tinually rotating or progressive magnetic fields which are attracting so much attention just now. In both these latter the motor system on the car becomes rather a simple affair, and it goes without saying that the track, on its purely mechanical side, is simple and straightforward enough. One can indeed anticipate that the more serious difficulties will be found to reside in the moot questions whether the induction or magnetic forces can be concentrated sufficiently upon the "inducted" system of the cars, and whether the heat-losses in the continuous line of iron shell can be kept within commercial limits of efficiency. I am not prepared to take up any definite position on these two points, and it would not be just to myself so far to disclose my own views and schemes; but, in conclusion, I cannot help expressing my confident opinion that in some alternating current system the best, or at any rate least objectionable, solution of this vexed problem of electric traction on open roads will be found, and those who can carry through the practical pioneering will reap all the honours that in this direction be awaiting the electrical engineer. Since writing the above I have made a hurried search over recent patents, and I find that Mr. W. Dewey has been working, or at least patenting, in this connection. However, being American, he has not apparently perceived what awful bugbears open slots and mechanical contacts are, and therefore he retains them both in his schemes.Yours, etc., J. WHITCHER. October 31, 1891. THE ROUNDHAY ELECTRIC TRAMWAY, LEEDS. As our readers are aware, the Roundhay Electric Tram way was officially opened last week. The immediate been working all night-they threw all their energies into the task, under the immediate supervision of Messrs. Winslow and Carey, assisted by Mr. Guy. The line consists first of the main from Sheepscar to Roundhay Park, and a branch joining this at the bottom of Harehillsroad to the bottom of Beckett-street. This branch was termed the new road, and that was finished sufficient to run cars on the Wednesday before. A single line of trolley wire was run from Sheepscar to Roundhay Park, but only finished on Thursday morning between 12 and 1 o'clock, at which time the connection between the branch and the main line was still incomplete. Men had been labouring all the morning at this curve, but it was not till about two o'clock, or an hour after the advertised opening, that the last joint was soldered, and within five minutes of the time the last joint was made the cars were run from the shed to the line. Here, then, we had a most important work, upon the success of which many eyes turned and more work depended, absolutely untried and untested prior to the official ceremony. We may view this in two ways, and we prefer to look upon it as one of the greatest proofs ever offered to the success of electric traction. In reality the engineers may be taken to have said, "We know our system; we know how the work is done under our direct supervision, and though it is to be officially tried the moment of completion, we fear not the result." This amount of confidence is commendable, but it is somewhat risky. However, in this instance there was no help except to postpone the opening, which was not thought of for a moment. The whole of the cars were placed upon the line, and at once successfully run down the branch to the junction, and thence down the main line to Sheepscar. Many of the invited guests started in the cars from the station, others awaited their advent at Sheepscar. The journey from Sheepscar to Roundhay Park was then commenced, and, with the exception of a wait through the heating of the engine, passed off satisfactorily. In fact, of the cars. FIG. 1.-Plan of Rails Showing Connections (Thomson-Houston System). incidents connected with the opening of this line ought to be chronicled, and as, with the exception of the officials and men engaged upon the line, the present writer alone can speak from his own experience, he will endeavour to tell the history of the last hour or two before the actual running The Roundhay Electric Tramway is not finished-it was less complete at the opening ceremony. Imagine a careful estimate of time for work made by men who know their business, with a safe margin allowed for eventualities. Invitations are issued upon this estimate without a shadow of a doubt as to being ready. But the English weather, as soon as a definite time was fixed, commenced to play pranks. It did not rain-"it poured cats and dogs," as the locals have it-and though waterproofs were bought and provided, the workmen fairly turned tail at the elements. When possible, work was carried out night and day, but still the morning of Thursday, Oct. 29, came, and the work was far from finished. The men had from first to last there was no hitch in the electrical apparatus, and the greatest credit is due to all who have been engaged in the work that it should have been so. A bad joint, a wrong connection--minor faults which are expected and which are usually found and remedied in the preliminary tests-were totally absent. Let us, therefore, in future recollect what the Thomson-Houston people can do with overhead conductors. We saw the line incomplete at Roundhay and at the junction, two hours before the cars were successfully running. Greater praise than this statement cannot be given to Mr. Winslow and Mr. Carey, upon whom rested