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of it, laya down the laws governing it, and describes the rules that should be followed in counterbalancing an engine to make it run steady. Oolburn took one of the heavy 4-coupled engines of the South-AVestern Railway of England, counterbalanced it correctly, then ran it at the rate of 60 miles an hour with perfect steadiness. He then took out his counterbalances and returned it to its former condition. In that state they did not dare to run it at over 20 miles an hour; and at that speed they found the oscillations so violent and the concussions so great that they broke two strong hooks between engine and tender. This engine was called the " Norman." Another of the same set, called the " Canute," was properly counterbalanced, and showed a saving of 420 pounds of coal per mile, or 20 per cent, of total consumption. Four of their engines were properly counterbalanced, and showed an average saving of 3 pounds per mile after a total mileage of 108,911. For this data and other similar data see Oolburn's great work on Locomotives, page 253. The latter half of this work was accomplished by D. K. Clarke, after Colburn's death, and he became responsible for the contents. I met a Polish mechanical engineer at the Paris Exhibition who had been much on the railways in the States, and who was interested in locomotives. I found him most enthusiastic as to American engines. What he said to me he afterwards put in writing : it was chiefly as follows : " All our engines on the continent arc patterned after the English ; they are all unsteady iv motion; it is no exaggeration to say that, compared with the American, riding on them is like riding on a carhorse and an Arabian. This unsteadiness of motion diminishes the effective tractive power and increases the wear of the road. European engineers, those especially who visited America during the 'Centennial,' say that European locomotives would soon destroy American road. Do they not thus admit the superiority of the American motor? How strange it is that they do not consider it important to have their locomotives so constructed that they can diminish the wear and tear of their roads, and increase their effective power. I had the intention to take a trip on a locomotive from Paris to Troyes, but I had to give up after some 80 kilometers —-not being able to stand the shaking. This never occurred to me in America. I asked the engine-driver how he could stand such severe service; he said, ' the company take care of me when lam ill, or I should be obliged to give it up.' During the Philadelphia Exhibition an Austrian engineer was charged with making a detailed report on American locomotives. He speaks at length about the steadiness with which they run. Some years since, in Vienna, a premium was offered for a design of a locomotive that w Tould run steady at high speed. The locomotive adopted was nothing else but an imitation of an American standard locomotive. The success would be greater if the American locomotive was wholly copied." So much for the Pole's opinion on steadiness. Let us see what others say. Mr. A. D. Smith, Locomotive Superintendent of State Railways in New Zealand (all 3-feet-6-inch gauge), writing, in October, 1878, about the first American engines erected there, says, ''These engines are giving the greatest satisfaction. The engine 'Lincoln' has run, up to Bth October, 22,474 milea (equal to 47,000 miles a year) in 147 days, at an average speed of twenty-five miles an hour." At this same time the Secretary for Public Works of India writes that, on account of the unsteadiness of the engines (all English) on the State railways in India (all of meter gauge), he has been forced to reduce the speed to fifteen miles an hour. I wonder if this is not something for man to reflect on ; if it is not, I should recommend him to study a most exhaustive report published by the Government of Victoria, Australia, on the merits and demerits of the locomotives built at Melbourne. This report shows that these engines had the remarkable ability, when running on straight lines, to move the whole track bodily sideways 3 inches, and kink the 80-pound rails in lengths of 5 feet. One of the witnesses, when asked to explain the motion of one of these engines, said, " Well, sir; it looked very much as if one side of the engine was trying to get ahead of the other." This report was drawn by a Commission of Locomotive Superintendents of railways of different colonies of Australia. It grew out of the report of Mr. Higinbotham, Enginoer-in-Chief of Victorian Railways, to his Government on American and other railways, in which report he condemned the Melbourne-built engines as poor and inefficient. I will give, in an appendix to [this letter, some extracts from this report of Mr Higinbotham on American rolling-stock, first stating that he came to this country, as he admits himself, decidedly prejudiced against things American. The