Vol. 1 No.6 - Pg.1 - Col.2 - ADVANCE OF RAILWAY SCIENCE

ADVANCE OF RAILWAY SCIENCE.—The progress of railway enterprise is not only vast but magnificent—vast in its plans, and magnificent in its results—leaping over all obstacles, joining worlds with worlds almost, and seeming likely through the remarkable desire for increased locomotion which is not unfrequently exhibited, to "put a girdle round about the earth in forty minutes."—About thirty years ago, it was doubted whether locomotives could run at all upon iron railways; twenty years ago the idea of their moving at a greater speed than ten miles in the hour was scoffed at as chimerical; fifteen year ago the unexpected tale of thirty miles an hour was considered a wonder which no effort of practical science could surpass; and now a speed of nearly fifty miles an hour is in daily use, while the rate of a mile per minute is promised, and, in some special instances has actually been exceeded. It is singular that the three great feats accomplished by practical science. In our own time, viz, lighting by gas, crossing the Atlantic by steam in ten days, and rapid travelling by the same motive power on railways, have one and all, been denounced as utterly impracticable by "philosophers," who actually knew nothing of the subject upon which they theorized.