MAGAZINE OF SCIENCE AND ART. 
13 
ami the benefit to tlio country through which it passes 
'may ho quite its groat in such a case us were locomotive 
power employed. It may bo asked, what power will it 
be desirable' to employ in this colony! To this the 
simple answer would seem to be, that which is the 
cheapest, provided it be sufficient. In kmgland the 
amount of tratlic upon the different lines, and the demand 
for speed on the part of the passengers, has made the 
universal adoption of steam power a matter of necessity. 
I!ut before we assume tills tii be the rase in New South 
Wales, a proper calculation must be made to the relative 
cost and efficiency of the different kinds of motive power. 
I do not, of course, mean to infer that cheapness is to be 
the onlv consideration; but 1 do mean to say that, in the 
present condition of the colony, it would bo unwise to 
incur am- great additional expense for the purpose of in¬ 
creasing the speed of transit beyond ten or twelve miles 
per hour for passengers. If, then, horse power can be 
shown to he cheaper than steam, and though slower, com¬ 
petent for the conveyance of the traffic winch is likely to 
come upon tlio line for some years to come, I should 
certainly recommend that it should be employed. 
In discussing the question of the relative expense of 
the two systems ot locomotion, the actual cost ot woiking 
the line in each ease is not the only matter to lie con¬ 
sidered. The cost of constructing the road in either case 
must enter into the comparison. I' ov instance, lor steam 
power the line must be scraighter in plan, less steep and 
abrupt, and less undulating ill section ; the rails must lie 
heavier, and all the work upon the road more massive 
and substantial, while even upon the more solid road the 
wear and tear of the heavy locomotives going at speed, 
will be far greater than that caused by horse traffic. 
Taking all tilings into ronsideratiqn, I should he disposed 
to believe that the lino prepared for locomotive power 
would cost at least double'of that laid down for horse¬ 
power ; aid the wear and tear will probably bo larger in 
flic same proportion. This, however, as I said before, 
must he determined by calculation and experiment ; and 
I hope on some future occasion to he able to lay before 
von the results of some which are now in progress. 
' I have in the present paper confined myself as much as 
possible to the general question, on the satisfactory eluci¬ 
dation of which the adoption of railroads as the ordinary 
means of communication must depend. Hereafter, I 
trust full accounts will be laid before the Society of tho 
practical working; of the different systems which maybe 
tried, and the members will then he in a position to ren¬ 
der valuable service to the Government, by classifying and 
analysing these returns, from which only .we can hope to 
deduce results applicable to tlio peculiar circumstances of 
tll0 lP' W. DENISON. 
AUSTRALIAN WINE. 
- Though wine has been made in New South 
Wales, more or less, for thirty years past, 
and though vineyards of ten, twenty, and 
even thirty acres in extent, have reached the 
ripe age of fifteen to twenty summers— 
though men not stinted in capital, pr deficient 
in general education, have been engaged in 
the production of the wine, and though Eu¬ 
rope has been ransacked to supply the best 
varieties of wines, and travellers from this 
country have purposely examined, and 
minutely described French, German, and 
Spanish methods of wine-making still our 
wines have been no better to us than a re¬ 
proach, and the bitterest sentence that could 
be passed on the poor “ vigneron” was, that 
“he should drink his own sour wine.” The 
whole quantity made was very small. The 
last official returns of vineyards in the set¬ 
tled districts gave 983f acres, producing 
112,744 gallons of wine, and 1*126 gallons 
of brandy. These figures prove to what a 
great extent the vineyards had been allowed 
to go out of cultivation,—the produce of 
well-attended vineyards, in this country, 
will average 400 gallons to the acre, so that 
the produce in this case, was only one-third 
of what it should have been, and so great 
was the disheartening effect of neglect and 
bad management, that about two years ago, 
many, mistaking tho cause of failure, rooted 
up their vineyards in despair, and many more 
were on the point of following the bad ex¬ 
ample. It was not, however, very much to 
be wondered at; their cellars were full of 
wine (so called), that no one would pur¬ 
chase—every effort to effect sales in Sydney 
had failed, and the popular prejudice ran 
very strong against what was nicknamed, 
after a very unsightly little island in the 
harbour. 
It was very* strange that, with all the ad¬ 
vantages they possessed, there should have 
been so great a failure,—-the climate is most 
suitable, the summer heat lasts sufficiently 
long, for even the latest varieties of grape 
to become thoroughly ripe, and no year is an 
exception to this rule—how superior to the 
climate of the Rlu'ne, where one such year 
in every'six is all they can hope for! The 
fermentation could have given them no trou¬ 
ble, for the temperature of our vintage-time 
seems so exactly to suit its requirements, 
that to let it have its own way was the surest 
means of success. 
But the after management of the wine was 
wherein they failed, they thought, when they 
got the juice of the grape into their 
casks, that tlieir wine was made, 
whereas in truth it could not fairly he enti¬ 
tled to the name of wine, until it had passed 
the following summers heat, and been care¬ 
fully guided through the various chemical 
changes that are in active operation in new 
wines, and past that which did them more 
harm than all the rest, viz., the strong ten¬ 
dency to acetus fermentation. 
But the making of wine was undertaken 
by rich men—pride had more to do with the 
planting of vineyards than profit, and pride 
and profit, as we know, cannot agree. 
Had the settlers, poor and striving, been 
the wine growers, they could not have af¬ 
forded to neglect what they depended upon, 
and in neglect dwelt every cause of failure; 
neglect of ordinary common sense—cleanli- 
