822 EEPOKT— 1888. 



of ordinary traffic, fulfil many other requirements of public necessity or' con- 

 Tenience, but should be so constructed as to provide for many others of capital 

 importance, growing out of the multiplying wants incidental to the demands of 

 modern civilisation. 



The main thoroughfares of ti'affic should he reconstructed, substantially upon 

 the plan of superficial subways and galleries, illustrated by a model and sketches 

 shown. Between the lines of curb the substance of the street should be removed 

 to a standard depth of twelve feet, and the excavation so made replaced by four 

 centrally placed subways, the two interior ones being devoted to rapid transit or 

 fast railway trains, operated at great speed between few stations. This form of 

 railway service, essential to economy of time and the proper development of sub- 

 urban population, is not now performed at all in any great city, the two exterior 

 subways being devoted to ' way ' or slow trains, operated rapidly between frequent 

 stations, for the convenience of every district on the line for shopping, and also for 

 supplementing the more rapid long journeys of the express line. 



These railways should be operated by electric motors and solid trains, specially 

 devised for the service, and embodying provisions for safety and comfort to a degree 

 which apparently precludes the possibility of serious accident. On either side of 

 these centrally disposed railway subways are placed continuous galleries, calculated 

 for the housing, inspection, replacement, and repair of all pipes and wires of con.- 

 munication, sewers for local service, water mains and supplies, gas mains and 

 service pipes, steam service pipes, pneumatic power, post, parcel, refrigerating and 

 time tubes, electric wires for arc and incandescent lights for street and private use, 

 for power, signals, telegraphs, telephones, &c., and all other essentials or con- 

 veniences which are more profitably generated or produced at some central station, 

 and can be distributed or served only through the public domain, overhead or 

 underfoot, and which from the want of such common accommodation are now used 

 — if at all — to a limited extent, at great cost and inconvenience to the authorities, 

 the corporation, and the public. 



It is also imperative that the whole subway system should be adequately sup- 

 plied with fresh air in movement, so that ventilation shall be as perfect as in the best 

 arranged dwellings. This could be effected by closing the railway subways from any 

 communication with the surface of the streets except through the station doorways, 

 and ventilating the .stations by shafts supplied with electric exhaust fans, placed" in 

 the rear of the entrance buildings, the supply of fresh air being derived from similar 

 shafts placed in the rear of the opposite building ; by this means the air of the 

 stations will be absolutely renewed as frequently as required. The railways form 

 open cylinders from station to station, and the trains, being of approximately the 

 same cross-section, constitute loose pistons always moving in the same direction. 

 The effect is the establishment of a ventilating current witliin the subways dependent 

 for its force upon (1) the appi'oximation of cross-sections, (2) the speed'of the trains, 

 and (.3) the integrity of the tunnels or subways. 



As the products of artificial combustion will be excluded as far as possible, 

 the requirements of ventilation are reduced to a minimum and perfectly per- 

 formed. 



Reference is made to a new material, ' ferflax,' composed of braided steel wire 

 and flax fibre, chemically treated imder hydraulic pressure, devised for the wall 

 panels of the subways and for the construction of the railway carriages, a com- 

 pound building material not unlike horn in character, having a strength and 

 flexibility somewhat exceeding steel wire netting, a toughness approximating to 

 horn, non-fragile and unbreakaljle by bending, and not liable to shatter under shock. 

 _ The neces.sity for fast intramural travel is illustrated by the fact that the popu- 

 lation of the City of New York increased from 18G5 to "l885 (twenty years) 60 

 per cent., while the traffic increased 2GL> per cent., demonstrating that traffic 

 increases out of all proportion to population ; and that the fast travel increases at 

 the expense of the slow is clearly proved by the extraordinary increase on the 

 elevated roads, which for the single year 1887 amounted to the incredible number of 

 43,853,641 passengers, being 33 per cent, more than the total increase of all lines 

 for the previous year, and actually more than the total increase for that year. 



