(c) _The Confused Condition of the Records._ Many small corporations had absolutely nothing in the way of records of buildings, bridges, land, or other properties. Others had very complete records in certain departments and very imperfect ones in others; still others had records which had every appearance of being complete, but they were not up-to-date. Facing an appraisal of this magnitude, with a time limit of only 4 months for the entire work, with delays at the outset which seriously hampered the organization for 2 or 3 weeks, the appraiser was compelled to occupy this time in preparing the blank forms to be used on the work, and in conducting correspondence with the men who were to make up the working force, investigating their references, etc. The blank forms, Figs. 1 to 10, were the result of a series of conferences between the members of the staff. By this time it was quite evident that no great amount of help could be hoped for from the corporations. Had it been possible to secure access to the records of such railroad companies as the Michigan Central or the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern before the final drafts of the forms were prepared, the writer believes that several might have been simplified and many improvements could have been made. However, this was not possible, and the forms were prepared and printed before access to any railroad office had been granted. [Illustration: FIG. 1.] ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │MICHIGAN RAILROAD T. C. Form R.R.9 __________________│ │APPRAISAL _Office Inspector_│ │______ Railroad ALIGNMENT AND PROFILE IN _________________│ │Date ______ MICHIGAN _Field Inspector_│ ╒══════════╤═════════════════════════════════════════════════ │DIVISIONS │ ALIGNMENT │ OF ROAD │ ├─────┬────┼──────┬──────┬─────────┬───────┬─────────┬─────── │FROM │ TO │Length│Number│Aggregate│Number │ Total │What is │ │ │Miles │ of │Length of│ of │Curvature│Degree │ │ │ │Curves│ Curved │Curves │ over 3 │ of │ │ │ │ │ Line │over 3 │ Degrees │Maximum │ │ │ │ │ Miles │Degrees│ │Curves │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ ├─────┼────┼──────┼──────┼─────────┼───────┼─────────┼─────── │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ ├─────┼────┼──────┼──────┼─────────┼───────┼─────────┼─────── │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │