number involved Swiss and U.S. engineers. Swiss manufacturers such as Sulzer-Escher Wyss produced some of the best turbines in the world. Schnitter reminds us that Swiss contributions to the science of hydraulics were extraordinarily numerous for such a small country. Among the outstanding pioneers were Johann Bernoulli and Daniel Bernoulli, Leonhard Euler, Wilhelm Rudolf Kutter, and Emile Oscar Ganguillet. Such institutions as the ETZ (Eidgenossischen Technischen Hochschule) Zurich were in the forefront of studies in soil mechanics, sediment transport, and stress analysis of dams. In several of these areas, Swiss and American hydraulic engineers engaged in fruitful exchanges that produced both theoretical and practical advances. In the post-World War II era, new understanding of stress analysis and new building techniques allowed the construction of ever higher dams. The highest gravity dam in the world remains the 285-meter-high Grand Dixence, completed in 1961. While Schnitter uses no archival sources, his bibliography includes an impressive number of secondary sources. Occasionally the book reads more like an engineering reference work than an analytical history, but Schnitter clearly understands that engineering advances must be seen in political and social context. More needs to be written on the connections between water-resources developments and larger social issues in Switzerland, but this should not diminish the signifi­ cance of Schnitter’s contribution. Indeed, it is unfortunate that in many other countries the history of hydraulic engineering remains fragmented, without the benefit of someone like Niklaus Schnitter to begin the task of synthesis and analysis. Martin Reuss Dr. Reuss is a senior historian with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. He specializes in the history of water resources and hydraulic engineering and recently edited a collection of essays, Water Resources Administration in the United States: Policy, Practice, and Emerging Issues (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1993). Lighting the Toum: A Study of Management in the North West Gas Industry, 1805—1880. By John F. Wilson. London: Paul Chapman, 1991. Pp. xii + 240; illustrations, notes, appendixes, bibliography, index. $45.00. Northwest of London lies “the cradle of Britain’s industrial revo­ lution” (p. 2). In this setting, where an urban population confronted industrial expansion, John Wilson presents a highly detailed and well-documented economic study of a nascent gas industry. Although gas did not have the significance of other utilities that emerged during the same era, canals and railroads in particular, it nonetheless would become part of the lives of millions. Gas, Wilson contends, was the key to the area’s industrial success. TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 939 Though few people grasped the potential of gas in the first years of the 19th century, by the second decade enough was understood to encourage its use for illumination and to support the founding of the first municipal gas company. The technology spread outward, from London where it began, to communities like those in the North West (Manchester and its environs), primarily because of the interest of factory and mill owners. Unlike candles and oil lamps, gas was an economical and safe method of lighting. Individual isolated works met each factory’s needs. In cases where gas was produced in excess, owners discovered that overage could be profitable when sold to the adjoining town. Ultimately the move to form municipal systems arose from the public desire to share in the obvious benefits of the new light source. With no history of public utilities from which to learn or on which to build, the industry literally was being crafted with each new installation. To fund these enterprises it was necessary to embrace the idea of a joint stock company where investors provided the needed capital in return for a percentage of the profits, if any. Only after the government accepted the concept of limited liability was the onus to investment removed. Technical expertise came from those who built the gasworks in London. Savants by virtue of their experience, they were fundamental to a contractor system for works installations in other places. It was these outside professionals who were hired to install the local systems in the North West. A

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