quality of iron rolled to the above pattern in 12 or 16 feet
lengths, to lap as shown in the drawing, with one hole at each
end, and the projections on the lower flange at every two
feet, cash on delivery?

How soon could you make the first delivery, and at what rate
per month until the whole is complete? Should the terms suit
and the work give satisfaction a more extended order is likely
to follow, as this is but about one-sixth part of the quantity
required. Please to address your answer (as soon as
convenient) to the care of Francis B. Ogden, Consul of the
United States at Liverpool.

I am
Your obedient servant,
ROBERT L. STEVENS,
_President and Engineer of the Camden and
South Amboy Railroad and Transportation Company._ ]

DIFFICULTY OF ROLLING THE AMERICAN RAIL.

Mr. Stevens received no favorable answer to his proposals, but being
acquainted with Mr. Guest (afterward Sir John Guest), a member of
Parliament, proprietor of large iron works in Dowlais, Wales, he
prevailed upon him to have rails rolled at his works. Mr. Guest became
interested in the matter and accompanied Mr. Stevens to Wales, where
the latter gave his personal supervision to the construction of the
rolls. After the rolls were completed the Messrs. Guest hesitated to
have them used, through fear of damage to the mill machinery, upon
hearing which Mr. Stevens deposited a handsome sum guaranteeing the
expense of repairing the mill in case it was damaged. The receipt for
this deposit was preserved for many years among the archives of the
Camden and Amboy Company. As a matter of fact, the rolling apparatus
did break down several times. "At first," as Mr. Stevens in a letter
to his father, which I have seen, described it, "the rails came from
the rolls twisted and as crooked as snakes," and he was greatly
discouraged. At last, however, the mill men acquired the art of
straightening the rail while it cooled.

The first shipment,[3] consisting of five hundred and fifty bars
eighteen feet long, thirty-six pounds to the yard, arrived in
Philadelphia on the ship Charlemagne, May 16, 1831.

Over thirty miles of this rail was laid before the summer of 1832.

A few years after, on much of the Stevens rail laid on the Camden and
Amboy Railroad, the rivets at the joints were discarded, and the bolt
with