Obituary

Arthur Vaughan Abbott, a Member of the Institute, and a well known civil, mechanical, and electrical engineer, died at St. Luke´s Hospital, N. Y., December 1, 1906, of pneumonia. Mr. Abbott was born in Brooklyn, N. Y., July 18, 1854, and was graduated from the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute in 1875, taking a post graduate course of one year. His first engagement after graduation was with the Department of Parks, New York City. After one year´s experience he received an appointment in the Engineers´ Department of the East River Bridge, with which he was connected until the completion of the structure in 1882. While thus engaged he made several meritorious inventions of wire cutting, steel- and cement-testing machinery. He had charge of the cable construction, and the testing and inspection of materials. He was then engaged by E. T. Fairbanks and Co., and built testing machines and large railway and lock scales for that concern with which he continued for four years. Mr. Abbott was then appointed Chief Engineer of the Boston Heating Co., and during his three years´ service, designed, installed, and operated a central station supplying about two square miles in the city of Boston. Through his subsequent engagement with the Daft Electric Light Company. Mr. Abbott entered the electrical field, and after a period of shop construction of dynamos and motors he began the designing, building, and operating of electric railways at Meriden, Connecticut, Bloomfield, N. J. Atlantic City, N. J., Bloomington, Ill., Ogden and Salt Lake City, Utah, and Augu ta, Ga., also electrically equipping the Interstate Road at Kansas City, Mo.