the conveyance of the produce of mines and quarries to wharves and furnaces situated at a distance of a few miles. Some pig-iron was laid down at Coalbrook Dale, in Shropshire, some time after the middle of the eighteenth century, to serve as rails, in place of wood, which was found to wear out very rapidly. This was the first origin of the iron rail, and a great step in advance, though the improvement was not generally adopted at the time. In 1789 edge-rails and flanged wheels were first used, by Jessop, at Loughborough, the rails being laid on cast-iron chairs and sleepers. Such, in brief, was the origin of one of the indispensable elements of the modern railway-the iron road itself. But as yet the motive power was that of horses. As yet only tramways were in existence, confined principally to the districts where coal and iron mining and stone quarrying were carried on. In 1784 Watt patented his locomotive carriage; and this machine, though it was not itself adapted to travel on rails, suggested the modern steam locomotive. The first successful railway steam-engine was designed in 1813 by William Headley, the Wylam Colliery viewer, who, in his "Puffing Billy"--which has recently been deposited in the Patent Museum at South Kensington-conquered the difficulties which had hitherto prevented the use of steam power in locomotion from the slipping of the engine-wheels upon the smooth rails. A year later George Stephenson, working independently, constructed his Killingworth engine, which was also made to "bite" the rails. All the essential elements of the modern railway were now obtained, but it was some years before any further progress was made.

In the year 1825 the Stockton and Darlington railway. constructed by George Stephenson, who had advanced, from his humble beginning as a stoker, to the position of engineer, was opened to the public. It was the first of passenger lines, and with it the era of modern railways commenced. The speed of locomotives had hitherto been but four miles an hour; Stephenson, by his tubular boiler, raised it at an early period to thirty miles: since which time engines have been constructed which are capable of travelling, with enormous loads, at double the speed. In 1830 the Liverpool and Manchester railway was opened. In its construction Stephenson had triumphed over engineering difficulties which not a few professional men pronounced insuperable. The next great work was the London and Birmingham railway, constructed by Robert Stephenson, in conjunction with his father a work in which still more formidable difficulties were encountered and successfully overcome. With the completion of these lines, the adoption and the extension of the railway system-not only in the United Kingdom, but throughout the civilised world

were assured.

How vast was the labour involved in these great enterprises may be gathered from a comparison which has been drawn between the work spent in constructing the railway last mentioned and that spent in erecting one of the greatest monuments of antiquity. The Great Pyramid of Egypt was, according to Diodorus Siculus, constructed by 300,000 (according to Herodotus, by 100,000) men.

It required for its execution twenty years, and the labour expended upon it has been estimated as equivalent to lifting 15,733,000,000 (fifteen thousand seven hundred and thirty-three millions) of cubic feet of stone one foot high: whereas, if the labour expended in constructing the London and Birmingham railway be in like manner reduced to one common denomination, the result is 25,000,000,000 (twenty-five thousand millions) of cubic feet more than was lifted for the Great Pyramid; and yet the English work was performed by about twenty thousand men in less than five years. And while the Egyptian work was executed by a powerful monarch, concentrating upon it the labour and capital of a great nation, the English railway was constructed, in the face of every conceivable obstruction and difficulty, by a company of private individuals out of their own resources, without the aid of Government or the contribution of one farthing of public money.*

Such was one of the earliest achievements, in an untried path, of the first great railway engineers-the self-educated Northumbrian collier and his son. It was an example to the world-an example soon followed in many lands, and often, indeed, in subsequent works surpassed.

