To emphasize the difficulties of appraising the intangible values in any way which will permit the application of such value to the determination of rates for transportation, the opponents of physical valuation cite what is now the familiar instance of two mythical roads between the same termini, the first with good alignment and easy grades following a valley, and the second forced into the mountains, having not only heavier grades and more curvature, with consequently a higher cost of operation, but also more expensive construction. The value of the purely physical features of the former, of course, would be much less than those of the latter, but its actual value as a property would be greater. How then should the rates on the two roads be fixed? The fallacy of using this example as an argument against physical valuation as a basis for rate-making is in assuming that there would be two railroads built under such circumstances, with no other features than the two termini and the line between. One has only to call to mind such examples of competing lines as those of the Denver and Rio Grande between Denver and Salt Lake, the Union Pacific between Cheyenne and Ogden, the Lackawanna and New York Central between New York and Buffalo, or many others, to realize that there are, on all roads of this nature, many other factors than the actual cost of operating through trains between the termini, which determine the through rates. One would hardly suppose that at this late date any one believes that it is proposed to use only the value of the purely physical property of railroads as a basis for rate regulation, yet the _New York Sun_, a paper of national prominence and usually most ably edited, devoted a column of its editorial page[20] to a discussion intended to show that rate regulation, based on physical valuation alone, was an impossibility. In addition to citing the example given above, the following is put forward as the _reductio ad absurdum_ of the argument for rate regulation based on physical valuation. It is said: "Suppose there are two bridges over the Ohio, the _cost of the construction of each being the same_, one between Cincinnati and Newport and the other twenty miles below where there is nothing but a village on either shore.... On what basis would the proponents of physical valuation, as the determining value in rate making, adjust a toll charge on these respective bridges?" The example is far-fetched, and in no way applicable to the question of the adjustment of rates on railroads, but inasmuch as it is seriously put forward from a responsible source, it seems worth while to consider it.