yon, as I believe a submerged conduit is much worse than a surface contact system under ordinary conditions. I do not want to say that the system is not operative, because I believe it is. I think the system will work. But I am merely giving my experience and views in the matter, and I think when you put these boxes in the conduit with the rattling all along it, you will find there is quite a good deal of noise and you will find other difficulties not met with in your experimental installation.

Mr. Stetson:—They are not in the conduit.

Me. Sachs :—The arms are in the conduit; that is where the noise comes from—not from the box. There is another point, when you get your arms in the conduit how about the mud collecting on your box and contact arms? I believe that a practical conduit system can be operated, something of the class that Wheless or Hunter and several others have proposed, viz.: a conduit not very large, with sections therein, or contact plates therein and each contact plate being put into action one after the other by a series of magnetic cut-outs. Xow the preferable form would certainly be to locate these cut-outs exterior to the roadbed and by so locating them, all the dangers that Mr. Stetson has talked about would be eliminated. Such would certainly be an efficient system if properly installed, and the leakage would be brought down to the minimum.

Me. Stetson:—In reference to that, I prefer a mechanical action to any electro-magnetic action.

Mk. F. A. Scheffler:—The author has made such rabid statements in reference to the use of closed conduits that I feel disposed to offer some suggestions to contradict such inferences as he makes. I believe, firmly, that the future will show that a successful closed conduit can be maintained, which can be manufactured and constructed for much less money in first cost per mile than any system heretofore offered for open conduits.

A closed conduit will also have many more advantages, especially those of operating expenses, than an open conduit. If a conduit filled with water can show such elegant results as to leakage measurements as are set forth in the test of Mr. Stetson's system, it seems to me that a closed conduit which cannot be filled with water even to make a test for leakage would be far superior for actual operation to the open conduit. The results of Mr. Stetson's tests are remarkable, and while I do not question their accuracy (although it is somewhat out of the general rule to correct matters which have been stated and an affidavit attached certifying to their correctness) it seems almost impossible to believe that it would take 4484 boxes entirely submerged to give a loss of 2.113 amperes or through a distance of over five miles.

If you can secure such results with a conduit full of water and li ve miles long, why not throw away the conduit and use the surface where such an accumulation of water is impossible, as to quantity. A surface accumulation would be of higher resistance than a body of water six or seven inches in diameter, hence the leakage would be much less on a closed conduit. Mr. Stetson proves by his test that his theory of extreme leakage in enclosed conduit can be overcome, for if it can be done underground in an open system why should it be not easier accomplished by a closed system—when one learns how to do it.

The Metropolitan Traction Co. has offered fifty thousand dollars as a prize for the best system which shall do away with the "deadly" trolley. I am very anxious to own that prize and would feel pretty sure of getting it were it not for the fact that I may only take the chances with a thousand others. I venture to make the broad statement that the prize will be given—if it is for an electrical system—for a closed conduit system which shall operate in the same every day stay-with-you-manner that Mr. Stetson has so intelligently outlined.

Mr. Stetson:—I want to ask the gentleman if he thought about this question of closed conduits. I have given quite a little thought to them.

Mr. Sciikffler:—I have looked at it, sir.

Mr. Sachs:—Pardon me for taking up so much of your time, but permit me to say another word in reference to closed conduits. I tried to do a little in that direction, and I think that Mr. Schettier is quite correct in his assertions that the leakage in a surface contact system would certainly be less than that in a conduit system which was entirely submerged, that is one in which the contact devices were entirely submerged. In a surface contact system it is usual to put the contacts in the centre of the track at the highest point. Now being brought to that highest point between the rails, the moisture, or mud, or dirt, has a tendency to settle down on the rails, and the quantity of dirt and moisture that would get between your rails, which would perhaps form your return conductor, the plate or contact would be of much higher resistance than that collected in the submerged conduit, as Mr. Stetson puts it. I think that, taking the submerged conduit on the one hand and a surface contact system properly constructed and in a similar location on the other, the advantage would be with the latter in reference to a minimum leakage.

Mr. W. T. M. Mottram:—There is one point that has not been shown up very fully here, and that is this: Wherever the car is in service the current is exposed, is it not? Now if the contact strip is standing in water, it is bringing the current right into the water. Now it is quite conceivable to me that there would be a piece of track on some ordinary line, of a thousand feet in length, in which the conduit would be full of water. It is also conceivable that there might be twenty live cars standing on that piece of track. If you turn 500 volts loose at twenty different points with metallic strips each about nine feet long, your short-circuit will simply close you down.

[Adjourned.]

cor,

OBITUARY.