Among other early railway works in the United King dom in which great engineering skill was displayed, must be mentioned the line connecting the Metropolis with the city of Bristol. Mr. Isambard Brunel, himself the son of a distinguished engineer, constructed this railway, which, with its tunnel carried for nearly two miles through the solid rock near Bath, and other remarkable works, is considered one of the finest examples of railway engineering in existence. No expense was spared, indeed, in making it a model railway. On this line, Mr. Brunel, departing from the practice followed by the Stephensons, introduced the broad gauge, in which the rails were placed at a distance of seven feet from each other, or more than two feet wider apart than those of the narrow gauge system. It was the expectation of the promoters of this line that it would greatly stimulate the somewhat languishing commerce of the western port, and thereby bring them a handsome return for their outlay; while the engineer himself, who, by his broad gauge, attained a higher speed and greater smoothness in travelling than had been reached on the narrow gauge, anticipated that the improvement would become general. The anticipations of the one and the expectations of the other were, however, equally disappointed; while the lavish expenditure on the original construction of the line involved those connected with it in difficulties from which they could not for many years see any escape.

Another novelty was introduced by Mr. Brunel into the working of railways. This was the propulsion of trains by atmospheric pressure in place of steam. The invention, which was elegant and ingenious, enjoyed the approval of many of the highest scientific authorities, including, besides Mr. Brunel, Mr. Cubitt, Mr. Vignolles, Dr. Lardner, and others. The names of the Stephensons, however, did not appear amongst the supporters of the

Smiles: "Lives of the Engineers."

A.D. 1871.]

scheme. Companies were formed to carry the new invention into practice, and it was commonly supposed that atmospheric railways would soon supersede the locomotive altogether. George Stephenson was solicited to lend his support also to the new principle, but he hesitated to do so, preferring to "wait and see if it would pay." It was brought into operation on the South Devon railway, a line constructed by Brunel. The working expenses were found to swallow up all the profits, with a balance of more than £20,000 loss. Shortly afterwards it appears that the company reverted to the locomotive system, abandoning the atmospheric principle, with its ingenious and costly apparatus of tubing, altogether.

Of the engineer whose scientific enthusiasm betrayed him into these experiments, a writer in the Times remarked that, Unlike Stephenson, who made everything pay, Brunel made nothing pay. As an engineer, he raised the mightiest works, and ruined the richest men. The Great Western railway and the Great Eastern steam-ship the best line of railway in the world, and the noblest steam-ship afloat-both the most glorious growths of a scientific intellect-have had the same melancholy result of swamping the fortunes of all who invested in them. The engineer won renown, and the shareholders lost their money."

Ever

Disastrous as were the pecuniary results, to those immediately concerned, of most of Brunel's grandest works -his last, the Great Eastern steam-ship, when finished, could not be launched without an unexpected expenditure of £70,000; a calamity which, it is believed, tended to shorten his days-there can be little question that the art of engineering, and, through it, society generally, have benefited by his labours and experiments. since original inventors and experimenters existed, it has been the unenviable fate of some amongst them to bring ruin on themselves and their friends, and to confer benefits on posterity alone. And, in the case of Brunel, may be that some of the principles he upheld with such lamentable results to his supporters, and which for the time are discarded, are destined hereafter to play the part he anticipated.

it

It was not with all the educated members of the engineering art that the Stephensons were on as friendly terms as with Brunel. George Stephenson was entitled to be called the founder of modern railways and the father of railway engineering; but, what with professiona! etiquette and professional jealousy, he was never made a member of the "Institute of Civil Engineers." His genius, no doubt, had added enormously to the importance, the dignity, and the emoluments of the craft. Most of its members were, in one sense or other, his scholars. But it was his fate to possess no other training or education save what had been self-acquired; and to the day of his death, though he coveted the honour, he was never admitted into the ranks of the chief central society of the profession of which he was, in his own person, at once the greatest benefactor and the most distinguished ornament.

