He was elected an Associate of the Institution on the 28th May, 1878, and was subsequently placed in the class of Associate Members. EDWARD COTTAM died at Hanwell, Middlesex, on the 17th July, 1904, in his eighty-eighth year. The son of the late George Cottam, a former Associate, he was born on the 18th October, 1816, 2 years before the foundation of the Institution, which he joined as a Graduate in 1839. He was educated at the London High School and the Athénée, Bruges, and studied at the Royal Institution under Faraday, of whom he was an enthusiastic admirer. In 1833 he became a pupil to his father, whom he subsequently assisted in his business until 1852, when he entered into partnership with Mr. F. Robinson, as successors to Bramah, adding to the old business the founding of statues. The statues of the Duke of Wellington at Manchester, of George Stephenson at Newcastle, of Sir Isaac Newton at Grantham, and many others, were cast at the firm's Pimlico Works upon an improved process introduced by Mr. Cottam. On the removal of the foundry to Battersea, where the cylinders for the piers of the Albert Bridge were cast, the firm was formed into a limited company, and undertook the manufacture of horseshoes by machinery of Mr. Cottam's design. Mr. Cottam served as Managing Director of the company until its liquidation in 1875, when he retired from the active pursuit of business, only acting occasionally in a consultative capacity. Mr. Cottam was the inventor of a breech-loading rifle, and of an intercepting trap for house-drainage. He also made improvements in the hydrostatic press and the cotton-packing press, and perfected the Vandenbrough volley gun, an early form of the mitrailleuse. He was elected an Associate of the Institution on the 6th December, 1859. *The following deaths have also been made known since the 11th September, 1905: Members. CARBUTT, Sir EDWARD HAMER, Bart.; MORCOM, ALFRED; died 16 October, WHARTON, Sir WILLIAM JAMES LLOYD, K.C.B., F.R.S.; died 29 September, 1905. Information as to the career and characteristics of the above is solicited in aid of the preparation of Obituary Notices.-SEC INST. C.E., 21 October, 1905. SECT. III. ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS IN SCIENTIFIC TRANSACTIONS AND PERIODICALS. Construction of the Metropolitan Railways of Paris.1 (Mémoires de la Société des Ingénieurs Civils de France, Paris, Bulletin de Mars, 1905, pp. 364-452.) In this Paper the Author deals with the works of construction of the Metropolitan Railways of Paris, dividing his subject into the following headings:-historical introduction; general conditions connected with the establishment of the lines; general plan; considerations which controlled the adoption of the longitudinal profile; general description of type sections of the works; curves; gradients; geological description of the basin of Paris. It was not until 1895 that the French Government at last consented to place under the control of the City of Paris the metropolitan lines, as being a purely urban system. The Municipal Council immediately put the matter into the hands of engineers, and in the following year the plans and specifications were approved and the execution of the works was undertaken and pushed on with the greatest rapidity. Before describing the various lines forming the metropolitan system the Author gives an account of the shields which were used in the work, and describes in detail those which gave satisfactory results. The other shields, which gave results more or less bad, are also briefly referred to. In describing the various lines forming the system the Author deals at length with the work of construction, the methods employed, the difficulties encountered, and the means by which they were overcome. In the case of each of the two shields which alone gave satisfactory results in working, the power available in the hydraulic jacks for advancing the shield amounted to 800 tons, but the maximum effort actually exerted in work did not exceed 500 tons. The exterior surface of the shield in contact with the earth amounted to 70 square metres (753 square feet). The hydraulic jacks were sufficient to overcome a frictional resistance of 1.2 See Minutes of Proceedings Inst. C.E., vol. cxlix. p. 464; vol. cliv. p. 399 ; and vol. clxii. p. 427. kilogram per square centimetre (2,458 lbs. per square foot), but the maximum resistance never in fact exceeded 0.65 kilogram per square centimetre (1,331 lbs. per square foot). The speed at which the shields advanced was from 3 to 4 metres (9.84 to 13.12 feet) in 24 hours. The strata passed through by these two shields was soft sand and white marl, for the removal of which hand tools were in every case sufficient. Between the masonry of the tunnel and the roof plates of the shields a space of 7 to 8 centimetres (2.75 inches to 3.15 