He had undertaken to cut and dress to size the heavy logs required for the lower posts of trestles and foundation piles.

So far, he did not apprehend much difficulty, but he would run some risk over the underpinning of part of the track.

In order to make a secure and permanent road-bed, it would have been necessary to cut back the hillside for some distance and then distribute the spoil about the slope below, but the engineers had chosen a quicker and cheaper plan.

Heavy timbers would be driven into the face of the hill to make a foundation for the track, which would be partly dug out of, and partly built on to, the declivity.

Where the main piles reached the rock the plan would be safe, but where they were bedded in gravel there was danger of their giving way under a heavy load.