invoked; so that a well planned system of railroads resulted even as early as 1843. The South Carolina Railroad between 1829 and 1833 most successfully operated a pioneer line, its securities being quoted at twenty-five per cent. above par. The Charleston & Hamburg line opened in 1833, one hundred and thirty-seven miles long, was said to be the largest system under one management in the world. Augusta & Columbia were linked up with the coast. Savannah also penetrated inland to the Piedmont belt by a line finished in 1843 as far as Macon. The interest in a through route to connect Cincinnati and Louisville with Charleston was very keen; and had it not been for the tremendous fall in cotton prices in 1839-1840, the project might have succeeded. As it was, a great railroad convention at Knoxville in 1836 was attended by no less than four hundred delegates from nine different states. It was not so much the mileage of these roads which rendered them notable, as the fact of their intended reliance upon through freight instead of passenger business. Roads in other parts of the country were as yet depending in the main upon passenger traffic or upon the carriage of what we would now call local or parcel freight. These southern lines were built to accommodate traffic in great staple agricultural products--cotton out and foodstuffs in. Unlike the northern roads, also, they early adopted a uniform gauge and sought to promote long distance business. Later developments in the South especially in the direction of improved service were very slow. The northern states speedily outstripped them; but the enterprise of this region in railroad building and operation at the outset has not been fully appreciated.