Note 32 — Chapter XV · THE POWER OF THE TRAINED HAND.

“At the Birmingham meeting of the British Association in 1865, Sir Henry Bessemer explained that at Chalk Farm steel rails were laid down on one side of the line and iron rails on the other, so that every engine and carriage there had to pass over both steel and iron rails at the same time. When the first face was worn off an iron rail it was turned the other way upward, and when the second face was worn out it was replaced by a new iron rail. When Sir Henry exhibited one of these steel rails at Birmingham only one face of it was nearly worn out, while on the opposite side of the line eleven iron rails had in the same time been worn out on both faces. It thus appeared that one steel rail was capable of doing the work of twenty-three iron ones.”—“The Creators of the Age of Steel,” p. 93. By W. T. Jeans. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1884.