Vol.VIH.— No 43. 



AND nOIlTICULTUIlAT> JOURNAL. 



341 



lot one of wliicli at tliree yeurj old was uuclei- 

 ieventeen hands. She was in the fiflcei.lh foal 

 )y the same horse, wlioii he sold her to a neif;li- 

 jorinj; fanner, reserving the foal, whith was to 

 jf delivered in a twelvciiionlli. At her new nias- 

 slie was comparatively starved, unil slie came 

 jack at the expiration of the year so altered as 

 icarcely to he recosnised. The foal, four months 

 )ld, was very small. The liltle animal was put 

 )n the most "luxuriant ki-.p, lint it diil not reach 

 nore than fifteen hands at the expiration of tlie 

 hird year. 



RAILROADS AND LOCOMOTIVE ENGINES. 



The London Quarterly Review after a very in- 

 .elligihle an<l a concise statement of the advanta- 

 {cs of Railroads, in the conveyance hoth of heavy 

 oads and of passengers, gives the following ac- 

 count of the e\periment instituted between the 

 Meteor, a new engine constructed by Messrs Ste- 

 |)heiison, and the Novelty. The trials vvere care- 

 lully made under the superintendence of a skilful 

 3ngineer. 



The following are the results : — The Meteor 

 weighed, when the boiler was fill of water, four 

 tons" twelve hundred weight, and the tender tliree 

 :ons when full, and thlitytwo hundred weight 

 when empty. Besides this, there were six wag- 

 3ns attached, weighing with passengers, twenty- 

 ;ight tons, fourteen hundred weight, equal fully 

 ■1 (our times the weight of the engine and tender: 

 .Uhough working under considerable disadvanta- 

 ges from tlie state of the railway, it drew this load 

 en times backwards and forwards on the line, at 

 the average rate of nearly ten miles and a half an 

 hour, besides the space travelled over at each end 

 3f the course, and in many parts its speed was 11, 

 12, and 13 miles an hour. The consumption of 

 •oke for 42 miles, including halfa hundred weight 

 Tor heating the water in the boiler was 1000 

 weight, the expense of which would not exeeed 

 6ve"shillings. Nothing shows more decidedly the 

 Improvement introduced by Mr Stephenson, in the 

 mode of generating the steam in these engines, 

 than the supplying at such a rapid Tate of speed 

 an engine of the above magnitude and power, and 

 yet the whole a|iparatus so much dim:nish.e<l in 

 weight. In the trial with the Novel y, this engine 

 4 ew eight wagons, weighing in all twentyeight 

 tons one hundred weight, or seven times its own 

 weight, at the average rate of seven miles and a 

 half an hour, continuing to traverse backwards 

 and forwards ten times, and in some parts its speed 

 was nine miles, and at one place, nearly ten miles 

 an hour. The consumption of fuel was only five 

 buii<lre,d weight and twenty eight pounds for tliir- 

 tyseven miles and a half, the exiiensc of which 

 would not e.vceed five shillings and sixpence. 

 This performance is truly surprising, and gives us 

 anew idea of the powers of this engine. Hiihev- 

 to it has been thought only adapted for travelling 

 with great speed under a light load ; hut here we 

 see its powers of draught are equally remarkable, 

 and, what is also important, its decided superiority 

 to any other engine in the economy of fuel. The 

 more it is consiilered, the more certain does it ap- 

 pear that this engine involves a new principle o( 

 generating steam not hitherto known, or, at least, 

 practised among engineers. In constructin - 

 boilers for steam engines, the great object has 

 hitherlo been to expose as large a surface as jios- 

 sible to the action of the fire,— and all Mr Ste- 

 phenson's improvements depend on this principle. 



Mr I'.ricksen, however, to whom we are indehted 

 for this idea, exposes but a limited suri'ace; and 

 to make up fir this deficiency, he applies to it an 

 intense degree of heat. 1 ow far this plan may 

 answer in practice, without injuring the materials 

 of the boiler, must be detertnined by further ex- 

 jierience. We uiulersland he is now applying 

 the same principle to the boiler of a steamboat 

 engine ; and if this attem|il succeeds, it will he, 

 without doubt, tlie greatest imiiruvement in steam 

 navigation since the original introduction of that 

 discovery. 



Such then, are the extraordinary performances 

 of those machines arising from the combined ef- 

 fect of the steam engine and the railway ; and 

 whether we consider the prodigious powers of lo- 

 comotion and of draught which are now by this 

 improvement placed at our command, the econo- 

 my of transport for heavy goods, or the cheapness 

 combined with unparalleled facility and des|.aleh 

 for mails, for light goods, and above all for the 

 purposes of travelling in this ev4r active commu- 

 nity, they are equally remarkable, and must, with- 

 out doubt, firm a new era in the history anil im- 

 provement of our inland commnnicatit.ns. Could 

 such perfect means of intercouse, indeed, be es- 

 lablislied generally throughout the country, it 

 would give ri.e to a revolution in our internal 

 trade and resources, such as no thinking man 

 conld contemplate without being lost in wonder 1 

 Volumes might be written on this interesting and 

 fertile topic; but in a commercial country it seems 

 superfluous to advance on it farther. 



