d roaring torrents on the other,
whether to pass is required a bridge or a tunnel, we find either or
both designed and built in a manner which cannot be bettered. He is
well aware that the directors like rather to see short columns of
figures on their treasurer's books than to read records of great
mechanical triumphs in their engineer's reports.

Of the whole expense of building a railroad, where the country is to
any considerable degree broken, the reduction of the natural surface
to the required form for the road, that is, the earthwork, or,
otherwise, the excavation and embankment, amounts to from thirty to
seventy per cent. of the whole cost. Here, then, is certainly an
important element on which the engineer is to show his ability; let
us look a little at it, even at the risk of being dry.

It is by no means necessary to reduce the natural surface of the
country to a level or horizontal line; if it were so, there would be
an end to all railroads, except on some of the Western prairies.
This was not, however, at first known; indeed, those who were second
to understand the matter denied the possibility of moving a
locomotive even on a level by applying power to the wheels, because,
it was said, the wheels would slip round on the smooth iron rail and
the engine remain at rest. But lo! when the experiment was tried, it
was found that the wheel not only had sufficient bite or adhesion
upon the rail to prevent slipping and give a forward motion to the
engine, but that a number of cars might be attached and also moved.

This point gained, the objectors advanced a step, but again came to
a stand, and said, "If you can move a train on a level, that is all,
--you can't go up hill." But trial proved that easy inclines (called
grades) could be surmounted,--say, rising ten feet for each mile in
length.

The objectors take another step, but again put down their heavy
square-toed foot, and say, "There! aren't you satisfied? you can go
over grades of twenty feet per mile, but no more,--so don't try."
And here English engineers stop,--twenty feet being considered a
pretty stiff grade. Meanwhile, the American engineers Whistler and
Latrobe, the one dealing with the Berkshire mountains in
Massachusetts, the other with the Alleghanies in Virginia, find that
not only are grades of ten and of twenty feet admissible, but, where
Nature requires it, inclines of forty, sixty, eighty, and even one
hundred feet per mile,--it being only