extremely slow, but so expensive as to exclude every object except manufactured articles. The charge for carriage, by wagon, from London to Leeds, was at the rate of £13 per ton, being 13 d. per ton per mile; between Liverpool and Manchester it was 40s. per ton, or 15d. per ton per mile. Heavy articles, such as coals, etc., could only be available for commerce when their position favoured transport by sea, and consequently, many of the richest districts of the kingdom remained unproductive, owing to the tardy advancement of the art of transport. Coals are now carried upon railways at a penny per ton, per mile, and in some places, at even a lower rate. Merchandise, which in 1763 cost 14d. and 15d. per mile for carriage, is now conveyed at 3d., whilst others, heavier in proportion to their bulk, are transported at 2d. per ton, per mile.

The wagon transport was also limited in its speed, never exceeding, even in its most improved state 24 miles a day, while the present transport of goods by railway is effected at the rate of upwards of 30 miles per hour.

Before the establishment of railways on their present scale, the average fare of mail and stage coaches, including the allowance to guards and coachmen, was as follows:

:

The average railway fare for the same distance, at the present time being

Per mail, express, or 1st class train.........................................20s.

Additional expenses were also incurred by passengers during long journeys, by the board and lodging which they were obliged to obtain; and which to a very great extent have now become obsolete by reason of more rapid travelling.

Postal arrangements, prior to the 17th century, may be said to have had no existence. They were first instituted in England by Edward IV. during the Scottish war. He is said to have established, at certain posts, 20 miles apart, a change of riders, who handed letters to one another, and by this means expedited them in two days. In the year 1581 the chief postmaster of England was Mr. Thomas Randolph. The present post office institution was founded by Charles II. 1660, when a running post

or two was ordered to run night and day between Edinburgh and London, to go there and back in six days. So late as 1834, the average speed of mail coaches in Great Britain, was only about nine miles an hour. At the present time the mails carried by railway, travel at the rate of 50 or 60 miles an hour.

began to be formed, much

The first canal that was the year 1135, when the

From the year 1614, when canals goods traffic was conveyed by them. made in England was by Henry I., in river Trent was joined to the Whitham. In 1624 the Thames was made navigable to Oxford; and in 1715, the Kennet to Reading. The origin of canal navigation proper, however, dates from 1755, when an act of parliament was passed for constructing a canal about 11 miles long, extending from the mouth of Sankey Brook, on the Mersey, to Gerrard's Bridge and St. Helens. Before this was completed, the Duke of Bridgewater commenced his canal between Worsley and Manchester, in the construction of which Brindley displayed his celebrated engineering talents, which led to his subsequent employment in making several of the canals which served as the principal means of inland navigation. During the remainder of the 18th and the early part of the 19th century, the construction of canals was carried on with great vigour, until they reached in England alone to an aggregate length of more than 2,200 miles. From the year 1755 to 1831, sixty-two different canals were cut; their formation did much to encourage traffic; and were the chief means of coal navigation for many years. Since 1831, however, when railways began to be formed, no canals have been cut; owing to the superior and quicker mode of transit by rail.

Railways had been used for a considerable time as a means of transport for minerals and heavy goods, and about thirty years ago, locomotives were introduced for the purpose of conveyance. In the early part of the 17th century, wooden rail or wagon ways began to be employed in the collieries of the North of England. They were adopted in order to reduce the labour of drawing coals from the pits to the places of shipment in the neighbourhoood of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. They consisted, at first, simply of pieces of wood imbedded in the ordinary road in such a manner as to form wheel tracks for the carts or wagons employed. It was not until 1767 that iron plates began to be laid upon the wooden rails; this was done on a railway at the Coalbrookdale iron works. In

the years 1802 and 1805 several experiments were made with locomotives by Messrs Vivian and Trevethic, upon a tramway at Merthyr Tydvil, which proved satisfactorily the practicability of their plan. The first iron railway sanctioned by Parliament, was the Surrey iron railway, in 1801, the carriages of which were drawn by horses from the Thames, at Wandsworth, to Croydon.

The Stockton and Darlington railway (by engines), constructed by Edward Pease and George Stephenson, was opened September 27th, 1825. The Liverpool and Manchester railway was originally designed to be worked by horses; but the proprietors who were engaged in its design and execution, in 1825 and the following years, were convinced that horse-power was ineligible, as it was intended to aim at considerable velocity, and the expense of animal power when applied at a speed of eight or ten miles per hour, is very great. Various suggestions were at first made for the application of fixed engines at intervals of a mile or two along the line, to draw trains by ropes from station to station; but it was eventually determined to use locomotives, and to offer a premium of £500 for the best produced, which would fulfil certain conditions, of which some were that it should not emit smoke, should draw three times its own weight at the rate of ten miles an hour, should be supported on springs, not exceed six tons weight, or four tons and a-half if supported on springs; and should not cost more than £550. The trial was fixed for October, 1829, when four steam locomotives were produced, one of which was withdrawn at the commencement of the experiment. Of the other three, the "Novelty," by Messrs. Braithwaite and Ericson, and the "Sanspareil," by Mr. Hackworth, failed in some of the conditions.

