204 



THE GREAT WESTERN RAILROAD. 



[1854 



rate, did form, the only actual, visible proof we have of the motion of 

 the earth round the sun. 



The telescope is said to have originated in an accident. The children 

 of a spectacle maker in Middleburgh were playing with some of the 

 glasses, and, happening to look through two of them, placed one behind 

 the other, saw the weathercock on a steeple opposite greatly magnified, 

 but inverted. The father, having his attention called to the singular 

 effect, fixed up two glasses in his shop at the proper distance, and 

 directed to the weathercock. All the passers-by stopped to wonder at 

 the curiosity, till it struck somebody that the glasses might be inserted 

 into a portable tube. 



After the telescope, which alone has enabled astronomy to reach its 

 present perfection, perhaps the most important instrument is the sex- 

 tant, without which our astronomical knowledge could never have been 

 turned to much account in navigation. You know that the object of 

 such observations is to measure the angle between two objects, as the 

 sun above the horizon, or the moon from a particular star. Now, at 

 sea you caunot direct one of your sights towards one object, and one 

 towards the other, and then read off the angle at your leisure. Amidst 

 the incessant rolling and pitching of the vessel, you cannot use any 

 such fixed instruments as you can employ on the shore, but must be 

 enabled to catch an instantaneous sight of both objects at the same 

 time. This is accomplished by viewing one object directly, and the 

 other after a double reflection from two mirrors. One of the little 

 mirrors is fixed, and the other is moved, till you bring both objects 

 exactly to coincide, when the angle between the two mirrors is proved 

 mathematically to be exactly half of that between the two objects. 

 Now, this valuable instrument had certainly two, and perhaps three, 

 independent inventors. The first in order of time was undoubtedly 

 Sir Isaac Newton, though the invention was not made public for some 

 time after. Another, and certainly an independent one, was a glazier 

 of Philadelphia, who is said to have conceived the first idea from noticing 

 the reflection of the opposite houses between two panes of glass, with 

 which he was preparing to mend a window. There have been, without 

 doubt, many as skillful glaziers as poor Godfrey, and certainly many 

 more industrious ones — for he was a sad dissipated fellow — but not 

 very many who had sufficient acquaintance with mathematics to make 

 a profitable use of such a casual observation. We are told that God- 

 frey was devoted to such studies ; so much so, that when the Royal 

 Society voted him £200 for his invention, they laid it out in a present 

 of furniture and linen to his wife, as he spent all his earnings in mathe- 

 matical books — and drink. 



Now in these anecdotes, which I have related as examples of the 

 manner in which discoveries are generally brought about, you will 

 observe that there are two circumstances which are common to them 

 all. The discovery was connected with the practice of the profession 

 of the man who made it, or with the study which then occupied his 

 attention, and there existed beforehand a competent knowledge to turn 

 to account the new idea suggested to his mind. They tend to illustrate 

 and confirm the proposition with which I commenced, and with which 

 I will also conclude : that practical men, working mechanics, are more 

 likely than any other class to encounter those obscure hints and sug- 

 gestions of nature which are the seeds of great discoveries ; that they 

 are the most able of all men to detect the practical application of which 

 the idea is susceptible, but that, without some preparatory training 

 and scientific acquirements, all those advantages must of necessity be 

 thrown away. 



Great "Western Railroad. 



The Great Western Railway is two hundred and twenty-eight 

 miles in length, and it forms, with the American roads east and west of 

 it, one of the most important of all the routes between the Atlantic 

 and the Mississippi, Commencing iu the West at the head of Lake 

 Erie, where the Michigan roads and daily steamers connect it with all 

 the shores of the great upper lakes and the exhaustless lands of the 

 north-western States — touching with its boundaries Lakes Huron, St. 

 Clair, and Ontario — and terminating in the East on- the Niagara river, 

 where two railroads and the Brie Canal connect it with the seaboard 

 — and commanding in the water Communication of Ontario and the St. 

