e belonged. He
was a member of the Sanitary and Sewage Commissions, and of the
Commission which sat on Westminster Bridge. The last occasions on which
he addressed the House were on the Suez Canal and the cleansing of the
Serpentine. He pronounced the Suez Canal to be an impracticable scheme.
"I have surveyed the line," said he, "I have travelled the whole distance
on foot, and I declare there is no fall between the two seas. Honourable
members talk about a canal. A canal is impossible--the thing would only
be a ditch."

Besides constructing the railway between Alexandria and Cairo, he was
consulted, like his father, by the King of Belgium, as to the railways of
that country; and he was made Knight of the Order of Leopold because of
the improvements which he had made in locomotive engines, so much to the
advantage of the Belgian system of inland transit. He was consulted by
the King of Sweden as to the railway between Christiana and Lake Miosen,
and in consideration of his services was decorated with the Grand Cross
of the Order of St. Olaf. He also visited Switzerland, Piedmont, and
Denmark, to advise as to the system of railway communication best suited
for those countries. At the Paris Exhibition of 1855 the Emperor of
France decorated him with the Legion of Honour in consideration of his
public services; and at home the University of Oxford made him a Doctor
of Civil Laws. In 1855 he was elected President of the Institute of
Civil Engineers, which office he held with honour and filled with
distinguished ability for two years, giving place to his friend Mr. Locke
at the end of 1857.

Mr. Stephenson was frequently called upon to act as arbitrator between
contractors and railway companies, or between one company and
another,--great value being attached to his opinion on account of his
weighty judgment, his great experience, and his upright character, and we
believe his decisions were invariably stamped by the qualities of
impartiality and justice. He was always ready to lend a helping hand to
a friend, and no petty jealousy stood between him and his rivals in the
engineering world. The author remembers being with Mr. Stephenson one
evening at his house in Gloucester Square, when a note was put into his
hands from his friend Brunel, then engaged in his first fruitless efforts
to launch the _Great Eastern_. It was to ask Stephenson to come down to
Blackwall early next morning, and give him the benefit of his