The solid end connecting-rod appears in this engine. This was shown to me by Mr. James Gulland, a Scotch draftsman at Ormerod, Grierson & Co.’s. He did not claim to have originated it, but only told me that it was designed in Scotland. I saw at once its peculiar value for high-speed engines. Every locomotive designer knows the pains that must be taken to prevent the straps on the crank-pins from spreading at high speeds, under the pressure exerted by the transverse fling of the connecting-rod. This solid end renders the connecting-rod safe in this respect, even at thousands of revolutions per minute. For single-crank engines, on which only it can be applied, it is invaluable. This solid rod-end possesses also another advantage. The wear of the crank-pin boxes and that of the cross-head-pin boxes are both taken up in the same direction, so the position of the piston in the cylinder will be varied only by the difference, if any, between the two. With a strap on both ends, the connecting-rod is always shortened by the sum of the wear in the two boxes. The solid rod-end enabled me to reduce the clearance in the cylinder to one eighth of an inch with entire safety. The piston never touched the head. As this construction was shown to me, the wedge was tapered on both sides. It seemed that this would be difficult to fit up truly, and it also involved the necessity of elongating the bolt-holes in the rod, so that the wedge might slide along in taking up the wear. I changed it by putting all the taper of the wedge on the side next to the brass, making the other side parallel with the bolt-holes. This enabled the opening in the rod-end to be slotted out in a rectangular form, and made it easy for the wedge-block to be truly fitted.