the responsibility of having the line ready for the opening ceremony. The Roundhay tramway line consists partly of single and partly of double track. The track was laid ready to the hand of the electric company, so that their work in connection with the roadway has been to adapt a track laid for horse or steam traction to the requirements of electric traction. The metals and road-bed of the entire lines have been laid in the very best style of tramway construction, comprising grooved girder steel rails of a section of 98lb. to the yard, laid upon a solid bed of concrete, 18ft. wide and 9in. deep, and tied together at short intervals by metal tie-bars. The joints are laid on sole-plates, and the channels of the rails filled in with cement. The paving of granite setts is placed upon a bed of sand over the concrete, and the interstices between the sets thoroughly pitched. For the purpose of return a central wire of soft drawn copper wire, No. 0 B.W.G. 34in., Fig. 1, has been laid throughout the system, each tramrail being electrically connected to this return wire and its neighbouring rail, as shown. The connecting wire, No. 7 B.W.G. soft-drawn copper, is brought into contact with the rails by means of the scoop-shape wedge shown. When these connections were G FIG. 2.-Diagram of Working of Electric Tramway. made, so far as the roadway is concerned, the work was finished. For readers whose familiarity with electrical matters is small, we may treat the matter somewhat elementarily and somewhat fully. Briefly, the aim of the engineer is to get a complete metallic circuit. At one point of the circuit, G, Fig. 2, the current is generated by the dynamo. The current, as shown by the diagram, passes along the wire in the direction shown by the arrow to the trolley wire, C. From the trolley wire, C, it passes by the trolley, T, and the conducting wires, shown by dotted The diagram, Fig. 2, shows it fixed to the top of the car. By means of a rope the conductor can lower the trolley, otherwise the action of the springs is to keep the wheel in contact with the trolley wire. The head of the trolley bar is shown in Fig. 9. The height of the trolley wire determines the length of the bar. At Leeds the trolley wire would be about 20ft. above the road, and, we imagine, some 10ft. above the top of the car. The right-hand standards near the top carry cross-pieces upon which are insulators carrying the feeding wires. In the Leeds installation there are two such feeding wires-the one 0000 B. W.G., the Roundhay-road, containing grades of 1 in 20 for a distance of a quarter of a mile, and 1 in 21 for a similar distance. The single line has several passing-places, and contains a gradient of 1 in 28 for three quarters of a mile. We now come to the central station, which is just off the junction of Harehills-road and Beckett-street. Fig. 10 gives a sketch plan of the buildings, of which the car-shed has been built from the designs of Mr. Hewson, the borough engineer. As will be seen, the car-shed is on the side of the dynamo and engine room. It is substantially built of brick, and roomy enough to The total length of tramway operated electrically is about | There is sufficient space to duplicate the present boiler if 5 miles, comprising about two miles of double line on the necessary. A brick partition parts the boiler and engine minute. The current from the dynamos, which run in shows a plan of the car. Each car is fitted with two parallel, is led to the switchboard, SB, Fig. 10. This single-reduction Thomson-Houston motors, Fig. 13, of switchboard is excellently designed and fitted, and worth | 15 h.p. each, geared to either axle, working in parallel, and we have the controlling stand, worked by the driver actuating the resistances and reversing switch shown. The body of the car is handsomely decorated and upholstered. It is lighted from above by a circle of incandescent lamps, these, of course, being fed through the trolley contacts. Perhaps after this description of the apparatus, we ought to say something more of the opening ceremony and the invitation dinner therewith. It was unfortunate that Mr. Graff Baker, to whose energy this installation is due was prevented by indisposition from being present at the Town Hall. He would have found, however, that the whole assembled company-with, perhaps, a single excep tion-were favourably impressed with the installation, and predicted success so far as running is concerned. commercial success depends upon the traffic, which at certain seasons will undoubtedly be very heavy. However we trust that the successful running will induce the Leeds authorities to permit the extension from Chapeltown-road to some point in or near Briggate. The interest taken in tramway work will be understood by reading a few of the names of gentlemen present at the dinner which was held in the Victoria Hall of the Town Hall, under the presidency The FIG. 14.