Biographical Memoir of William C. Redjield. 433 



and to suggest the means of safety. Happy would it be, if in all 

 the great operations of the mechanical arts, the true spirit of the 

 philosopher were so fully conjoined with the practical knowledge 

 and skill of the engineer. How rapid would be the improvement 

 of the art ! How science and art would walk hand in hand, and 

 mutually aid and illustrate each other ! 



We turn now to another subject which engaged the attention 

 of Mr. Eedfield, and brought into exercise his remarkable sagacity 

 and forecast. He was the first to place beftu-e the American 

 people the plan of a system of railroads connecting the waters of 

 the Hudson with those of the Mississippi. His pamphlet contain- 

 ing this project, issued in 1829, is a proud monument of his 

 enlarged views, of his accurate knowledge of the topography, o^ 

 the vast country lying between these great rivers, of his extraor- 

 dinary forecast, anticipating as he did the rapid settlement of the 

 western states, the magic development of their agricultural and 

 mineral wealth, and the consequent rapid growth of our great 

 commercial metropolis. The route proposed is substantially that 

 of the New York and Erie railroad so far as this goes ; but his 

 views extended still further, and he marked out, with prophetic 

 accuracy, the course of the railroads which would connect with the 

 Atlantic states, the then infant states of Michigan, Indiana, and 

 Illinois. These, he foresaw, would advance with incredible rapi- 

 dity the settlement of those regions of unbounded fertility, and 

 would divert no small portion of the trade from the Mississippi to 

 the great metropolis of the east. 



It must be borne in mind that railroads for general transporta- 

 tion were unknown in this country until 1S26, when the project 

 of constructing the Albany and Schenectady railroad was first 

 entertained. As yet the advantages of railroads had not with us 

 been practically demonstrated, and especially their advantages over 

 canals were not generally understood or appreciated. At the 

 moment when the Erie canal, having just been completed, was at 

 the summit of its popularity, Mr. Eedfield set forth in his pamphlet 

 under nineteen distinct heads, the great superiority of railroads to 

 canals, advantages which, although then contemplated only in 

 theory, have been fully established by subsequent experience. He 

 had even anticipated that after the construction of the proposed 

 great trunk railway connecting the Hudson and the Mississippi, 

 many lateral railways and canals would be built, which would 

 ' bind in one vast net-work the whole great west to the Atlantic 



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