lV OBITUARY NOTICES. 
the writer of this sketch in the building thereof. The Machinery 
Hall, the first of such dimensions and pretensions in the history of 
the country, was subsequently designed and erected under similar 
auspices, Mr. Wilson taking the leading part. 
The execution of works having international significance and 
relations in any field of effort is apt to produce a desire, an impetus 
to greater comprehensive effort, embodying collateral information 
and more extended professional skill and practice. Mr. Wilson 
embodied this progressive spirit in a pre-eminent degree, his quali- 
fications for such progress being excellent, his standard of the 
highest, his spirit confident. His success which followed is asso- 
ciated with that of his brothers, under the firm-name of Wilson 
Bros. & Co. (organized 1876), of which he was for many years the 
senior member. The scope of his work in this relation embraced 
a field exceptionally large, under auspices much varied, and in loca- 
tions far distant in other countries; the variety of information 
necessary to attainment not confined to technical matters, but in- 
volving special studies of diverse character, not a few of which 
resulted in published papers giving much specific data for reference 
as well as professional opinion. Some of these papers were pre- 
pared to aid philanthropy in general, and not only those engaged 
in the actual construction of buildings. The scope of his work 
thus became in time very extensive. 
Whether in the designing and erection of hospitals or of banking 
buildings, of comprehensive systems of shops for railroad corpora- 
tions or structures for industrial enterprises ; whether buildings for 
administrative purposes or Union Depots; whether as engineer or 
architect, in consultation or for expert testimony, in reference to 
elevated railways in cities, the water-supply of cities, or the mam- 
moth suspension bridges connecting adjacent centres of population ; 
whether as engineer of subways under municipal control, or as 
trustee for carrying out of bequests to institutes for the education 
of future generations; whether as President of the Franklin Insti- 
tute for ten years, or as member of learned societies, both at home 
or abroad ; whether as author of technical papers for the British 
Institution of Civil Engineers, London, or as an American author 
bringing home from France and England his study of trade-schools 
to improve their construction and administration here—in all these 
Joseph M. Wilson took part. 
His constant desire was for a more comprehensive and advanced 
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