IV NOTES BY TIIE EDITOR 



the upright flange of the bar acted as a guide to keep the wheel on the 

 track. The nexr advance was an important one, and consisted in 

 transferring the guiding-flange from the rail to the wheel ; this improve- 

 ment enabled east-iron edge-rails to be used. Finally, in 1820, after 

 the lapse of about 200 years from the first employment of wooden bars, 

 wrought-iron rails, rolled in long lengths, and of suitable section, were 

 made, and eventually superseded all other forms of railway. Thus, 

 the railway system, like all other large inventions, has risen to its pres- 

 ent importance by a series of steps ; and so gradual has been its prog- 

 ress that Europe finds itself committed to a gauge fortuitously deter- 

 mined by the distance between the wheels of the carts for which wooden 

 rails were originally laid down. 



Last of all came the locomotive engine, that crowning achievement 

 of mechanical science, which enables us to convey a load of 200 tons at 

 a cost of fuel scarcely exceeding that of the corn and hay which the 

 original pack-horse consumed in conveying its load of three hundred- 

 weight an equal distance. 



In thus glancing at the history of railways, we may observe how 

 promptly the inventive faculty of man supplies the device which the 

 circumstances of the moment require. No sooner is a road formed fit 

 for wheeled carriages to pass along than the cart takes the place of the 

 pack-saddle : no sooner is the wooden railway provided than the wagon 

 is substituted for the cart : and no sooner is an iron railway formed, 

 capable of carrying heavy loads, than the locomotive engine is found 

 ready to commence its career. As in the vegetable kingdom fit con- 

 ditions of soil and climate quickly cause the appearance of suitable 

 plants, so in the intellectual world fitness of time and circumstance 

 promptly calls forth appropriate devices. The seeds of invention ex- 

 ist, as it were, in the air, ready to germinate whenever suitable con- 

 ditions arise, and no legislative interference is needed to insure their 

 growth in proper season." 



Necessity for a Neiv System of Writing. " The facility now given 

 to the transmission of intelligence and the interchange of thought is one 

 of the most remarkable features of the present age. Cheap and rapid 

 postage to all parts of the world, paper and printing reduced to the 

 lowest cost, electric telegraphs between nation and nation, town and 

 town, all contribute to aid that commerce of ideas by which wealth and 

 knowledge are augmented. But while so much facility is given to 

 mental communications by new measures and new inventions, the fun- 

 damental art of expressing thought by written symbols remains as im- 

 perfect now as it has been for centuries past. It seems strange that 



