du choix des lignes à créer, la France n'ait pas d'autre préoccupation que celle de servir utilement les 'intérêts supérieurs' du pays." A Genève nous avons été heureux de recevoir ce témoignage emanant d'un millieu d'une autorité et d'une compétence telles. Le fait d'être à la fois une Chambre française et de représenter des intérêts français à Londres donne à ce jugement la valeur d'une sanction décisive. Il vient d'être confirmé d'ailleurs par une délibération judicieusement motiveé de la Chambre de Commerce françaisé de Milan. Messieurs,-Vous avez en Angleterre des économistes distingués, aussi, si cette conférence, quoique très imparfaite, pouvait mettre en lumière l'importance de ce nouveau projet de ligne internationale, et trouvait quelque écho dans ce pays où l'on possède à un si haut degré l'intelligence des affaires, je n'aurai qu' àme féliciter de la bienveillante attention que vous avez bien.voulu m'accorder. DISCUSSION. The CHAIRMAN, on behalf of the members, expressed their admiration of the clear and lucid way in which the author had brought the subject forward. Colonel Turrettini, whose photograph had been shown, was well known in London, baving been a member of the Commission appointed to determine the advisability of constructing the great engineering works at Niagara. The paper was an illustration of what might be called the peaceful war of nations. All the nations on the Continent were vieing with each other, and doing all they possibly could to expedite the transit between the West and the East. Not only would passengers save two very valuable hours, and travel in greater comfort, but the gigantic and increasing commerce between the East and West would be benefited by the shorter route, and India, Burma, Siam, China, and Japan would offer improved markets in the future to the Western manufacturers. A few of the novelties mentioned by Dr. Goegg were extremely interesting from an engineering point of view. The designers of the work had gone back to first principles. The first principle enunciated in this country by the great engineer who projected the railway system, George Stephenson, was that a line should be constructed, not as straight, but as level as possible, the reduction of gradients, even at the expense of distance, meaning often speed. All the lines laid out by George Stephenson, the London and Brighton, the London and Birmingham, the Liverpool and Manchester, and others possessed that characteristic, while the other lines of the country constructed during the great railway mania of 1845-6 were up hill and down dale, long, tedious, shaky, and uncomfortable. A new and most important principle in piercing high and long mountains had been introduced, viz., the construction of two tunnels instead of one. The great trouble in all long tunnels was the question of ventilation, which was very much exaggerated by two trains running in opposite directions through the tunnel. With two tunnels and one train always running in the same direction that problem would be considerably diminished. One point touched on which would probably attract much attention was the high temperature experienced in piercing the tunnel, i.e., 50° C. or 122° Fahr. The possibility of having to travel through such a temperature made one perspire at the very idea. Fortunately this temperature was only experienced while the tunnel was being constructed, and with good ventilation and cold water, of which there was a great abundance, the probability was it would not prove a serious difficulty, especially if, as suggested in the paper, the line was worked by electric traction. The great trouble in long tunnels at the present time was not so much the temperature but the fact that the air was saturated with the products of the combustion from the coal of the locomotive, and there were cases on record of drivers being asphyxiated by the nauseous atmosphere through which they had to pass. Electric traction, amongst its other immense advantages, would sweep away all such difficulties, with the result that not only would passengers have a shorter journey, but the comfort of travelling would be considerably increased. It had been stated that in the station at Rome there was a tablet erected to the memory of George Stephenson, who asserted that, in days of old, it was the motto of every Roman that all roads led to Rome, implying that now that Stephenson had shown what a railway could do the end would be that engineering science would again lead all roads to Rome. He was afraid, from what was said in the paper, that the Swiss would disappoint the Italians, for all roads would not lead to Rome, but away from Rome, and if they led anywhere it would be to Egypt. Prof. LE NEVE FOSTER, F.R.S., enquired whether Dr. Goegg was strictly correct in asserting that the rate of progress in driving the tunnel was seven, eight, or ten mètres a day. From his recollection of some figures he had seen at the Düsseldorf Exhibition, he