ANKIVERSARY ADDRESS OE THE PEESIDENT^ 5 1 



in railway surveys. Amongst other work, lie was placed in charge 

 of the Great Western branch line from Gloucester to Cheltenham, 

 which Involved some heavy cutting through the Lias. To the 

 geological characters of the rocks with which his professional work 

 brought him in contact he paid much attention. In 1844 he came 

 to London, and was elected a Member of the Institution of Civil 

 Engineers in that year. For the next fourteen years he was still 

 much employed in railway-construction in the West of England. 

 Amongst his undertakings may be mentioned the Forest of Dean 

 Central Hailway, which required deep cuttings through the Old Eed 

 Sandstone and Carboniferous Limestone. 



Erom 1856 onwards his professional work was chiefly connected 

 with arterial and agricultural drainage, land-improvements, the 

 reclamation of alluvial land, and the protection of various parts of 

 the coast from erosion by the sea. Amongst the more important of 

 these undertakings may be mentioned the Thames Yalley drainage 

 above Oxford ; the Somersetshire Yalley s drainage ; the reclaiming 

 and marling of Delamere Eorest ; the restoration of Brading Harbour, 

 with the reclamation of a large area of valuable alluvial land ; and 

 various protective works along the Sussex coast and the Isle of 

 Thanet. He was also engaged in various ways in questions relating 

 to water-supply. He acted as Inspector under the Land Drainage 

 Act of 1861, and reported for the Inclosure Commission in 1871 

 on the Somersetshire floods. He was Chairman of the British Asso- 

 ciation Committee on Coast Erosion, and contributed several im- 

 portant papers to the published Eeports of that Committee. He 

 wrote also on the Norfolk Broads, and published an account of 

 the process by which he turned the barren tract of Delamere Eorest 

 into a comparatively fertile district. 



John Thornhill Harrison, who died at Ealing on 4th November 

 last, in his 76th year, was born at Thornhill in Durham, and was 

 educated at Sunderland, and at Edinburgh University. Beginning 

 the career of an engineer under his brother, Mr. T. E. Harrison, 

 who was Engineer to the North Eastern Railway, he afterwards 

 served, under Mr. I. K. Brunei, upon the Great Western and other 

 railways in the West of England. Eor a time he gave up active 

 work in his profession, and devoted his attention to agricultural 

 pursuits. He served on the Eoyal Commission on Pollution of Eivers 

 (1865), and afterwards, having been appointed one of the Engineer- 

 ing Inspectors of the Local Government Board, conducted a large 



