“The middle rail not only enables the engine to surmount, and to draw its train up these gradients, but also affords a means of applying any required amount of extra brake power for checking the speed, or for stopping any detached vehicles during the descent, and it further acts by the use of horizontal guiding wheels on the different vehicles as a most perfect safeguard, to prevent engines, carriages or waggons from leaving the rails, in consequence either of defects in the bearing rails or of failure in any part of the rolling stock. The safest portions of the proposed railway ought indeed, under proper management, to be those on which, the gradients being steeper than 1 in 25, the middle rail will be employed. “There is no difficulty in so applying and securing that middle rail, and making it virtually one continuous bar, as to preclude the possibility of accident from its weakness or from the failure of its fastenings, and the only question to my mind is whether it would not be desirable still further to extend its application to gradients less steep than 1 in 25. It would apparently be advantageous to do so, not only for the sake of obtaining increased adhesion with less proportional weight, and therefore economical traction, but also with a view to greater security, especially on curved portions of the line.” The French Imperial Commission ordered to be present at Mr. Fell’s experiments, consisted of M. Conte, ingénieur en chef des Ponts et Chaussées de France, as President, with MM. Bochet, ingénieur en chef des mines, Guinard, ingénieur des Ponts et Chaussées, and Perrin, ingénieur des mines, as his colleagues. These gentlemen completed a voluminous and elaborate report of thirty-one pages of printed matter, accompanied by drawings, with the following “conclusions”:— “From the experiments which have been described, and which the Commission has judged unnecessary to continue any further, and from the different verifications which it has made, the Commission has arrived at the conviction: “First.—That the system of traction proposed by Mr. Fell is applicable for the passage of Mont Cenis, with the engines of the type which worked at the last trials. “Second.—That this system presents no danger as regards the public security on steep inclines and on sharp curves, since, on the contrary, the existence of the centre-rail furnishes a guarantee against getting off the rails, and at the same time a powerful means of stopping the trains. “Third.—That, with the exception of some points of detail, the study of which has not been made, but which present no serious difficulty, this system may from the present time be considered as applicable to the crossing of the mountain. That, with regard especially to the working of the line during the winter season, the covered ways proposed by Mr. Fell will be sufficient to secure the regularity of the service.