P'ROCEEDINGS OF THE POLTTECHNIC ASSOCIATION. 1035 



back of slow movement might bo attributed ; and wliich, as designed 

 by the projector, involved tlie laying of a water-tube the whole length 

 of the line, in order that the power miglit be obtained froni a single, 

 engine. 



When the railway between Albany and Schenectady, in this State, 

 was first constructed, there was a steep incline plane at each terminus. 

 By means of stationary engines, cars were elevated from the valley of the 

 Hudson river, and from the valley of the Mohawk, to the table lands 

 extending nearly from one city to the other. Although the cost of 

 steam power is much less for a stationary engine than for a locomo- 

 tive, it was found most feasible to dispense with these steep inclined 

 planes, and to elongate the road so as to provide, at each end of it, 

 planes of such grade that the ordinary locomotive could ascend them 

 with the usual loaded trains. On the Pennsylvania railways, for 

 transporting coal, where the load has to be carried down the mountain 

 into the valley below, these steep planes answer a good purpose ; in 

 lact no other plan is feasible. For the pleasure derived from the 

 scenery in these coal regions, some persons venture to ride on the coal 

 trains, which sometimes shoot with frightful speed down the mount- 

 ain ; but it may be safely asserted that, in general, railway travelers 

 do not admire steep gradients, and would greatly prefer a dead leveh 

 !N"ature sometimes compels the railway engineer to construct lieavy 

 grades ; but to construct artificial inclined planes over routes already 

 on a level grade, even though these planes might embrace all the 

 ingenious devices shown in the model before us, seems, to the Chair, 

 to be a retrograde movement, rather than an advance in engineer- 

 ing. 



AVith reference to the same topic Mr. J. K. Fisher took the floor, 

 and expressed his views as follows: No one who knows the history 

 of railways Tieeds to be informed that they were worked by gravita- 

 tion before they were worked by locomotives ; and there is no need 

 of opinions of engineers, or tables or books, to help explain what can 

 be done in this way ; the laws of motion, and the resistances, as found 

 by trials with the dynamometer, enables us to calculate very nearly, 

 when we know the hight and length of the inclines. In this case 

 tlie higlit is 10.5 feet and the length 2,G-iO feet ; and the inventor 

 claims tliat lie can attain an average speed of fifteen miles an hour on a 

 series of such inclines, stopping every half mile to change passengers 

 and lift his car up to the summit of the next incline. He does not 

 axplicitely state how long it will take to lift the car ; but he says it 



