that promised a fair return for the investment directly in dividends, or indirectly in extended commercial facilities or agricultural products. England and France have not only contributed to the railways of their own countries, but to the provinces dependent upon them. Schemes of irrigation have been aided in Italy, Spain, and the Indies. France has almost entirely rebuilt her capital. Paris, with its new boulevards, avenues, and sewers, is no longer the Paris of the Revolution. London, with its metropolitan railways, affords a means of distribution of its inhabitants unequalled by any large city. Immense stations, with all the facilities of steam and hydraulic lifts for loading and unloading, new bridges and viaducts, have been constructed. A large market has been built at Smithfield, into the cellar of which run the trains of four railways, and through which the trains of the Metropolitan Railway run every two minutes. Such arrangements would be of great importance to many of our cities, especially to New York; but, in a sanitary point of view, the value of which can hardly be estimated in money, the construction of the Thames embankment, with its sewer, and the general system of sewerage carried out in London, may be considered one of the most important public works of our time.

The designs for the Thames embankment, both on the north and south sides of the river, were prepared for the Metropolitan Board of Works by their engineer, Mr. J. W. Bazalgette, and approved and adopted by them. Those for the north side were completed and contracts let and the works commenced in February, 1864. The works for the south side were commenced in September, 1865.

In an engineering and architectural point of view, there has seldom been so colossal a work in granite put together with the same completeness. It literally fits with the neatness of cabinet-work, and some of the landing-stages and piers will remain as standards of what such works should be. Some idea may be formed of the magnitude and importance of the undertaking, when we say that a river-wall in granite eight feet in thickness has been built so as to dam out nearly 300 acres of the river; that this wall is nearly 7,000 feet long; that it averages more than 40 ft. high, and its foundations go from 16 to 30 ft. below the bed of the river. In the formation of this wall and the auxiliary works of drainage, subways, and filling in with earth behind it, there have been used nearly 700,000 cubic feet of granite, about 30,000,000 bricks, over 300,000 bushels of cement, nearly 1,000,000 cubic feet of concrete, 125,000 cubic yards of earth have had to be dug out, and no less than 1,200,000 cubic yards of earth filled in; the quantities of material are equal to building half a dozen structures like the Great Pyramid.

The northern embankment extends between

Westminster and Blackfriars Bridges, 6,640 feet, and the cost of the works as tendered for,

£875,000. The southern embankment extends from Westminster Bridge up the river toward Vauxhall Bridge, and a portion of the works consists in widening and a part in narrowing the river. The total cost of this contract is £309,000, the length of the new roadway from Westminster Bridge to Vauxhall Bridge being 5,000 feet, and its width 60 feet.

The end of the embankment next to Westminster Bridge, and for a long way past Whitehall, is finished, with the exception of the roadway. As a steamboat-pier for arrival and departure, it is now open to the public. A noble flight of stone steps, 40 feet wide, will give entrance from Westminister Bridge to this por tion. As far as it has yet been constructed, there are six piers along the face of the embankment. The landing-place at Temple Gardens will be of its kind unsurpassed. The great frontage of this pier-nearly 600 feet-the width of its stone stairways, the solidity and height of its abutments or terminals, and, above all, the carved granite arch which will give access to it from the land, will make this station one of the most conspicuous ornaments of the river.

The Metropolitan Main Drainage.-The Abbey Mills Pumping-station, at West Ham, near Stratford-at-the-Bow, has been opened. The pumping-station at Abbey Mills is a most important portion of the scheme for the main drainage of London. One prominent feature of the design is the attempt which has been made, as far as possible, to remove the sewage by gravitation, and thus to reduce the pumping to a minimum. It is, however, impossible for sewage to fall by gravitation for a distance of ten or twelve miles from districts which are lower than or near the level of the river, and yet at their outfall to be delivered at the level of high water without the aid of pumping. Thus it happens that all the sewage on the south side of the Thames, and the sewage of a portion of the north side, have to be lifted, and for this purpose there are four pumping-stations, two on each side of the river. Of those on the south side, one is situate at Deptford Creek, of 500 nominal horse-power, and the other at the Crossness Outfall, which is also of 500 nominal horse-power. Of the two on the north side, the largest and most important is that of the Abbey Mills, which is 1,140 nominal horse-power. The fourth will be the smallest station, of 240 nominal horse-power only, and situated at Pimlico. The Abbey Mills pumps will lift the sewage of Acton, Hammersmith, Fulham, Shepherd's Bush, Kensington, Brompton, Pimlico, Westminster, the City, Whitechapel, Stepney, Mile End, Wapping, Limehouse, Bow, and Poplar, being an area of twenty-five square miles and a height of thirtysix feet from the low-level to the high-level

sewers.

