GEORGE STEPHENSON. 79 



vray, as we know it, was made. There liave been many improve- 

 ments in the mode of manufacture, in the kinds of sleepers used 

 (stone or wood), in the method of fastening them, in the intro- 

 duction of steel rails ; in the discovery, very recently, that iron 

 rails can be made, even more durable and less expensive than 

 steel. But the fundamental condition of the rail remains un- 

 changed, and on the plan thus introduced early in the century 

 all our great progress of to-day has been made. 



Mr, R. L. Edgeworth, writing in Nicholson^ s Journal of the 

 Arts, in i So 2, describes a project formed by him many years 

 before for laying iron railways for baggage waggons on the great 

 roads of England. Objections as to first cost and maintenance 

 had deten-ed him from promoting it, and to obviate the latter 

 he proposed to use a series of smaller cars — the modern " train " 

 --in order to save tlie wear of the rails. In 1768 he obtained 

 the Society of Arts' gold medal, for models of his carriages, and 

 twenty years later he made four carriages which were used for 

 some time on a wooden line of rails to convey lime for farming 

 purposes. Besides using his proposed railways for heavy 

 waggons at a slow pace, Mr. Edgeworth thought means niighi 

 be found of enabling stage-coaches to go six miles an-hour, and 

 post-chaises and gentlemen's travclHng can-iages at eight miles 

 an-hour, both with one horse. Another proposal he made was 

 that small (stationary) engines placed from distance to distance 

 might by means of circulating chains be made to draw the 

 carriages along roads with a great diminution of horse labour 

 and expense. 



An attempt to take a systematical commercial view of the 

 utility of railways was made in 1800, by Dr. James Anderson, 

 in the fourth volume of his " Recreations in Agriculture." He 

 proposed to construct railways by the side of the turnpike roads, 



