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States (for it is there only that railways have | ish railways, and those of other count made any progress) will have completed, are as follows:within the period of less than a quarter of a century, 26,485 miles of railway; that is to say, a greater length than would completely surround the globe, at a cost of above five hundred millions sterling!

To accomplish this stupendous work, human industry must have appropriated, out of its annual savings, twenty millions sterling for twenty-five successive years!

Of this prodigious investment, the small spot of the globe which we inhabit has had a share, which will form not the least striking fact in her history.

British Railways,

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£40,000

8,000

26,800

18,000

United States,
France,
Belgium, .
German States,

11,000

Few, who have not actually trave through the United States, have any a quate notion of the prodigious apparat natural and artificial, of internal transp which that wonderful country possesses. Lardner, who personally witnessed it in m of the Union, has supplied a detailed rep than one extended tour through every p on that subject in one of the chapters of t work already quoted. After showing th with a population which, according to t census of 1840, scarcely exceeded sevente

Of the total length of railways in actual operation in all parts of the globe, twentyseven miles in every hundred, and of the total length in progress, fifty-seven miles in every hundred, are in the United Kingdom! But the proportion of the entire amount of railway capital contributed by British indus-millions, a system of canal navigation h try is even more remarkable. It appears that, of the entire amount of capital expended on the railways of the world, fiftyfour pounds in every hundred; and of the capital to be expended on those in progress, sixty-eight pounds in every hundred, are appropriated to British railways!

The vast resources arising from the economical enterprise and industry of this country cannot fail to be regarded with astonishment and admiration, when we consider, in addition to these results, the fact that, while a large amount of British capital has been applied to the construction of foreign railways, no amount of foreign capital worth mentioning has been, on the other hand, invested in British railways.

From what we have stated above, it appears that the length of railway constructed in the United Kingdom is proportionately less than the relative amount of capital expended. This arises from the greater efficiency of construction, and consequently, greater cost per mile, of the British railways. These are generally double lines, provided with numerous stations, many of which are of vast dimensions, and splendid construction and decoration. The rolling stock (which is, of course, included in the capital) is upon a scale commensurate with the traffic. In other countries, as, for example, the German States and America, the lines are mostly sin

akutiama awa loss numerous and con

then been completed on the most efficie scale, amounting to nearly 4,400 miles, at cost of twenty-eight millions sterling. T author proceeds to give an interesting a

count of the steam-navigation on the Amer can rivers, over all of which he had passe more than once, and witnessed personal what he states:

"The steamers which navigate the Hudson a vessels of great magnitude, splendidly fitted up f the accommodation of passengers; and this ma nitude and splendor of accommodation have bee

continually augmented from year to year to th present time.

"It is not only in dimensions that these vesse have undergone improvements. The exhibitio of the beautifully-finished machinery of the Eng lish Atlantic steamers plying to New York, d not fail to excite the emulation of the America engineers and steam-boat proprietors, who cease to be content with the comparatively rude thoug

efficient structure of the mechanism of the steam-boats. All the vessels more recently con structed, are accordingly finished and even deco rated in the most luxurious manner. In respec of the accommodations which they afford to pas sengers, no water communication in any countr in the world can compare with them. Nothing can exceed the splendor and luxury of the furni ture. Silk, velvet, and the most expensive car peting, mirrors of immense magnitude, gilding and carving, are profusely supplied to decorate these vessels. Even the engine-room in some of them is lined with mirrors. In the Alida, for

*

All the Hudson steam-boats of the larger ass, such, for example, as the Isaac Newn, the Hendrik Hudson, the New World, e Oregon, and the Alida, are capable of nning from twenty to twenty-two miles an our, and make on an average eighteen miles, oppages included. The author observes at these Eastern steamers are free from the nger so notoriously incidental to the Westn boats, and which we shall presently noe. During the last ten years not a single tastrophe has occurred to them arising om explosion, although cylindrical boilers, n feet in diameter, are used, composed of ating five-sixteenths of an inch thick, with eam of 50 lbs. pressure per inch.

Nothing, in the history of transport by nd or water, affords any parallel for the mbination of cheapness, luxury, and splen-r presented by the steam navigation of the udson :

Previously to 1844, the lowest fare between ew York and Albany, one hundred and fortye miles, was four shillings and fourpence (one lar). At present the fare is two shillings and opence, and for an additional sum of the same mount, the passenger can command the luxury a separate state-room. When the splendor d magnitude of the accommodation is conered, the magnificence of the furniture and acssories, the cheapness and luxuriousness of the le (each meal, supplied on the most liberal ale, costing only two shillings and two pence), will be admitted that no similar example of eap locomotion can be found in any part of the orld. Passengers may there be transported a floating palace, surrounded with all the conniences and luxuries of the most splendid hotel, the rate of twenty miles an hour, for less than e-sixth of a penny per head per mile. It is not an uncommon occurrence, during the

mmer, to meet individuals on board these boats,

o have lodged themselves there permanently ring a certain part of the season, instead of ablishing themselves, as is customary, at some the hotels in the towns on the banks of the er. Their daily expenses in the boat are as lows:

Fare,

Exclusive use of state-room, &c.,
Breakfast, dinner, and supper,

s. d.