-Controlling Stand, Tramway Rheostat, and Reversing Switch. of the Mayor, Mr. Alf. Cooke. Among the guests present were Colonel Church, the Mayor of Huddersfield (Alderman Godfrey Sykes), Alderman S. Feather (ex-Mayor of Bradford), Mr. W. J. Carruthers Wain, C.E., president of the Tramways Institute; Mr. J. Barber Glen, secretary London Street Tramways; Mr. J. S. Comrie, director of the Provincial Tramways Company; Mr. J. G. B. Elliot, secretary of the Tramways Institute; Mr. W. Busby, director of the Liverpool Tramways; Mr. G. P. Bradford, director of the North Staffordshire Tramways Company; Mr. G. Waller, C.E., London; Mr. H. E. Whytehead, manager North Staffordshire Tramways Company; Mr. E. Coulson, chairman of the Derby Tramways; Mr. H. Hatchett, secretary South Staffordshire Tramways Company; Mr. A. Dickenson, manager South Staffordshire Tramways Company; Mr. H. Foley, manager Gateshead Tramways Company; Mr. William Anderson, manager and secretary Dublin United Tramways Company; Mr. J. Neal, secretary and manager Liverpool Tramways Company; Mr. J. H. Lynn, manager Bradford Tramways Company; Mr. F. L. Laxton, manager Dewsbury and Batley Tramways Company; Mr. John Waugh, director of the St. Helens Tramways Company; Mr. W. Wharam, manager and secretary of the Leeds Tramways Company; Mr. E. P. Smith, chairman of the Rochdale, Bury, and Oldham Tramways, and Mr. Edward Rothwell, manager; Mr. Moseley, manager of the Burnley Tramways Company; Alderman Priestley, the town clerk of Leeds (Sir George Morrison), the town clerk of Walsall, the deputy town clerk of Leeds (Mr. Joliffe), the Leeds borough surveyor (Mr. Hewson), Mr. I. E. Winslow, manager of the Roundhay Electric Tramway, and most of the aldermen and councillors of the Leeds Corporation, besides a large number of other guests. In addition to the usual toast of "The Queen," that of the President of the United States was heartily received. The toast of the day, "Success to the Roundhay Electric Tramway," was proposed by Alderman Firth, who recapitulated the history of the undertaking from its inception to the ceremony of the day, and gave as his emphatic belief, from what he had seen throughout the whole work, that the undertaking would be a great success. Mr. W. S. Graff Baker was to have replied to this toast, but owing to indisposition, his place was taken by Colonel Church. The Mayor of Leeds replied to the toast of "The Mayor and Corporation," and stated that he was the first man in Yorkshire who put down the electric light for commercial purposes at his works at "Crown Point." Prof. G. Forbes proposed the toast of "The Thomson-Houston Company," and credited Prof. E. Thomson with having done much and good work for the electrical world. He also referred in eulogistic terms to the great financial ability that had been displayed in regard to this company. Mr. Carey responded. The evening concluded with the toast of "The Chairman," and so ended the opening ceremony of the Roundhay Electric Tramway Company. The employés of the above tramway were given a dinner at the Royal Oak Hotel, Kirkgate, Leeds, on Saturday evening last, October 31. The chair was taken by Mr. J. W. Watkins, engineer of the generating station, who was supported by the following gentlemen: Messrs. J. J. McMahon, the assistant superintendent of the line; J. McGuire, of Messrs. Babcock and Wilcox, of London; J. Maddocks, chief inspector of the highways department, Leeds Corporation; J. Morley, J. Allen, Arthur F. Guy, A.M.I.E.E., of London, and other gentlemen. The dinner to which the assembly sat down was of a very substantial and excellent character. A silver tobacco pouch was presented to Mr. John McMahon, the foreman lineman. LITERATURE. The Practical Telephone Handbook. By JOSEPH POOLE. Whittaker and Co., London. The number of telephone employés in the United Kingdom is large and constantly increasing, yet heretofore there has not been any work to which the junior grades, instrument fitters and inspectors, linesmen and apprentices, could refer for guidance in matters pertaining to their daily round of duty. Preece and Maier's book, "The Telephone," is a mine of information, but its style is not of the most popular order, and much space is devoted to German and other foreign instruments and systems which are interesting to our telephone workers only as curiosities. The author of the present volume, on the other hand, confines himself closely to apparatus in actual use amongst us, or which is earning deserved commendation elsewhere, and eschews theories in favour of [practical detail. Mr. Poole enacts the demonstrator rather than the professor. He puts himself by the instrument inspector's side, accompanies him on his fault-finding expeditions, and in a plain, straightforward, easily-understood fashion, tells both how to detect and remedy all the defects to which telephonic apparatus is liable. For this reason, Chapter XIII., on "Faults and their Localisation," is certain to become a great favourite with aspiring juniors, and for its sake alone it would probably pay telephone companies to present a copy of the book to each member of their technical staff. Another good chapter is that on "Intermediate Switches and Switchboards." A young inspector is frequently bothered by recurring cases of bad contact in two-way and other switches, than which nothing can be worse for telephone working. Only one microphone-that on the subscriber's instrument-is, as a rule, wanted, and such supplementary ones as are due to bad joints, loose connections, and faulty contacts are to be sternly deprecated. Economy is not only desirable but necessary in telephone work, but the employment of cheap apparatus, such as switches which depend on their pivots for the line connections, as many still offered to telephone companies do, is not the surest means to attain it. Several good switches are illustrated and described. The same chapter deals with the details of the |