38 HISTORY OF RAILWAYS. 



the following calculation of the draught upon various roads then in 



use: 



" On well made pavement, the draught is . . *.' 33 Ibs. 



On a broken stone surface, or old flint road . . .- - 65 " 



On a gravel road ..... ^? 147 " 



On a broken stone road, upon a rough pavement foundation 46 " 

 On a broken stone surface, upon a bottoming of concrete, 

 farmed of Parker's cement and gravel . . . 46 " 



Although the principle of Railroads has been adopted from the year 

 1602, in the various collieries of the county of Northumberland, yet, the 

 rails being composed of wood, and very rudely made, were imperfect and 

 perishable; they were constantly out of repair, and the expense of keeping 

 them useful was very considerable. The advantages even of these rude 

 railways were still great, inasmuch as it was calculated that while a 

 horse load upon a common road was 17cwt, upon these wooden rail- 

 roads it was more than double, or 42 cwt., and this advantage seems to 

 have sufficed for the object in view, for no other attempts were made at 

 improvement. Until within a very few years, railroads have been 

 used as auxiliaries to canals, and then only for short distances, or 

 where the nature of the ground precluded the application of inland 

 navigation ; and as the number of canals increased, and served the pur- 

 poses for which they were intended, the ingenuity of man may almost 

 be said to have slept on the farther improvement of railways by the 

 addition of steam power. Between fifty and sixty years ago, iron was 

 substituted for wood on railroads, and the tram road (sometimes called 

 the plate railroad) was first adopted. It consisted of cast iron rails about 

 four feet long, having a flange or upright ledge three inches high, to 

 keep the wheel upon the horizontal part, which was about four inches 

 wide, and another flange at the other side, projecting downwards to 

 strengthen the rail ; these rails were fixed together and fastened securely 

 tc stone supports. At first they were made to rest on transverse blocks, 

 stretched across the whole breadth of the railroad, or upon short square 

 wooden sleepers (stone blocks are now used). Since the close of the 

 last century, railways have multiplied greatly in the immediate neigh- 

 bourhood of the Collieries. In Glamorganshire alone it is estimated 

 that there are three hundred miles of railways. These are, however, all 

 detached, isolated, and private undertakings, appropriated only to the 

 conveyance of the mineral produce to those points where water commu- 



