S7X \V1U.1A.M SIEMENS, F.R.S. 409 



nation. You will observe in the plan and sections of the railway 

 given in Plate 11, that there is a long and rather steep incline 

 1 in 88 two miles in length. There was some doubt in 

 my mind whether, with the arrangements adopted, this incline 

 could be worked satisfactorily ; it now appears that it has been, 

 mid that the car is drawn up the incline without difficulty when 

 fully loaded. I may, therefore, say that transmission or propulsion 

 by electricity, even under adverse circumstances, is an accom- 

 plished fact. A further six miles of extension to Dervock will 

 connect this railway with the railway system of the north of 

 Ireland ; we shall then have a length of twelve miles of line of 

 the same gauge, and using the same carriages as those generally 

 used there. Under these circumstances, it seems to me almost a 

 pity that on the Embankment there should be made that series of 

 unsightly and noisome ventilators to disembarrass the under- 

 ground railway of steam and products of combustion, when it 

 can be clearly demonstrated that electric propulsion would, for 

 the underground railway, not only be the most agreeable, but also 

 the cheapest mode of traction. I shall, at any rate, be most happy 

 to afford to engineers every opportunity of studying this question. 



The advantages of electrical propulsion are that the weight of 

 the engine, so destructive of power and of the plant itself in 

 starting and stopping, will be saved, and that perfect immunity 

 from products of combustion will be ensured. The limited expe- 

 rience at Lichterfelde, at Paris, and with another electric line of 

 765 yards in length, and 2 feet 2 inches gauge, worked in con- 

 nection with the Zaukerode Colliery since October, 1882, are 

 extremely favourable to this mode of propulsion. I, however, do 

 not advocate its prospective application in competition with the 

 locomotive engine for main lines of railway. 



For tramways within populous districts the insulated conductor 

 involves a serious difficulty. It will be more advantageous under 

 these circumstances to resort to secondary batteries, forming a 

 store of electrical energy earned under the seats of the car itself, 

 and working a dynamo-machine connected with the moving 

 wheels. 



The secondary battery, to which I have already alluded in this 

 lecture, is not an entirely new conception. The hydrogen gas 

 battery suggested by Sir William Grove in 1841, realised in the 



