32 Proceedings. 



only be very small, and nearly, if not quite, negligible, in 

 their experiments. This loss, moreover, must in each case 

 be proportional to the duration of the particular experiment. 

 If, therefore, it were appreciable, other things remaining the 

 same, the longer the experiment lasted, the lower would be 

 the value found for L. But this was found not to be the 

 case. A special experiment had been performed since the 

 last meeting to test the validity of Professor REYNOLDS' 

 objection, of which notice had been privately given. The 

 results obtained confirmed the view expressed by the 

 speakers. 



Mr. LIONEL B. WELLS exhibited a map of the inland 

 waterways of England and Wales prepared by himself and 

 Mr. Rupert Swindells, and read a paper on " The Early 

 History of the Inland Waterways of England and Wales* 

 and their present condition, with suggestions for their Future 

 Development." He pointed out that the shipping entered 

 at British ports has increased within fifty years from 

 10,000,000 to about 130,000,000 tons, and that not one of 

 the old waterways has secured its due proportion of this 

 enormous increase of traffic. Of the existing waterways 

 about 1,222 miles are controlled by railway companies, and 

 2,468 miles are " independent ;" yet the former group carry 

 only one-fifth the total tonnage which passes along the 

 entire system. The more important river navigations are 

 the Weaver, the Aire and Calder, and the Severn. The 

 improved sections of these have an aggregate of only 112 

 miles, yet they carry about one-eighth of the total inland 

 waterway traffic of England and Wales, and the waterways 

 controlled by the railway companies, though nine times as 

 long, carry only 65 per cent more traffic. There are about 

 126 different lengths of waterways in the hands of about 

 100 proprietors, and if many of these would amalgamate, 

 through water routes from east to west and from north to 

 south could be established. With reference to the map it 



