652 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1889. 



Although some additions to the collection have since been made, a 

 large portion of the facts here stated, together with many of the illus- 

 trations, also appear in the original paper. 



GOOD TRACK AS IMPORTANT AS THE LOCOMOTIVE. 



As the improved wagon roads in the past made it practicable to 

 transfer the burden from the pack mule to the wheel vehicle, and the 

 traveler from the saddle horse to the light, comfortable, and rapidly 

 moving carriage, so the development of the iron railway of the nine- 

 teenth century has made it possible for us to enjoy the safety, speed, 

 and comfort of the express train of to-day, drawn by the fleet and 

 powerful locomotive. 



In considering the improvement in methods of transportation, I am 

 led to think that there is a tendency to overestimate the benefits aris- 

 ing from the invention and improvement of the locomotive, and to 

 overlook what has been done by those who devoted time aud thought 

 to the development of the various systems of permanent way. 



The improvement made in track construction in England during the 

 first quarter or the century made the introduction of the locomotive 

 there possible. 



Trevithick's locomotive of 1804, crude as it was, would have been 

 much more successful, and might have brought him much greater fame 

 as one of the first inventors of the locomotive, had the track upon 

 which it ran been constructed according to modern methods. 



Long before the locomotive was a practical machine the advantages 

 of the cast-iron tramroad were fully appreciated. 



By careful calculation a distinguished London engineer, in 1802, 

 found that while it cost 3s. 4tf. per ton per mile to transport bulky 

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

 tenth, M. 



George Stephenson, while president of the "British Carrying Com- 

 panies," stated "that by the introduction of the horse tramroad the 

 monthly expense of that company for coal carriage alone had been re- 

 duced from £1200 to £300. 



An edition of " Wood's Treatise of Railroads," published in 1830, 

 which was one of the earliest and most reliable standard works on 

 railroad subjects, calls attention to the economical operation of the 

 coal railroad, miles loug, near Mauch Chunk, Pennsylvania, then 

 operated by horse power, and states that by this method "it has re- 

 paid its whole cost since 1827." 



On a large proportion of the American railways projected before 

 1830, it was intended that horse power should be used. 



In Austria the advantages of a horse tramway were also understood. 



In 1828 thirty-nine miles of the horse railway from Budweis to Lintz — 

 constructed across the mountains which separate the Moldau and the 

 Danube — was opened to traffic. This road was extended 41 miles 



