684? Iiifluence of Steam Carriages 



scarcely any undulation or irregularity. As this bank is confronted by 

 another of a similar character, which rises from the narrow bottom of the 

 same streamless valley, the views from the house are either directly across to 

 this bank, or obliquely along the bank on which it is placed. The approach 

 road descends to the house, and that considerably, which is always bad, and 

 here very bad. In consequence of the whole of the extensive stable-offices 

 and farm-yard being placed between the house, and the hot-houses, kitchen- 

 garden, and pleasure-ground, the walks to the latter objects necessarily cross 

 both the main approach and several back roads and paths, which destroys 

 all idea of seclusion As the valley, and consequently the banks, lie in a 

 direction more or less north and south, the hot-houses are, in order that 

 they may front the sun, obliged to be built across the slope. This is very 

 inharmonious; and as these hot-houses, and many of the leading objects, 

 have been built at different limes within the last thirty years, there is an 

 appearance of disorder combined with abundance and magnificence, that is 

 not favourable to grand and dignified effect. The whole of these evils, 

 which are utterly incurable, are owing, first, to the idea of building the 

 house in a situation unmarked by nature ; secondly, to not having strongly 

 marked the featureless situation by appropriate art; and, thirdly, to the 

 want of a general plan for arranging the details. Some future lord of 

 Bretton Hall will raze the whole, rebuild the house at the head of the 

 valley, and lay out the pleasure-grounds on each side of it along the banks. 

 We regret to be obliged to disapprove so much of this place as a whole, 

 more especially, as, in common with every gardener and botanist in the 

 country, we highly admire and approve the noble-minded and muni- 

 ficent proprietress, who so liberally spends her princely income in enriching 

 it, and encouraging all arts and trades. No lady was ever a more liberal 

 and kind mistress to all her servants, or a better landlady to her tenants; 

 and that splendid exotic, the Beaumontia decussata (so named by the cele- 

 brated Robert Brown), will, in all future times, remind gardeners of one of 

 the greatest patrons of their art. 



{To be continued.) 



Art. VII. Steam Carriages, and their estimated Iiifluence on 

 Domestic and General Improvement. 



The progress that has been made, within the last few years, in the adapt- 

 ation of steam to road-carriages, has been most extraordinary ; and the pros- 

 pects which it holds out of human improvement are almost beyond the 

 power of the imagination to contemplate. It is not clear to what extent 

 steam may be applied to carriages on common roads, unless by stationary 

 engines, or where the roads are level ; but it has been proved by the expe- 

 riments lately made at Liverpool, that carriages can be impelled along a 

 railroad at the rate of upwards of 30 miles an hour. It cannot be too 

 much, then, to conclude that, on the average of the main roads of Britain, 

 if a railroad were laid down on one side of the common road, the travelling 

 between all the grand points, as London, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, 

 Inverness, Fort George, Greenock, Liverpool, Bristol, &c. &c. might be 

 performed at the rate of 24 miles an hour. The cheapness of this mode of 

 travelling is not less remarkable than its rapidity. The editor of the Scots- 

 man, in a most interesting article on the subject (Oct. 21.), calculates the 

 coach-hire per head at Is. for 15 miles, and the hire for goods at about 2d. 

 per ton per mile* In a work like ours, professing to record the progress of 

 rural and domestic improvement, it cannot be considered irrelative to give 

 the following extracts : — 



