Under all circumstances, it is found that a horse works only with about three times the load upon a ca nal that he does upon a well.constructed level railway, which is now sought after as the highest improvement of which the interior communication of a country is susceptible. In proof of this, we further notice that one person is sufficient to conduct the horse-load upon a railway, while three individuals are generally requir ed for the same purpose upon a canal. We may also mention that inland navigation is subject to interrup tion by the frosts of winter, and the droughts of sum mer. The comparative facility of loading and di.charg ing are likewise much in favour of the traffic on a rail way ; while nearly the same proportion of labour in the trackage of empty or return boats and wagons is inci dent to both. Without calculating upon the immense loads, extending to fifty tons, which have been tracked by the steam wagon, or of thirty tons and upwards, have occasionally been moved by one horse upon a level railway, we can state that an active horse, weighing ten cwt. conducted by only one man, upon a well-con structed level edge railway, will work with ten tons of goods. In the same manner we may take thirty tons as employing the effective labour of one horse and three persons upon a canal; from which it will therefore ap pear, that the expense of trackage per ton is pretty much the same in both systems, while the first cost, and consequently the toll or dues, must be greatly in favour of the railway. For very weighty and bulky goods, the canal is allowed to be more suitable ; yet, in practice, many of such articles may be so placed as to bear upon the wheels of more than one wagon on a railway. Upon the whole, we are of opinion, that in every case it is better to construct a railway than a small canal, excepting where the union of similar works is to be effected. The case is different where it is in tended to transport shills across a country, from shore to shore, as on the Forth and Clyde, the Crinan and the Caledonian canals in Scotland.
In treating this subject, it may be proper to give some short account of the introduction and progress of the railway system. There can be no doubt that it is of British origin; and being still in a great mea sure peculiar to this country, it has not unaptly been termed the British Roadway." Wooden railways seem first to have been known in Northumberland, particularly in the neighbourhood of Newcastle, and that probably as far back as the sixteenth century ; but we believe it was reserved for Mr. William Reynolds of Coalbrookdale, in Shropshire, about the year 1767, first to put the crude material of roads into the crucible of the refiner, and thus introduce the use of rails wholly of iron. Rails of this description were soon afterwards ap plied by a Mr. Curr, to the works of the Duke of Norfolk's colliers near Sheffield. The first public railway company is understood to have been instituted at Loughborough, in the year 1789, where the late eminent Mr. Jessop had the merit of first employing the edge-rail. About ten years after wards, Mr. Benjamin Outram introduced the plate
rail, with props of stone at the joinings of the rails instead of timber. Hitherto both the edge and plate rails were made of cast iron, but, in the year 1811, the former was, we believe, first made wholly of mal leable iron at Lord Carlisle's coalworks in Cumberland.
Stone tracks in large blocks, laid in the form of what may be termed rails, are of great antiquity, as appears from the construction of some of the famous Roman ways still to be seen at Rome, and in other cities of Italy. An attempt is now making to introduce these trucks on streets and common roads, the stones of which are not much larger than those of the best aislcr cause way, formed and laid after a particular manner, sug rested by Mr. Stevenson, engineer, In noticing the progress of railways, it would now be difficult even to enumerate the various works of this description which have been executed throughout the United Kingdom, as railways are uni%ersally employed at all the principal coal and iron works, in situations altogether inaccessible to a communication by water. In not a few instances they have been constructed by joint so.ck companies, and sometimes by individuals as public thoroughfares.
The only public railway of extent in Scotland, is that between the manufacturing town of Kilmarnock and the harbour of Troon; which, agreeably to act of Parliament, is open to all upon payment of a cer tain toll. This extensive work, like those of the Duke of Bridgewater's in England, was executed at the sole expense of the Duke of Portland, fur the improve ment of his Ayrshire estates. The Troon railway is about ten miles in length, and is laid with two sets of cast-iron tracks, of the description technically term ed plate-rails. It crosses the river Irvine by a stone bridge of four arches, each of forty feet span, and the whole line forms an inclined plane, fulling towards the shipping port, at the rate of about one-sixteenth of an inch perpendicular to one yard horizontal. In its track it encounters a difficult pass through Shaulton moss ; and towards the harbour, the uniform line of draught is preserved by an embankment of about two miles in length. This work, with the great pier found ed in about. eighteen feet water in the lowest tides, to gether with the graving-docks and whole establishment at Ti'oon, were executed agreeably to a design of the late Mr. Jessop's, and, with the coal fittings in the neigh bourhood, are understood to have cost about 150,0001. The other railways in Scotland which may be mention ed as of extent or interest, are those of the Carroll Com pany, the establishment of which are understood to have reduced the average monthly expenditure for car riage from 12,0001. to 3001., the coal works of the Earls of Elgin and Mar in File and Clackmannan shires, Sir John Hope of Pinkie, Mr. \Vauchope of Edmonstone, and Mr. Cadell of Cockenzie, in Mid-Lothian; Mr. Dickson, and others in Lanarkshire ; and Mr. Taylor and others in Ayrshire. These are edge-railways, and such of them as have lately been laid are chiefly of malleable iron.