to have been a notoriously corrupting influence in New Jersey politics from the outset. Public opinion became so roused over its exactions, that a memorial from the merchants of New York to the Thirtieth Congress resulted. The enterprise was the most profitable of all the earlier companies, its net earnings in 1840 amounting to $427,000. In 1855 it paid a twelve per cent. dividend. From Washington south by way of Fredericksburg and Richmond, the southern states could be reached without undertaking the perilous passage round Cape Hatteras. By 1840 the only portions of the original colonies still isolated were New England, at one end, which was still obliged to depend upon Long Island transit to New York by boat; and in the Far South, the back country behind Charleston and Savannah. Several important economic causes conspired to stimulate railroad construction at a very early time in the southern states.[3] They welcomed the new means of transportation even more eagerly than the wealthier, commercial and more densely populated North. Ever since the invention of the gin in 1793, the production of cotton had grown apace. Profits were so high that all interest in other forms of agriculture waned. Cotton production until about 1817 was mainly confined to the long narrow strip of Piedmont territory, lying between the sandy "pine barrens" along the coast and the mountains in the rear. This fertile strip--the seat of the plantation system--thus geographically isolated, had only one means of communication with the outer world, namely the coast rivers debouching upon the sea at Charleston, Savannah, or, later on, upon the Gulf at Mobile. But these seaports were not conveniently situated to serve as local trade centres. They were separated from the cotton belt by the intervening pine barrens. The local business of buying the cotton from the planters, and in return supplying their imperative needs for supplies of all sorts, including even foodstuffs which they neglected to raise, was concentrated in a series of towns located at the so-called "fall line" of the rivers. From Alexandria and Richmond on the Potomac and James, round by Augusta, Macon, and Columbia to Montgomery, Alabama, such local centres of importance arose, each one just at the head of navigation. For some years profits were so large that heavy charges for transportation to the sea were patiently borne. But after the opening of the western cotton belt along the Mississippi bottom lands after 1817, the price of cotton experienced a severe decline, greatly to the distress of the older planters. For this reason an insistent demand for improved means of transportation had already brought about great interest in turnpike and canal building. South Carolina at a very early date had expended about two million dollars for these purposes. Steamboats on the smaller rivers were also used. Immediately upon the successful demonstration of traction by steam the aid of the states, cities and individuals was