1886.1 389 [Sellers. 



(made when he was quite a youth), are still preserved in his family, and 

 are tangible evidences of his skill in this direction. 



Mr. Whitney's taste naturally led him to choose the profession of civil 

 engineering, and on completing his studies he immediately secured a situa- 

 tion on the surveying corps of the proposed railroad between Hartford and 

 Springfield, Connecticut, the lines for which were run in the middle of a 

 rigorous winter, the engineers being exposed to the hardships of extreme 

 cold and deep snows. On the completion of this survey he was retained 

 by the engineer in charge, the late William H. Talcott, and transferred, in 

 1840, to the little town of Cuba, Allegany Co., N. Y., where he was 

 placed in charge of a section of the work of enlarging the Genessee Valley 

 canal, being engaged both in preparing estimates of cost, and in supervis- 

 ing the practical construction. Mr. Whitney remained at this post more 

 than two years, and was then transferred to Albany as private secretary to 

 the same engineer. 



In 1842, Mr. Asa Whitney removed to Philadelphia, having formed a 

 partnership with Matthias W. Baldwin, under the name of Baldwin & 

 Whitney, for the manufacture of locomotives. Mr. George Whitney was 

 soon called to Philadelphia and was employed by this firm until its dis- 

 solution in 1846. 



We next find him assisting his father, who had been appointed presi- 

 dent of the Morris Canal Co., in the work of preparing drawings for the 

 remodeling and enlargement of the canal, a work of considerable mag- 

 nitude in those days, involving some bold schemes in the substitution of 

 improved inclined planes for the old-fashioned locks, and which, by their 

 successful operation, rescued the company from its financial embarrass- 

 ments and placed it upon a paying basis. 



The President's "Beport to the Stockholders of the Morris Cnnal and 

 Banking Company, March 17th, 1848," contains an interesting account of 

 the experimental tests made January 27th. 1848, of the first inclined plane 

 constructed under his supervision, in which he says that a boat containing 

 seventy tons of cargo (exclusive of the weight of boat and car) was passed 

 repeatedly up and down the plane, with great apparent ease and without 

 employing more than half the power that had been provided. The boats 

 were carried up the inclined planes at a greater velocity than they were 

 towed on the levels, and the system then introduced is still in successful 

 operation on the canal. The height of the first plane was- fifty-one feet, 

 its inclination one in ten ; the whole distance that the boat was moved by 

 machinery was 000 feet and the time employed was three and a half 

 minutes. 



Mr. Asa Whitney, realizing, prior to dissolving partnership with Mr. 

 Baldwin, the great necessity for improvement in wheels for locomotives, 

 tenders and cars, had devised a process for annealing wheels made of chilled 

 cast-iron, for which he obtained a patent in 1848. The experiments, which 

 were made chiefly by Mr. George Whitney, under his father's direction, 

 proved so successful that Mr. Asa Whitney, foreseeing the opportunity 