laboured arguments that from time to time appear iv the Engineer to show that the American engine is a " myth," and that all that is claimed for it is mere " moonshine," are very amusing, and bring to mind the many editorials in Engineering holding up that paper to ridicule, and in no stinted terms measuring out the paucity of talent and knowledge that conducted its destinies. If it had been entitled an " English Trade Circular," devoted to bolstering up crude and fallacious mechanical devices, instead of holding up its head as the exponent of scientific research and mechanical progress, it would have come nearer hitting the mark of truth and accuracy. There was a time when the Engineer could afford to soar pretty high in the world of engineering minds. But those were the days when Colburn directed its editorial pen. Alas, for those days, and the early days of engineering; they have gone like the baseless fabric of a vision bent upon a wrecking expedition. Colburn, with all his cleverness, and rising like a meteor, flashed for a while, and then sank himself and his paper so deep in the mud of venality and vituperation that it has been no small job for his successors to dig the paper out and set it on the high pedestal it once occupied. Recently some small papers in the far east, finding that certain Governments in Australia and New Zealand had, in the spirit of progress and economy, ordered rolling-stock from the States, and feeling not only very patriotic but very virtuous, considered it their bouuden duty to join in the key-note of the hue'and-cry set for them by the Engineer in a crusade against the American railway plant. They are right; I would do the same myEelf, if I were in their place; but I should, in tlie first place, try not to get in the position of a tool for any trade circular ; and, in the second place, I should try not to make a fool of myself by assertions that any tyro in railway matters must know to be untrue. It appears to hurt the consciences of some of these worthy editors that British gold borrowed to assist the colonies in railway construction should be sent to America for engines and cars. This is certainly very naughty ; but I suppose the Governments that borrow have some good reason to give for the way in which they spend their money, just as certain bankers in Paris, some years since, decided that they would not loan the money required for a new line of steamships unless the promoters agreed to have the engines built in England. This was no doubt naughty also. But the bankers may have had a reason for it. And they were probably not as much"in the dark about the reason as Rogers was when appointed poet-laxireate and said to a friend — Once on a time They promised me reason for my rhyme. But from that day to this season I have seen neither rhyme nor reason. Large sums of money are drawn, no doubt, from the pockets of Englishmen to build railways in New Zealand, and I have no doubt but that they would, if asked about how it should be spent, say, " Go and spend it where you can get the most for the least, only, for Heaven's sake, make sure to give us our interest regularly." The amount of money loaned in this way to New Zealand is but a " speck in the bucket" to the vast sums loaned to railway companies in the "United States and Canada, and yet these "Yankees" and Canadians are so unmannerly as to spend it all on this side of the water. The Canadians in this are worse than the " Yankees," for they come down here with British gold in their pockets to buy engines, bridges, &c., knowing that they will have to pay 17i per cent, duty on their going into Canada, and also knowing that they could get engines and bridges from England without paying any duty. There must be a reason for this, other than mere love for their neighbours. A few days since I saw a large amount of tramway cars boxed and marked for London. These cars were no doubt paid for in British gold, and were going to the very heart of the British Empire. This was another naughty trick to get rid of good gold in an alien country. There must have been some reason for it. The Chairman of the North Metropolitan Railway Company, of London, some three or four years since, in his annual report, told his shareholders that their city-made cars had a life of only 4| years, while the cars made in New York were found to be much superior. He had no doubt discovered that the tramway-cars built by John Stephenson, in New York, had an average life of twenty-five years, and that they were in use in all parts of the world. Surely there must be some reason for these cars lasting so unconscionable a time, seeing how "poor materials" and "execrable" workmanship we use in all our railway " plant." The Otago Times is a firm believer in the preachings of the Australian Engineering News (a paper recently started, I am told, in the interests of Fairlie), and speaks of a " clap-trap " editorial of that paper as an " able article thut fits