GEORGE STEPHENSON. 95 



notes. These powers were necessarily greatly enlarged by sub- 

 sequent Acts to enable the line to be completed and placed in 

 sound working order. 



While the Stockton and Darlington Railway scheme was still 

 before Parliament, Mr. Edward Pease was ^v^iting articles for a 

 York newspaper, urging the propriety of extending it southward 

 into Yorkshire by a branch from Croft. It is curious now to 

 look back upon the arguments by which Mr. Pease sought to 

 influence public opinion in favour of railways, and to observe 

 the very modest anticipations which even its most zealous 

 advocate entertained as to their supposed utility and capa- 

 bilities. 



"The late improvements in the construction of railways," 

 Mr. Pease wrote, "have rendered them much more perfect 

 than when constructed after the old plan. To such a degree 

 of utility have they now been brought, that they may be re- 

 garded as very little inferior to canals T 



" Though the railways at Carron [in Scotland] are not exempt 

 from slight risings and depressions, the reduction which they 

 have occasioned in a distance of six miles merits much attention. 

 Before their establishment the Carron Company paid ^^1200 

 monthly on an average for carriage, but since then the number 

 of horses employed has been diminished by three-fourths, and 

 the expenditure on carriage reduced to about ;^3oo a-month, 

 effecting a saving to the company of equal to ;;/^ 10,000 a-year. 

 Coal, lime, stone, and grain can also be conveniently weighed 

 by machines placed under the railway depots and at different 

 points of loading and discharging. The weighing on departing 

 and arriving would also be a great check to fraud. 



" One horse can draw, by means of a railway, on a level or 

 slightly-inclined plane, from eight to sixteen waggons of one ton 