believed the rate last year at the north end was about 6 metres, or 21 feet a day, a splendid rate of progress, but not so large as that mentioned. It was most interesting to notice from a mining point of view that one scourge of mining, silicious dust, a scourge which had produced dire effects in the Transvaal, had been remedied by the method of driving employed in the Simplon tunnel. By the use of a drill driven by hydraulic power, with a current of water continually running through it, no dust whatever was produced. He did not mean to assert that it would necessarily be advisable commercially to employ the same method of driving in the Transvaal, because that matter would have to be investigated on the spot, but it was well to know that a remedy had been found for so great an evil. Dealing wiih temperature, he thought Dr. Goegg would be able to state that 50° C. was not the temperature of the air in the tunnel in which the men were working, but that of the rock on the sides of the tunnel, the temperature in which the men worked being considerably less than that figure. There need not be the slightest apprehension of travelling through the tunnel on that score, because in India, the temperature in the railway cars often exceeded 100° Fahr. He thought civil engineers might be reminded that in ventilating by means of two separate tunnels, they were simply copying the old plan adopted by coal miners who, when they were driving their tunnels from the bottom of the shaft, drove two tunnels, thus obtaining ventilation. Dr. GOEGG, replying to Dr. Le Neve Foster in French, stated that, at the present moment, the average advance, taking both sides-the Italian and Swiss-together, was at the rate of 12 metres per day. The rock on the Italian side was, however, harder, and the rate of progress on that side was necessarily less, sometimes not exceeding three or four metres per day, thus reducing the average. With respect to the sanitary and other arrangements made for the welfare of the working population at the seat of the works, he stated that elaborate sanitary and hygienic appliances were vided, owing to which the general condition of health had lately improved in a remarkable degree. The ankylostomiasis which had been prevalent among the workers in the St. Gotthard tunnel was quite unknown among those of the Simplon. Strict rules as to cleanliness, baths, &c., were enforced, and excessive fatigue avoided; the men being expected to work only four hours a day. pro. Mr. JOHN LEIGHTON contrasted the inconveniences suffered by travellers in the heavy diligences, a few years ago, with the shorter and more comfortable journey which would be possible by the new route. M. EUGÈNE PAYART (speaking in French) said that the scheme which Dr. Goegg had described commanded his fullest sympathies and best wishes. Whilst cordially supporting Dr. Goegg he called attention to the fact that the scheme had already been referred to at the International Congress of Economic and Commercial Geography, which met at Paris, between August 27th and August 30th, 1900, by M. de Claparède, President of the Geneva Geographical Society, who described this new Simplon line as being "the shortest route between Paris and Milan." The line was to extend through the Jura by two tunnels, 11,400 metres and 15,200 metres in length, respectively, the maximum altitude being 559 metres. The speaker pointed out that the new line was not merely, as was then claimed to be, the most direct and rapid route between Paris and Milan, but that in reality it represented, as Dr. Goegg had self pointed out, a shortened route between the extreme points, Calais and Brindisi. Mr. LEON GASTER inquired what was the nature of the rock through which the tunnel was pierced, because it was a well-known fact that that had an influence on the temperature. Dr. GOEGG said that the rock was a species of granite known as Antigorio gneiss. In acknowledging the vote of thanks, he said that he had known of old how strong a tie of sympathy there had always existed between England and the town of Geneva, and that whenever it should be in his power to strengthen that bond of friendship he should always feel happy to take every opportunity of so doing. Obituary. SIR WILLIAM CHANDLER ROBERTS-AUSten, K.C.B., F.R.S.