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and, indeed, so greatly exceeded the expectations of the projectors, that many abandoned projects were revived. An abundant crop of engineers sprang up ready to execute railways of any extent. Now that the Liverpool and Manchester line had been made, and the practicability of working it by locomotive power had been proved, it was as easy for engineers to make railways, and to work them, as it was for navigators to find America after Columbus had made the first voyage thither. George Stephenson had shown the way, and engineers forthwith crowded after him, full of great projects." A position like that in which Stephenson was placed, was one in which he was naturally exposed to temptations. He was, however, proof against them. The spectacle of men connected with the railway interest retiring, after a few years of activity, with handsome fortunes, was one which not unfrequently came under his notice. They were all necessarily younger in the field than himself. In many cases their contributions to the spread of railways extended little beyond the wording of a prospectus and the collection of shareholders' subscriptions. Yet George Stephenson remained content with the legitimate gains of a laborious profession. Up to the year 1844, respectable brokers in the City could not, without some difficulty, be induced to undertake the negotiation of railway shares. The new species of property was not in favour with the Stock Exchange. But in the course of a single year all was changed. When, by the payment of dividends, it had become evident that railways could really be worked at a profit-when it was discovered that the gloomy prophecies of their impending ruin in which old and experienced financiers had indulged were falsified by the result-then suddenly, with one consent, the whole financial world rushed into the opposite extreme, and on the 17th of November, 1845, there were six hundred and twenty new projects before the public, requiring for their execution an aggregate capital of more than five hundred and sixtythree million pounds sterling. In that year Parliament had actually granted powers for the construction of 2,883 miles of new railways, with a total capital of £44,000,000 sterling. But the nation was now fairly abandoned to its speculative frenzy; and in the following year bills conceding powers to raise three times as much money as was granted the previous year, for lines whose total mileage was not double as great, passed through the Legislature. This was the period of the railway mania of 1846. Throughout this period the conduct of Stephenson presented a remarkable resemblance, and an equally remarkable contrast, to that of a great English statesman during a similar crisis which occurred more than a century earlier. "When the South Sea Company were voting dividends of fifty per cent., when a hundred pounds of their stock was selling for eleven hundred pounds, when Threadneedle Street was daily crowded with the coaches of dukes and prelates, when divines and philosophers turned gamblers, when a thousand kindred bubbles were daily blown into existence-the Periwig Company, and the Spanish Jackass Company, and the Quicksilver Fixation Company-Walpole's calm good sense preserved him from the general infatuation.

He condemned the prevailing madness in public, and turned a considerable sum by taking advantage of it in private." The latter, however, is precisely what Stephenson did not stoop to do. In the railway mania of 1846, though "anxiously entreated to lend his name to prospectuses, he invariably refused. He held aloof from the headlong folly of the hour, and endeavoured to check it, but in vain. Had he been less scrupulous, he might, without trouble, have secured enormous gains."

In a speech delivered at Newcastle in 1850, Robert Stephenson said: "It seems to me but as yesterday that I was engaged as assistant in laying out the Stockton and Darlington railway. Since then the Liverpool and Manchester and a hundred other great works have sprung into existence. As I look back upon these stupendous undertakings, accomplished in so short a time, it seems as though we had realised in our generation the fabled powers of the magician's wand. Hills have been cut down and valleys filled up; high and magnificent viaducts have been raised; and if mountains stood in the way, tunnels of unexampled magnitude have pierced them through, bearing their triumphant attestation to the indomitable energy of the nation and the unrivalled skill of our artizans."

In the twenty years which have elapsed since tephenson spoke these words, the extent of the railway system of the United Kingdom has been far more than doubled. In 1851 the number of miles of railway open in the United Kingdom was 6,890; in 1841 it was less than 1,800; in 1871 it was 15,376. The 6,890 miles of railway in 1851 had cost two hundred and forty-eight and a quarter millions sterling (£248,240,896) in their construction. The 15,376 miles open in 1871 had cost more than five hundred and fifty-two and a half millions (£552,680,107), or more than two-thirds the amount of the National Debt. The number of passengers conveyed by railways in 1851 was 85,391,095; in 1871 it was 375,409,146. The net receipts on railways in 1851 were little more than nine millions sterling; they were but £11,009,519 in 1854; in 1871 they had reached to £25,739,920. On every mile of railway open in 1851 the average yearly receipts were £2,176; in 1871 every mile brought in £3,064. Thus, in the twenty years, the mileage of British railways had increased two and a half fold; the annual number of passengers was more than quadrupled. The capital had been considerably more than doubled, while the total receipts had been nearly trebled.

