NOVEMBEK 15, 1901.] 



SCONCE. 



765 



years this property had not been observed, 

 and the coloration perhaps might not be 

 due to nickel. After papers by Dr. Farmer, 

 on ' The Methods of Determining the Hydro- 

 lytic Dissociation of Salts, and by Dr. J. 

 S. Patterson, on ' The Influence of Solvents 

 on the Rotation of Optically Active Com- 

 pounds,' the meeting terminated, having 

 been less well attended, in spite of the in- 

 teresting papers, than was the case at Brad- 

 ford last year. 



ENGINEERING. 



This Section sufl"ered severely in coming 

 immediately after the assembling at Glas- 

 gow of the important International Engi- 

 neering Congress, the Congress of Naval 

 Architects and the Electricians' Association, 

 all of which detracted from both papers and 

 members. As a consequence, not a single 

 paper on marine engineering, and only two 

 papers pertaining to electricity were oflered 

 to the Section this year. 



The president. Col. R. E. Crompton, 

 M.Inst.C.E., in his address discussed first 

 some of the interesting problems presented 

 by recent development in means of locomo- 

 tion on land, which demand the best 

 thought, not only of our engineers, but of 

 every one interested in the improvement in 

 the means of traveling and in the more rapid 

 transportation of goods. During the past 

 few years a great improvement in the speed 

 of trains and in the comfort of passengers 

 on the American and Continental railways 

 has been made, and while it appears that 

 England has now been beaten in the matter 

 of extreme speed on railways, it is probable 

 that the English railways still provide a 

 larger number of rapid trains than do either 

 the American, German or French. The 

 speed limit of railways of the present system 

 of construction is reached at about sixty- 

 five or seventy miles an hour, and it is im- 

 probable that anything greatly in excess 

 of seventy miles an hour will be attained 



until an entirely new system of construc- 

 tion is instituted. The high speed service 

 contemplated intends to obtain speed ex- 

 ceeding one hundred miles an hour by pro- 

 viding electrical means of haulage sufficient 

 to propel light trains consisting of a single 

 or, at most, a few cars run at short intervals 

 of time. In the United Kingdom there are 

 only a few journeys of sufficient length to 

 make saving of time of great importance, but 

 the [case is far difierent in America and 

 on the Continent where the business centers 

 are much farther apart, and this topograph- 

 ical question would cause our English engi- 

 neers to be at a disadvantage. A most 

 important problem iu locomotion is that 

 caused by the congestion of street traffic in 

 towns, and although the provision of electric 

 tramways is undoubtedly an economical 

 means of carrying passengers, yet these 

 tramways could not be laid in existing 

 thoroughfares without considerably reduc- 

 ing the total road-carrying capacity at times 

 of heavy pressure of traffic, and so both for 

 ordinary and pleasure transportation it ap- 

 pears probable that a motor-car service 

 carried out on well-made roads would com- 

 pete favorably with, and in many ways 

 might be preferable to, tramway service. 

 One of the topics that has been most strongly 

 discussed during the past year is the 

 position which Great Britain holds, rela- 

 tively to other countries, as regards suprem- 

 acy in engineering matters. The chief dif- 

 ference between the manufacturer here and 

 the manufacturer in America is that the 

 latter invariably makes goods in large quan- 

 tities to standard patterns, which is much 

 less the case in England. Many years ago, 

 Sir Joseph Whit worth impressed on the 

 world the importance in mechanical engi- 

 neering of extreme accuracy and of securing 

 the accurate fit and interchangeability of 

 parts by standard gauges, but these ideas 

 have not been acted upon to the extent that 

 they should. Up to the present time the 



