quilibrium
tipping-boxes, containing 9 to 11 cubic feet. These wagons, having
tipping-boxes without any mechanical appliances, are very serviceable;
since the box, having neither door nor hinge, is not liable to need
repairs.

This box keeps perfectly in equilibrium upon the most broken up roads.
To tip it up to the right or the left, it must simply be pushed from the
opposite side, and the contents are at once emptied clean out. In order
that the bodies of the wagons may not touch at the top, when several are
coupled together, each end of the wagon is furnished with a buffer,
composed of a flat iron bar cranked, and furnished with a hanging hook.

Plant of this description is now being used in an important English
undertaking at the port of Newhaven, where it is employed not only on
the earthworks, but also for transporting the concrete manufactured with
Mr. Carey's special concrete machine.

These little wagons, of from 9 to 11 cubic feet capacity, run along with
the greatest ease, and a lad could propel one of them with its load for
300 yards at a cost of 3d. per cube yard. In earthworks the saving over
the wheel-barrow is 80 per cent., for the cost of wagons propelled by
hand comes to 0.1d. per cube yard, carried 10 yards, and to go this
distance with a barrow costs 1/2d. A horse draws without difficulty,
walking by the side of the line, a train of from eight to ten trucks on
the level, or five on an incline of 7 per cent. (1 in 14).

One mile of this railway, 16 in. gauge and 9 lb. steel rail, with
sixteen wagons, each having a double equilibrium tipping box containing
11 cubic feet, and all accessories, represents a weight of 20 tons--a
very light weight, if it is considered that all the materials are
entirely of metal. Its net cost price per mile is 450_l_., the wagons
included.

Large contracts for earthwork with horse haulage are carried on to the
greatest advantage with the railway of 20 in. gauge and 14 lb. rails.
The length of 16 ft. 5 in. of this railway weighs 170 lb., and so can
easily be carried by two men, one placing himself at each end. The
wagons most in use for these works are those with double equilibrium
tipping boxes, holding 18 cubic feet. These are at present employed in
one of the greatest undertakings of the age, namely, the cutting of the
Panama Canal, where there are used upward of 2,700 such wagons, and more
than 35 miles of track.

A mile of these rails of 20 in. gauge with 14 lb.