-The Society has again to record the loss of one of its most eminent and valued members in Sir William Roberts - Austen, who died on November 22nd, at his official residence in the Royal Mint, at the age of 59. He had been a member of the Society of Arts since 1890, and had served on the Council from 1891 till 1898, and again from 1900 up to the present time. Chandler Roberts, as he was then named, before he took the name of Austen in 1885, entered the Royal School of Mines in 1861, obtaining the Associateship in 1865. His first work was in association with Thomas Graham, the Master of the Mint, whose assistant he was from 1865 to 1869. He assisted Graham very ably in his later researches, and commenced at this period the important investigations in physical metallurgy which have only been interrupted by his death. In 1870 he was appointed chemist to the Mint, and in that capacity he was responsible for the standard fineness of over £117,000,000 of gold coin. In 1880 he succeeded Dr. Percy as Professor of Metallurgy at the Royal School of Mines, an appointment he continued to hold till the time of his death. The discharge, however, of the duties of these two appointments, laborious as they were, did not prevent his carrying on a long series of scientific investigations connected with physical metallurgy, of which the most important were his researches into the structure of metals and alloys, many researches having a most important bearing on their industrial uses. His experimental work on the diffusion of metals was equally brilliant He was the first to determine quantitatively the rate and amount of diffusion of one metal in another in a series of classical experiments on gold and lead. This formed the subject of the Bakerian lecture of the Royal Society in 1896. The results of this work were also published in a series of reports to the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, for it was at the instance of the Alloys Research Committee of that Institution that he first began, in the year 1890, to investigate the effects of small admixtures of certain elements on ths mechanical and physical properties of metals. It was while he was engaged in this research that he invented the Recording Pyrometer, an instrument which has proved of great value, not only for scientific investigation, but also for practical metallurgy. It is used in metallurgical works, not only for laboratory experiments, but for recording the temperature of flues, of annealing and other furnaces, and of the blast for blast furnaces. His capacity for work also led him to be constantly nominated as a member of departmental and other Committees. Amongst others, he served as Chairman of the Inland Revenue and Customs Laboratoriee Committee, as a member of the Board of Trade Committee on the Deterioration of Steel Rails in 1896, and of the National Physical Laboratory Committee in 1897; besides undertaking such public work as was implied by being a member of the Executive Committee of the Inventions Exhibition in 1885, of the Council of the British Section of the Paris Exhibition in 1889, and of the Royal Commission for the Chicago Exhibition in 1893. Indeed there can be little doubt that it was his devotion to this and other public duties which broke down his health, and ultimately caused his death. He was made a C.B. in 1890 and a K.C.B. in 1899. He was President of the Iron and Steel Institute (1899-1901), General Secretary of the British Association (1897-1902), Vice-President of the Chemical Society and of the Physical Society, of which he was one of the founders, Honorary Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers and of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. In 1893 he was elected by the Committee a member of the Athenæum Club for distinguished eminence in science, and in 1890 he received the Legion of Honour from the French Government. He was the author of an "Introduction to the Study of Metallurgy," and of many papers published in the Philosophical Transactions, the Journal of the Iron and Steel Institute, the Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, and the Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. The Society of Arts has benefited no less than the other Institutions with which he was connected from his energy and public spirit. His work on Alloys is ully recorded in the five series of Cantor lectures on that subject, of which the first was given in 1884 and the last in 1901, and in a somewhat more popular and less technical shape than in his various papers and lectures. He had it in contemplation to re-issue these in the form of a book. He also read two papers before the Society on "Alloys in Art Metal Work," and on "Rare Metals," besides one in association with Mrs. Lea Merritt on "Mural Painting." He was greatly liked by a large circle of friends, and his intimate associates will long miss the kindly genial humour which-especially in years before the pressure of work began to tell on a somewhat excitable and eager nature-brightened and enlivened all their intercourse with him. MEETINGS FOR THE ENSUING WEEK. MONDAY, DEC. 1...SOCIETY OF ARTS, John-street, Adelphi, W.C., 8 p.m. (Cantor Lectures.) Prof. Vivian B. Lewes, "The Future of Coal Gas and Allied Illuminants." (Lecture II.) Royal Institution, Albemarle-street, W., 5 p.m, General Monthly Meeting. Engineers, in the Theatre of the United Service In- Camera Club, Charing-cross-road, W.C., 81 p.m. London Institution, Finsbury-circus, E.C., 5 p.m. Dr. Hans Gadow, "Features of Animal Life in Southern Mexico. 