The history of railways in the United States is very remarkable. So rapidly did they spread in that country of great distances, after their introduction in 1830, that by the year 1855 the United States possessed 2,550 more miles of railway than all the other countries of the world put together. Since that date, however, Europe has again taken the lead. If we compare the railway accommodation of the northern part of the Western Hemisphere with that of the civilised portion of the Old World, we find the balance is considerably in favour of the former, in point of population, though not of At the end of 1866 there was one mile of railway

area.

to every 193 square miles of surface in North America, and to every seventy-two square miles in Europe. But North America had 39,414 miles of line to an aggregate population of only fifty-two millions, while Europe had but 50,117 miles to its population of two hundred and eighty-five millions. So that there was one mile of rail on the North American continent to every 1,309 inhabitants, while in Europe the population were 5,686 times as numerous as the total miles of its railways. In 1866 there were open in Asia 3,660 miles of railway, principally in the British possessions in the East Indies. In Africa the number of miles open in that year was only 375; in Australia 607; in the West Indies 410; and in South America 1,041.

Altogether, therefore, the aggregate length of all the railways in existence throughout the world in 1866 was 95,727 miles. Since that date the multiplication of railways has been going forward as rapidly as ever. This is more particularly the case with British India, and the great empire of Russia, where, in the course of a few years, many millions of British capital have been invested in assisting their development. Among the more remarkable achievements of railway engineering in the most recent years may be mentioned the railway across the continent of North America, joining the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The largest tunnel in the world that which pierces through the Alps at Mont Cenis-is also the work of this period. It connects France and Italy, and its length is seven miles. Another difficult work of recent date is the Underground railway in the British metropolis. It had to be carried underneath the streets of the busiest of cities, down where the soil was honeycombed with other worksgas-pipes, water-mains, drains, and sewers. It had to undermine without damaging the foundations of houses and churches, and other public and private buildings. The cost was fabulous being upwards of £150,000 per mile. And, even when completed, another formidable difficulty had to be overcome. If the ordinary railway engines were used in the confined space of this tunnel, the atmosphere would soon become intolerable, and passengers would be deterred from travelling upon the line. The obstacle was, however, successfully surmounted. An improved engine was invented by Mr. Fowler which could be worked in the open air like an ordinary engine, but which, while in the tunnel, gave off neither steam nor smoke, being so constructed as to be able to condense the one and consume the other. The subterranean railway, though the most wonderful, was not the only remarkable addition to the railways of the metropolis in recent years. Three lines, connecting London with the counties south of the Thames, were brought over the river into the heart of the metropolis. Three great iron bridges were thrown across the Thames, and vast terminal stations erected in the centre of London. The great Midland system was likewise brought to the metropolis; and its terminus at St. Pancras, designed by Sir Gilbert Scott, is the grandest work of the kind in the world. The growing population of the capital, which in 1871 numbered little short of four millions of

A.D. 1871.]

souls, was every day requiring increased facilities of locomotion. The old methods of conveyance had long since ceased to be adequate to its wants. There was a wide field for railway enterprise within the limits of the metropolis itself, and in the twenty years preceding the field was cultivated very assiduously. In fact, in the year 1871 there were no fewer than 177 railway stations in London, nearly all of which were either wholly or partially employed in the inter-metropolitan traffic alone. On the underground lines of the metropolis the trains are counted by hundreds, and the passengers by the hundred thousand daily.

Some of the bridges which the introduction of railways has called into existence are amongst the most stupendous works of engineering, whether of the present or of any age. In the Albert bridge over the Tamar near Saltash, which was built by Brunel, the central pier, measured from foundation to summit, rises to a height of 270 feet, or more than fifty feet higher than the Monument of London. This bridge consists of nineteen spans. The two central ones, resting on the central pier, cross the whole stream of the Tamar at a leap of 900 feet, which is wider than the Thames at Westminster. The foundations of the central pier of this bridge, as well as those of another of Mr. Brunel's bridges, that over the Wyo at Chepstow, presented difficulties which it would have been hardly possible to overcome if the usual modes of operation had been followed. By a modification of the pneumatic process, applying what is called the coffer-dam system, Mr. Brunel succeeded in laying the foundations of the pier at Saltash at a greater depth below the water and soft mud than had ever before been accomplished.

