Sanderson discusses the question of transport of ehphants by 

 rail. He preludes his remarks by saying " at the present day, 

 when railways and good roads have modified the requirements of 

 military transport, elephants are not so necessary with troops as 

 formerly. They mil of course always be required for the carriage 

 of frontier Regiments in Assam and Burma, as the conditions of 

 those countries will always .preclude the use of any other means 

 of Transport." He then shows that carrying Elephants by rail 

 would render thern useful in adaptation to Army Transport and also 

 to enable their being stationed where keep is cheap ; they at most 

 stations cost Ss. 1 per diem, for fodder only, and cannot conveniently 

 be marched more than 300 miles per month. Elephants have been 

 successfully carried by rail secured in open cattle trucks fitted 

 with cross beams on each side of and before and behind the animal 

 to steady it : 40 wagons could in 10 days be fitted to carry ele- 

 phants with their clothing, gear, and some fodder ; 32 elephants 

 can be carried in one train, within the regular goods train weight 

 of 400 tons, and they would not make the trucks top heavy; the 

 fore and hind feet should be shackled together in pairs and the 

 shackles passed through ringbolts in the floor between each pair 

 of feet. Fodder can be provided for the animals in their trucks 

 and water given morning and evening; there need be no difiiculty 

 in getting them into the trucks with proper arrangements. The 

 four beams forming the fittings for cattle wagons when used to 

 convey elephants might be kept in readiness at the railway 

 stores. In this way elephants might be as expeditiously concen- 

 trated at any point as troops. Thus we see, from the statements 

 of the leading authority of the day on the subject of Elephants, 

 that some of the objections raised against their use for military 

 purposes are purely theoretical and that they can be conveyed 

 economically and with facility by rail ; elephants, also, are often 

 carried by boat. 



In Burma wood stacking is very largely done by elephants, and 

 the precision and accuracy with which they move and adjust 

 enormous beams is an object of admiration to the observer. 

 They sometimes carry beams accurately balanced on the Tusks. 



Recent warlike operations by the British in the East have been 

 associated with the use of the elephant. In Abyssinia and Af- 

 ghanistan he has done his work well. We see him in India en- 



