Note 88 — PAPER 27

Robert H. Smith, "A New Graphic Analysis of the Kinematics of Mechanisms," Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 1882-1885, vol. 32, pp. 507-517, and pl. 82. Smith used this paper as the basis for a chapter in his Graphics or the Art of Calculating by Drawing Lines, London, 1889, pp. 144-162. In a footnote of his paper, Smith credited Fleeming Jenkin (1833-1885) with suggesting the term "image." After discarding as "practically useless" Kennedy's graphical differentiation, Smith complained that he had "failed to find any practical use" for Reuleaux's "method of centroids, more properly called axoids." Such statements were not calculated to encourage Kennedy and Reuleaux to advertise Smith's fame; however, I found no indication that either one took offense at the criticism. Smith's velocity and acceleration diagrams were included (apparently embalmed, so far as American engineers were concerned) in Encyclopaedia Britannica, ed. 11, 1910, vol. 17, pp. 1008-1009.