“Long sleeps the summer in the seed; Run out your measured arcs, and lead The closing cycle rich in good.”--TENNYSON. HOW IT AFFECTS EXISTING RAILWAYS Thomas Alva Edison is reported to have said, “Electricity will displace steam,” and, taking his prediction as a text, I will begin by quoting a few figures; for Britishers, though they may affect otherwise, dearly love statistics. Well, in the year that Queen Victoria ascended the throne the capital invested in railways might have been expressed in a few figures. When she died, the “iron horse” represented the vast sum of twelve hundred millions sterling. Twenty years ago investments in electric traction enterprises amounted to not more than £100,000. To-day they involve immense sums, the County Council’s scheme for London alone running up to £50,000,000! But this is nothing to the probabilities of the near future, as Mr. Percy Sellon pointed out to the London Chamber of Commerce. “Within the next ten years,” he said, “electric supply and traction may be expected, with a fair field, to engage at least 250 millions of capital”; and this estimate seems to be by no means exaggerated; in fact, it is underrated. As one of the leading “dailies” observes, “Apart from such a large project as the electrification of the District and Metropolitan Railways, there is scarcely a municipal authority in Great Britain which has not in hand some scheme of electric railway, tramway, or lighting. It is as well to think that electricity is not the agent of the future, but of the present, and an era which has already dawned. In displacement of steam, electricity is evidently destined to be one of the products of the first quarter of the twentieth century.” It may be surmised that by the time Mr. Sellons ten years have expired all the great railway companies in the kingdom will have adopted electricity as motive power, certainly on their suburban lines, and for the passenger traffic on the main lines. With what effect, and at what cost? The latter question can hardly be answered, but the former may be guessed at. For a long time the railway companies will naturally be reluctant to bring about such a revolution as the substitution of electricity for steam. Engines of enormous power, such as the new Great Eastern “Decapod” or ten-wheeler, will be requisitioned to accelerate the working of trains; and, to save fuel, petroleum will be extensively adopted on others. But electricity the public will have, if it is shown to be more economical in the long run.