Excerpt from Address of Mr. Edward Woods, President of the Institution of Civil Engineers, 9 November, 1886 Our notions with regard to gradients have certainly undergone an important change during the last-few; years. There existed, and still exist, two inclines (each about 14 mile in length) of l in 90 on the main line of the Liverpool and Man chester Railway, which from the first have been worked by loco motives; yet these were considered of such an exceptional character, that Mr. George Stephenson had originally contemplated and provided for the erection of fixed engines at their respective summits for working the ascending traffic by ropes. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.