ii8 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



of freight, and is still an increasingly important method of trans- 

 portation in that department. Mr. Redfield, associated profes- 

 sionally with the "Steam Navigation Company/' continued to 

 apply himself to the improvement of the art, devising better 

 forms of apparatus, seeking for the best methods of regulating 

 steam navigation, which he did not find in legal enactments, in- 

 quiring into the causes of boiler explosions and suggesting means 

 of safety, and calling attention to the value of steam in national 

 defense. 



While railroads were still an experiment in this country 

 the Albany and Schenectady Railroad having been completed 

 only in 1826 Mr. Redfield, in 1829, published a pamphlet outlin- 

 ing a project for one system of railroads connecting the Atlantic 

 with the Mississippi, in which he made useful the knowledge of 

 the country which he had gained in his walk to Ohio. The route 

 he indicated was substantially, as far as to the lakes, the one 

 afterward followed by the New York and Erie Railroad. The 

 Erie Canal was then popular, and seemed to respond to the 

 public demand for quick transportation; and so the author set 

 forth, under nineteen distinct heads, the superiority of railroads 

 to canals a principle which was only a theory then, and to which 

 men had to be won by argument. " He even anticipated,'' Prof. 

 Olmsted observes, " that after the construction of the proposed 

 great trunk railway connecting the Hudson and Mississippi, 

 many lateral railways and canals would be built, which would 

 bind in one vast network the whole great West to the Atlantic 

 States. 'This great plateau, says he, will indeed one day be 

 intersected by thousands of miles of railroad communications; 

 and so rapid will be the increase of its population and resources 

 that many persons now living will probably see most or all of it 

 accomplished.'" 



In 1832 Mr. Redfield was associated in the examination of the 

 country through which the Harlem Railroad runs, with a view 

 to establishing a road to Albany. He assisted in procuring a 

 charter for the road, and published a pamphlet concerning it. He 

 further assisted in the survey of a railroad route from New 

 Haven to Hartford. He also showed his faith in street railroads, 

 having as early as 1829 petitioned the Common Council of the 

 City of New York for permission to lay an experimental track in 

 Canal Street. At a later period he was a member of the Board 

 of Directors under whom the Hudson River Railroad was com- 

 pleted. 



While Mr. Redfield's fame rests mainly on his studies in 

 meteorology, his contributions to geology were likewise impor- 

 tant. Even as early as his journey to Ohio in 1810 he made geo- 

 logical observations. He was always much interested in the 



