"'Tell us whether, in your judgment, a railroad can be safely made over Chat Moss without going to the bottom of the bog?' 'I say, _certainly not_.' "'Will it be necessary, therefore, in making a permanent railroad, to take out the whole of the moss to the bottom, along the whole line of road?' 'Undoubtedly.' "'Will that make it necessary to cut down the thirty-three or thirty-four feet of which you have been speaking?' 'Yes.' "'And afterward to fill it up with other soil?' 'To such height as the railway is to be carried; other soil mixed with a portion of the moss.' "'But suppose they were to work upon this stuff, could they get their carriages to this place?' '_No carriage can stand on the moss short of the bottom._' "'What could they do to make it stand--laying planks, or something of that sort?' 'Nothing would support it.' "'So that, if you would carry a railroad over this fluid stuff--if you could do it, it would still take a great number of men and a great sum of money. Could it be done, in your opinion, for £6000?' 'I should say £200,000 would not get through it.' "'My learned friend wishes to know what it would cost to lay it with diamonds?'" Mr. H. R. Palmer, C.E., gave evidence to prove that resistance to a moving body going under four and a quarter miles an hour was _less_ upon a canal than upon a railroad; and that, when going against a strong wind, the progress of a locomotive was retarded "very much." Mr. George Leather, C.E., the engineer of the Croydon and Wandsworth Railway, on which he said the wagons went at from two and a half to three miles an hour, also testified against the practicability of Stephenson's plan. He considered his estimate a "very wild" one. He had no confidence in locomotive power. The Weardale Railway, of which he was engineer, had given up the use of locomotive engines. He supposed that, when used, they traveled at three and a half to four miles an hour, because they were considered to be then more effective than at a higher speed. When these distinguished engineers had given their evidence, Mr. Alderson summed up in a speech which extended over two days. He declared Stephenson's plan to be "the most absurd scheme that ever entered into the head of man to conceive:"