RADISH RAILROADS. 



295 



was 16,031 in 1880, and by the State census of 1885 

 was 19.636. 



RADISH, Raphanus sativvs, a hardy annual origi- 

 nating in China, but now widely grown for its mueh- 

 esteeuied salad runt. The plant when in flower is 

 from three to four feet high, and bears large white or 

 purplish flowers, and long smooth seed-pods. In 

 Southern Asia the radish grows at a height of 16, (MX) 

 feet on the Himalayas. In Norway it is cultivated 

 beyond the latitude of 70. All varieties succeed best 

 in a light, rich, sandy loam, aided by manure rich in 

 lime. The plant usually suffers in summer heat and 

 drought, and when grown then the root is generally 

 fibrous and very pungent. It is sometimes sown in 

 beds of asparagus for the benefit of the shade and 

 ir.'-isture. The root of the radish varies in shape 

 from round or ovoid to a long tapering form. Its ex- 

 cellence consists in its succulent, crisp, and tender con- 

 dition, qualities which can only be attained by rapid 

 growth, so that the plant needs to be copiously watered 

 in dry weather. Like most of the cruciferous salad 

 plants, radishes are pungent and antiscorbutic. They 

 are apt to be indigestible from their excess of 

 ti.-sue. The seeds of some varieties of the 



plant yield an oil almost identical with rape and 

 colza oil (c. M.) 



RAFINESQUE, CONSTANTINE SCHMALTZ (173 r 

 1842), an eccentric naturalist, was born at Constanti- 

 nople, Oct. 22, 1783. His fatherwasa French trader, 

 and his mother, though born in Greece, was of a Ger- 

 man family. In infancy he was taken to Marseilles 

 and afterwards to Leghorn. He early developed a 

 taste t'ur natural science. In 1802 his father sent him 

 to Philadelphia where he was employed in acouniing- 

 house, but his vacations were. spent in rambling on 

 foot in Pennsylvania and Virginia. In 1 806 be went 

 to Sicily to engage in business and for a time enjoyed 

 a monopoly of the trade in squills, which he, had dis- 

 covered there. His labors in natural history 

 are attested by his flora nf Sicily (1810), Si- 

 rilinii Jrliilii/iiiogy (18)0), and Sicilian Crabs 

 (1814). The English ornithologist, AVilliain Swain- 

 son, paid a visit to Rafinesque in Sicily. In 1815 

 the latter returned to the United States, but on his 

 voyage was shipwrecked near Now London, Conn. 

 His collection, manuscripts and drawings, were lost. 

 He became a tutor in New York, but soon resumed 

 his wanderings. In 1818 he was made professor of 

 natural history and modern languages in Transylva- 

 nia University, I/exinpton, Ky. , but soon quarrelled 

 with its authorities. He came in contact with Au- 

 dnbon, the ornithologist, who did not disdain to im- 

 pose on the simplicity of the wanderer. Hence in 

 his Irtlninliiyiii Oliiomu (1824) appear some strange 

 fish which have l>oen a puzzle to later natur- 

 alists. Rafinesqne's investigations were not con- 

 fined to fishes and birds. lie studied in his way the 

 languages and customs of the Indians ami projected 

 various inventions. In 1830 he went to Philadelphia, 

 and thenceforth published various magazines and his- 

 tories, a poem called The World: or hstabttity, and 

 a meagre autobiography called A Life nf Irni-d and 

 /frwareto (1836). He died at Philadelphia, Sept. IX, 

 1*42. RafmcM|ue rejected the Linnaean system in 

 botany and anticipated to some extent Darwin's 

 theory. Between him and the naturalists of his time 

 tin-re wns a strung repugnance, but Agassizand a few of 

 his successors have admitted some merit in his work. 

 Many of his manuscripts are in the U. S. National 

 Museum, but others are lost, and his publications are 

 rare. 



