662 



REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1889. 



In Eig. 35 the dotted line indicates the depth of the rail betweeu the 

 ties. The plate is from an original rail in the collection which was laid 



¥'"'■•■ 



sSSfifc 





Fig. 35. 

 English Fish-Belly Rail, Laid on' the New Jersey Railroad near Newark, 1832. 



(From original in the IT. S. National Museum. ) 



near Newark, New Jersey, in 1831. It was the original design to lay 

 the whole Portage Railroad with stone blocks and "f rails. 



THE ORIGIN OF THE AMERICAN RAIL iND TRACK. 



In 1825-27 a few isolated coal tramroads existed in the mining re- 

 gions in Pennsylvania aud Virginia and in the stone quarries in Massa- 

 chusetts. These roads were laid with wooden rails, capped with thin 

 merchant bar iron. About this time the Pennsylvania Society for the 

 Promotion of Internal Improvement sent an engineer abroad to exam- 

 ine the English railways. The fully illustrated report made by Wil- 

 liam Strickland, published during the year 1S2G, shows that rapid ad- 

 vances in track construction had been made in Great Britain during 

 the preceding decade, notwithstanding the fact that comparatively few 

 locomotives were at work and only one railway for general traffic had 

 been opened. 



This report, without doubt, contained the most trustworthy informa- 

 tion obtainable at that time by American railway projectors. 



But America presented a very different problem from England to the 

 pioneer railway builders. Eugland was an old country, rich in com- 

 merce and foremost in manufactures, of comparatively small area and 

 very densely settled, having a population of nearly two hundred to the 

 square mile of territory, while the population of the whole United States 

 was less than four to the square mile. In the seven States, Connecti- 

 cut, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, 

 and Maryland, where most of the early railways were projected, the 

 average population was a little over thirty-five to the square mile. 



