accident, showing most vividly to what an infinitesimal extreme the dangers incident to telescoping may be reduced. The vast progress in this direction made within twenty years can, however, best perhaps be illustrated by the results of two accidents almost precisely similar in character, which occurred, the one on the Great Western railroad of Canada, in October, 1854, the other on the Boston & Albany, in Massachusetts, in October, 1874. In the first case a regular train made up of a locomotive and seven cars, while approaching Detroit at a speed of some twenty miles an hour, ran into a gravel train of fifteen cars which was backing towards it at a speed of some ten miles an hour. The locomotive of the passenger train was thrown completely off the track and down the embankment, dragging after it a baggage car. At the head of the passenger portion of the train were two second-class cars filled with emigrants; both of these were telescoped and demolished, and all their unfortunate occupants either killed or injured. The front of the succeeding first-class car was then crushed in, and a number of those in it were hurt. In all, no less than forty-seven persons lost their lives, while sixty others were maimed or severely bruised. So much for a collision in October, 1854. In October, 1874, on the Boston & Albany road, the regular New York express train, consisting of a locomotive and seven cars, while going during the night at a speed of forty miles an hour, was suddenly, near the Brimfield station, thrown by a misplaced switch into a siding upon which a number of platform freight cars were standing. The train was thoroughly equipped, having both Miller platform and Westinghouse brake. The six seconds which intervened, in the darkness, between notice of displacement and the collision did not enable the engineer to check perceptibly the speed of his train, and when the blow came it was a simple question of strength to resist. The shock must have been tremendous, for the locomotive and tender were flung off the track to the right and the baggage car to the left, the last being thrown across the interval between the siding and the main track and resting obliquely over the latter. The forward end of the first passenger coach was thrown beyond the baggage car up over the tender, and its rear end, as well as the forward end of the succeeding coach, was injured. As in the Foxborough case, several of the trucks were jerked out from under the cars to which they belonged, but not a person on the train was more than slightly bruised, the cars were not disconnected, nor was there even a suggestion of telescoping. CHAPTER VI. THE VERSAILLES ACCIDENT.