RAIL-ROADS. 



an irregular inclination for nine miles, and was formed 

 and laid down in the short space of sixty days. The 

 loaded carriages descend the whole distance by gravita- 

 tion, and when emptied are drawn up by animal power. 

 The rate of descent is in some parts over twentyfive 

 miles per hour. 



The Honesdale rail-road from Lackawana to the Hud- 

 son and Delaware canal, continues seventeen miles, and 

 thus connects the upper part of the same coal district, 

 with the Hudson river and New- York. This was con- 

 structed in 1829, being also an edge rail of the primi- 

 tive kind, and is temporary. It has five ascending planes, 

 worked by stationary engines, and averaging half a mile 

 each i;i length, surmounting in all a perpendicular height 

 of 800 feet in three and a half miles. Towards the ca- 

 nal are three descending planes of nearly the same 

 length. 



In Pennsylvania, the route from Philadelphia to Pitts- 

 burg, being 407 miles, partly by canals and partly by 

 rail-roads, is in a state of great forwardness. First a 

 rail-road to Columbia, eightyfive miles, thence a canal to 

 the Allegliany mountains, thence a rail-road of forty 

 miles across the mountains, thence a canal to Pittsburg. 

 This forms but a part of the internal improvements of 

 this energetic and important state, which several years 

 liace had in hand 1230 in lies of canals and rail-roads, 

 at an expense of fifteen millions of dollars. The conse- 

 quence is, that already the lands within reach of these 

 works have increased in value, probably more than that 

 amount. Goods were the first season thrust to Lacka- 

 wana, some 120 miles into the forest, and then sold at 

 little more than the retail prices of New-York and Phila- 

 delphia. The impulse thus given to agriculture and the 

 settlement of the State may be conceived. 



In Maryland, the Baltimore and Ohio railway is a stu- 

 pendous undertaking. It will be 350 miles in length ; 

 the first ISO miles (between Baltimore and the Allegha- 

 ny mountains,) will be passed with only one stationary 

 engine. The magnificent and permanent style in which 

 the work has been commenced, will render it expensive, 

 but its advantages will doubtless be commensurate. A 



