Professor Marks Helped to Perfect World War Tank

Lionel S. Marks Gordon Mckay professor of Mechanical Engineering, who will retire September 1, is not only a noted scientist, but has become a mountain climber, a great traveller, and an intimate of such figures as John Masefield, Thomas Hardy, and Julian Huxley.

"In the course of my life I have crossed the ocean about fifty times, principally to go mountain-climbing tin Switzerland, and I usually go to the West Indies about twice a year," stated Professor Marks, who can look back on 46 years of teaching at the University.

Writes Books

"Mu studies have run in cycles," he continued. "My interest is attracted to a subject; I become completely absorbed in it; and when my interest begins to wane I write a book on it telling all I've learned. Then I forget about it."

In this way the Professor produced the "Mechanical Engineer's Guidebook," the Bible of workers is this field, and "Airplane Engines," the result of his efforts during the World War.

Experiment With Guns

"While we were fighting, I was working with the bureau of aircraft production in Washington," Professor Marks reflected. My associates and I were planning a tank that would run under the Rhine and come up the other bank. We were also working on a machine gun that would five ten times faster than any before.

"Another thing we did was to find out why the old Liberty airplane engines of that day wouldn't run over fifteen thousand feet", Professor marks continued. "We did that by building a vacuum chamber where we could study the engine under actual condition of low-pressure, low-temperature altitude flying. We found out that the trouble was in the gas mixture, so we fixed that, and the planes afterwards could fly higher.