The New York Rapid-transit Subway

84 DISCUSSION ON NEW YORK SUBWAY. [Minutes of Mr. Fitz- sity for temporary accommodation of the sewers and house-drains maurice. during the construction of the works involved great loss of time and expense and much discomfort to all concerned.” So that even where the work was done with the greatest possible care, and the public were guarded in every way, there was a large amount of discomfort, and he did not think anybody could possibly expect to make subways without causing that. An engineering journal, in giving a description of the New York subway, had stated that middle-aged citizens had been heard to doubt whether they would live long enough to get compensation for the inconvenience ol tlie last few years; and he thought that was not at all an unfair state- ment with regard to the upper part of New York as he saw it. He had been deeply impressed, however, with the extraordinarily good work which was carried out there and the wonderful facilities for getting about which were afforded by the express line, and by the interchanging with the local line. Some time ago he went very care- fully into the cost of making shallow subways, as compared with tube railways, between Devonshire House, Piccadilly, and Cannon Street. The authorities he was working for were very anxious to make shallow subways at that time, but the cost in nearly every case rendered them impossible. Without giving very great facilities to the public for using the streets he had made out the cost to be £1,000,000 per mile, and a very careful valuer had estimated the cost of acquiring cellars between Devonshire House and Cannon Street at .£000,000. Sir John Wolfe Barry appeared to over-estimate altogether the cost of tube railways in London when he put it at €700,000 per mile. Tube railways without equipment could be made for about half that sum. The most expensive part of tube railways was the stations, which, it was not very far wrong to say, represented half the expenditure on any existing tube railway. In many cases the stations were much too close to- getlier and great unnecessary expense liad thereby been incurred. The stations ought to be much farther apart on any new lines, thus enabling a better train-speed to be obtained and diminishing the cost of construction. Under such conditions tube railways in London could be built and equipped for about £450,000 per mile, or less. There were one or two questions he wished to ask with regard to construction. First, there was the crossing of tire Harlem River, a work which he liad seen in progress and had never quite understood. Perhaps the Author would say in his reply why that crossing could not have been made in an open coffer-dam. The foundations were, he understood, in good clay, and there was a head of water of 40 feet; but coffer-dams had been made in 40 feet of water, and the head was perhaps not quite so important