EARLY WESTERN RAILROADS. 
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of consisting of single pieces of oak, were built in two — one 
piece taking the strain or weight, and the other piece the surface 
wear and tear. This second piece was of course replaceable. 
After this bars of wrought-iron, in size about two inches wide 
by half-an-inch deep, were placed at the worst gradients to render 
the necessity for constant repairs less. These bars were fixed 
by means of countersunk spikes. 
Later yet, in 1767, the Coalbrookdale Co. used cast-iron rails 
in five feet lengths, four inches wide, one and a-quarter inch 
thick, and each rail fastened down to the sleepers by three spikes 
or bolts. This rail being made L-shaped, acted as a guide as well 
as a bearing surface for the wheels; and from this fact the 
modern tramway seems to have derived its name, as such rails 
acted as a trammel for the wheels. In 1789 edge rails, such 
as were used at first on the Plymouth and Dartmoor Eailway, 
were introduced. 
In Devon and Cornwall, as elsewhere throughout the country, 
most of the earlier rail- and tramways were subsidiary to canals. 
The first form of tramway of which we have record in the North 
was employed for the carriage of coal from the pit mouth to 
the canal, and in the West the earlier ways were auxiliaries either 
to canals or harbours. 
THE TAVISTOCK CANAL AND INCLINE. 
In 1803, works were commenced for the canal between Tavistock 
and the Eiver Tamar at Morwellham, which were completed in 
1817. The canal itself is four and a-half miles long, and two 
miles of this length are tunnel, which at its deepest point is 
460 feet below the surface. The canal does not communicate 
with the river Tamar directly, but by means of an inclined 
plane. 
I went to Morwellham last Christmas to see what was left of 
the original plane, and I describe the remains as I then found 
them. If the pattern rail now left on the ground had been 
the same as originally used, it would have been the earliest 
rolled iron rail of uniform section of which we have evidence 
in the West. Mr. Moses Bawden has, however, kindly informed 
me that the present rails are not of the same pattern as those 
first used, although these too seem to have been of uniform 
section, and resembled a modern street tram-rail, or a Great 
