Hudson and Mohawk Rail Road. 145 
The soil through which the road passes is generally sandy. Some 
considerable elevations are cut through, and several ravines crossed. 
The slopes left by the cutting or formed by the enbankments, are 
partly covered with sods, and will be entirely so in the course of 
another season. No settling of the road has taken place except to 
a very slight degree in some of the embankments which is easily rec+ 
‘tiled. =<: 
Construction of the Road.—Afier the grading was finished, the 
residue of the work was done in the following manner. Under each 
line of the rails, which is very accurately ascertained by means of a 
transit instrument, square holes are dug at the distance of three feet 
from center to center, capable of containing nine cubic feet of bro= 
ken stone. In clay, the holes are connected by a tteck, and in these 
holes, in either case, the broken stone is placed, and rammed down 
S0asto form a solid mass. The stone which is principally grau- 
wacke, is broken into pieces that will pass through a ring of two 
mehes diameter. On this foundation the stone blocks are placed, 
quarried either on the canal twelve miles above Schenectady, or at 
Singsing on the Hudson, about double that distance from New York. 
They are dressed on the upper side only, but have a flat bottom in 
order to lie evenly upon the broken stone. They are very quickly 
laid down and leveled, and firmly seated. A little practice enables 
“ven an ordinary workman to adjust them to their places. 
A massive wooden pounder, with four arms, managed by the 
united strength of four men is applied to them to bring them exactly 
‘© their level, after the broken stone has been moved in: such a way 
a8 to give them their proper position. ‘The next step is to drill the 
in the face of the stone, and by means of a simple adaptation 
of an old principle which may hereafter be noticed, four holes canbe _ 
ed at once, two in each block, with great ease and much economy” 
°f labor and time. In these drillings small plugs of locust wood, 
about four inches long, and about an inch in diameter, are loosely 
Pe Into these plugs, are driven the iron spikes which- pass 
Tough, and hold down the cast iron chairs. The chairs are pieces 
block pit Shape, being double or single, secured to the stone 
chisiee ya ‘Spike, and clasping the rail on each side. The double 
pe o risine: sufficient length to pass. across, beneath the rail, and 
‘a used in the proportion of one to three single chairs, which are 
®ach side of the rail also, but do not pass under it. 
Ol XXI—No. 1, 19 
