Mr. HUNTINGTON said the question of tramways had taken such a footing in English construction that it was quite time to have a fair and deliberate discussion concerning it. Tramways would in

Proceedings.] DISCLXSION OX COUNTItY ROADS. 15 Discussion.The PRESIDENT, in moving that the thanks of the Institution The President. should be accorded to the Authors, observed that at the present time the subject brought forward was more or less prominent in the mind of every engineer, whether in town or in the country. discussion might almost be said to be the subject of the day. The advent of " motorism "-to use a word coined by Lord Justice Fletcher Moulton-had brought the use of the roads into such prominence that the matter must be dealt with by the chief authority on the subject of road-making and road-maintenance, which he considered was The Institution of Civil Engineers. For a long time past it had been well understood by railway men that the rail formed part of the machine-that the rail and the locomotive could not be dissociated. To those who were studying the problems connected with motorism it was equally evident that the road formed part of the machine, and must therefore be considered from a standpoint entirely different from what had been customary since railways came into general use, and roads became more or less neglected. I n fact, since the advent of railways, roads had taken a secondary place, and had been considered hardly w-orthy of the attention of engineers. He believed that since the days of Macadam and Telford little had been added to the knowledge of road-construction : bridges and other details in connection with roads had been improved, but not until the advent of motorism, with its clisadvantages of dust and mud, had it become evident that the matter required to be re-studied. In the old coaching-days the roads were in excellent condition, and now engineers, with all the appliances of modern science, might do something to make English roads worthy of the time. There was no longer any doubt that roads were the secondary arteries of the country. The railwaycompanies were beginning to appreciate this fact, for far-sighted companies were now feeding their passenger-traffic by means of motor-omnibuses, and he believed that the goods-traffic would be similarly fed by motor-wagons or traction-trains. There were, too,

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