forenoon! Of the rapidity of the journey I had better experience on my return; but I may say now that, stoppages included, it may certainly be made at the rate of twenty miles an hour. “I should have observed before that the most remarkable movements of the journey are those in which trains pass one another. The rapidity is such that there is no recognizing the features of a traveller. On several occasions, the noise of the passing engine was like the whizzing of a rocket. Guards are stationed in the road, holding flags, to give notice to the drivers when to stop. Near Newton I noticed an inscription recording the memorable death of Huskisson.” —_Crabb Robinson’s Diary_. EARLY AMERICAN RAILWAY ENTERPRISE. Mr. C. F. Adams, in his work on _Railroads_: _Their Origin and Problems_, remarks:—“There is, indeed, some reason for believing that the South Carolina Railroad was the first ever constructed in any country with a definite plan of operating it exclusively by locomotive steam power. But in America there was not—indeed, from the very circumstances of the case, there could not have been—any such dramatic occasions and surprises as those witnessed at Liverpool in 1829 and 1830. Nevertheless, the people of Charleston were pressing close on the heels of those at Liverpool, for on the 15th of January, 1831—exactly four months after the formal opening of the Manchester and Liverpool road—the first anniversary of the South Carolina Railroad was celebrated with due honor. A queer-looking machine, the outline of which was sufficient in itself to prove that the inventor owed nothing to Stephenson, had been constructed at the West Point Foundry Works in New York during the summer of 1830—a first attempt to supply that locomotive power which the Board had, with sublime confidence in possibilities, unanimously voted on the 14th of the preceding January should alone be used on the road. The name of _Best Friend_ was given to this very simple product of native genius. The idea of the multitubular boiler had not yet suggested itself in America. The _Best Friend_, therefore, was supplied with a common vertical boiler, ‘in form of an old-fashioned porter-bottle, the furnace at the bottom surrounded with water, and all filled inside of what we call teats running out from the sides and tops.’ By means of the projections or ‘teats’ a portion at least of the necessary heating surface was provided. The cylinder was at the front of the platform, the rear end of which was occupied by the boiler, and it was fed by means of a connecting pipe. Thanks to the indefatigable researches of an enthusiast on railroad construction, we have an account of the performances of this and all the other pioneers among American locomotives, and the pictures with which Mr. W. H. Brown has enriched his book would alone render it both curious and valuable. Prior to the stockholders’ anniversary of January 15th,