ANNUAL ADDRESS. 183 



moderate conditions of twenty-five years ago iron rails scarcely 

 lasted 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 discovered 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 durability of the new rails 

 and their resistance to load justified increased expenditure in 

 other directions to secure permanently good condition of the 

 road bed. Just here, our fellow member, Mr. P. H. Dudley, 

 made his contribution, w^hose importance can hardly be over- 

 estimated. With his ingenious recording apparatus it is easy to 

 discover defects in the roadw^ay and to ascertain their nature, 

 thus making it possible to devise means for their correction and 

 for preventing their recurrence. The information obtained by 

 use of this apparatus has led him to change the shape and 

 weight of rails, to modify the type of joints and the methods of 

 ballasting, so that now a roadbed should remain in good con- 

 dition 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 re- 

 duced 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 opera- 

 tion is very much less than formerly. But where the carrier has 

 gained one dollar the consumer and shipper have gained hun- 

 dreds 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 rate of twenty-five years ago. Our 

 internal commercial relations have been changed and the revo- 

 lution is still incomplete. The influence of the Holley-Mushet- 

 Bessemer process upon civilization is hardly inferior to that of 

 the electric telegraph. 



