To help conception, a short parallel between the Noble and Learned Lord and his Noble and Learned predecessor Jefferies, may be not altogether without its use.-General Jefferies had his one "campaign:" General Eldon, as many as his command lasted years. The deaths of Jefferies's killed-off were speedy: of Eldon's, lingering as his own resolves. The deaths of Lord Jefferies's victims were public-the sufferers supported and comforted in their affliction by the sympathy of surrounding thousands: Lord Eldon's expired, unseen, in the gloom of that solitude which wealth on its departure leaves behind it. Jefferies, whatsoever he may have gained in the shape of royal favor-source of future contingent wealth,-does not present himself to us clothed in the spoils of any of his slain. No man, no woman, no child did Eldon ever kill, whose death had not, in the course of it, in some way or other, put money into his pocket. In the language, visage, and deportment of Jefferies, the suffering of his victims produced a savage exultation: in Eldon's, never any interruption did they produce to the most amiable good humor, throwing its grace over the most accomplished indifference. Jefferies was a tiger: Eldon, in the midst of all his tears, like Niobe, a stone.

Prophet at once and painter, another predecessor of Lord Eldon -Lord Bacon, has drawn his emblem. Behold the man (says he) who, to roast an egg for himself, is ready to set another's house on fire! So far so good: but, to complete the likeness, he should have added-after having first gutted it. One other emblemone other prophecy. Is it not written in the Arabian Nights' Entertainments?-Sinbad the Sailor, Britannia: Old Man of the Sea, the Learned Slaughterer of Pheasants, whose prompt deaths are objects of envy to his suitors. After fretting and pummelling, with no better effect than sharpening the gripe,-the Arabian slave, by one desperate effort, shook off his tormenting master. The entire prophecy will have been accomplished, and the prayers of Britannia heard, should so happy an issue, out of the severest of all her afflictions, be, in her instance, brought to pass.

RAILWAY S

COMPARED WITH

CANALS AND COMMON ROADS,

AND THEIR

USES AND ADVANTAGES EXPLAINED:

BEING THE SUBSTANCE OF A SERIES OF PAPERS PUBLISHED IN THE SCOTSMAN, IN DECEMBER, 1824, AND NOW REPUBLISHED WITH ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS.

BY CHARLES MACLAREN, Esq.

LONDON:-1825.

RAILWAYS.

THERE is no single circumstance that contributes so much to the improvement of a country as abundant and easy means of internal communication. Part of the price of commodities always consists of the expense of bringing them from the place where they are raised or manufactured to the market. Where Canals and wellmade roads abound, and vehicles are skilfully constructed, this amounts in general only to a small per centage on the first cost; but in rude and backward districts, it often enhances the price of the articles to three or four, or even ten times the original amount, and of course either greatly lessens or entirely precludes their use. Coal, for instance, is not found within less than one hundred miles of London, and had some more economical mode of conveyance than carting not been found out, this article, which is sold at 40s. a ton in the metropolis, would have cost six pounds-a price which would have been nearly equivalent to a prohibition against Such are the vast facilities which navigation affords for the transportation of commodities, that the coal of Glocestershire can be sent by sea at a cheaper rate to Jamaica, than it could be sent by land in carts to London.

its use.

In early times the roads were mere foot tracks, and goods were universally carried on the backs of horses. To these succeeded gravelled roads for wheeled carriages; and the latter were followed by Canals. A horse put into a wheeled carriage will draw, on a well-made road, as much as four horses would carry on their backs; but when employed in tracking a boat on a canal, he will perform as much work as thirty horses in carts, or as a hundred and twenty pack-horses. The grand advantage in ship navigation is, that the sea is a ready-made road of an extremely perfect kind, which costs nothing, and that the winds furnish a very great, though unsteady, moving power, without any other expense than that of sails and rigging. A ship of 1000 tons burden, weighing with her load perhaps 1500 tons, and which might be

navigated by 60 men, performs the voyage from Calcutta to London in four months, which is at the rate of five miles an hour, night and day. It may be shown that the impulse of the wind on the sails of such a vessel furnishes a power equal to that of 250 horses, and of course that it would require the force of 750 horses to work the vessel day and night with the same speed.

Railways are a much more recent invention than Canals; and for particular purposes, such as the conveyance of coal, stone, or other heavy commodities down a short inclined plane, sloping at an angle of three or four degrees, their superiority has been long admitted. As a means of general communication, they are cheaper in the first outlay than Canals, more commodious in some respects, and adapted to a greater variety of situations; but so long as horse-power was the only power employed, it may be doubted whether the balance of advantage was not in favor of Canals. There is scarcely a doubt, however, that the introduction of the locomotive steam-power has given a decided superiority to Railways. Indeed, it may be safely asserted that the general use of Railways and steam-carriages for all kinds of internal communication, opens up prospects of almost boundless improvement, and is destined, perhaps, to work a greater change on the state of civil society, than even the grand discovery of navigation.

More than a year ago I collected a variety of notes and materials to elucidate the advantages of Railways, but my design of engaging in any discussion on the subject was suspended till I should consult some of the scientific works on Mechanics. Writers on Science, however, generally travel in beaten tracks; and as Railways are a recent invention, I have scarcely found a single article in any of the standard books which could throw light on the theory of their use and construction; nor do the authors of the works in question, generally speaking, seem to have had any adequate idea of their importance. I think it right to acknowlege that I am but slenderly qualified to supply what is thus at present a desideratum; but if my speculations or even my errors-shall draw the attention of others whose acquirements are greater to the subject, my labor will not be useless.

The value of the Railway, as a medium of commercial communication, has not escaped the sagacity of Dr. Young. In his Lectures on Natural Philosophy, he says "It is possible that roads paved with iron may hereafter be employed for the purpose of expeditious travelling, since there is scarcely any resistance to be

When Professor Leslie proceeds with the remaining volumes of his ex cellent Elements of Natural Philosophy, it is to be hoped he will apply his great abilities to the elucidation of this subject.