Fig. 6 illustrates another arrangement that I have constructed, both of collector and method of collecting.

[Illustration:  FIG. 6]

As before mentioned, the arrangement now described has been carried out in a field near the works of Messrs. Smith, Baker & Co., Cornbrook Telegraph Works, Manchester, and its working efficiency has been most satisfactory.  After a week of rain and during drenching showers the car ran with the same speed and under the same control as when the ground was dry.

This I account for by the theory that when the rails are wet and the tubes moist the better contact made compensates for the slight leakage that may occur.

At the commencement of my paper I promised to confine myself to work done; I therefore abstain from describing various modifications of detail for the same purpose.  But one method of supporting and insulating the conductor in the channel may be suggested by an illustration of the plan I adopted for a little pleasure line in the Winter Gardens, Blackpool.

[Illustration:  FIG. 7.]

Fig. 7.  There the track being exclusively for the electric railway, it was not necessary to provide a center channel; the conductor has therefore been placed in the center of the track, and consists of bar iron 11/4 in. by 1/2 in., and is held vertically by means of studs riveted into the side; these studs pass through porcelain insulators, and by means of wooden clamps and wedges are held in the iron chairs which rest upon the sleepers.  The iron conductors were placed vertically to facilitate bending round the sharp curves which were unavoidable on this line.

The collector consists of two metal slippers held together by springs, attached to the car by straps and electrically connected to the motor by clips in the same manner as the one employed in Manchester.

I am glad to say that, notwithstanding the curves with a radius of 55 feet and gradients of 1 in 57, this line is also a practical success.

* * * * *

FIRES IN LONDON AND NEW YORK.

When the chief of the London Fire Brigade visited the United States in 1882, he was, as is the general rule on the other side of the Atlantic, “interviewed”—­a custom, it may be remarked, which appears to be gaining ground also in this country.  The inferences drawn from these interviews seem to be that the absence of large fires in London was chiefly due to the superiority of our fire brigade, and that the greater frequency of conflagrations in American cities, and particularly in New York, was due to the inferiority of their fire departments.  How unjust such a comparison would be is shown in a paper presented by Mr. Edward B. Dorsey, a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, to that association, in which the author discusses the comparative liability to and danger from conflagrations