The stoppages arising at the locks is very considerable. In the canals between Birmingham and London, every means are used to effect despatch; but still the quickest passage for the fly-boats is sixty hours. The distance is 153 miles, and there are 142 locks; nearly one-third of the time is lost in passing them; and while this is being done, one horse and four men are comparatively idle; the expenses of wages and keep however are going on. These expenses are incurred more particularly by the haulage; but in addition to them the tonnages are very high, and of necessity so, since the repairs of so many locks, cleaning and repairing canal, and above all, the raising of water to the summit-levels by steam-engines, must incur a great expense. The cost of this last operation may be guessed at, when it is known that for every boat that passes from London to Birmingham, a body of water of 120 tons weight has to pass through a difference of level of 1,140 feet. And yet in dry summers, notwithstanding the pains thus bestowed, the boats are frequently detained, for want of water, twelve, eighteen, and twenty-four hours in one trip. Much, then, as the canals surpass the common roads, it appears that much remains to be done, if their peculiar disadvantages can be got rid of. The economy of steam compared with horse power is too well established to need many comments. The expense of working a twenty-horse power steam-engine is known to be less than one-sixth of the cost of twenty horses and men to attend them. I appeal to the proprietors of the thousands of steam-engines now in use for the truth of this statement. Does not, then, a question at once arise, Whether it is not possible to construct a road of some kind upon which this great and cheap power may be made to act, instead of horses, and with as great a degree of profit? We rejoice that the question has suggested itself, and that it has received an answer. The application of steam to the purpose of locomotion has been proved upon a rail-road between Manchester and Liverpool. Moreover, the economy of steam power when applied to rapid progression is found to be much greater than when it is employed to supersede the horse-mill. In this the animal is not driven beyond his speed, but is allowed to move at a rate of two miles and a half per hour,—a speed which he can continue to perform for eight or ten hours per day. A horse is found to perform the greatest quantum of work when moving at this rate, and to be employed most economically. But even compared with this, we have seen that an equal effect may be produced by steam power at one-sixth the cost. With how much greater advantage and profit, then, can steam be applied, where it is made to supersede the use of horses in rapid motion, of eight or ten miles per hour! at which work it is known they can continue but one hour per day, and even then they do not live to half the age of the horse employed at the slower speed. It