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BULLETIX 119, U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



EAELY TEAMROADS. 



By careful calculation, a distinguished London engineer in 1802 

 found that while it cost 80 cents a ton a mile to transport bulky 

 freight over turnpikes, the cost on horse tramroads of iron was only 

 one-tenth of this amount, George Stephenson, while president of the 

 " British Carring Companies," wrote " that by the introduction of the 

 horse tramroad, the monthly expense of that company for coal car- 

 riage alone had been reduced from £1,200 to £300. An edition of 

 "Wood's Treatise of Railroads," published in 1830, calls attention 

 to the economical operation of the coal railroad, 9 miles long, near 

 Mauch Chunk, Pennsylvania, then operated by horsepower, and 



FIG. 44. MODEL OP WOODEN KAILWAT AT NEWCASTLE, ENGLAND, 1672. 



states that b}^ this method " it has repaid its whole cost since 1827." 

 In 1828 39 miles of the horse railway from Budweis to Lintz, con- 

 structed across the mountains which separate the Moldau and the 

 Danube Rivers, was opened to traffic. This road was extended 41 

 miles farther in 1832, and for many years paid a dividend of 5 per 

 cent upon a capitalization of $10,000 a mile, which was subsequently 

 increased to a length of 130 miles in 1839. 



The demand for a new fuel to replace wood was the necessity that 

 became more and more urgent as the forests disappeared to satisfy 

 the demands of a dense population. This condition of affairs di- 

 rected thought toward devising improved methods for transporting 

 13it coal from the collieries of Great Britain to the adjacent navi- 

 gable streams or near seaports, with the result that railways were 

 laid in the coal mines and from the mines to the adjacent water- 



