66 



FxiRIvIERS' REGISTER— RAIL ROADS AND CANALS. 



desir 

 it for 



•able, — especially the soap-boilers who make 

 ;• sale, as they make cloublfe the profit they 

 would oii the other quality. 



Some housekee}>crs ])ractice making their own 

 hai'd soap. This is done by adding salt to the 

 soap after it is well made, Avhile it is yet boiling-. 

 The effect is thus explained. Salt is soda and 

 muriatic acid. Potash has a stronger afTinily for 

 muriatic acid than soda has, and when tl.ey come 

 in contact, as in this case, the potash decomposes 

 the salt and combines with the muriatic acid, Ibrm- 

 ing a muriate of potash — leaving the soda pure to 

 Ibrm a hard soaj) with the grease : — the muriate 

 of potash will be found on cooling, in solution at 

 the bottom, lieing of greater specific gravity than 

 the soap. The salt should be added by sinall 

 quantities until the separation takes place, which 

 may be knoviai by the soap becoming curdled ; af- 

 ter which it should be allov/ed to stand until cold, 

 when it may be cut into bars or cakes, as suits the 

 operator. Many suppose that resin is necessary 

 to harden the soap. This is not the case; it is 

 used as a matter of profit — not of necessity. 



The common yellow color of soft soap is owing 

 to the iron contained in it, as the oxide of iron is 

 dissolved by potash. Where white soap is desira- 

 ble, it may be made by substituting pearlash or 

 carbonate of potash, and abstracting the carbonic 

 acid by lime — and by using lard or other white 

 grease, the jmrest white soap may be made. — [ Gen- 

 esee Farrncr. 



From the Alexandria Gazette of Feb. 7. 



No subject can he more interesting to our read- 

 ers than that of Internal Improvements, and the 

 inventions which have recently been brought in- 

 to use, to facilitate trade and commerce and inter- 

 communication. Hence, v.e are always studious 

 to collect and arrange focts having a bearing 

 upon these matters for their use and information. 



A few years only are passed since the wonders 

 performed on Rail Roads ^vere regarded as mere 

 Travellers' Tales. Now, at our own door;; near- 

 ly, we may see them realized. In point of velo- 

 city and burthen, the Locomotives have proved 

 jcapable of more than was at first asserted. In 

 our day, too, we have the wonders of increased 

 and extraordinary velocity on Canals, which 

 would not once have been believed, and against 

 which the trials on the Delaware and Chesapeake 

 Canal have been cited. On this sulyect, however, 

 we have been favored with a pamphlet, published in 

 England, which contains so much that is really 

 important, and to us deejily interesting, that Ave 

 will take the present opportunity to copy some of 

 its pages, regretting that our limits only allov/ us 

 to make extracts : 



" The Liverpool and Manchester Railwa}' Com- 

 pany in their competition with the water carriage, 

 have obtained but a very trifling ])roportion of 

 traffic from the canals. The profits (if any have 

 actually been made by tlie carriage of goods on 

 the Liverpool and Manchester Railway) are ex- 

 tremely small ; yet the water distance between 

 Manchester and Liverpool, is nearly double the 

 Railway distance ; and instead of possessing the 

 regularity of Canal Conveyance, is, for eighteen 

 miles of this additional lengtli, subject to the 

 wiiids and tides of the Mersey. Nevertheless, of 



an amount of nearly fourteen hundred thousand 

 tons annually, for the carriage of which the Di- 

 rectors of the Ijiverpcol Railway were desirous to 

 provide, before tlieir Railway was opened, little 

 more than an eighteenth part, including the en- 

 tire road traffic, has been as yet obtained for the 

 Railway ; and the expenses of carrying this frac- 

 tion of the tra<le, have been so enormous, as to 

 make il doubtful v.hether the Railway Company 

 do not suffer a regular loss on their carrying 

 trade, Avhich is defrayed from their profits as coach- 

 masters." — [N'oie B — yJppendix.l 



"However inci edible it may appear, it is cer- 

 tain that Canal passengers can be carried at a 

 speed often miles an hour, with a degree of ease, 

 comibrt, and safety, such as no other conveyance 

 can give, and at a charge (if required by compe- 

 tition) not much more than a tenth of the cost of 

 Railway travelling. 



"These iacts, so different from general belief, 

 have been completely ascertained during tlie 

 course of the last two years. They are conse- 

 quent on the detection, by practice and experience, 

 of two fallacies which had been held out to the 

 public, and received as undoubted truths. 



"The first of these follacics Avas, that it was im- 

 possible to propel a boat, carrying any considera- 

 ble number of passengers, along a Canal at a high 

 speed, without incurring an enormous expendi- 

 tui'e of money and power, and witliout occasioning 

 a wave or surge which would wash down the Ca- 

 nal banks. — {JVute C — jJppendix.'] 



"The second fallacy was promulgated by cer- 

 tain engineers, connected with Railway projects, 

 and is as follows, viz : that in proportion as the 

 speed on a Railv.ay was increased, the expense of 

 conveyance was diminished, as the engines by 

 doubling their speed could in the same time do 

 double work. — \_Note C — j-7ppcndix.'] 



"Nov/ the first fallacy, viz : the alleged impos- 

 sibility of moving at a great velocity tlirough Ca- 

 nals, and the certainty of the destruction of the 

 Canal banks by the swift passage of Canal ves- 

 sels, have been proved to exist in imagination only. 

 A speed of ten miles an hour has for the last two 

 years been maintained, in the carriage of passen- 

 gers on one of the narroAvest Canals in Britain, 

 Avithout raising a ripple on the banks, even Avhere 

 the vessel carried upAvardsof one hundred passen- 

 gers, or as many as are carried in a train of coach- 

 es on the Liverpool and Manchester Raihvay. 



"The expenses or cost of obtaining this speed 

 ai'e so trifling, that the fares per mile are in these 

 quick boats just one liklf and one third of the fares 

 in the Liverpool Railway coaches, Avhile at these 

 loAv fares the profits are such as to have induced 

 the boat jjropriefors to quadruple the number of 

 boats on the Canal. 



"On the ether hand, and in respect of the second 

 fallacy, although it be true that the extraordinary 

 velocities obtained on the Liverpool Raihvay have 

 fully come up to the expectations of the projectors, 

 yet the expenses, instead of being diminished, (ac- 

 cording to the dicta promulgated by engineers,) 

 have been enormously increased, and have gone 

 so fiir beyond a,ll previous calculation, as to njake 

 it doubtful whether the Railway Company will 

 not ultimately find, that agreeably to an Irish 

 phrase, 'they have gained a loss.' 



"As respects canals, the experiments of great 

 velocity have been tried and proved on the nar- 



