out the kingdom; as also that they should land passengers at all times on a platform? I have seen passengers at some stations landed in the dark amid the rails of the line, and where cross lines meet, and obliged to find their way to the platform in the best manner they could. By a little attention to the arrangement of the stations and landing-places, and the manner of attaching and detaching of luggage waggons, carriage and cattle trucks to and from trains, many accidents may be prevented, or casualties guarded against.

COST OF RAILWAYS.

Thus have been gone over some of the important works connected with the formation of railways; from the preceding descriptions some idea may be formed of the multifarious details. From these works may be perceived the enormous expense attending forming the line of way, and the necessity of (while the railway is designed with all due regard to economy) its utility not being injured by ill-judged parsimony. It must be indeed obvious that the cost of railways is much, if not altogether, contingent on local circumstances; and in estimating the future returns from a rail

way, the cost per mile must be the most important consideration; in general, railways have been constructed and arranged more on the principle of convenience, and in the hope of such an increase of traffic arising as would repay the first vast outlay on them; while others, again, have been, by fortunate adventitious circumstances, formed at a very cheap rate. The cost of the London and Birmingham Railway was about 52,8827. per mile; the Grand Junction, 22,2931.; Liverpool and Manchester, about 50,9237.; Great Western, about 56,3727.; London and Brighton, about 56,9817.; London and Greenwich, 267,2707.; London and South Western, about 28,0047.; London, and Blackwall, 287,6937.; London and Croydon, 80,4007. ; Birmingham and Gloucester, 29,000l.; Manchester and Leeds, 47,8247.; Midland Counties, 35,4027.; York and North Midland, 23,0667.; Dublin and Kingston, 59,1227.; Edinburgh and Glasgow, 35,0247.; Glasgow and Greenock, 35,4517.; Glasgow, Kilmarnock, and Ayr, 20,6077.; North Union, and Bolton and Preston, 27,7997.; Dublin and Drogheda, 15,6527.; Dundee and Arbroath, 8,570%. per mile.

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MOTIVE POWER OF THE RAILWAY.

THE subject of railways has been viewed hitherto chiefly in regard to the roadway on which the carriages have to run. The consideration which next presents itself is the mode of working the railway, and the motive power best adapted for this purpose, both in respect to safety and economy. Railways indeed would have made slow progress in this or any other country nor would they have been at all likely to supersede canals and other modes of conveyance-had the old plan of working them by horses, or stationary engines, still continued. Confined as these agents were to a slow rate of motion, and ill adapted for general traffic, however convenient for local purposes, there could have been no stimulus to extend the expensive works which have been described connected with railway formation, had it not been for the invention of a motive power which brought a new principle into action, unknown in former times, combining economy of working with the

utmost velocity. The rapid advancement of railways in these times is clearly attributable to one thing. In many questions doubts may arise as to success being attained by a combination of circumstances; but never was any thing more clearly defined or brought out, than that railways owe their present success and prosperity to the invention and perfecting of the locomotive engine; and although it may yet happen, by the strange anomalies of events, that, after all the labour and time spent, and skill displayed, in bringing this machine to the perfection it has attained, it may perhaps be doomed, after a precocious maturity and short usage, to be superseded by another mode of propulsion, the atmospheric or some other scheme, which may lead again to the use of fixed engines; still it must be interesting to trace the progress and history of an invention which has already proved of vast utility to mankind.

INVENTION OF THE LOCOMOTIVE ENGINE.

For many years the locomotive engine had been retarded by an erroneous and imaginary assumption, which prevailed since the general introduction of iron rails, that there was not

sufficient friction between the face of a smooth wheel and rail to produce adhesion, or resistance enough to cause the wheel to move onward, instead of simply turning on its axle, which is technically called skidding of the wheels. It seems to have been supposed, that from this taking place, and want of sufficient gripe or bite, not only there would be loss of power, but the advance of the carriage would be retarded. Strange as it may now appear, futile schemes were proposed and much money was expended on contrivances to get rid of this supposed difficulty, when the solution of the point could have been attained by a few experiments. This shows the necessity of testing inventions by experiment and experience

these may be truly termed the only safe basis upon which practical improvement can be raised.

In looking back on the short history of railways, we cannot but wonder that so little progress was at first made with steam power. The steam engine cannot boast of great antiquity; for although the ancients knew something of steam, they knew nothing of motive power or mechanical applications. The invention of the steam engine is generally ascribed to the Marquis of Worcester in the year 1663; but to Savary, who obtained a patent for his steam engine in 1692,