2 2

2 2

66

room, and is more spacious than the room packet-ships similarly designated.

the Hudson, let it be supposed that a boat is co above three hundred feet long, and twenty-five structed similar in form to a Thames wherry, b thirty feet wide. Upon this, let a platform carpentry be laid, projecting several feet upo either side of the boat, and at stem and stern hundred and fifty long, and some thirty or forty The appearance to the eye will then be that of a feet wide. Upon this flooring let us imagine a immense raft, from two hundred and fifty to thre oblong rectangular wooden erection, two stories high, to be raised. In the lower part of the boat and under the flooring just mentioned, a long narrow room is constructed, having a series of berths inclosed an oblong, rectangular space, within at either side, three or four tiers high. In the which the steam machinery is placed, and this incentre of this flooring is usually, but not always, closed space is continued upward through the structure raised on the platform, and is intersectshaft or axle of the paddle-wheels. ed at a certain height above the platform by the

"To obtain an adequate notion of the form an structure of one of the first-class steamboats o

single engine, but occasionally, as in the Euro"These wheels are propelled, generally, by a pean vessels, by two. The paddle-wheels are usually of great diameter, varying from thirty to forty feet, according to the magnitude of the boat. In the wooden building raised upon the platform already mentioned, is contained a magnificent saloon devoted to ladies, and to those gentlemen who accompany them. Over this, in the upper each handsomely furnished, which those passenstory, is constructed a row of small bed-rooms, gers can have who desire seclusion, by paying a small additional fare.

dining or breakfast-room."
"The lower apartment is commonly used as a

adroit

The busy appearance presented by the spacious bosom of the Hudson, and the sels, running at twenty miles and more, management of these monstrous vesthrough crowds of vessels of every sort, is described:

--

"No spectacle can be more remarkable than that which the Hudson presents for several miles above New York. The skill with which these enormous vessels, measuring from three to four hundred feet in length, are made to thrid their way through the crowd of shipping, of every description, moving over the face of these spacious rivers, and the rare occurrence of accidents from collision, are truly admirable. In a dark "Such accommodation is, on the whole, more night these boats run at the top of their speed onomical than any hotel. The state-room is as through fleets of sailing vessels. The bells through which the steersman speaks to the enuriously furnished as the most handsome bed-gineer scarcely ever cease. Of these bells there

Total daily expense for board, lodging, attendance, and traveling 150 miles at from eighteen to twenty miles an hour,

10 10

Not called after the great philosopher, but er a great American merchant of that name

are several of different tones, indicating the dif-
ed to make, such as stopping, starting, reversing
ferent operations which the engineer is command-

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tap of one of these bells, these enormous engines | are stopped, or started, or reversed by the engineer, as though they were the plaything of a child. These vessels, proceeding at sixteen or eighteen miles an hour, are propelled among the crowded shipping with so much skill as almost to graze the sides, bows, or sterns of the vessels among which they pass.

"The difficulty attending these evolutions by a vessel such as the New World, for example, one hundred and twenty-five yards long and twelve yards wide, may be easily imagined; and the promptitude and certainty with which an engine whose pistons are seventy-six inches in diameter, and whose stroke is five yards in length, is governed, must be truly surprising."

the vessel, causes the upper flues to be uncov and the intense action of the furnace, in this soon renders them red hot, when a frightful lapse is almost inevitable. The red hot iro longer able to resist the intense pressure, g way, the boiler explodes, and the scalding w is scattered in all directions, often producing n terrible effects than even the fragments of boiler, which are projected around with dest tive force.

"Another frequent cause of explosion in th boilers is, the quantity of mud held in suspen in the waters of the Mississippi below the mo of the Missouri. As the water in the boite evaporated, the earthy matter which it held in s pension remains behind, and accumulates in boiler, in the bottom of which it is at length lected in a thick stratum. This earthy strat the heat proceeding from the furnace is intero collected within the boiler being a non-conduc ted, and, instead of being absorbed by the wa is accumulated in the boiler-plates, which it u mately renders red hot. Being thus softened, th give way, and the boiler bursts."