The station covers an area of seven acres, divided into two portions by the northern outfall sewer, which passes diagonally across

it on an embankment raised about 17 feet above the surface. On the southwest side of the embankment stand the engine and boiler houses and chimney-shafts, together with the coal-stores and wharf for landing coals and other materials from Abbey Creek. On the northeast side of the embankment are the cottages for the workmen employed on the works, and a reservoir for storage of water to supply the boilers and condensing water for the engines. The engine and boiler houses form one building, the engine-house being arranged on a plan in the shape of a cross, and the boiler-houses forming two wings extending northwest and southeast of the northeastern arm of the cross. The extreme dimensions of the building, taken across two of the arms, is 142 feet 6 inches; the width of each arm being 47 feet 6 inches. Each of the two boiler-houses measures 100 feet in length by 62 feet in width; and there is a workshop situated between the two, measuring 49 feet 6 inches by 33 feet. The engine-house consists of four stories in height, two of which are below and two above the surface of the ground, the height of the two lower stories being 38 feet, and that of the two above-ground, measured from the engine-room floor to the apex of the roof, being 62 feet. At the intersection of the four arms of the cross the building is covered by a cupola of an ornamental character, rising to a height of 110 feet from the engine floor, and at each of the internal angles of the cross rises a turret in which is formed a circular staircase giving access to the several floors of the building. The boiler-houses are of one story above the finished ground level, the boilers and stoking-floor being below that level. The total height from stokehole floor to apex of roof is 33 feet. The chimney-shafts, of which there are two, one on each side of the engine-house, are 209 feet in height from the finished surface, and 8 feet internal diameter throughout. They are externally octagonal in plan, rising from a square battered base, and are capped at the top by an ornamental cast-iron roof, pierced with openings for the egress of the smoke. The foundations of brickwork and concrete extend to a depth of 35 feet below the finished surface. The engines, which are about 1,200-horse power, are eight in number, non-condensing cylinders each 54" and 108", making two double-acting pumps 4 feet diameter, with a stroke of 4 feet direct from a strong cast-iron beam 40 feet long by 6 feet deep in the middle. To ease the working of the pumps, there is placed in the centre of the engine-house, below the floor, a large cast-iron air-vessel, 13 feet diameter and about 20 feet high, through which the sewage is pumped into a cast-iron tube or culvert, 10 feet diameter. There is also a fly-wheel 28 feet diameter, weighing about 40 tons, attached to each engine; and to supply them with steam there are sixteen boilers, 30 feet long by 8 feet diameter. Any

one of the engines, when in working order, is capable of pumping 1,000,000 gallons of sewage per hour.

The sewage is brought into the pump-well, which forms the lowest story of the building, from the low-level sewer, but, before admission, is strained of any extraneous matters which may have been brought down with it, and which would either not pass or be detrimental to the pump-valves, by means of cages of wrought-iron bars, which are placed in chambers in front of the engine-house, and which are capable of being lifted and emptied when full. The building containing the machinery and appliances for this purpose stands in front of the centre of the engine-house, and from the chambers beneath it are three sewers, conveying the sewage, after being strained, to the pump-wells in three of the arms of the engine-house. From the sewage-well the water is lifted through rectangular cast-iron pipes, situate at the sides of the building, into the sewage-pumps, and it is from them forced through cast-iron cylinders 6 feet in diameter, running along the centres of three of the arms of the building, and below the engine-room floor into the large cast-iron air-vessel in the centre of the building. From this vessel the sewage is lifted by the power of six engines, and forced, through the huge iron culvert above mentioned, into the outfall sewer, arrangements being made at its junction therewith for regulating the discharge.

WRIGHT, WILLIAM B., a distinguished jurist of New York, born in Sullivan County, N. Y., in 1807; died at Albany, N. Y., January 12, 1868. He was admitted to the bar in Sullivan County, about 1830, and soon obtained a good practice there, but his first appearance in pubÎic life was as a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1846, to which he had been elected from Sullivan County. During the deliberations of that body he distinguished himself by the wisdom of his suggestions, as well as by the great ability with which he presented them. In the autumn of 1846 he was elected to the State Assembly from Sullivan County, and in June, 1847, he was raised to the bench of the Supreme Court, in the Albany district, in which court he continued to preside until elected to the Court of Appeals, in 1861. Judge Wright occupied the bench in the highest courts of New York for more than twenty years, and enjoyed through the entire period the respect and esteem of the legal profession, and the affection and confidence of the people. The malady of which he died was disease of the kidneys, from which he had been some time a sufferer. His residence, when not engaged in his official duties, was at Kingston, Ulster County, N. Y.

WURTEMBERG, a kingdom in South Germany. King, Karl, born March 6, 1823; succeeded his father, June 25, 1864. Area, 7,532 square miles. The population, according to the census of 1867, was 1,778,479, against

1,748,328 in 1864, an increase of 1.72 per cent. With regard to religious profession, 1,220,199 (68.6 per. cent.) were Protestants, 543,601 (30.6 per cent.) Roman Catholics, 3,017 other Christians, and 11,662 Israelites. The largest cities had, in 1867, the following population: Stuttgart, 75,781; Ulm, 24,739; Heilbronn, 16,730; Esslingen, 16,591; Reutlingen, 13,781. The estimates of the general budget for the term from 1868 to 1870 are as follows: 1867-'68: expenditures and revenue, each, 19,957,708; for 1868-'69: expenditures and revenue, each, 21,301,667; 1869-'70: expenditures, 22,430,472; revenue, 22,395,981; deficit, 34,491. Pub

lic debt, in May 9, 1868, 126,860,470 florins. The army of Wurtemberg, in 1868, consisted of 34,405, of which 14,150 were in active service.

The Wurtemberg Diet, which closed on the 20th of February, adopted a new electoral law, which provides for direct and universal suffrage. A new election took place in July, resulting in a triumph of the Democratic party, to which a considerable majority in the Chamber of Deputies belong. The National party, which is favorable to a union with the North-German Confederation, elected nine members.