inches) was left, which was plugged with mortar as soon as the advancement of the shield allowed. Nevertheless, it often happened that as soon as the roof plates ceased, by reason of their advance, to sustain the earth, the latter fell upon the extrados of the arch and rendered the mortar plugging or filling impossible. Numerous figures are given in the text to illustrate the order of procedure in carrying out the various operations. On those sections of the work where shields had caused disappointment their use was discontinued and the work was proceeded with by ordinary tunnel-timbering. Certain portions of the lines and stations were constructed in open cutting and others by the method of cut and cover. On a portion of the No. 2 south line, between the Trocadéro and the Place d'Italie, it was necessary to carry out numerous consolidations of the subsoil, as the line passed for nearly 4 kilometres (2 miles) over the Catacombs. In certain places where the roofs of the latter had fallen away the masonry tunnel of the railway was carried on circular well-shafts sunk to firm ground at considerable depths and filled with concrete. The consolidation of the subsoil along these 4 kilometres entailed an expenditure of no less than 2,000,000 francs (£80,000). The Paper is illustrated by eighty-three figures in the text and by one folding plate. J. M. M. Paris Metropolitan Electric Railway.1 J. REYVAL. Although the Paris Metropolitan Railway has been in operation for 4 years, it has been impossible until now to give a complete description of the system, owing to the numerous modifications introduced and the extensions made in the intervening period. The present article is devoted to a detailed discussion of the complete system as it now stands. The Author describes fully the installation at the Bercy generating-station, which contains both continuous-current dynamos generating at 600 volts, and alternators supplying three-phase currents at 5,000 volts to sub-stations; the installations at each of the six sub-stations; and the equipment 1 See Minutes of Proceedings Inst. C.E., vol. cxlix. p. 464; vol. cliv. p. 399, and the preceding Abstract. and special characteristics of the rolling-stock and repairing-sheds. The Thomson-Houston, the Sprague, and the Westinghouse multiple-unit systems of control are all in use on this railway, and petrol-electric motor-cars are also employed for the conveyance of workmen and materials in connection with repairs to the line when current-supply to the third rail is cut off. W. C. H. Hurley Track-Laying Machine. (Railway and Engineering Review, Chicago, 18 March, 1905, pp. 193-94.) The Hurley track-laying machine consists of a machine-car, with a 67-foot cantilever extension for carrying sleepers in advance of the material train, and with power-driven rolls for hauling strings of rails over the material cars to the front of the work. The machine-car furnishes the motive power not only for the conveyance of track material, but also for moving the train, so that the service of a locomotive is dispensed with. This is one of the great factors of economy in the use of this type of track-laying machine. The cars loaded with sleepers are coupled behind the tender of the machine-car, the cars loaded with rails bringing up the rear. At the middle of each material-car there is a roller used for moving the rails forward. The rails are coupled together with two bolts in each splice, and are pulled forward over the rollers in two lines, one on either side of the train. On the machine-car each line of rails passes between two sets of steam-driven friction rolls which drive them forward and also pull the whole string of rails behind. As each string of rails is fed forward to the machine-car, rails are coupled on behind at the rail-cars at the rear of the train. The sleepers are carried forward on the two lines of rails, on which they are laid, spaced at the same intervals as they are laid in the track. As the rails move forward they convey therefore all the sleepers on which the rails are to be laid. As the sleepers arrive at the machine-car they are caught on an endless chain and conveyed up an incline over the top chords of the cantilever extension, and as they arrive at the front end of this they slide down the incline and fall on the road-bed approximately in position ready to receive the rails. The road-bed is thus supplied with sleepers constantly in advance of the rails. The track-laying machine and its train move forward at the rate of about 20 to 30 feet per minute, and with experienced men in charge it is not necessary to stop. The machinery is so geared that the material is moving forward over the cars at exactly the same rate that the train moves over the track. When track is being laid on curves the incline at the front of the cantilever is swung laterally to suit, |