2. Dr. Einar Lönnberg, "The Variation of the Elk." 3. Mr. W. F. Lanchester, "The Crustacea collected during the Skeat Expedition' to the Malay Peninsula," (Part II.) WEDNESDAY, DEC. 3...SOCIETY OF ARTS, John-street, Adelphi. W.C., 8 p.m. Mr. Alfred Watkins, "Some Aspects of Photographic Development." Geological, Burlington-house, W., 8 p.m. Royal Archæological Institute, 20, Hanover-square, W., 4 p.m. 1. Mr. C. R. Peers, "Benedictine Nunnery at Little Marlow." 2. Messrs. F. W. Reader and A. S. Kennard, "Pile Structures near London Wall." United Service Institution, Whitehall, S.W., 3 p.m• Mr. H. N. Sulivan, "The Use of Vertical Fire from the Sea against Ships and Dockyards." Entomological, 11, Chandos-street, W., 7 p.m. Archæological Association, 32, Sackville-street, W., 8 p.m. Obstetrical, 20, Hanover-square, W., 8 p.m. THURSDAY, DEC. 4...Royal, Burlington-house, W., 43 p.m. Antiquaries, Burlington-house, W., 83 p.m. Linnean, Burlington-house, W., 8 p.m. 1. Mr. G. C. Bourne, "New and rare Corals from Funafuti." 2. Mr. E. A. Newell Arber, "The Morphology of the Flowers and Fruits of the Xylosteum section of Lonicera. 3. Mr. C. B. Clarke, "Note on Carex Tolmiei, Boott." 4. Mr. C. With, "New and Old Phalangiodes from the Indian Peninsula." Chemical, Burlington-house, W., 8 p.m. 1. Mr. W. N. Hartley, "The Absorption Spectra of Metallic Nitrates." (Part II.) 2. Mr. H. Crompton, "The Specific Heats of Liquids." Mr. M. O. Forster, "Studies in the Camphane Series." (Part X.) "The constitntion of Enolic Benzoylcamphor." 4. Mr. M. O. Forster, "Note on the Isomeric Benzoyl Derivatives from Isomtrosocamphor." 5. Messrs. J. B. Cohen and H. D. Dakin, "The constitution of the Products of Nitration of Meta-acetoluidide." London Institution, Finsbury-circus, E.C., 6 p.m. Mr. R. Kerr, "Colour Photography." 3. Civil and Mechanical Engineers, Caxton-hall, West- FRIDAY, DEC. 5...Civil Engineers, 25, Great George-street, SATURDAY, DEC. 6... Waterworks Engineers, Geological Society's Rooms, Burlington-house, W., 10a.m. 1. Mr. W. H. Humphreys, "The Coating of Cast Iron Water Pipes." 2. Mr. T. Molyneux, "Description of Softening Plant at Wilmslow: Stockport Corporation Works." 3. Mr. John Shaw, "The Detection and Prevention of Underground Pollution," MONDAY, DECEMBER 8, 8 p.m. (Cantor Lecture.) PROFESSOR VIVIAN B. LEWES, "The Future of Coal Gas and Allied Illuminants." (Lecture III.) WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 10, 8 p.m. (Ordinary Meeting.) CLOUDESLEY BRERETON, "French Rural Education and its Lessons for England." THURSDAY, DECEMBER II, 4.30 p.m. (Indian Section.) Miss ELLA C. SYKES, Domestic Life in Persia." Further details of the Society's meetings will be found at the end of this number. JUVENILE LECTURES. The usual short course of lectures adapted for a juvenile audience will be delivered on Wednesday afternoons, December 31st and January 7th, at 5 o'clock, by Professor EDWARD B. POULTON, M.A., D.Sc., F.R.S. (Hope Professor of Zoology in the University of Oxford), on the "Means of Defence in the Struggle for Life among Animals." LECTURE I.—"The Methods by which Animals hide in order to escape their Enemies and catch their Prey." LECTURE II. "The Ways in which Animals warn their Enemies and signal to their Friends." Members who desire tickets for the course are requested to apply for them at once. Each member is entitled to a ticket admitting two children and an adult. A sufficient number of tickets to fill the room will be issued to members in the order in which applications are received. THIRD ORDINARY MEETING. Wednesday, December 3, 1902; SIR WILLIAM ABNEY, K.C.B., D.C.L., D.Sc., F.R.S., Vice-President of the Society, in the chair. The following candidates were proposed for election as members of the Society : Edwards, Reginald William, Brooklands, Churchlane, Aldershot. Niles, Marston, 140, Nassau-street, New York City, U.S.A. Saenz de Zumaran, Alfonso, Chargé d'Affaires de l'Uruguay, Legation Office, 104, Victoria-street, Westminster, S.W. Vigor, Rupert H., 15 and 17, King-street, West India Dock-road, Poplar, E. Visick, Charles, A.M.I.Mech.E., Messrs. W. Visick and Sons, Basset Works, Devoran, Cornwall. Wyatt, T. G., North Clifton Plumbing and Engineering Works, Guernsey, Channel Islands. The following candidates were balloted for and duly elected members of the Society :Aldrich, Orlando Wesley, M.A., D.C.L., LL.D., Ph.D., Room 11, Wesley Block, Columbus, Ohio, U.S.A. Allen, F. Bowen, M.A., B.Sc., Director, School of Mines, Coolgardie, Western Australia. Argollo, Miguel, M. Inst.C.E., San Francisco Railway, Alagoinhas, Bahia, Brazil, South America. Armstrong, M. F., 8, Upper Wimpole-street, W. Aronson, Adolph, 39, Foster-lane, E.C. Bandinel, J. J. Frederick, B.A., Newchwang, North China. Barr, Mark, 25, Kensington-court-gardens, W. Beauchamp, Earl, K.C.M.G., Madresfield-court, Malvern Link, Beck, Isaac, M.I.Mech. E., Haymarket-chambers, 17, Haymarket, Sheffield. Begbie, Ernest, De Beers Consolidated Mines, Ltd., P.O. Box 195, Salisbury, Rhodesia, South Africa. |