28 Magnitude of our railway system. 



iron shipbuilding, engineering, and other great 

 applications of science, have been enormous. The 

 annual gas rental of London alone amounts to more 

 than two millions sterling ; and even in Birmingham 

 the produce of gas is more than twenty-five hundred 

 millions of cubic feet yearly. The amount of capital 

 expended in the construction of railways only in this 

 country, has been estimated at more than seven 

 hundred millions of pounds, and the total receipts 

 upon British railways has reached forty-three mil- 

 lions per annum. In the year 1875 our railways 

 carried 200 million tons of goods, and consumed ten 

 million tons of coal ; the Great Northern Railway 

 alone consumes 5,000 tons of coal each week. In 

 the year 1877 there existed in the entire world about 

 198,000 miles of railway, the whole having been 

 constructed since the year 1825. In the year 1880 

 six hundred millions of journeys were made by pas- 

 sengers on British railways ; and the stock of those 

 railways included 13,174 locomotives ; 369,694 wag- 

 gons, 28,717 passenger carriages, and 22,712 other 

 vehicles. The London and North-Western Railway 

 Company alone possessed, in the year 1873, no less 

 than 1,900 locomotive engines, each of a value of 

 nearly two thousand pounds; 4,000 carriages and 

 36,000 waggons ; and it has been estimated by com- 

 petent authorities, that there are in the world 

 200,000 steam-engines, having a total power of 

 twelve million horses, or 100 million men. The 

 number of cotton spindles on the whole Earth is , 



