While the mantling of the steel-work was progressing, other gangs were busy at work cutting out large niches in the cliff-face, some height above the tunnel portals, and on these platforms powerful winches were erected. Each of these carried heavy chains measuring 900 feet in length. The transport of this essential piece of tackle was interesting. Large gangs of coolies were disposed in Indian file 7 feet apart, and the chains were trailed over their shoulders like a gigantic serpent. In this way they wound around crags, climbed steep bluffs and threaded narrow defiles for some 13 miles. These chains were passed around the winches and the outer ends were attached to the upper points of the bascules. When each bascule was completed it was pinned firmly to its anchorage, the lashings securing each leaf of steel to the rock face were knocked away, and the two arms were held merely by the chains. Gangs of coolies were stationed at each winch under the supervision of a French engineer, and at the word of command the chains were slowly paid out, causing the bascules to heel over towards one another. Care had to be exercised that the lowering proceeded evenly from either side until the two arms met at a point. Workmen then swarmed up the arm on either side and rapidly drove in the pins and rivets which secured the two leaves firmly in position. The whole task of lowering and securing took only four hours, which was a noteworthy achievement. Two short steel towers were now erected on the haunches, or central part of each bascule, to support the steel deck of the bridge, the members of which were brought up to the mouth of the tunnel and launched by being pulled out over rollers. With the spanning of the Namiti gorge, the most difficult part of the railway line was completed. When the enterprise was undertaken it was computed that the railway could be completed for £3,840,000, or $19,200,000, but by the time this gorge was spanned a revision in the estimates showed that the cost would approach £6,620,000, or $33,100,000. In Japan, the strides in railway development within a comparatively few years have been quite as notable as in China. In the former country, however, the conversion from primitive means of communication to steam locomotion commenced at an earlier date, and was attended with greater success. As in China, the railway invasion of Japan was fathered by an Englishman, Mr. H. N. Lay, who visited Tokio as a guest of the then British Minister, the late Sir Harry Parkes, in 1869. He approached the Government and stated that he was prepared to furnish the funds necessary to commence the railway conquest of the country.