Still it was a grim fight with Nature for every foot of the way. A mere ledge suffices to carry the track, and this gallery is often at a level of seventy feet above the sea beneath. Here and there the line is enclosed by a roof recalling the snow-sheds of the Selkirks or Cascades, to protect the rails from stones bouncing down the cliffs. Curiously enough, the method in which Brunei drove his line along this forbidding wild shore recalls the staggering feats accomplished in the American mountains, and indeed a journey over this railway will provide a thrill in miniature such as results from a toil through the mountain backbone of the New World. The dislodgment of massive boulders and landslides are so frequent that flagmen have to be retained to keep a vigilant eye on the track and to warn passing trains. At places long walls have been erected high on the hillside to arrest the descent of the movements of loose rock on the one hand, while on the other the cliff face has been cut into terraces to break the force of the waves, and together with retaining walls and groynes, seek to counteract the insidious erosion of the sea. [Illustration: THE TRACK LAYER, WHEREBY THE METALS ARE LAID AT A SPEED OF 3 OR 4 MILES A DAY, CROSSING A HEAVY TIMBER TRESTLE] When Bray Head has been passed the physical character of the country changes with startling suddenness from jagged rock to clay. Here the engineer was brought to fierce grips with his adversary. The clay is honeycombed on all sides with springs, and there is a constant war between the engineer and Nature for supremacy. Building the line was exacting indeed, but the puzzles which had to be unravelled then are equalled by those attending the preservation of the road. The battle was waged relentlessly for some years, but the sea won; the engineers were compelled to re-lay their track some distance inland. The shareholders in the railway are paying dearly for Brunel’s colossal error. Indeed, it is a poor return for an outlay of over £400,000, or $2,000,000, which were sunk in this sixteen miles of line. It may be wonderful engineering, but it is not business. The railway company are anxious to abandon this location and to rebuild the line along the route it should have followed in the first instance. At the present such a result is not financially possible, but its realisation is merely a question of time.