Nov. 5, 1885] 



NATURE 



13 



of the engine-house marked the beginning of a new 

 departure in electro-technology. 



Telpho'age has been defined as the transmission of 

 goods and passengers by means of electricity without 

 driver, guard, signalmen, or attendants. The conception 

 of propelling electrically a continuous stream of light 

 trains along an elevated single rail or rope was due to the 

 late Prof. Fleeming Jenkin, but, as stated by him in his 

 introductory address at the University of Edinburgh, he 



did not see his way to carry this conception into practice 

 until he read the account of the electrical railway ex- 

 hibited by Professors Ayr ton and Perry at the Royal 

 Institution in 1882, when the idea of subdividing the 

 rubbed conductor into sections and providing an absolute 

 block for automatically preventing electric trains running 

 into one another was first publicly described. A com- 

 bination between these three gentlemen was then eftected, 

 which led ultimately to the formation of the Telpherage 



Company and to the series of experiments, lasting for 

 over two years, on actual telpher lines erected at Weston 

 in Hertfordshire, on the estate of Mr. Pryor, the chairman 

 of the company. Various devices were worked out form- 

 ing the subject of patents, which, together with the other 

 patents of Professors Fleeming Jenkin, Ayrton, and Perry 

 in telpherage, previously taken out, are possessed by the 

 present Telpherage Company. At the commencement of 



this year matters had sufficiently advanced for the erec- 

 tion of commercial telpher lines, and as a tramway or 

 road would have much interfered with the grazing and 

 hay growing carried on in the fields at Glynde, and, as in 

 addition these fields are under water during the winter, 

 telpherage appeared to furnish the cheapest and most 

 suitable mode of carrying the clay from the clay pits to 

 the London, Brighton, and South Coast Railway. Con- 



sequently the Susse-x Portland Cement Company decided 

 to adopt this method of transport. 



The line now opened is nearly a mile long, and com- 

 posed of a double set of steel rods each 66 feet long, 

 three-quarters of an inch in diameter, and 8 feet apart, 

 supported on wooden posts standing about 18 feet above 

 the ground, as seen in our illustration (Fig. i), which is 

 from a photograph taken of the line just before it crosses 



the stream. On the death of the late lamented Prof. 

 Jenkin the construction of the Glynde telpher line was 

 left for completion in the hands of Prof. Perry, who was 

 then appointed the engineer to the company. The new line, 

 it must be understood, is more than a mere experimental 

 attempt. Although, as scientific men will appreciate, a 

 new undertaking must necessarily involve much tentative 

 experience, the programme carried out on Saturday 