Dr. Norvin Green, first President of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, was born in New Albany, Ind., April 17, 1818. His early life was spent in Kentucky, to which State his parents removed their home. There he was educated for the medical profession, graduating with high honors at the University of Louisville in 1840. He soon after received the appointment of physician for the "Western Military Academy at Drennon Springs, Ky., became interested in politics, and served several terms as a member of the Kentucky legislature. In 1853 he was appointed a Commissioner of the United States in charge of the construction of government buildings in Louisville. It was while serving in this capacity that he became one of the lessees of the United Morse and Peoples Telegraph lines between Louisville and New Orleans, and was made president of the consolidated company which grew out of those interests, under the name of the Southwestern Telegraph Co. Most of the remainder of his life was devoted in an administrative capacity to telegraph affairs. When the American, the United States and the Western Union companies were consolidated in 1866, Dr. Green was elected Vice-President of the Western Union Co., which office he held up to 1878 with the exception of three years, during which period he was President of the Louisville, Cincinnati and Lexington R. R. Once more he entered politics and barely lost the nomination for U. S. Senator from Kentucky. Returning to the AVestern Union Telegraph service in 1873 he continued as Vice-President until April 23, 1878, when he was elected President to fill the vacancy caused by the death of William Orto I. This office he held until his death, which occurred at Louisville, Ky., February 12, 1893.

Dr. Green was of judicial mind and imposing presence. He was not only a democrat in politics, but democratic in his relations with his associates, or with those who came in contact with him upon business or personal matters. He was of a philosophical temperament; calm and dignified as became a gentleman of his standing. He was one of the founders of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers and sanguine in his prediction of its future usefulness. His acceptance of the office of president in 1884 was not as might have been supposed, a mere incident in his busy life, to be neglected as a matter of no consequence. lie set the example of conscientious attention to duty, and his advice was of great value at a time when it was most needed. In view of his distinguished career, the Council on December 3d, 1889, made him an Honorary Member. Dr. Given left a family consisting of a wife, four sons and two daughters.

George Barilett Prescott, Jr., was born at Dubuque, Iowa, in 1858. He was the eldest son of Alphonso and Harriet Prescott. He entered the service of the Western Union Telegraph Co. in 1875 as a Morse telegraph operator at Lindell Hotel office in St. Louis, Mo. In 1870 he was transferred to the electrician's office of the same company in New York City, and was promoted to the position of assistant electrician in 1879. He remained with the Western Union Telegraph Co. until 1882, when he resigned to accept the position of chief assistant with Edward Weston, then the electrician of the United States Electric Lighting Co. at Newark, N. J. He continued with Mr. Weston until 1889, when he was appointed electrician of the Electric Accumulator Co. He had already given much attention to the development of the storage battery, and fitted up an experimental car with accumulators for the West End Co. of Boston in 1887-8. On the first of April, 1890, he accepted the general agency of Day's Kerite Wire and Cables in New York City, but was obliged to relinquish the position by reason of failing health in the fall of 1891. A temporary improvement in his physical condition permitted him to fill a brief engagement in the Stanley Laboratory at Pittsfield, Mass., but he was again compelled to abandon all business engagements, and seek to repair his shattered constitution by a trip to Bermuda. There was no hope of recovery, however, and he returned to Northampton, Mass., in January, 1893, completely prostrated, where he died on February 12th, 1893.

Mr. Prescott was elected an associate member of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, July 12, 1887, and transferred to full membership November 1st, 1887. At the annual election in May, 1S88, he was elected a manager, serving a full term of three years. He was not only active in his duties as an officer and a member, but served with credit as one of the Committee on Units and Standards, where his experience in electrical research was of special value. In 18S8 he married Miss Frances K. Cooley, of Pittsfield, Mass., who survives him.

At a meeting of Council June 6th, 1893, the following tribute of respect to his memory was adopted:

The Council of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, desiring to express its sense of the loss to the Institute in the death of George B. Prescott, Jr., it is hereby

Resolved, that Mr. Prescott's untimely departure from the life of this world has deprived the American Institute of Electrical Engineers of a highly valued member, one whose active mind, quick perceptions and intellectual ability have long been at the service of the Institute at large and of the Council. He had acquired the respect of his fellow members for his ability and his attainments as an electrician, and, not less, their personal esteem for his broad and generous qualities of heart. Youthful in years, he had acquired an enviable reputation for the thoroughness and accuracy of his work, which he was ever trying to excel by further study. As a fellow member and as a personal friend, his loss will long be felt by his associates.

Anthont Reokenzaun, [Associate Member, November 1,1887; Member, December *>, 1887]; died in London, November 11, 1893. Mr. Reckenzaun was born in 1850, at Gratz, in Austria, where he received a thorough technical education. He went to England in 1872, and obtained employment with a firm of marine engineers. In connection with their works he established evening classes for the benefit of employes, and gave lectures during three years on Machine Construction and Drawing, and on Steam; but in order to qualify himself according to the rules of the South Kensington Science and Art Department, he first underwent examination in those subjects, and passed with first-class honors. Subsequently he attended the courses of lectures given to qualify science teachers at the Royal School of Mines in 1877 and 1879, when he again obtained "first-class" at the final examination in steam and mechanics. On visiting the Paris Exposition of 1878, he resolved to devote his time to the study of electrical engineering. He then applied himself to electrical work, and later joined the Faure Accumulator Co. Soon afterwards he accepted the post of engineer to the Electrical Power Storage Co. He designed the first electric launch, "Electricity," driven by storage batteries in 1882; and soon afterwards he built an electric tramcar which was publicly exhibited on the West Metropolitan Tramway, London, in March, 1883. Mr. Reckenzaun gave numerous lectures and read papers on "Storage Batteries and Electric Locomotion" before scientific