spent in elaborating details. We are still far from the end of our work,
and it is highly probable what has been done will change rapidly by a
natural process of evolution. Nevertheless, the actual line now working
does in all its main features accurately reproduce my first conception,
and the general principles I have just laid down will, I think, remain
true, however great the change in details may be.

The line at Weston consist of a series of posts, 60 ft. apart, with two
lines of rods or ropes, supported by crossheads on the posts. Each of
these lines carries a train; one in fact is the up line, and the other
the down line. Square steel rods, round steel rods, and steel wire ropes
are all in course of trial. The round steel rod is my favorite road at
present. The line is divided into sections of 120 ft. or two spans, and
each section is insulated from its neighbor. The rod or rope is at the
post supported by cast-iron saddles, curved in a vertical plane, so as
to facilitate the passage of the wheels over the point of support.
Each alternate section is insulated from the ground; all the insulated
sections are in electrical connection with one another--so are all the
uninsulated sections. The train is 120 ft. long--the same length as that
of a section. It consists of a series of seven buckets and a locomotive,
evenly spaced with ash distance pieces--each bucket will convey, as a
useful load, about 21/2 cwt., and the bucket or skep, as it has come to be
called, weighs, with its load, about 3 cwt. The locomotive also weighs
about 3 cwt. The skeps hang below the line from one or from two V
wheels, supported by arms which project out sideways so as to clear the
supports at the posts; the motor or dynamo on the locomotive is also
below the line. It is supported on two broad flat wheels, and is driven
by two horizontal gripping wheels; the connection of these with the
motor is made by a new kind of frictional gear which I have called nest
gear, but which I cannot describe to-day. The motor on the locomotive