788 



RAGS- RAILWAYS. 



\\;is round guilty of high treason. .Having made 

 his escape from prison, and received assurances of 

 succour from France, he entered Hungary, and pub- 

 lished a manifesto, urging the people to free them- 

 selves from the tyranny of the Austrians. He was 

 joined by a great number, and stormed some for- 

 tresses, taking a severe revenge upon the imperial- 

 ists, who had given no quarter to the Hungarian 

 insurgents. In 1704 he was proclaimed prince of 

 Transylvania and protector of Hungary. He soon, 

 however, felt the difficulty of opposing the arms 

 and policy of a powerful sovereign, especially as 

 Louis could not render him much assistance. He 

 also found a rival in his friend and associate, count 

 Bercheni ; and in consequence of a severe check, 

 his troops began to desert. In 1711, a treaty was 

 concluded between the Hungarian states and the 

 emperor, to which he refused to accede, though the 

 first article secured his life and property, with the 

 title of prince of Transylvania. Deeply wounded 

 at this defeat of his patriotic wishes, he withdrew 

 into Turkey, where he died in 1735. He wrote 

 Memoirs of his Life, published in the Revolutions 

 de Hongrie, (Hague, 1739.) There is also a pub- 

 lication, but of very doubtful authenticity, enti- 

 tled Testament Politique et Moral du Prince Ra- 

 gotski. 



RAGS. See Paper. 



RAGUSA ; capital of a circle of the same name 

 in Dalmatia, (q. v.,) lying on the Adriatic, in lat. 

 42 36' N. ; Ion. 18 11' E. ; population 6500. It 

 was formerly a republic, with a territory of 500 

 square miles, and 60,000 inhabitants, which was 

 founded in 656. Its most flourishing period was 

 from 1427 to 1440, and it preserved its liberty by 

 the payment of a tribute to the Porte. In 1806, al- 

 though the republic observed the strictest neutrality, 

 it was taken possession of by the French, and, in 

 1811, was incorporated with the government of II- 

 lyria. In 1814, it was occupied by Austrian troops. 

 Napoleon conferred the title of ' ' duke of Ragusa " 

 on marshal Marmont. 



RAGUSA, DUKE oy. See Marmont. 



RAIK. See Caliph. 



RAIKES, ROBERT, a printer and philanthropist, 

 was born at Gloucester, in 1735. His father was 

 proprietor of the Gloucester Journal, and the son 

 succeeded him in the printing business ; and hav- 

 ing realized a good property, he employed it with 

 his pen and his influence in relieving such objects 

 as stood in need of his benevolent assistance. He 

 is, however, best known for his institution of Sun- 

 day schools, which he planned, conjointly with the 

 reverend Mr Stock, in 1781. Mr llaikes died at 

 Gloucester in 1811. 



RAILWAYS, roads made by placing lines of 

 smooth and parallel bars between one place and 

 another, in order to increase the speed of the trans- 

 port of carriages, by diminishing the resistance to 

 the rolling of the wheels. The most perfect of the 

 Roman roads, as the Appian way, which is a con- 

 tinued plane surface formed by blocks of stone 

 closely fitted together, was a near approach to the 

 modern railroad ; but the plans of the two species 

 of road are very different. The first railways, 

 formed on the plan of making a distinct surface and 

 tract for the wheels, seem to have been constructed 

 ilear Newcastle upon Tyne. In Roger North's 

 Life of Lord Keeper North, he says, that at this 

 place, (in 1676) the coals were conveyed from the 

 mines to the banks of the river, " by laying rails ol 

 timber exactly straight and parallel ; and bulky 

 carts were made with four rollers fitting those rails, 

 whereby the carriage was made so easy that one 

 horse would draw four or five chaldrons of coal. 



One hundred years afterwards, viz. about 1776, Mr 

 Carr constructed an iron railroad at the Sheffield 

 colliery. The rails were supported by wooden 

 sleepers, to which they were nailed. In 1797, Mr 

 Barns adopted stone supports in a railroad leading 

 from the Lawson main colliery to the Tyne near to 

 Newcastle ; and, in 1800, Mr Outram made use of 

 them in a railroad at Little Eaton, in Derbyshire. 

 Twenty-five years afterward,this species of road was 

 successfully adopted on a public thoroughfare for the 

 transportation of merchandise and passengers, viz. 

 the Stockton and Darlington railroad, which was 

 completed in 1825, and was the first on which this 

 experiment was made with success. From that 

 time, accordingly, a new era commenced in the his- 

 tory of inland transportation. 



The species of rail first employed was a broad sur- 

 face of cast iron, sufficient to support the rim of a 

 common cart or carriage, these are called plate or 

 tram rails, and such rails are very useful, where the 

 carriages that pass over them have occasionally to 

 traverse common roads. But another species of 

 rail is now universally employed, where the car- 

 riages have to pass only over the railway, these are 

 called edge rails, and are distinguished from the for- 

 mer by being much narrower on the upper surface. 

 On the edge railway very narrow wheels are used 

 on the carriages, the breadth of the rail not in gene- 

 ral exceeding two inches, and the carriage is kept on 

 the way by means of flanges on the outer part of the 

 rim of the wheel. These flanges ought never to touch 

 the rail on accountof the great resistance they cause, 

 and a better plan is now adopted in forming the car- 

 riage wheels bevelled on the rim, so that the exte- 

 rior diameter is less than the interior. The form 

 of the edge rail will be seen by inspecting our plate 

 of Locomotive Engines. (See Locomotive Engine.'* 

 The rails are fashioned in bars commonly three feet 

 in length, fastened at each end upon the sleepers. 

 The usual form of such is as we have shewn them 

 in our plates of the Locomotive Engine, of the fish- 

 bellied shape, thicker in the middle than at the ends, 

 but although theoretically this may appear the best 

 fitted for the purpose, recent experience has shewn 

 that a straight rail is equally strong, and Has this 

 great advantage, that the cast is much less, from the 

 greater ease in making. Cast iron rails are at first 

 much cheaper than malleable iron ones, but the fol- 

 lowing statement will show that the latter are in 

 reality, by much the more economical : 



" Malleable iron rails, 15 feet long, over which 

 locomotive engines pass, weighing from 8 to 1 1 tons, 

 wagons and their loads 4 tons each ; 86,000 tons 

 passed over in a year, exclusive of engine and wag- 

 ons ; weight of rail, 1 cwt. 24 Ibs. Loss of 

 weight in twelve months, 8 oz. Cast iron rails 4 

 feet long, over which wagons only pass, weighing 

 4 tons each when loaded : 86,000 tons passed over 

 in a year, exclusive of wagons ; weight of rail 63 

 Ibs. Loss of weight in twelve months, 8 oz., being, 

 with less traffic, as great a loss upon 4 feet as upon 

 15 feet of wrought iron rails." 



Not only are malleable rails more durable than 

 those made of cast iron, but malleable rails when 

 in use are less susceptible to the deteriorating ac- 

 tion of the atmosphere than the same rails would be 

 if unused ; for if a bar of wrought iron be placed 

 upon the ground, alongside one of the same form 

 and material in the railway in use, the former is 

 continually throwing off scales of rust, while the 

 latter continues almost wholly free from waste of 

 that description, a fact discovered by Mr Stephen- 

 son, to depend on certain electric influences com- 

 municated by the passage of the trains. The strength 

 of iron necessary for the construction of a perma- 



