EARLY RAILROADS.--The idea of a public railroad to carry freight and passengers was of slow growth, [13] but once it was started more and more miles were built every year, till by 1835 twenty-two railroads were in operation. The longest of them was only one hundred and thirty-six miles long; it extended from Charleston westward to the Savannah River, opposite Augusta. These early railroads were made of wooden beams resting on stone blocks set in the ground. The upper surface of the beams, where the wheels rested, was protected by long strips or straps of iron spiked to the beam. The spikes often worked loose, and, as the car passed over, the strap would curl up and come through the bottom of the car, making what was called a "snake head." [Illustration: AN EARLY RAILROAD.] What should be the motive power, was a troublesome question. The horse was the favorite; it sometimes pulled the car, and sometimes walked on a treadmill on the car. Sails were tried also, and finally locomotives. [14] Locomotives could not climb steep grades. When a hill was met with, the road had to go around it, or if this was not possible, the engine had to be taken off and the cars pulled up or let down an inclined plane by means of a rope and stationary engine. [15] A TRIP ON AN EARLY RAILROAD.--A traveler from Philadelphia to Pittsburg, in 1836, would set off about five o'clock in the morning for what was called the depot. There his baggage would be piled on the roof of a car, which was drawn by horses to the foot of an inclined plane on the bank of the Schuylkill. Up this incline the car would be drawn by a stationary engine and rope to the top of the river bank. When all the cars of the train had been pulled up in this way, they would be coupled together and made fast to a little puffing, wheezing locomotive without cab or brake, whose tall smokestack sent forth volumes of wood smoke and red-hot cinders. At Lancaster (map, p. 267) the railroad ended, and passengers went by stage to Columbia on the Susquehanna, and then by canal packet up that river and up the Juniata to the railroad at the foot of the mountains. [Illustration: HANDBILL OF A PHILADELPHIA TRANSPORTATION COMPANY, OF 1835.] The mountains were crossed by the Portage Railroad, a series of inclined planes and levels somewhat like a flight of steps. At Johnstown, west of the Alleghenies, the traveler once more took a canal packet to Pittsburg. [16] THE WEST BUILDS RAILROADS AND CANALS.--Prior to 1836 most of the railroads and canals were in the East. But in 1836 the craze for internal improvements raged in Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan, and in each an elaborate system of railroads and canals was planned, to be built by the state. Illinois in this way contracted a debt of $15,000,000; Indiana, $10,000,000, and Michigan, $5,000,000.