96 HENRY DEANE. 
growing scarcity of the best kinds of timber and the remote- 
ness of the forests from rail or wharf. In Germany and 
the continent of Hurope steel sleepers are largely used. 
Although the first cost is high, when worn out they fetch 
about half the original price as scrap, so that they are not 
dear in the long run. Steel sleepers have been used in 
Australia, but not to any great extent nor with any great 
measure of success. fFerroconcrete sleepers of many 
designs have been brought into use but it cannot be said 
that much success has been achieved. The price has been 
against them, and, owing to the excessive vibration to which 
they are subject, they are very liable to disintegration. I 
still think that in spite of many failures, the sleeper of the 
future will be a ferroconcrete one, or at any rate this class 
of article will eventually successfully compete with other 
kinds. It would seem as if blocks of wood should be 
embedded in the sleeper to act as a rail bed, and so lend 
elasticity. Hurther experimenting is to be recommended, 
considering the large number of sleepers which will cer- 
tainly be wanted in the near future if the Transcontinental 
and other long cross country lines come to be constructed. 
Corrugation of Rails.—Corrugation of the surface of rails 
and the unpleasant noise and vibration thereby caused, 
has received much attention. It has generally been con- 
cluded that steam lines were exempt—except in the case 
of the Indian experience—and that the phenomenon was 
in some way connected with electric traction only. The 
observations and investigations by Mr. Cudsworth, Chief 
Engineer, and Mr. Worsdell, Chief Mechanical Engineer, 
of the North Eastern Railway of England, dispel this idea. 
There are various theories with regard to the matter, but 
it is quite certain that corrugations do not arise as the 
effect of composition or texture, as corrugated rails removed 
from places where the influence occurs and put down where 