We conclude with the statement of the economy 

 and safety that will result from steam travelling on 

 rarlroads : 



Between Liverpool for example, the great em- 

 |)orinm of maritime trade, for the west of England 

 ;:nd Manchester, the seat of cotton manufacture, 

 where this mode of conveyance is just about to 

 be ostaldished, it appears from the evidence laid 

 before the House of Commons, that all the aids of 

 the roads, canals, and river iiavigatioil, are 

 still found insnfiicient for the regular conveyance 

 of "oods, every channel of communication being 

 frequently choked up, and merchants and manu- 

 facturers subjected to the most inconvenient de- 

 lays. Sucti is the extent of this trade, that ac- 

 cording to the accurate calculations of the direc- 

 tors of the proposed ri ilway between the two 

 towns, goods to the amount of fifieen hundred tons 

 per day are conveyed between the two places; 

 and the directors in their instructions to their en- 

 gineer,-, contemplate the jirohabiliiy of three 

 thousand tons and iqiwards passing daily each 

 way. The charge by the common boats is ten 

 shillings per ton ; hut the delay of this convey- 

 ance renders it necessary to have recourse to the 

 fly-boats, which carry goods in sixteen and tvven- 

 tytwo hours, at an expense of twenty shillings 

 per ton, or. to carriers, who convey the goods in 

 twelve hours, at an exjieiise of forty shillings per 

 ton,* we have an expenditure of £2,250 per day 

 for the conveyance of goods. Now, it is calcula- 

 ted that the railway alone, with a due number of 

 locomotive engines, would he quite adequate to 

 the carriage of this vast mass of goods; and that 

 instead of twelve or sixteen hours, and sometimes 

 several days, they could be transported to the 



place of their destination, with the most perfect 

 regularity, in the course of three or four hours, 

 and at the low rate of seven shillings per ton — 

 reducing, in this manner the expense of carriage 

 per day Irom £2,250 to £525, and transacting 

 the business, at the same time, with infinitely 

 greater regularity and despatch. The annual sa- 

 ving on this one biMnch of local expenditure would 

 thus amount to £517,500 per annum, which is 

 nearly equal to half of the house duly throughout 

 Great Britain, and cannot be far short of the 

 amount of all the public taxes paid by the two 

 great towns in question. Besides this, we have 

 the saving of time, which in many eases, is of 

 much greater consequence even than the expense. 

 * * * * 



III our common coaches it is impossible to trav- 

 el at a rate bRyoiid ten miles an hour, and even at 

 this rate experience shows that accidents often 

 occur, owing to the spirit of the horses which it 

 is found necessary to employ, and which it is, at 

 the same time, extremely diliicnlt to contrid. But 

 it is the peculiar excellence of the power of steam, 

 that it is at all times under our most perfect com- 

 mand, as was exemplified in the recent experi- 

 ments, where the engines could be stopped, even 

 when going at their utmost speed of thirty miles 

 an hour, by merely reversing the powers of the 

 steam. Another advantage is-, that those vehicles, 

 from their great weight, and their confinement 

 on the tracts of the railway, can scarcely be over- 

 turned by any contingency. This mode of travel- 

 ling consequently admits a rate of spi ed that 

 would be entirely inconsistent with safety, even 

 ah hough it were practicable to attain it, with an- 

 imal power.. It would he still imprudent, howev- 

 er, to adopt the utmost limit of thirty miles, be- 

 cause such ati unusual rate of velocity, surpassing 

 that of t.'.>e siviftest horse, would be alarming if 

 it were not dangerous : and if any accident were 

 to happen, such as the vehicle running against 

 any obstacle, a circumstance, no doubt, very un- 

 likely to occur, the effects of the collision would 

 prove fatal hoth to the vehicle and the passengers. 

 At the rale of twenty miles an hour, however, it 

 would, we think, he perfectly practicable to travel 

 with the utmost safety and comfort; and when 

 we consider the vast fiicilities of intercourse which 

 would thence arise, if its practicability were once 

 established by some decisive experiment, we may 

 fa'.rly anticipate a great reduction in our present 

 modes of travelling . 



' It is of no con'sequence (o our argument, altliough we 

 should be rating this liilher too high. We suspect we have 

 done so, from some intelligence which reaches us too late 

 ' to admit of adequate inquiry. 



From the U. S. Gazette. 



SEA KALE. 



The subscriber has the iileasurc to announce to 

 the public that he has comidetely succeeded in 

 cultivating the Sea Kale, a new and excellent 

 vegetable, for which the Horticultural Society at 

 their late meeting offered as a premiutn a gold 

 medal. 



This valuable plant is now in fine order, and is 

 believed to be in thi; grer.test perfection of any ev- 

 er produced in this vicinity, or perhaps elsewhere 

 in the United States. He will this day, do him- 

 self the pleasure to exliibit the same to ladies and 

 gentlemen who may favor him with a call. This 

 being a new article in the United States, jierhaps 

 a short account of it may not be ami.ss. It is 

 known in England by its common name Sea Kale, 

 or according to the books Cramhe. Mitn'limn, L. 

 Tttrad Silig, L. and Crunfera, J. Chou Marin, Fr._ 

 Meerkokl, Ger. and Cramhio, Ital. 



