674 



THE STANDARD DICTIONARY OF FACTS 



3IERCHANT MARINE OF THE WORLD Continued 



Radium. A newly discovered element of 

 intense activity, casting off minute corpuscles at 

 a velocity of 130,000 miles per second, and with- 

 out appreciably diminishing in substance. Rad- 

 ium is exceedingly rare and costly, enormous 

 quantities of pitchblende yielding only a minute 

 amount of the element. M. and Madame Curie, 

 the discoverers of radium, are authority for the 

 statement that a pound of radium, if it could be 

 had, would have a value of nearly a million dol- 

 lars, and that the thirtieth part of a grain costs 

 five dollars. Many scientists affirm that radium 

 can give light without heat or combustion. Sir 

 William Ramsay has demonstrated that the 

 emanations of radium, under certain conditions, 

 have the power to transmute certain substances. 

 The same claim was made by Prof. McCoy of 

 the University of Chicago, early in 1908. 



Railroad. A road constructed of tracks 

 of iron, called rails, on which roll the wheels of 

 carriages drawn either by horses or by steam- 

 engines, and to which they are confined by 

 ledges or flanges raised on the tires of the wheels. 

 Nearly two centuries before the introduction of 

 the locomotive, wooden rails were used at the 

 collieries, in the north of England; their upper 

 surfaces being, at a later period, covered with a 

 plate or bar of iron, to render them more dur- 

 able; and about the year 1776, flanges being 

 added to them to keep the wagons from running 

 off. The imperfections of plate, or as they were 

 also called tram rails, led, about the year 1801, 

 to the adoption of edge rails, or those at present 

 exclusively used; and, soon after, cast iron was 

 supplanted by wrought iron, in their manufac- 

 ture. The use of locomotives, instead of ani- 

 mals, was suggested in 1794 ; but no locomotive 

 seems to have been constructed until 1805. At 

 first cogged wheels, and various kinds of pro- 

 pellers, were employed with locomotives, from 

 an erroneous supposition that there would not 

 be sufficient friction between the driving-wheels 



and rails to prevent the former frorn turning 

 round, without the production of progressive 

 motions; but in 1814, plain wheels were tried 

 and found perfectly efficient. The locomotive 

 did not come into practical use until the opening 

 of the Liverpool & Manchester Railway in 

 1830; although the first railway Act received 

 the sanction of the British legislature in 1801, 

 by the incorporation of the Surrey Iron Kail- 

 way Company. This was indeed a compara- 

 tively trifling enterprise, for it extended only 

 from Wandsworth to Croydon, and was merely 

 applicable for the carriage of coals, lime, etc., 

 the moving-power being derived from horses 

 alone. In the United States a horse-railroad 

 was completed in 1827, from the granite quar- 

 ries of Quincy, Mass., a distance of three miles, 

 to the Neponset River. A second road was laid 

 out in January, 1827, from the coal-mines of 

 Mauch Chunk, Penn., to the Lehigh River, a 

 distance of nine miles, and with various ramifi- 

 cations the whole length exceeded thirteen miles. 

 The Delaware and Hudson Canal Company, in 

 1828, constructed a railroad from their coal- 

 mines to Honesdale, the terminus of their canal, 

 and sent a commissioner to England for the pur- 

 chase of rail, iron, and locomotives. In the 

 spring of 1829, these locomotives arrived in this 

 country. Of the succeeding great railway enter- 

 prises, one of the principal was the Baltimore A: 

 Ohio line, commenced in 1828, and originally 

 planned for horse-cars only, but, influenced by 

 the success of steam locomotives in England, 

 their employment was adopted on this road in- 

 stead of horse-power. In August, 1830, the 

 Hudson & Mohawk Railroad, from Albany to 

 Schenectady, was commenced. Several similar 

 enterprises were undertaken in the Pennsylvania 

 coal region in 1830, and in the legislative session 

 of 1830-31 no fewer than twelve railroad com- 

 panies were incorporated. In 1831 the Balti- 

 more & Susquehanna Railroad commenced 



