tality for reasons above alluded to, took great pleasure in entertaining us in every way conformably to our manners and feelings.

We came to England by the "Buckinghamshire" Captain Hopkins, we were now desirous to procure a thorough knowledge of the English and mathematics, and were anxious to place ourselves under a tutor who would instruct us, and a brother of Captain Hopkins, a clergyman, who preached at a small village called Wraysbury, in the county of Buckinghamshire, and who lived at Egham, undertaking to instruct us, we went by the railroad to see him, and to look at a house which it was thought would suit us. And if we had been astonished at the several description of carriages that we had seen, how shall we describe our very great astonishment at what we saw on the railroad? It was called the Great Western, and it leaves London at Paddington, opening a way to the western coast of England, and is intended to run to Bath, Bristol, Gloucester and Cheltenham.

We travelled to a place called Slough, twentyfive miles, in fifty minutes. Only think, within an hour, seated quietly in a beautiful carriage, we were twenty-five miles from London! We did not feel that we were passing so rapidly through the country when we looked at distant objects, but when we looked upon anything near to us, we but saw it and it vanished, and when the other train of carriages passed us, it was almost as if a flash

of lightning had gone by, we could not distinguish any one of the carriages. But what is the train? And how is it moved? We will endeavour to explain all this ;—we have read,

"When railroads were in their infancy, it was "a puzzle how to contrive means, not to make the "wheels of the carriage turn round but to make "them move onwards; for it was imagined that the "smoothness of the rails, would permit the wheels "to slip, and that thus though they would revolve, "they would not go on. Many ingenious con"trivances were made to overcome this imaginary "difficulty, amongst others a most ingenious pair "of metal legs were to push the carriage onwards. "But at last it was found out that rails and "wheels were not so smooth faced to one "another, and there was friction enough between "them to let the carriages run. Then came the "question of how are the carriages to be moved? "Shall we pull them by horses? Or build

stationary engine houses and haul away with "ropes? Or drag by locomotives? The decision "on the Manchester and Liverpool Railway, the "earliest of the great railroads, was in favor of "locomotives, and so locomotives have become "the prime moving power on railroads.”

Locomotive engines are so named, because they possess the power of moving from place to place. They consist of a strong iron frame supported on four wheels, and a cylindrical boiler made of

wrought iron plates, which is fixed to this carriage; the chimney is in the front and the furnace at the hinder end; the smoke and hot air pass through a number of brass tubes which traverse the lower half of the boiler, on their way to the chimney, and which at the same time communicate additional heat to the boiler, to generate steam; the cylinder in these engines is placed almost in every variety of position, as vertical, horizontal, and inclined. The engineer stands on the hinder part of the carriage and by a long rod moves the throttle valve for admitting the steam into the cylinder, which regulates the motion and consequently the speed of the carriage, to prevent ignited fuel escaping into the air and doing mischief, a wire netting is placed on the top of the chimney. A carriage called the tender with coke or welsh coal, and water, is following the engine or the steam carriage; this supplies the furnace and boiler with their necessary food; this engine will take twenty carriages, loaded with passengers with their luggage, at the rate of thirty miles an hour, if required, and with only common caution there is little fear of accident. The carriages for passengers are of two kinds, those for the first class are fitted up beautifully with cushions and glass windows, they hold three persons on each side, and the seats are detached from each other, and on some railroads they have a lamp inside for night travelling. The second class carriages are

fitted with benches and are only covered at the top. The place from where the train started, is covered with a magnificent and commodious roof with suitable apartments for passengers. The iron rails on this line are placed at the distance of seven feet apart (while the distance in other lines is four feet eight inches) and are laid lengthways on continuous bearings of wood, which we are told is a deviation from other railroads, and for which innovation Mr. Brunel, the chief engineer met with a great deal of opposition.

In going from Paddington to Slough, we saw more than fifty bridges, either over or under the line; the distance between London and Bristol is one hundred and twenty miles, and this gigantic work will cost about 50,000,000 of rupees when completed; the train carries more than six hundred passengers daily, but the number since has increased to three thousand, and the weekly receipt at present amounts to £2000 sterling.

In a commercial point of view, this railway will bring Ireland and London nearer each other, independent of the facility it will afford in conveying colonial produce from Bristol to the metropolis. A writer in speaking of railroads, thus describes them in the London Saturday Journal :-" You "bid your friend good night and fancy that "like yourself he will go to supper, and to bed, " and that next day he will revisit his accustomed “haunts, with beard neatly trimmed, and a clean

"sweet neckcloth round his neck, but he, after "coolly giving you the countersign for the night, "walks to Euston Square, throws himself into a

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carriage, and in the morning has tea and a kidney "at Liverpool; and while you have been slumber"ing on that faithful bed, which has nightly "received your precious body for half a century, "he has been sweeping through hills, under "bridges, over rivers, along valleys, in fact, quietly going through adventures which exceed the "wildest of your dreams, now ploughing his way "in the darkness of a tunnel-now rushing be"tween walls of chalk, while high above aerial "bridges look like the perches of fairy land-now "rattling along a viaduct, while the placid stream "below still wanders at its own sweet will-now "toiling onwards in a delightful valley, startling "the cattle asleep in the field, and almost scaring "away the quiet church of the hamlet; the day "after your friend, who has been floated some five "or eight hundred, or even a thousand miles of "hill and dale, takes his seat at his desk with a "provoking equanimity which would not have “been tolerated a few years ago if one had only "taken a half holiday and gone to Hornsey Wood "House; time was indeed, when the public were "used more frequently to walk, and Islington or "Primrose Hill constituted an excursion worth talking about; time was when coaches had no springs, and roads were full of ruts, and my Lord