46 The Proposed Belfast Central Station and Railways. 



and in five years' time we may all hope to be here to see the 

 trains of the three railway companies steaming into and out of 

 the Belfast City Central Station, carrying passengers through 

 from railway to railway ; carrying the city merchant in twenty 

 or twenty-five minutes' time from the very heart of the city 

 to his seaside home at Bangor, Helen's Bay, Whitehead, White- 

 abbey, or Jordanstown ; or, in a shorter time, to Lisburn, Dun- 

 murry, or Balmoral ; converting many of our neighbouring 

 country towns into suburbs of Belfast ; and last, not least, 

 delivering Her Majesty's mails and parcels direct into the 

 General Post Office, and receiving them direct from the same 

 establishment. These surely will be boons to the travelling 

 and mercantile public of Belfast which, when realised, will excite 

 wonder in their minds that the Belfast City Central Station and 

 Railways were only so recent a creation. 



Mr. Young — Mr. President, as you have called upon me I 

 may be allowed to say a word with regard to the geological 

 features of the scheme. I have had some experience with foun- 

 dations in Belfast, and I think Mr. Lanyon is not at all mistaken 

 in what he says regarding that ugly word sleetch. It is a marine 

 deposit, and it consists mainly of fine sand and clay of a tena- 

 cious character. It rests upon a bed of, not boulder clay as I 

 think was generally understood, but a firm clay of a plastic 

 character almost entirely free from boulders, so that I believe if 

 the system of street piling that Mr. Lanyon referred to be care- 

 fully driven perfectly close, there need be no apprehension of 

 the sinking of the buildings. With reference to the shield Mr. 

 Lanyon must allow me slightly to correct him. In the case of 

 the Thames tunnel there was a shield invented by Brunei, and 

 I had the pleasure of conversing with one of his engineers when 

 he described to me that very shield. It was not intended 

 originally, but was designed subsequently when the bed of the 

 1 iver had broken into the tunnel. I think the position of the 

 Central Station extremely good considering all the circumstances 

 of the case. I was under the impression that Mr. Lanyon 

 wanted to take the premises we are now occupying, but I don't 



