MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 33 



of Steel are laid aside for other uses. 2d. All the ingots, and each 

 rail rolled from them, are stamped with the number of the charge 

 or ladleful. A piece is cut from one rail in each charge, and 

 tested by placing it on iron supports a foot apart, and dropping a 

 weight of 5 tons upon the middle of it, from a height propor- 

 tioned to the pattern of rail. A blow equivalent to a ton weight 

 falling 10 to 15 feet is considered a severe test. We use a 5-ton 

 weight falling from a less height, believing that it more nearly 

 represents in kind (although it of course exaggerates in severity) 

 the test of actual service in the track. In case a test rail does 

 not stand the blow deemed proper and agreed upon, the whole 

 of the rails made from that charge or ladleful of steel are marked 

 No. 2, and sold for use in sidings, where their possible breaking 

 would do no great harm, and where their greater hardness and 

 resistance to wear would be specially valuable. In addition to 

 this double test, the rails are rigidly inspected for surface imper- 

 fections. We believe that these tests render it practically impos- 

 sible for us to send out rails of inferior quality. We farther invite 

 railway companies to send inspectors to our works to witness the 

 tests mentioned, and other tests and inspections agreed upon. — 

 Van Nosti'and''s Eng. Mag., Oct., 1869. 



AMERICAN RAILS. 



The term American rails has become a synonym for the cheap- 

 est and least durable rails manufactured. They are usually about 

 10 shillings per ton cheaper than the ordinary rails made for Eng- 

 lish and Continental companies. In the case of American rails 

 the quality of the material and the construction of the rail pile are 

 left entirely to the manufacturer, the rails not being made ac- 

 cording to any specification ; and hence there is not the slightest 

 guaranty that a good, serviceable, or safe rail will be obtained ; 

 the one great desideratum being, apparentl3% that the price be low. 

 Hence, the maker's chief study is, naturall}^ enough, to produce 

 the cheapest possible article, and to devise means of manufactur- 

 ing at a low price what is, to all appearances, a clean-looking 

 rail ; to do this, he carefully studies the character of his iron, and 

 so manipulates it as to obtain a well-finished and salable rail, 

 regardless of its brittleness, — so long, indeed, as it does not 

 break previously to deliveiy and payment, — and indiiieront 

 whether it is likely to last one year or ten. Fortunately for Jiira, 

 the section for American rails is one very easy to roll, — low, 

 heavy, and without angles, — so that almost any quality of iron, 

 and any construction of pile, will not interfere with the one object 

 he has in view. When, however, the iron is very red-short (or 

 liable, through the presence of sulphur, to crack in rolling), a 

 top-slab of a better class of iron (No. 2) nnist be used in the 

 pile, to serve as the wearing surface of the rail. This wearing 

 surface may, however, var^' considerably in thickness, forming 

 either the entire head of the rail, or only a portion more or less 

 thick. Even when the iron is not red-short, the pile is often com- 

 posed of puddled bars onl}', and rolled out into rails, at the low- 