The only remedy for this evil is to bl

The navigation of the Mississippi, and the other western rivers, is conducted, however, in a manner wholly different. Every one is familiar with the deplorable accidents which occur, from time to time, on these vast streams, and the terrible loss of life which so often attends them. These accidents, instead of diminishing with the improvements of art, appear rather to have increased. En-out the mud, from time to time, and intr gineers, disregarding the heart-rending narratives continually published, have done literally nothing to check the evil, and it may be justly said to be a disgrace to humanity, that the legislature of the Union has not, ere this, interposed its authority to check abuses which are productive of such national calamities.

In a Mississippi steamer the cabins and saloons, although less magnificently appointed than in the Hudson boats, are equally spacious. They are erected on a flooring or platform six or eight feet above the deck of the vessel. Upon this deck, and in the space under the flooring which supports the cabins and saloons occupied by the passengers, are placed the engines, which are of the coarsest structure. They are invariably worked with high pressure steam, without condensation. In order to obtain the effect which, in the Hudson boats, is due to a good vacuum, the steam is used under an extraordinary pressure:

"I have myself," says Dr. Lardner, "frequently witnessed boilers of the most inartificial construction worked with steam of the full pressure of 120 lbs. per square inch; but more recently this pressure has been increased, the ordinary working pressure being now 150 lbs., and I am assured, on good authority, that it is not unfrequently raised to even 200 lbs. The boilers are cylindrical, of large diameter, and of the rudest kind. When returning flues are constructed in them, the space

ii that the slightest variation in the

duce fresh water, but the engine-drivers a captains do not like this, and almost sys matically neglect it. They are too intent obtaining speed-and, to use their o phrase, "going a-head"-and they have 1 tle hesitation in risking their own lives an those of the passengers, rather than allo themselves to be outrun by a rival boat.

The magnitude of these boats is little, if all, inferior to those of the Hudson; they ar however, constructed more with a view to th accommodation of freight, carrying down th river large quantities of cotton and other pr duce, as well as passengers, to New Orlean Many of these vessels are 300 feet and up ward in length, and are capable of carryin a thousand tons of freight, besides affordin luxurious accommodation to a large numbe of cabin passengers, and three or four hur dred deck passengers.

The progress of the United States, in th construction of railways, is scarcely less sur prising than the results of their river stear navigation. The actual extent of railway now under traffic, in the several States com posing the union, is not much short of 7,000 miles! Of this length, more than 4,000 mile were open as early as 1843, before England or any other country of Europe, possessed railway communication at all approaching to the same extent.

As might have been expected, the chief theatre of railway enterprise has been the Atlantic States. The Mississippi and its im

n States so efficiently, and the popuis comparatively so thin, that many will probably elapse before any conle extent of railway communication e established in that vast territory. heless, there are various detached railintersecting the most remote regions Mississippi valley. Dr. Lardner, who ed over all of them repeatedly, says:— the traveler in these wilds, the aspect of tificial lines of transport in the midst of a a great portion of which is still in the native forest, is most remarkable, and characteristic of the irrepressible spirit prise of its population. Traveling in the ods of Mississippi, through native forests till within a few years, human foot never rough solitudes the stillness of which was roken even by the red man, I have been ith wonder to find myself drawn on a railan engine driven by an artisan from Livand whirled at the rate of twenty miles an the highest refinements of the art of locoIt is not easy to describe the impression d as one sees the frightened deer start lair at the snorting of the ponderous maand the appearance of the snake-like train Follows it, and when one reflects on all that s accomplished within half a century in

ion."

he mode of conducting the business of lways, there are many peculiarities will create surprise to Europeans. nstead of terminating in the suburbs it towns, the railways are, in many ctually carried through the streets :— several of the principal American cities, vays are continued to the very centre of , following the windings of the streets, ing without difficulty the sharpest corners. omotive station is, however, always in the Having arrived there, the engine is derom the train, and horses are yoked to the s, by which they are drawn to the passenot, usually established at some central . Four horses are attached to each of ong carriages. The sharp curves at the of the streets are turned, by causing the heels of the trucks to run upon their so that they become (while passing round e) virtually larger wheels than the inner have seen, by this means, the longest carriages enter the depots in Philadelphia, e, and New York, with as much precision ity as was exhibited by the coaches that nter the gateway of the Golden Cross or cen's Head."

ne cases a long line of transport con

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ticable to transship the merchandise from the railway wagons to the canal boats, or vice versa, and such a change would be highly inconvenient even to passengers having much luggage. The device by which this difficulty is surmounted is curious and interesting:

"The merchandise is loaded, and the passengers accommodated in the boats adapted to the canals, at the depot in Market street, Philadelphia. These boats, which are of considerable magnitude and length, are divided into segments, by partitions made transversely and at right angles to their length, so that each boat can be, as it were, broken into three or more pieces. These several pieces are placed each on two railway trucks, which support it at its ends, a proper body being provided for the trucks adapted to the form of the bottom and keel of the boat. In this manner the boat is carried in pieces, with its load, along the railways. On arriving at the canal, the pieces are united so as to form a continuous boat, which, being launched, the transport is continued on the water.