The remaining engine, the "Rocket," was constructed by George Stephenson and Mr. Booth, of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, and succeeded in performing more than was stipulated for. The most marked improvement in Stephenson's locomotive was the use of a tubular boiler instead of a large flue. The Manchester and Liverpool Railway was opened on the 15th of September, 1830, and this railway led to the undertaking of similar enterprises throughout England and the Continent. The first step towards a control of railways by the government was taken in 1840, when an act was passed to place them under the supervision of the Board of Trade. By that act and a subsequent one, power was given to the Board of Trade to postpone the opening of any railway not

considered safe by their inspectors, and to exercise a more enlarged

control over such matters as were deemed of importance to the public. In the session of 1846 several acts were passed affecting railways. By one of these acts, Commissioners of Railways were appointed, to whom all the powers of the Board of Trade, in respect to railways, have been transferred. And by another, compensation was obliged to be made to the relatives of those who were killed.

Since 1825, when the first locomotive travelled upon the Stockton and Darlington Railway, railways have not only increased very considerably in number, but also in the rapidity of their transport, and the perfection of their rolling stock. The first engine which ran upon the Liverpool and Manchester Line weighed seven tons and a half; but as the speed increased, so did the power, and this demanded increased weight in the engine.

It was not long therefore, before the weight of the engines was successively augmented to ten, fifteen, thirty, and now there are engines running on some of the English railways which weigh sixty tons. The weight of the carriages underwent a corresponding, though not proportionate increase. The first carriage which was placed on the railways weighed from three to three and a half tons; their weight now exceeding four and a half tons. The strength and weight of the goods wagons have also undergone a similar increase. In 1824 the first locomotive constructed travelled at the rate of six miles an hour. In 1829 the "Rocket" travelled at the rate of fifteen miles an hour.

In

In 1831, the average speed of a passenger train was seventeen miles an hour, whilst in 1848 it was upwards of thirty miles an hour, and at the present time it averages about forty. The speed of the fastest train in 1831, was twenty-four miles an hour. 1848 on the Liverpool and Manchester Line it was forty, and at the present time they have attained to the speed of seventy miles in the hour.

In 1837, the number of trains per day which arrived and departed from the Stafford station, on the Grand Junction line, was fourteen. In 1848, it was thirty-eight, and in 1858, more than fifty. The number of trains which arrived and departed from the Euston Square of the Birmingham line, in 1837, was nineteen. In 1848, it was forty-four. And the number of trains per day arriving and departing from the Liverpool terminus, of the Liverpool and Manchester line, in 1831, was twenty-six; in 1848, it was ninety. In

i

1831, the average weight of a passenger train, including both engine and tender, was eighteen tons. In 1848, it had increased to more than seventy-five tons, and at the present time it is often double that amount.

In 1831, the average weight of a goods train, engine and tender included, was fifty-two tons; in 1848, it reached one hundred and seventy-six tons, and in 1860, it was often more than two hundred and fifty.

During the period from 1829, to the present time, the quantity of fuel required for generating steam, has been diminished fivesixths, that is, six tons of fuel were formerly consumed for one at the present time; other expenses from superior management, have also been diminished in a corresponding ratio.

The working of railways is now on a scale of the greatest magnitude. In 1859, there were in Great Britain alone, nine thousand five hundred miles of railway, and more than five thousand locomotives, consuming one million and a half tons of fuel annually. The London and North Western Company alone employ seven hundred and eighty locomotives, for working eight hundred and ten miles of line. Upwards of twenty thousand tons of iron are required to be replaced every year, owing to the "wear and tear" of the traffic. There are more than twenty-six millions of wooden sleepers, which also require to be replaced every year, from the To manufacture these, three hundred thousand trees are annually felled; and this number of trees require for their growth, five thousand acres of forest land. Only glance for a moment upon the extent of the railway interest, so far from being confined to our own country, hundreds and thousands of workmen are employed far away in the old pine forests of Norway and Russia; hundreds more in conveying them to the shore for shipment, and a great number both of men and vessels in afterwards bringing them down the Baltic to England. In 1848, the number of men employed upon all the railways of Great Britain was 52,687. In 1858, this number bad increased to 147,422, nearly three times

same cause.

more.

In the year 1858, 139,193,699 persons were conveyed by railways, the receipts from them being £10,376,309. The receipts from goods, cattle, minerals, parcels, manufactures, &c., amounting to £13,580,440. The capital invested in railway undertakings has reached a most astonishing amount. Up to 1840, it was sixty