600 EAILROADS. 



uiiiphant. The rapidity of communication, however, that has been 

 attained already on the Liverpool and Manchester railroad has thrown 

 all the earlier achievements of engineering into the shade ; and there 

 is every reason to believe, owing to the improvements that are so ra- 

 pidly being made in the construction of high-pressure engines, that a 

 speed will eventually be attained much greater than we have any no- 

 tion of at present, — much greater, perhaps, than can be realized with 

 a prudential consideration of safety. Dr. Lardner seems to enter- 

 tain little doubt that in a very few years the mail will be conveyed 

 from London to Liverpool (more than 200 miles) in three hours — 

 that is, at a rate of about sixty -seven miles an hour. He himself on 

 the Liverpool and Manchester railroad, with an engine and carriage 

 attached containing thirty -six persons, obtained a velocity of forty- 

 eight miles an hour. It is to railroads then, especially in connection 

 with locomotive engines, that we are to direct the reader's attention; 

 and it will be convenient to class our remarks under two heads : — 

 first, on the expenses of construction ; secondly, the cost of transport. 



To understand the necessary expense of constructing a railroad, it 

 will be requisite to attend to many circumstances, the most important 

 of which are undoubtedly the surface of the country to be traversed 

 and the nature and hardness of the strata to be cut through in making 

 the tunnels and excavations necessary in order to attain a nearly 

 level rail surface. It will, on this account, therefore, be vei"y desir- 

 able for those who are called on to weigh the merits of different 

 lines of railroad to pay some attention to the physical geography of 

 the country ; to enquire into the average height of the elevated 

 grounds and the extent of the river-valleys, with a view of finding out 

 the natural facilities afforded by the depressions of the latter and the 

 obstacles opposed by the former to the attainment of an undeviatingly 

 smooth plane. To a competent knowledge of physical geography 

 it would be found useful to add a general acquaintance with the geo- 

 logy of England ; and an examination of the artificial lines and levels 

 of different canals crossing the hilly tracts, together with some no- 

 tion of the expense incurred by their construction, would materially 

 assist in forming a judicious opinion respecting the cost of railroad 

 construction. 



This will be easily understood by the following illustration. In 

 taking the line of railroad that is proposed to connect the western and 

 eastern parts of northern England — Liverpool and Hull, it is easy to 

 perceive, by looking at a good map, that the construction must vary 

 exceedingly in its different parts, and consequently the cost of con- 

 struction in the same pi'oportion. The level portion of the Liver- 

 pool and Manchester railway, and the greater part of the eastern side 

 of the line down the valley of the Calder and Aire, present few diffi- 

 culties that cannot be overcome by moderate expense ; whereas the 

 more elevated country of Lancashire and the Blackstone edge op- 

 poses inequalities of a nature difficult to surmount except at great 

 expense and the source of permanent loss of labour in the transport 

 of goods. The nature of the soil on this line of railroad must not be 

 forgotten in the estimate. The marly soil of the Ouse and Mersey 

 valleys is a far more manageable material than the solid limestone of 



