UKVttttlES ON RAIL-ROADS. 43 



immense advantages. If for twenty years we have been enabled to 

 carry on a war against civilized Europe j if we have been able to 

 sustain the enormous burthen of our national debt, it is because we 

 have had at our disposition the prodigious resources of our industry, 

 seconded by this new agent, which we were the first to possess. 



On the other side the Atlantic, applied to navigation, it has enabled 

 a nation, in the noon-tide of youth and political energy (but barely 

 numbering twelve millions of inhabitants), to develope, with a ra- 

 pidity perfectly unparalleled in the annals of the world, the immense 

 resources of a territory almost equal in extent to the European Con- 

 tinent. But the most important application of the power of steam 

 is of a more recent date ; it is the revival of the old invention of 

 carriages propelled by the power of steam on rail-roads of iron. 



" Imagination," says a French writer of celebrity, " : is dazzled in 

 contemplating the operation of this invention on the future destinies 

 of man ; one that gives to him the faculty of moving with the 

 rapidity of the eagle a land conveyance, at once less dangerous, 

 less uncertain, less expensive, and more expeditious than any other 

 with which he has hitherto been acquainted. By means of this com- 

 munication every country may henceforth, from its very centre, 

 distribute equally over its surface the necessaries of life and the raw 

 materials of industry ; its scattered population will contract a thou- 

 sand new relations, mutually assist each other, and, by the most 

 simple combinations, a continual interchange of the commodities of 

 the most distant countries will be as easily established as between 

 two neighbouring cities. In fact, by means of rail-roads every nation 

 will henceforth possess the faculty of rendering invasions impossible, 

 of doubling their population and their prosperity, and of diminishing 

 in equo ratio their public burdens. But let us not," he adds, " con- 

 fine our consideration of this invention to the simple establishment 

 of a communication between a mineral district and the nearest river, 

 or between a manufacturing town and a neighbouring sea-port ; but 

 let us suppose the whole country possessing a complete system of 

 rail-roads, diverging from the capital, as a common centre, to every 

 part of the frontiers. 



" Now, the most important object of transportation, whether con- 

 sidered commercially or politically, is undoubtedly man himself. A 

 machine that would save five-sixths of the time and expense, and 

 nine-tenths of the trouble and fatigue, of our present mode of loco- 

 motion, would certainly work a complete change in the aspect of a 

 country ; for with what rapidity and ease might the merchants of 

 the sea-ports visit the interior, and vice versa those of the interior the 

 sea-coast ! In fact, how numerous the advantages it would offer to 

 every class of society to all those who travel either for health, or 

 pleasure, or instruction ! If, again, to these we add the further ad- 

 vantages of a rapid circulation of letters and newspapers, we may, 

 without any great stretch of the imagination, form an accurate idea 

 of the magnificent results of this mighty operation." 



There is, doubtless, in this view of the subject, much that is just 

 and correct, but, taken in its ensemble, it is the dream of a heated 

 imagination, the fata morgana of the mind, which, if only partially 



