Welcome to "Wonders
of World Engineering",
the most interesting website in the whole world !!! Well, you may not actually
agree with this if you are not interested in how things were made - but if
you are then you've come to the right place.
This website contains articles taken from a magazine called "Wonders
Of World Engineering" published back in the 1930's. The articles range
from describing how the Golden Gate Bridge was built to how ball bearings
are made. The articles are scanned and presented in Djvu. This is a similar
format to Acrobat pdf. To view them you need to download the Djvu
plug-in viewer for your browser.
There were 53 issues in total. They were published weekly beginning March
2nd, 1937 and cost 7 pence each. Dont forget this was 7 "old" British
pence so that is equivalent to about 3 pence (or 0.03UKP) today (watch this
space for the Euro conversion!!).
Each issue was printed in black and white (monochrome) but they all had the
most wonderful colour covers illustrating one of the features found within.
Several cover illustrations are shown as "thumbnails" above. To
give you a flavour of their varied contents, here is a list of the articles
in issue 1 of the magazine:
If you want to know what "Giant of the Ether" is all about you'll have to take a look.
As mentioned previously there were 53 of these magazine published so scanning them all in and putting them up here will take quite a while. So be patient. When you click on the "Contents" button above you'll be presented with a huge contents list for the 52 issues. There is also a detailed Index which you can use to search.
You can search a page for a topic or subject by using <CTRL> F.
If the particular article that you would like to read has a hyperlink associated with it (i.e. underlined text) then it means that article has been published. If it isnt and you really would like to read it then please drop an email to "david@wow-engineering.co.uk" and it will be given due consideration. However the issues will normally be published in the same chronological order as they were back in 1937.
Obviously, all the stuff in these articles is nearly 70 years old. So you'd be correct in thinking that some of it is some of it is out of date. However when you stop and think about it, most things apart from electronics have not changed a lot. And most famous structures, be they the Empire State, Eiffel Tower, Hoover Dam, Tower Bridge, Battersea Power Station, or the Golden Gate were all built by then. Also, it is amazing to find out just how advanced engineering was even in the 19th Century. For example in issue 49 there is an article entitled Standards of Accuracy. In this article it describes a machine that was built back in 1852 that could write in text so small that it could reproduce the entire text of the Bible 49 times on a square inch !!!
There are also some very unique historical perspectives. For instance in issue 9 there is an article on Airship design that features the Hindenburg. Only two weeks after this issue was published the Hidenburg burst into flames and crashed at the end of its maiden voyage. There is also an article in issue 43 on Hydroplane Speed Records featuring Sir Malcolm Campbell who broke the world water-speed record on Coniston Water in 1935 with 142mph. We all know now that Sir Malcolm's son Donald was later killed in 1967 on the same stretch of water, trying to break his own water-speed record of 276mph.
So, whether it be Fire Engines or Grass Drying Machinery, Cotton Mills or Coal Mines, Harbours or Cathedrals, Water Softners or Windmills, Gold-Dredgers or Scottish Shale mining, these magazines have it all.
So take some time out
and enter the Wonderful World of Engineering .....