30 JOHN J. STEVENSON 



disappeared and the durable steel rail has taken its place. 

 Under the moderate conditions of twenty five years ago, iron 

 rails rarely lasted for more than five years; in addition, the 

 metal was soft, the limit of load was reached quickly, and 

 freight rates, though high, were none too profitable. 



But all changed with the advent of steel rails as made by 

 the American process. Application of abstruse laws, dis- 

 covered by men unknown to popular fame, enabled inventors 

 to improve methods and to cheapen manufacture until the 

 first cost of steel rails was less than that of iron. The dura- 

 bility of the new rails and their resistance to load justified 

 increased expenditure in other directions to secure perma- 

 nently good condition of the roadbed. Just here Mr. P. H. 

 Dudley made his contribution, whose importance can hardly 

 be overestimated. With his ingenious recording apparatus 

 it is easy to discover defects in the roadway and to ascertain 

 their nature, thus making it possible to devise means for their 

 correction and for preventing their recurrence. The informa- 

 tion obtained by use of this apparatus has led him to change 

 the shape and weight of rails, to modify the tj^pe of joints and 

 the methods of ballasting, so that now a roadbed should 

 remain in good condition and even improve during years of 

 hard use. 



But the advantages have not inured wholly to the railroad 

 companies. It is true that the cost of maintenance has been 

 reduced greatly; that locomotives have been made heavier 

 and more powerful ; that freight cars carry three to four times 

 as much as they did twenty five years ago, so that the whole 

 cost of operation is very much less than formerly. But where 

 the carrier has gained one dollar the consumer and shipper 

 have gained hundreds of dollars. Grain and flour can be 

 brought from Chicago to the seaboard as cheaply by rail as 

 by water; the farmer in Dakota raises wheat for shipment to 

 Europe. Coal mined in West Virginia can be sold on the docks 

 of New York at a profit for less than half the freight of twenty 

 five years ago. Our internal commercial relations have been 

 changed, and the revolution is still incomplete. The influence 

 of the Holley-Mushet-Bessemer process upon civilization is 

 hardly inferior to that of the electric telegraph. 



