154 
MAGAZINE OF SCIENCE AND ART. 
Tho increase to the population from the 1st March, 
1856, to the 1st January, 1S57, was 15,643 by immi¬ 
gration, ami 5,041 by tlie excess of births over deaths, 
making a total of 299,406 persons ; but should the dis¬ 
trict of Moreton Eav be separated, this would be* re¬ 
duced to 268,167, or 273,499, according as tho division 
was made. 
The number of acres in crop in 1856 is not well 
known, but in 1855 there were 170,070, and 1,030 acres 
planted with the vine, yielding 115,614 gallons of wine, 
and 1,126 gallons of brandy; the number of horned 
cattle was 1,858,407; of horses, 157,159; of pigs, 
68,091; of sheep, 8,603,499. The total imports were 
£4,668,519, as compared with £5,981,063. and the total 
exports £2,884,130, as compared with 4,050,126,—in 
1854. The increase, however, upon 1851 being 
£3,104,588 imports and 1,087,218 exports. 
The condition of the Canadas, with nearly 1,050 miles 
of railways (in 1854) is often quoted as an example to 
be followed in New South Wales; but the two countries 
are alike in nothing but area, that of the Canadas being 
242,482 square miles. By the Census Returns of 1852 
its population was 1,842,265, and may now be estimated 
at 2,200,000 ; the number of emigrants that landed at 
Quebec in 1854 was 53,183; the number of acres in 
crop in 1852 was 4,355.269 ; and the quantity of proof 
spirits distilled in 1854 was 2,592,000 gallons. But in 
addition to the discrepancies of population and cultiva¬ 
tion in the Canadas and New .South Wales, must lo 
considered the advantages the former enjoy in their 
comparative vicinity to the markets of Europe and 
America, and the ready and remunerative outlet thus 
afforded for the sale of produce. 
Such causes promote the rapid settlement of a 
country, and warrant avast outlay upon internal com¬ 
munications’ by the certainty they afford of a rapidly 
increasing traffic ; but experience suggests that a colony 
distant from favourable markets, and from the sources 
of emigration, and chiefly of a pastoral character, whose 
progress, though equally sure, will necessarily be 
slower, should follow the example with caution. 
Wherever the present and probable traffic does not 
warrant the expense of constructing and maintaining a 
railway, that form of road should be adopted which can 
be cheapest made and maintained, and yet bo sufficient 
for the development of the resources of tire colony. 
Tho simplest form is the common earth road, and 
this if graded to not move than 1 in 30, with good drain¬ 
age. and a transverse slope of 1 in 20 from the centre, 
is, with all its faults, capable of bearing considerable 
traffic. 
As a great improvement upon tliis comes the maca¬ 
damized road, which consists of a coating of broken 
stones from 14 to 21 inches in diameter, placed upon an 
earthen road, thoroughly drained and graded and 
sloped, as before-mentioned. 
The metal should vary from G to 12 inches in thick¬ 
ness, according to the degree of traffic; it should be laid 
on in two or three coats, as each becomes consolidated. 
Basalt, trap; and limestone form excellent metal. A 
width of 12 feet, widened to 18 on approaching principal 
towns, with an earth road on either side of it, is usually 
considered sufficient for all purposes in a new country. 
The Telford road is a variety of the macadamized 
road, and is formed by laying a pavement of inferior 
stone under the metal; it is more expensive to make 
in the first instance, but the cost of repairs is said to be 
less. 
In Canada and the United States a description of 
roadway has been introduced of lato years, and used, it 
is stated, with great success, viz., the plank road. 
Upon two parallel sleepers, varying from 10 in. by 3 
in. to 14 in. by 4 in. scantling, and 16 to 2)3 feet each 
in length, planks, eight feet long and three or four 
inches thick, are laid down and spiked to the sleepers 
at every four or five feet; a side track of earth, 12 feet 
wide, to turn out upon, and good ditches, complete a 
plank road. The planking should be covered whenfirst 
made with a coating, about one inch thick, of very fine 
gravel or coarse sand. 
This has been termed the Farmer’s Railroad; a 
horse, it is said, can draw upon it from two to three 
times as much as ho can upon an ordinary macadamized 
road; it affords undiminished facilities for travel at all 
seasons, oven when common roads are impassable from 
continued, rains, and it permits of great traffic *, for over 
a single eight feet track, 161,000 teams are stated to 
liavo passed in two years, averaging 220 teams per day, 
and during three days 720 passed daily. 
Tho wood of the district through which the road 
passes has invariably been used to make it; thus pine, 
hemlock, tamarack, oak, and walnut, have all been 
employed. 
Between the railway worked by locomotives and the 
plank road, stands the tramway, or railway of iron, 
worked by horse-power; the resistance to draught upon 
which does not exceed one-eighteenth of that upon a 
gravelled earth road. 
Placing in a tabular shaped for the sake of compari¬ 
son, the estimated resistance to draught, cost of con¬ 
struction and of maintenance, of the several roadways, 
it appears reasonable to suppose that the road which 
would be cheapest, all things included, is the railway 
worked by horses, and next to this the plank road, the 
annual charges being as £670 to £815. 
But in considering the relative advantages of these 
two roads, it appears to me a serious objection to the 
horse railway, that beiDg necessarily to a guage, a par¬ 
ticular class of vehicles only can travel upon it, while 
the plank road permits the free use of the ordinary con¬ 
veyances of the country; and the convenience of this 
* CoMPAffiSON of resistance to draught, cost of improvement of, or original construction of, various forms 
of Roads, with the annual expenditure for interest, maintenance and working expenses, as approxi¬ 
mately estimated. 
Resistance to draught . 
Earth Roads. 
Macadam’s 
Road. 
Plank Road- 
Tramways. 
Railways. 
i 
£900 a 
1-3 
2,700 a 
1-8 
1-18 
1-18 
2,300 a 
3,400 a 
11,000 b 
550 
1,100 
Annual Interest. 
Maintenance and Working Expenses ... 
45 
3,000 
135 
1,300 
115 
700 
170 
500 
3,015 
1,435 
815 | 670 
1,650 
a Allowing £750 per mile for bridges and culverts, 
b Allowing £1000 per mile for bridges and culverts, and including land. 
