924 Transactions of tub American Institute. 



way in fifty seconds, with an atmospheric pressure of but tioo and a 

 half ounces to the square inch. 



However successful all these experiments were, it was not until 

 earh' last j^ear that operations upon a scale commensurate Avith the 

 importance of the project were inaugurated by the opening of the 

 extensive dispatch line from Euston square to Holborn, a distance of 

 nearly two miles, whence it has since been extended to the general 

 post-office, another mile eastward. 



On the opening day the' duke of Buckingham, then and now 

 chairman of the Pneumatic Dispatch Company, had invited a 

 number of scientific gentlemen to inspect the apparatus. It is 

 narrated that after the train had made some successful passages, 

 several of the gentlemen entered the dispatch trucks and passed 

 through with but slight inconvenience for want of room, having to 

 accommodate themselves to the narrow boundaries of the trucks. 

 The sum of all these tests was that the public became satisfied, not 

 only that the dispatch system was a success, but that an application 

 of the principle to passenger traffic was demanded by the necessities 

 of the time. The Pneumatic Dispatch Company have, however, 

 confined themselves in the meantime to the work for which they 

 organized, and during the past eighteen months have laid many 

 miles of tubing, and by their success given the impetus to others who 

 propose to carry out a sdieme for passenger traffic on the most 

 extensive scale. A company was formed last year who proposed to 

 tnnnel tlie river Thames, and through that tunnel transport passen- 

 gers on the pneumatic plan. 



The Waterloo and "Whitehall Pneumatic Railway. 



This is the title of this great project, which aims at connecting the 

 two great sections of the greatest city in the world ; and through this 

 tube it is proposed to pour from side to side, an endless living stream 

 of human beings, at tiie rate of eighty-eight feet per second, makiiigthe 

 distance in a fraction of a minute. The approach to the river's bank, 

 from either terminal station, will be by an underground tunnel of 

 brick-work, a large portion of which has already been constructed. 

 The river will be crossed by four lengths, each two hundred and 

 twenty-one feet, of wrought-iron tubing, thirteen feet in diameter, 

 covered with brick-work. These tubes, which will soon be comple- 

 ted, are the work of Messrs. Samuda, of the Isle of Dogs, up the 

 Thames a short distance, and are of three-quarter inch iron, with 



