ccxl GENERAL SUMMARY OF SCIENTIFIC AND 



The fiftieth anniversary of the opening of the first public 

 railroad worked by steam was celebrated at Darlington, 

 England, on September 27, 1875. On the same day, by a 

 curious coincidence, a rolling-mill (at Stockton) began roll- 

 ing rails for the first Chinese railroad, a charter for which 

 has been granted to a company of Englishmen and Ameri- 

 cans. 



German railroads, at the beginning of the year, were au- 

 thorized to increase their tariffs on freight (with the excep- 

 tion of certain necessaries of life) to the extent of not more 

 than twenty-five per cent., on account of great reductions in 

 profits through the rise some years before in wages and ma- 

 terials. 



There was much discussion in France on the providing of 

 railroads of local interest, the problem being to prevent such 

 roads from injuring the business of existing roads, which 

 have a government guarantee of interest on a large part of 

 their capital. 



The Railway Commission established in Great Britain, in 

 1874, as a species of court having jurisdiction over certain 

 cases of differences between railroads and the community, 

 and of railroads with other railroads, has heard and decided 

 many cases during the past year, and has proved itself to be 

 a valuable tribunal. One of the members is an old railroad 

 manager (and is required by law to be an expert in railroad 

 business), another is a lawyer, and the third a nobleman. 



There has been a general stagnation in the work of rail- 

 road construction during the past year in almost all coun- 

 tries, with the exception perhaps of Russia. 



The railway statistics of the world have been collaborated 

 with considerable accuracy up to the close of the year 1874; 

 at which date we may estimate the length of all the railways 

 of the world, from the best sources of information at our dis- 

 posal, to have been 173,237 miles, with 56,700 locomotives 

 (having in the aggregate 1,134,000 horse-power), 103,700 

 passenger, and 1,356,000 freight cars. 



An outgrowth of the numerous transportation schemes 

 advocated at the last session of Congress was a government 

 survey for a railroad from the Tennessee River to the At- 

 lantic Ocean. The line in question is proposed as a cheap 

 freight route for the grain and other produce of the Missis- 



