The Design and Construction of Certain Temporary Works, The Upper Silent Valley Reservoir, Co. Down

Prof. Sir Alfred Pugsley, O.B.E., D.Sc.(Eng.), F.R.S., M.I.Struct.E., M.I.C.E., F.R.Ae.S., whom thc Institution welcomes as President for the Session 1957-1958, will take office on the 3rd October. As Professor of Civil Engineering in the University of Bristol since 1945 he is well known to a wide circle of members and many will also be familiar with his distinguished work in the field of structural engineering and aeronautical research.

THE President introduced the Authors who then presented their paper. Mr. Janhunen also exhibited a film illustrating the progress of thc work of construction and some of the details.

THE CHAIRMAN, who opened the discussion, said that he had never before fully appreciated the modern development in the handling and stacking of materials. It was a rather frightening thought that, when going to the grocer and buying some sugar or l lb. packet of margarine, one was setting in train a vast mass of movement in palletisation, ending up in an enormous store of the commodity. Long before the war, the grocers seemed to manage without all these elaborate depots; but people were now probably becoming the slaves of mass production, mass storage, mass advertising and mass buying. In fact, judging from the film which had been shown, in about fifty years’ time the housewife would drive down to the grocer’s shop with a little fork lift truck instead of a shopping basket. That was the way things appeared to be going.