than for what it was. Tredgold declared in favor of fixed engines. Telford could not say whether even these would succeed, or that horses should not be used. In this dilemma the directors commissioned Messrs. Walker and Rastrick to visit the collieries and report on the question. They recommended the stationary reciprocating system as the best! Against all this array of talent George Stephenson, the fireman, at a shilling a day-the mender of clocks and of his sweetheart's shoes, the embroiderer of pitmen's button-holes-alone stood firm. He knew he was right, and would not be silenced; for though officially worsted, he, aided by his illustrious son Robert, successfully exposed the fallacy of the arguments used against the locomotive, and induced the directors to take the sensible course of offering a premium of £500 for a machine which should travel ten miles the hour, be safe, and unobjectionable as to weight, cost, &c. The locomotive had been condemned on the assumption that the speed could not be increased without a loss of power Stephenson asserted that by the action of the steam-blast the power increased with the speed; that in fact all that was necessary to make the slow colliery engines fast ones, was to have a boiler capable of generating steam as rapidly as the increase of speed required. On the day appointed, the 6th October, 1830, four engines entered the list, two only of which, Ericsson's "Novelty," and Stephenson's "Rocket," distinguished themselves. The former ran at the rate of twenty-four miles an hour, but depending on a blower to keep up the draught, this gave out and she failed. The Rocket, which was the first ready, ran at the then astonishing rate of thirty and thirty-five miles the hour,-had no breakdown, and carried off the prize, as well as effectually disposed of the twenty-one fixed engines, with the enginehouses, ropes, &c., which the eminent engineers had declared indispensable to the working of the line. This result was accomplished by adopting the multitubular boiler for the locomotive, which is the third and last great principle in the progress of the railway. Since that memorable day when the father of railways "delivered himself" (as one of his opponents on the board exclaimed, with hands upraised in astonishment), the present generation has seen over 50,000 miles of railway constructed, at a cost of about four thousand millions of dollars, the greater portion of this mileage being upon this continent. CANADIAN RAILWAYS. Canada owes her first railway as well as her first steamboat to Montreal. In 1831, when the news of the success of the Liverpool and Manchester road came across the water, measures were taken to obtain a charter, which was granted on 25th February, 1832, for the construction of a railway from Laprairie on the St. Lawrence to St. John's, a village above the rapids of the Richelieu River, the outlet for the waters of Lake Champlain. The length was sixteen miles, and the capital £50,000, in 1,000 shares of £50 each, or a little over £3,000 per mile. The work was commenced in 1835, opened with horses in July, 1836, and first worked with locomotives in 1837. It was a "straprail" road until 1847, when the heavy T iron was laid. The next movement was a premature one, in Upper Canada. A charter was obtained, 6th March, 1834, for a Railway from Cobourg to any point on Rice Lake; and though the distance is no greater than that between Laprairie and St. John's, no less than £400,000 capital was provided. In the same year a charter was granted to the London and Gore Railway Company, for a road from London to Burlington Bay, to be extended to the navigable waters of the Thames and Lake Huron. This was the legislative beginning of that important line the Great Western Railway. The first railway actually constructed in Upper Canada was by the old "Erie and Ontario Company," and was designed to restore the ancient portage route around the Falls of Niagara, between Queenstown and Chippewa, which had been superseded by the Welland Canal. This line was chartered in 1835, and was opened in 1839, as a horse railway, the steepness of the grades near Queens.town being beyond the capacity of locomotive power of that day; and as it stopped at the bank of the Niagara, over one hundred feet above the water level, it fell into disuse. In 1852 the charter was amended, and the line altered so as to run from Lake Ontario at Niagara, to Suspension Bridge and the Falls of Niagara. Between 1832 and 1845 over a dozen charters were granted in the two provinces, none of which, except the horse railway just mentioned, were followed up; and the Laprairie road continued the sole representative of the system, using locomotives for ten years, or until 1847. In 1845 the St. Lawrence and Atlantic Railway Company was chartered, to connect with the "Atlantic and St. Lawrence,” an American company from Portland. This road, though an international rather than a Canadian one, became, by subsequent amalgamation, part of the Grand Trunk; and is, therefore, the beginning of that extensive line. It is worthy of remark, that up to this time the railway efforts of Montreal had been directed to divert the trade of Canada to American cities, her rivals as seaports. In 1846 the first look westward was made in the commencement of the Lachine Railway, but this was undertaken rather as a suburban portage road than as part of the main western line. Although some thirty charters had been granted up to 1850, the only roads on which any work had been done were the Laprairie, St. Lawrence and Atlantic, Lachine, St. Lawrence and Industry, in Lower Canada; and the Erie and Ontario in Upper Canada. Many of these charters have been allowed to drop; and, with the exception of the corporations named, nearly all those relating to roads since built, were extended and amended before any work was commenced. In 1850 the Ottawa and Prescott Railway was authorized, and the line was opened in December, 1854. The first railway in Upper Canada on which locomotives were used was the Northern, from Toronto to Bradford, opened in June, 1853; yet in 1860, only seven years from that date, about three hundred locomotives were thundering and bellowing over the upper province, between the Ottawa and Lake Huron. Of the fifty-six charters granted up to June, 1853, only twenty-seven were acted upon, and in twenty-five cases the roads have been completed; the other two (the Woodstock and Lake Erie and the Hamilton and Port Dover) are yet unfinished. By amalgamation or leasing, the Grand Trunk and Great Western have swallowed up nine out of these twenty-five chartered and completed roads, there being now only sixteen distinct railways in the whole province. Since 1853 only three new charters have been acted upon, viz., Preston and Berlin, Three Rivers and Arthabaska, and Peterboro' and Chemung Lake. The last is completed; the first was completed and opened for a time, but is not now in use, and the second is nearly completed. The province has now 1,906 miles of railway, 1,800 of which have been opened within the last ten years, under the impetus given by the railway legislation of 1849-1852. Of these 1,906 miles, the Grand Trunk Company alone have 872 miles within the province, leaving 1,084 miles in all the other companies. Of these last, however, sixty miles, owned by four companies, are not now in operation. Canada has more miles of railway than Scotland or Ireland, or any of the New England States, and is only exceeded in this respect by five States in America, viz., New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. Of her total railway expenditure, which exceeds one hundred millions of dollars, about thirty millions have been supplied by the government and municipalities. The following tables will show the leading statistics of Canadian railways, from official sources, as far as returns have been made. |
