MAGAZINE OF SCIENCE AND ART. 9 
Honorary Members .—Honorary members to be nomi¬ 
nated by three ordinary members at one of the stated 
meetings of the society. The vote for their admission to 
take place, bv ballot, at the next subsequent meeting: 
one adverse vote in five to exclude. 
Election of Office-Bearers and Council .—The olTice- 
bearers and the other members of Council to be elected, 
by ballot, at a meeting of the society to be held annually 
in the month of Hay. A majority of votes to decide the 
election. 
Vacancies during the year .—Any vacancies occurring 
in the Council of Management during the year, to be filled 
up by the Council of Management. 
Fees .—The entrance-money paid by ordinary members 
on their admission to he one guinea; and the annual sub¬ 
scription to be one guinea, payable in advance. 
Fees may he compounded . — The sum of £10 may he 
paid at any time by a member, as a composition for the 
ordinary annual payment for life. 
Ordinary and Special Meetings .—Ordinary meetings 
to be held once a month, during eight months in the year; 
special general meetings may he held at any time, under 
the authority of the Council of Management. 
Confirmation of Bye-Laws. — Bye-laws proposed by 
the Council of Management shall not he binding until 
ratified by a general meeting. 
Alteration of Fundamental Rules .—No alteration or 
addition to the fundamental rules of the society shall be 
made, unless carried at two successive general meetings. 
His Excellency inaugurated the Society 
by reading the following paper :— 
RAILROADS. 
A Grief Outline of the development of the Railway 
System in England, with Suggestions as to its Appli¬ 
cation to the Colony of New South Wales. 
A history of the last thirty years would be very in¬ 
complete which excluded from consideration the vast 
changes which have been wrought in the state of society 
hv the introduction of railroads. Socially, politically, 
and morally, these changes have been very great ; and it 
would bo a curious and an interesting study to trace the 
effects which have resulted from the introduction of this 
easy and rapid system of locomotion,—some of which have 
originated directly from the forces put into action for the 
completion of the railways themselves, and for maintaining 
them in effective operation, but more of which must bo 
traced to feelings aud motives lying deep in man’s nature, 
hut which have been stimulated into activity by circum¬ 
stances connected more or less intimately with the 
physical changes of which the railway system has been 
productive. We aro as yet in the infancy, or, at all 
events, in the youth of this system; and if the past 
presents much of importance to the historian and moralist, 
the future offers as wide or a wider opening to the specula¬ 
tive philosopher. With questions such as these, however, 
it would be premature to deal. If railways are in their 
vouth elsewhere, here they arc in their infancy, and it 
will be more immediately interesting and useful to in¬ 
vestigate the steps by which other countries have arrived 
at a position so far in advance of ourselves, than to specu¬ 
late upon the possible changes which may take place here, 
when we have availed ourselves of the experience of 
others, and by the exercise of skill, energy, and per¬ 
severance have brought these causes into action, which 
have produced so marvellous an effect elsewhere, hut 
which for the present are in us dormant. 
In the short compass of a paper like this, it would be 
impossible to give anything like a history of the various 
steps by which the common cast iron tram of the coal dis¬ 
tricts, * on which home traction only was used, has 
developed itself into the wrought iron railway, traversed 
by steam engines of great weight and power. A sketch is 
all that can be attempted, and is indeed all that is re¬ 
quired, for our object in this colony should be rather to 
avail ourselves of the principles which have been estab¬ 
lished during the course of a long series of experiments, 
than to follow blindly in a track which would lead to 
waste of both time and money, and very much check the 
development of the resources of the colony. 
In tracing the extension of the railway system in 
England, it may be as well to look back some one hundred 
and fifty years, and to enquire what was the state of the 
roads about the crnl of the seventeenth ccntuary. From 
all the accounts which have been handed down to us, it 
would seem that roads in England at that time were very 
similar to those tracks which are in this colony dignified 
by the name, — badly laid out with reference to the country 
through which they passed, and worse constructed. In 
the year 1700, however, the demand for increased facili¬ 
ties for transport forced the Legislature to consider the 
means by which an improvement could he made in the 
condition of the main lines of communication, and the 
system of turnpike trusts commenced, which, in the course 
of little more than a century, covered England with a 
network of roads, the aggregate length of which was not 
less than 24,000 miles. 
Under the turnpike system, however, the improvement 
in the state of the roads’ was very slow. The introduction 
of a better scheme of management produced, of course, 
some beneficial effects; but this could not compensate for 
the want of experience in the construction aud manage¬ 
ment of the roads, or of a knowledge of the general princi¬ 
ples which have? been the result of many experiments, 
some of which have proved successful — others, most 
unsuccessful. We must not be surprised, therefore, to 
learn that in the year 1800, after the labour of a century 
had been bestowed upon the roads, they were' in an 
indifferent state, that the rate of travelling upon them was 
slow, and the cost of transport great. 
In the middle of the last century, attention was drawn 
to the advantages afforded by water transport, and a very 
largo capital was expended upon canals leading from the 
great manufacturing towns to the metropolis, and to the 
sea-ports. The effect of the cheapness of this means of 
communication was very visible on the increase and 
development of manufacturing industry, and in the en¬ 
hanced value of land in the vicinity of these great 
channels of trade. 
The necessity of adopting some means by which the 
traction on ordinary roads could be lessened, was first felt 
in the northern colliery district; and wooden tramroads 
were first laid in the neighbourhofRl of Newcastle, at the 
end of the seventeenth century. These after a time, were 
exchanged for cast iron, which was found, from its 
durability, to ho cheaper than wood. Wrought iron rails 
were subsequently adopted, when the demand for in¬ 
creased supplies of coal made it necessary to substitute 
steam for home power. 
In 1826,—The commencement of the railway era —the 
condition of England, so lav as regards the means of inter¬ 
nal communication, maybe summed up as followsThe 
country was traversed by about 2 . 0.000 miles of turnpike 
roads, upon which coaches travelled at a speed of from 
eight to twelve miles per hour, and on which goods were 
conveyed by waggons, at an average cost of about 9-Id. per 
ton per mile. In addition to these, there was a network 
of canals, the aggregate length of which exceeded 3-660 
miles, upon whicn goods were conveyed at the cost of 
about jd. per ton per mile. There were, in the coal and 
some of the Other mineral districts, several hundred miles 
of iron tramways and railways, for the conveyance of 
minerals to the port of shipment or to the principal mar¬ 
kets. 
At that time, however, the demand for increased faci¬ 
lities for communication between Manchester, the centre 
of the cotton manufacture, and Liverpool, the port of entry 
of the Vaw material, was so urgent as to induce the form¬ 
ation of a "company, for the purpose of constructing a 
railway between the two towns, upon which passengers 
and goods should he conveyed by carriages propelled by 
steam power ; aud after some delays on account of the 
new and expensive character of the 'work, the Liverpool 
and Manchester Railway was opened in 1830. 
The length of this line is 32 miles™ the original cost 
about £840,000, or, at an average of £26,250 per mile. 
The returns during the year 1831 was sufficient to give a 
dividend of about 10 per cent; upon the above capital— 