The great bridges erected by Robert Stephenson are among the proudest monuments of his engineering skill. A quarter of a century after Telford had spanned the Menai Straits with his magnificent suspension bridge, Robert Stephenson raised a still more astonishing structure over the same arm of the sca. In the Britannia bridge, as also in the Conway bridge, Stephenson adopted a new and untried principle. These two structures may be described as consisting of two huge tubes or hollow beams of iron. The Britannia bridge tubes are in eight parts, resting on towers, the central tower rising up from a rock in the middle of the Straits to a height of 230 feet. The tubes themselves-of which the four central portions are 460 feet, and the four other portions 230 feet, long-are composed of enormous iron plates riveted together. The rivets alone weighed 900 tons, and would make an iron rod seven-eighths of an inch thick, and 126 miles long. The work of raising the vast tubes from the water to their position on the piers was effected by the help of Bramah hydraulic presses of unprecedented power. One of these engines was estimated to be capable of lifting as much as 30,000 men. The merit of the successful application of iron in the form of a tube for the construction of bridges, like those over the Menai Straits and the Conway, belongs in part to Sir William Fairbairn, whose knowledge of the strength and properties of that metal was unrivalled. It was in a high degree due to the labours of this celebrated

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engineer that the same principle was also successfully applied in iron-shipbuilding.

The Britannia bridge, which was completed in the year 1850, was followed by a still more marvellous work of the same kind-the tubular bridge over the St. Lawrence at Montreal. This was the last great work of Robert Stephenson, and, indeed, it is by many authorities considered to be his greatest. For gigantic strength, and the majesty of its proportions, no structure in ancient or modern times can compare with it. It consists of a series of twenty-five tubular bridges connected together by the piers on which they rest. These piers are of enormous strength, as, indeed, they were required to be. They not only have to support the weight of the iron tubes, which themselves are upwards of ten thousand tons, but to withstand the strain to which they are exposed from the stream itself. The usual rapidity of the current is ten miles an hour; and every season, on the break up of the frost, immense quantities of ice in vast blocks are brought down from the great lakes, and pass the bridge in their course towards the ocean. The piers each contain 8,000 feet of solid masonry. The Victoria bridge is five times as long as the Britannia, its length being but sixty yards short of two miles. The central span is 330 feet wide, each of the others being 242 feet. The cellular principle of construction, which had been followed in Stephenson's two former tubular bridges, was discarded in this structure. The Victoria bridge-which was carried out by Mr. Malcolm Ross, after Stephenson's designs

was commenced in 1854, and finished in 1860. Two other tubular bridges were also among Stephenson's later works. These were, the bridge over the Damietta branch of the Nile, the other over the large canal near Beaketel-Saba. In these bridges the trains run, not inside the tubes, but outside, on the top or roof.

"Our strength, wealth, and commerce," said Mr. Cobden, in a speech delivered in the year 1862, "grow out of the skilled labour of the men working in metals. They are at the foundation of our manufacturing greatness."

We have seen how important a part the workers in metals have played in the development of railways. But for the iron rail, and the steam locomotive, also constructed of iron,-not to mention the iron bridges,railways could never have attained the overwhelming importance in the world which the forty years since their general adoption have sufficed to give them. In another vast field of commercial industry, embracing shipping and the art of navigation, the services rendered by the workers in metals have in recent years produced a revolution, only second in importance to that which has followed the introduction of railways. By the substitution of steam power, and of the paddle and screw for the propulsion of vessels in place of sails spread before the wind, the whole aspect of navigation and maritime affairs has been changed; and the change has mainly taken place within the last twenty years. How vast has been the progress of the shipping interest of Britain within that period will appear from a brief review of the results of which we have official record.

Shipbuilding, of which we will first speak, has become