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In their “Report on the Lines projected in the Manchester and Leeds District,” they promulgated some remarkable views respecting gradients, declaring themselves in favour of the “undulating system.” They there stated that lines of an undulating character “which have gradients of 1 in 70 or in 80 distributed over them in short lengths, may be positively better lines, i.e., more susceptible of cheap and expeditious working, than others which have nothing steeper than 1 in 100 or 1 in 120!” They concluded by reporting in favour of the line which exhibited the worst gradients and the sharpest curves, chiefly on the ground that it could be constructed for less money.
At last he caught a glimmer of the wet sand, less than ten feet below. He had just landed on a bit of white tableland wantonly carved in the naked cliff. The rough gradients which up to now had guided him in his descent ceased abruptly. Behind him the cliff rose upwards, in front and, to his right, and left a concave wall, straight down to the beach.
The third line proposed was eventually adopted as the best, passing from Morpeth, by Wooler and Coldstream, to Edinburgh; saving rather more than fourteen miles between the two points, and securing a line of road of much more favourable gradients. The principal bridge on this new highway was at Pathhead, over the Tyne, about eleven miles south of Edinburgh.
It wound in and out among fire-blackened stumps under pine-trees, along the corners of log fences, through hollows, which must be hopeless marsh in the winter, and up absurd gradients. But nowhere throughout its length did I see any evidence of road-making. There was a track you couldn't well get off it, and it was all you could do to stay on it.
Three miles farther, and for miles over the steep and unridable gradients of the Shah-riffabad hills, I may anticipate the delights of having his horse's nose at my shoulder, and my heels in constant jeopardy. To avoid this, I spurt ahead, and ere long have the satisfaction of seeing him give it up.
It was four o'clock, and the day was waning amidst a glorious powdery shimmer. To the right and left, towards the Madeleine and towards the Corps Legislatif, lines of buildings stretched away, showing against the sky, while in the Tuileries Gardens rose gradients of lofty rounded chestnut trees.
They generally keep along the backbone of a chain of hills, avoiding steep gradients: and one curious observation was not lost upon the government surveyors, that in crossing the valleys from ridge to ridge, through forests so dense as altogether to obstruct a distant view, the elephants invariably select the line of march which communicates most judiciously with the opposite point, by means of the safest ford.
When the line was finally located it passed through Cheyenne, leaving Denver some one hundred miles to the South, the reasons for this being the much shorter distance via Cheyenne as well as the decidedly better gradients that were possible via South Pass Route as against the routes via Denver and Berthoud or Evans Passes.
"I never thought of that," said Bob. "Couldn't we hire a fellow from one of the steamboats?" "I fear that might get us into trouble. You know there are such things as gradients and sections to be prepared. But there's Watty Solder, the gas-fitter, who failed the other day. He's a sort of civil engineer by trade, and will jump at the proposal like a trout at the tail of a May-fly." "Agreed.
Besides he was a stranger in the country, with none to answer for him; and the credentials in his breast-pocket were not of the sort that he desired to produce for the satisfaction and information of the local custodians of the peace. The grassy slope was both uneven and slippery. Moreover Dieppe had not allowed enough for the courage of the natives in the matter of gradients.
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