"On arriving again at the railway, the boat is once more resolved into its segments, which, as before, are transferred to the railway trucks, and transported to the next canal station by locomotive engines.

Between the depot in Market street and the locomotive station, which is situate in the suburbs drawn by horses, on railways conducted through of Philadelphia, the segments of the boats are the streets. At the locomotive station the trucks are formed into a continuous train, and delivered over to the locomotive engine.

"As the body of the truck rests upon a pivot, under which it is supported by the wheels, it is capable of revolving, and no difficulty is found in turning the shortest curves; and these enormous Vehicles, with their contents of merchandise and passengers, are seen daily issuing from the gates of the depot in Market-street, and turning without difficulty the corners at the entrance of each suc

cessive street."

Where the line of route of a railway is intersected by wide rivers or arms of the sea, which happens not unfrequently, a steam ferry is used instead of a bridge:

"The management of these steam ferries is deserving of notice. It is generally so arranged, that the time of crossing them corresponds with a meal of the passengers. A platform is constructed, level with the line of rails, and carried to the water's edge. Upon this platform rails are laid, on which the wagons which bear the passengers' luggage, and other matters of light and rapid transport, are rolled directly upon the upper deck of the ferry boat, the passengers meanwhile proceeding under a covered way to the lower deck.

river, the passengers are supplied with their breakfast, dinner, lunch, or supper, as the case may be. On arriving at the opposite bank the upper deck comes in contact with a like platform, bearing a railway on which the wagons are rolled. The passengers walk by a covered way, and resume their places in the railway carriages, and the train proceeds."

We find a variety of other interesting details respecting the internal communication in the United States, both by land and water, in the work before us; but our limits oblige us to pass them over, referring the reader to the volume itself.

Belgium was the first of the European States to perceive the vast importance of the improvement in land transport made in England; and her first great measure, after the acknowledgment of her independence, which followed the revolution of 1830, was the adoption of a project for the construction of an extensive system of railway communication, intersecting her territory east and west, and north and south; connecting Ostend with Cologne, and Valenciennes with Antwerp. A few years since this project was realized, and the result justified its policy. In ten years from the opening of the first section of the State railways, the exports of the kingdom were doubled, and the imports were augmented fully five per cent. The Belgian railways consist of 457 miles, of which 353 have been constructed, and are worked by the State. The total cost of their construction and equipment has amounted to eight millions sterling.

Up to the end of 1847, the gross receipts proceeding from the traffic on the Belgian State Railways never exceeded eight per cent. of the capital, and the nett profits never amount to so much as four per cent., except in the year 1846, when they amounted to four and one-tenth per cent.

Considering the advanced place she claims among civilized countries, France has been singularly backward in the adoption of rail-i ways. At the close of 1849, the total length of railways open to traffic in France, did not amount to 1750 miles, the length of those in progress being about 1250 miles-making a total of 3000 miles. The cost of those completed was forty-six millions sterling, and the estimated cost of those in progress was thirty-four millions, making a total of eighty millions of railway capital.

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According to the calculation of Dr. Lard-¦

The system of railways constructed German States is very unequally distr a circumstance naturally produced unequal distribution of population, com and industry. A tract east of the of the Netherlands, having a length of 400 miles east and west, and a wi about 200 miles north and south, is c with a close net-work of railways, to all the other systems of Germanic ra may be regarded as tributary. These lines consist of four main trunks, r north and south, with numerous brand

The first follows the course of the by its right bank, and terminates at The second traverses the kingdom of temberg, from Frankfort to the sho Lake Constance. The third travers kingdom of Bavaria, from the front Saxony to Lindau, on Lake Constance the third is the great Austrian line mencing at Trieste, and passing throug entire territory of the empire to the no frontiers, where it unites with the Silesian system, already mentioned, thr off numerous branches east and w Pesth, Prague, and other places.

By the last mentioned system, a conti line of railway communication is open tween the Adriatic and the ports of th tic, the Sound, the German Ocean, ar Channel.

If the ports of the German Ocean sired to be reached, the branch dive eastward at Lundenburg will be adopte which the traveler will pass through hemia, Saxony, and Western Prussia, t ing at Prague, Dresden, Leipsic, Magde and arriving ultimately at Hamburg. If desired to reach the ports of the Bal the Sound, he will pursue the Au trunk line to Oderburg, on the fronti Silesia, where he will enter on the Prus Silesian system, and will pass by Br Frankfort-on-the-Oder, and Berlin, to St

Berlin is the common centre and poi departure of the extensive system of n ern railways. From this capital, seven lines will ultimately diverge, five of are completed and in operation.

In 1849, the total length of railways der traffic in the German States was miles, about 800 miles being in progre construction.

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