1897.] NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 149 



The 100-pound rail shows the highest possible condition, the 

 undulations being reduced to the lowest limit which the trackmen 

 can take up in surfacing, the original diagrams showing nearly 

 smooth lines without a trace of the joints. The 100-pound rail 

 makes "Permanent Way." 



The Mohawk and Western Divisions furnish the striking com- 

 parisons between the possible conditions of track on the four and 

 one-half inch 65-pound rails in portions of tlie track for 1891, and 

 the five-inch 80-pound rails in track No. 2, and the five and one- 

 eighth inch 80-pound rails in track No. 1, for 1895. 



On another lantern slide was shown the condensed diagrams 

 of the Inspection of the Boston and Albany' Railroad for 1896 

 and 1895. 



From the topographical features of the road these diagrams 

 are of unusual interest. Starting at tide water at Boston, as the 

 line runs westward, the Atlantic slope is ascended until the sum- 

 mit at Charlton is passed at an elevation of 907 feet, then the 

 line descends the eastern slope of the Connecticut river, 

 crossing it at Springfield at an elevation of only seventy feet 

 above tide water. Then the western slope is ascended, and the 

 divide between Connecticut and Hudson rivers is surmounted at 

 an elevation of 1,453 feet above tide water; then the line de- 

 scends the Hudson river slope to tide water at Alban3^ The 

 curvature of the line is fiftj'-three per cent, of its length. 



In the past five years three-fourths of the main line have been 

 laid with the heavy 95-pound broad-headed smooth rails, and the 

 diagrams show a remarkably uniform condition of track for each 

 mile, alike upon the level portions, the gradients of the Atlantic 

 slope, and the curved ancl heavy gradients of the Connecticut 

 and Hudson river slopes. 



So uniform a condition of the track was never approximated 

 upon either the 63 or 72-pound rails, nor could it be, nor has it 

 been elsewhere on much stiffer rails with round heads, nor is it 

 possible on such rails made by any known process of manufac- 

 ture. 



The average " all year round " minimum limit of undulations, 

 to which the trackmen readily surface the 95-pound rails on 

 good ballast, is two feet per mile, or the fourteenth line on 

 the diagrams — about one-fourth of the amount ten to twelve 

 years since. 



A third lantern slide exhibited the first five-inch 80-pound 

 steel rail section of this country, and the five series of three 

 sections embracing each of the sections more recently designed 

 by the author. Over 300,000 tons of the recent rails are already 

 in service. 