 Lawrence an independent channel to Montreal and Quebec — it certainly 

 possesses extraordinary advantages, and must hereafter serve a most 

 valuable purpose. The road was projected eight years ago, and had to 

 experience its full share of the difficulties usually attendant upon 

 such an enterprise. Its cost has been about eight millions of dollars, 



about one million of which was subscribed in Canala, about one million 

 in the United States, and nearly a mUlion by the British Government : 

 the remainder has been raised by the sale of stock and bonds, in 

 Great Britain. Its line of location is in some respects remarkably 

 favorable. Ninty-five per cent, of the whole distance is perfectly 

 straight, and the curves on the remaining distance are mostly very 

 slight. 



A distance of 183 miles is either entirely level or exhibits inclinations 

 of less than five feet per mile ; and the slopes on the remainder are 

 mostly less than 20 feet per mile. The summit is 800 feet above the 

 western terminus, the maximum grade on the west side of which is 

 twenty feet per mile, and on the eastern side forty-five feet per mile, 

 the latter of which is all confined to a distance within twelve miles of 

 Hamilton. 



The soil east of London is generally composed of sand and gravel ; 

 west it is more mixed with clay. For some twelve or twenty miles 

 west of Chatham the road passes through low wet prairies, and was built 

 at great expense, the material for its grading having been taken from 

 the marshes with dredging machines and by coffer dams, or hauled, 

 over a long distance, from the lake shore. For a mile and a half the 

 track runs over piles. 



Near London, and also both east and west of Hamilton, are many 

 heavy excavations and embankments. Over the Twenty Mile Creek is 

 a bridge 1200 feet in length and eighty in height, and not far distant is 

 another eight hundred feet in length of the same height. The road, 

 though the regular traffic upon it has already commenced, cannot 

 yet be considered as complete. A considerable portion of it has not yet 

 been gravelled up to the ties, and many places it runs over temporary 

 tressel work. Still the work has been done with great expedition, for a 

 year ago but very small and detached portions of the grading on any 

 part of the line had been completed. The road appears to be 

 strong and firm enough now, but there are many who think it 

 will not sustain unharmed the severe tests of the coming spring. 



The line is laid with a single track, but its culverts and bridges are 

 so constructed as to admit of a double track when one shall be required. 

 The guage is five feet and a half, and therein I believe exclusively 

 Canadian. The engineers of the work, and most of the contractors 

 are Americans. Two or three of the directors of the company have 

 been and still are Americans ; but notwithstanding, the common princi- 

 ples of human nature have had play in the doings of the corporation, 

 as the following amusing specimen goes to show : The first chief 

 engineer of the road, after a service of four or five years, resigned to 

 take office at Washington. One of his associates was appointed suc- 

 cessor, and the Board heralded the qualifications of the new officer in 

 very emphatic terms. 



One of his first duties was to render a detailed estimate of the cost 

 of the line in place of the general estimates of his predecessor. He 

 did this, and, after careful examination, confounded the Board with a 

 result which exceeded the original estimate more than a million of dol- 

 lars. There was no standing such a wet blanket, and the Chief En- 

 gineer was indignantly driven from his post. Another was appointed, 

 an Engineer of high standing in the United States. He, after patient 

 investigation made a report of estimates which exceeded those of the 

 last a million and a half of dollars, those of the first two million and a 

 half! The shock was a tenable one, but human nature had to yield 

 to the nature of things, and the Directors submitted. The result has 

 completely justified the last estimates. 



The locomotive engineers are American and English ; the conduc- 

 tors Scotch, and also most of the subordinates. The locomotives were 

 mostly built at Shenectady or at Lowel ; the cars, which are very 

 spacious and elegant, were manufactured in the province at Hamilton. 

 The rails weigh from sixty-five to eighty pounds to the yard, and not 

 having been subject to tariff dues, cost something like twenty-five 

 dollars per ton less than the price of similar iron in the United States. 

 The fare on the route is three cents a mile, which is one cent more than 

 on most Northern roads in our country. It is expected that the entire 

 two hundred and twenty-eight miles from Niagara to Detroit will be 

 run in eight hours, and the entire distance between Chicago and Al- 

 bany, 837 miles by nearly a straight line, in twenty-nine hours. 



A suspension bridge connecting the line with the Rochester and 

 Niagara road, is in process of construction. Though it extends directly 

 over the present suspension bridge for general travel, it is not con- 

 nected with the latter at all, its heavy stone abutments being built 

 outside, and the wire-work some fifteen feet above, being entirely 

 independent. It will have but two cables, one on each side, each of 



