STEAM LOCOMOTION. 



" Soon shall thine arm, unconquered steam, afar 

 Drag the slow carriage and impel the rapid car, 

 Or, on wide waving wings expanded, bear 

 The flying chariot through the fields of air." 



THE ingenious author of the above prophetic lines, however highly 

 he may have estimated the advantages of the steam-engine, could 

 hardly have anticipated such an extensive use of that gigantic prime 

 mover as we now enjoy. - Its power, in many cases, exceeds that of 

 the fabled genii of the eastern world. But in no case is that power 

 so advantageously applied as when it is employed for locomotive pur- 

 poses. A steam carriage is all but "a thing of life;" it darts for- 

 ward with the velocity of the eagle in its flight, and yet so admirably 

 are its powers regulated that its motion may be checked in full speed, 

 and it may be directed " hither or thither" by the force of a child. 



When the speed of a common carriage is too slow for the wants of 

 man, he has recourse to the steam-engine that abridger of time and 

 space ; and most manfully does it answer to the appeal, for there is 

 scarcely any boundary to the rapidity of its motion. If the speed of 

 the rocket be required, it may be at once imparted to those winged 

 messengers by highly elastic vapour ; and in the same way a degree 

 of speed which passeth that of sight may readily be communicated to 

 a carriage by this potent prime mover, and at a cost much below that 

 of animal power. 



Every thing which tends to facilitate the means of conveyance, in 

 a commercial country like England, must also tend to increase its 

 wealth and power. Even in the agricultural districts of Great 

 Britain we find that the formation of railroads and the establishment 

 of locomotive engines, have enabled the landed proprietor to bring into 

 cultivation extensive districts of land which would otherwise have lain 

 barren and useless. But even the commercial and agricultural in- 

 terests, to which we have thus briefly alluded, are as nothing, when 

 compared with the increased diffusion of useful knowledge which 

 must follow from a cheap and rapid means of conveyance over the 

 whole British empire. Man 'is by this means brought into juxta- 

 position with his fellow man; and we yet hope to see the time when 

 ignorance and its sister prejudices, which are the peculiar companions 

 of retired districts, will be lost in the amalgamation of a mixed so- 

 ciety. It is true that the admirers of the picturesque are not likely 

 to gain by the change, as the smoke of a railroad conveyance will 

 scarcely curl so gracefully as that which wreaths from the peat fire of 

 the illicit still ; but, by thus innovating on " the good old times," we 

 in reality sacrifice but the privileges of the few for the happiness of 

 the many, which should be a primary object with every lover of his 

 species. 



We have thus briefly pointed out the importance of railroad con- 

 veyance. Its direct advantages, in an economical point of view, may 



