No attempt was made to assign depreciation, as regards the rails; this was determined afterward, from the age of the steel in the track. It was necessary, however, to make quite a thorough inspection of the ties, and to note their condition, as they were replaced year by year singly as they wore out. Almost every conceivable kind of timber had been used for ties at one time or another. Treated and untreated ties lay side by side; and thus there was great difficulty in classifying them with regard to the kind of timber. With bridge ties and timbers of frame and pile bridges, there was not so much difficulty, as they were open to inspection, and had been inspected twice yearly by the Division Engineer and the Superintendent of Bridges and Buildings, and accurate records of their condition and renewals had been kept. The depth and condition of the ballast also varied very widely. In a very short time all the men on the survey became well acquainted with the character of the work they had to do, and, as the work went on, the progress of the party day by day was very much more rapid. At the beginning of the survey, a progress of 6 or 7 miles of single track was considered a very good day's work; at the end of the survey, the parties were making from 12 to 15 miles per day. There was considerable difficulty in setting proper values on the hundreds of buildings, large and small, owned by the railroad. Most of these buildings had never been constructed from plans, and it was difficult to calculate what they had cost originally, and what it would have cost to build them at the time of the survey. However, time books were searched, and the contents of the buildings in board feet were calculated, and, while in many cases their age was not known from any records, it was nearly always possible to find out from somebody just when they were erected. As intimated before, the railway company derived much actual benefit from the work, outside of the accurate knowledge obtained as to the value of the property itself. Steel charts, bridge records, etc., were established, and profiles, stationing, continuous bench-levels, etc., were all re-run or re-established; thus making the engineering work of the future more consistent and uniform, and enabling more work to be done with a smaller force. New maps of all the station grounds and terminals were obtained, and all the records were put in better shape than they had ever been before. Examination of some of the old terminals brought to light many strange and out-of-date conditions. Old wrought-iron rails of antiquated pattern, old cast-iron frogs, etc., of a pattern which had not been in general use for fifty years, were found in the track. On some of the little-used sidings, the old wrought-iron rails were so worn that the tread of the rail was entirely gone, only the web remaining to carry the traffic, and such rails were still in use.