A striking suggestion of the extension of railway communication into a "system," as connecting lines are now called, will be found in Sir Richard Phillips's _Morning's Walk from London to Kew_, published in 1813. On reaching the Surrey Iron Railway at Wandsworth, Sir Richard records: "I found renewed delight on witnessing, at this place, the economy of horse labour on the Iron Railway. Yet a heavy sigh escaped me, as I thought of the inconceivable millions which have been spent about Malta, four or five of which might have been the means of extending _double lines of iron railway_ from London to Edinburgh, Glasgow, Holyhead, Milford, Falmouth, Yarmouth, Dover, and Portsmouth! A reward of a single thousand would have supplied coaches and other vehicles, of various degrees of speed, with the best tackle for readily turning out; and we might, ere this, have witnessed our mail coaches running at the rate of 10 miles an hour, drawn by a single horse, or _impelled 15 miles an hour by Blenkinsop's steam-engine_. Such would have been a legitimate motive for overstepping the income of a nation; and the completion of so great and useful a work would have afforded rational ground for public triumph in general jubilees!" The writer of these penetrative remarks lived until 1840, so that he had the gratification of witnessing a triumph akin to his long-cherished hope. ------------------ LORD BROUGHAM'S BLUNDERS. Dr. Young's theory of light was treated with the most sovereign contempt by Lord Brougham, in the earlier numbers of the _Edinburgh Review_; and Dr. Young died without reaping the honour of his discovery. The theory is now recognised as true; and M. Arago has formally vindicated Dr. Young from the noble critic's animadversions, in a discourse delivered at the French Institute. In 1809, when the first application was made to Parliament on gas-lighting, the movers in the project were much opposed; a committee of the House of Commons was granted, but the application terminated unsuccessfully; and the testimony of Mr. Accum to the practicability of gas-lighting exposed him to the severe animadversions and ridicule of Mr. Brougham. ------------------ WHO FIRST DOUBLED THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE?