478 TELFORD'S VIEWS OF RAILWAYS. TART VIII. 



in -its support. It appeared, however, that one of its 

 principal promoters, who had secured the right of pre- 

 emption of the land on which the only possible entrance 

 to the canal could be formed on the northern side, sud- 

 denly closed with the corporation of Liverpool, who were 

 opposed to the plan, and " sold " his partners as well as 

 the engineer for a large sum of money. Telford, dis- 

 gusted at being made the instrument of an apparent 

 fraud upon the public, destroyed all the documents 

 relating to the scheme, and never afterwards spoke of it 

 except in terms of extreme indignation. 



About the same time the formation of locomotive 

 railways was extensively discussed, and schemes were set 

 on foot to construct them between several of the larger 

 towns. But Mr. Telford was now about seventy years 

 old ; and, desirous of limiting the range of his business 

 rather than extending it, he declined to enter upon 

 this new branch of engineering. Yet, in his younger 

 days, he had surveyed numerous lines of railway- 

 amongst others, one as early as the year 1805, from 

 Glasgow to Berwick, down the vale of the Tweed. A 

 line from Newcastle-on-Tyne to Carlisle was also sur- 

 veyed and reported on by him some years later ; and the 

 Stratford and More ton Railway was actually constructed 

 under his direction. He made use of railways in all his 

 large works of masonry, for the purpose of facilitating 

 the haulage of materials to the points at which they were 

 required to be deposited or used. There is a paper of 

 his on the Inland Navigation of the County of Salop, 

 contained in ' The Agricultural Survey of Shropshire,' 

 in which he speaks of the judicious use of railways, and 

 recommends that in all future surveys " it be an instruc- 

 tion to the engineers that they do examine the county 

 with a view of introducing iron railways wherever diffi- 

 culties may occur with regard to the making of navigable 

 canals." When the project of the Liverpool and Man- 

 chester Railway was started, we are informed that he 

 was offered the appointment of engineer ; but he declined, 



