When the reading was over, Bedford said: "When I heard you were going to have George Stephenson this afternoon, I wrote to my cousin Prentiss Armstrong, who has been at the locomotive works at Altoona for several years, and asked him about locomotives nowadays, that I might be able to compare them with the locomotives of George Stephenson's time. This is his letter, which I'll read, if there be no objection:"-- DEAR BEDFORD,--Speaking roughly, a freight-engine of the "Consolidation" type (eight driving-wheels and two truck-wheels) weighs from forty-seven to forty-eight tons of two thousand pounds. On a road with no grades over twenty feet to the mile (1 in 250) it will haul over one thousand tons at fifteen miles an hour. If the train is of merchandise, it will be of say fifty cars, each weighing ten tons and carrying ten tons. If it is of coal or ore, the cars will each carry twenty or twenty-five tons. ["The 'Rocket,'" said Bedford, "which was the successful engine at the Rainhill competition, weighed a little over four tons and had four wheels. Dragging a weight of thirteen tons in wagons, it made thirty-five miles in about two hours."] Our Engine No. 2 [continued the letter] made a mile on a level in forty-three seconds with no train, but there are very few such records. Two of our fast trains (four cars each, weighing twenty-five tons) make a schedule in one place (level) of nine miles in eight minutes. I have seen a record of a run on the Bound Brook route of four cars, ten miles in eight minutes. I think this must have been down hill. I hope these facts will answer your views. If there's anything else that I can get up for you, I shall be glad to do it. Yours truly, PRENTISS ARMSTRONG. XI. ELI WHITNEY. The young people all came in laughing. "And what is it?" said Uncle Fritz, good-naturedly. "It is this," said Alice, "that I say that all this is very entertaining about Palissy the Potter and Benvenuto Cellini; and I have been boasting that I know as much of the steam-engine as Lucy did, who was 'sister to Harry.' But I do not see that this is going to profit Blanche when she shall make her celebrated visit to Mr. Bright, and when he asks her what is the last sweet thing in creels or in fly-frames." "Is it certain that Blanche is to go?" said Uncle Fritz, doubtfully. "Oh, dear, Uncle Fritz, do you know?" said Blanche, in mock heroics; "are you in the sacred circle which decides? Will the Vesuvius pass its dividend, or will it scatter its blessings right and left, so that we can go to Paris and all the world be happy?" "I wish I knew," said Colonel Ingham; "for on that same dividend depends the question whether I build four new rooms at Little Crastis for the accommodation of my young friends when they visit me there." "Could you tell us," said Fergus, "what is the cause of the depression in the cotton-manufacture?"