KAIIWAY, a city of N'ow Jersey, in Union co., is 

 on the Rahway River, 4 miles from its mouth, and 19 

 miles S. W. of New York on the New York division 

 of the Pennsylvania Railroad. It has 2 national 

 banks, 2 savings banks, 18 churches, 2 weekly news- 

 papers, and manufactures of carriages, wheels, axles, 

 springs, printing presses, shoes, and clothing. It was 



settled in 1720, and incorporated as a city in 1858. Its 

 population in 1880 was 6455. 



RAILROADS IN THE UNITED STATES. The sub- 

 S VI XX 1 ' ec ' ^ niter "?l improvements, partic- 

 p Ce 223(p 230 u ' ar 'y tnat / improved means of inter- 

 Am""llep.j.~ na l communication for the colonists, was 

 one that received considerable attention 

 from the fathers of our country. The internal com- 

 merce of the United States, unlike that of any other 

 country, has become almost wholly the creation of 

 public works. The chief markets for its products, 

 whether for home consumption or for exportation, 

 are, and always have been, within a narrow strip of 

 territory skirting the seaboard from Baltimore north- 

 ward to Portland. The early settlements, from want 

 of even ordinary highways, were necessarily made 

 upon the navigable water-courses. When inland set- 

 tlements were made the lack of suitable avenues for 

 the transportation of their products to market was 

 felt to be a serious check to their prosperity and prog- 

 ress. The subject engaged the attention of Wash- 

 ington at an early period in his life. He crossed the 

 Allegheny range of mountains for the purpose of as- 

 certaining whether a canal could be constructed from 

 the navigable waters of the Chesapeake to the Ohio. 

 Before the outbreak of the Revolutionary war. as a 

 member of the House of Burgesses of Virginia, he 

 urged the consideration of this subject upon that body. 

 Alter the close of the war, and till his election as 

 President of the United States, he was unremitting in 

 his efforts to promote the construction of such works. 

 He was president of the company first formed in Vir- 

 ginia to execute it. He also visited the State of New 

 York, passed up the Mohawk to the summit from 

 which the waters flow into the Hudson River on the 

 one hand and into Lake Ontario on the other. At 

 this point the Allegheny range falls off into a vast 

 plain depressed 145 feet below the surface of Lake 

 Erie, and 109 feet below the summit, which, near 

 Chicago, separates the waters flowing into Lake Mich- 

 igan from those flowing into the Mississippi. This 

 pnysical feature, in one sense so unimportant, has ex- 

 erted a paramount influence on the destinies, moral, 

 political, and material, of the continent. It gave to 

 the North the monopoly of its commerce, which 

 brought supremacy in wealth, and in the West it made 

 the lines of the Great Lakes the future seat of empire. 



The first attempt to realize Washington's idea of 

 binding by commercial interests the East and West 

 was made, not in Virginia, but in the State of New 

 York. In 1792 two companies the "Western" and 

 the "Northern Inland Navigation Company," of that 

 State were organized, the former undertaking the 

 work of constructing what was termed a "lock naviga- 

 tion " from the Hudson to Lake Ontario, and the lat- 

 ter a similar work from Albany to Ijake Champlain. 

 The former constructed a canal which, being on a 

 very small scale, proved wholly inadequate to its ob- 

 ject, was unremunerative, and was speedily aban- 

 doned. 



The next attempt of the kind grew out of the pain- 

 ful sense of the disasters suffered in the war of 1812, 

 and in consequence of the difficulty in moving troops 

 and munitions of war from the seaboard to the seat of 

 hostilities in the line of the lakes and the St. Law- 

 rence. The people of New York, in whose territory 

 the war was chiefly waged, determined at its close to 

 construct, with the least possible delay, a canal ex- 

 tending from the Hudson River at Albany to Lake 

 Erie at Buffalo. On April 15, 1817, the Legislature 

 passed an act, making provisions by means supplied by 

 itself for the construction of such a canal, and on Nov. 

 14, IS25, the completion of the work was celebrated. 

 (See CLINTON, DF.WITT.) 



From the success which followed the opening of the 

 Erie Canal, the States of Pennsylvania. Maryland, 

 Virginia, Ohio, and Illinois at once embarked on elab- 

 orate systems designed to give to almost every portion 



