cVI. _.  G, R. COWDERY. 
It is reported that on the whole the Company were pleased 
with the experiment, it being believed that a large part of the 
trouble was due to the light and unsuitable section of the rail 
used, and in some instances defective welding. While about six 
per cent. of the joints parted at Boston, Captain Robert McCullock 
states that in St. Louis, of 2,203 electrically welded joints in three 
and a quarter miles of double track seventy-two joints, or 3°27 
per cent. have broken. Thirty-seven broke during the cold 
weather of the first part of the winter of 1895, and each was 
repaired by casting a mass of iron round the broken part. During 
a second very cold period in the latter part of the same winter 
thirty-five more breaks occurred, which were not immediately 
repaired. Seven of the joints opened nearly two inches on break- 
ing, while in others the crack was barely perceptible, the average 
amount of opening being }”._ During the warm weather of the 
following summer it is stated these cracks closed a trifle, but the 
amount of the movement was unimportant. 
After favourably noticing the driven bolt joint laid at Newtown, 
New South Wales, the American Street Railway Review, March 
15, 1895, states that Mr. C. W. Wason, electrical engineer of the 
Cleveland Electric Railway, reports that out of 3,000 electrically 
welded joints they have only lost six during the past winter, two 
on 961b. and four on 70%b. rails. The weather was extremely cold, 
the thermometer reaching ten degrees below zero for two or three 
days consecutively. 
Notwithstanding the apparent success, as already indicated, of 
electrically welding rails, advice received from America as recently 
as March, this year, states that owing toa combination of circum- 
stances nothing whatever was done last season with regard to the 
welding of tramway rails in that country. What the circum-’ 
stances were is not explained, although it was expected that work 
would be again begun this year. 
It is probable, however, that the successful results that have 
followed the introduction of the process of what is known as 
