wonder to find ourselves transported by an engine constructed at Newcastle-on-Tyne, and driven by an artisan from Liverpool, at the rate of twenty miles an hour. It is not easy to describe the impression produced by the juxtaposition of these refinements of art and science with the wildness of the country, where one sees the frightened deer start from its lair at the snorting of the ponderous machine and the appearance of the snakelike train which follows it. The first American railway was opened for passengers on the last day of 1829. According to the reports collected and given in detail in the work already quoted, it appears that in 1849, after an interval of just twenty years, there were in actual operation 6,565 miles of railway in the States. The cost of construction and plant of this system of railways appears by the same authority to have been 53,386,885_l._, being at the average rate of 8,129_l._ per mile. The reports collected in Dr. Lardner's work come up to the middle of 1849. We have, however, before us documents which supply data to a more recent period, and have computed from them the following table, exhibiting the number of miles of railway in actual operation in the United States, the capital expended in their construction and plant, and the length of the lines which are in process of construction, but not yet completed:-- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Railways | Cost of | Projected |Cost per | in | Building and | and in | Mile. | operation. | Plant. | progress. | ------------------------+-------------+--------------+-------------+-------- | Miles. | £ | Miles. | £ Eastern States, | | | | including Maine, New | | | | Hampshire, Vermont, | | | | Massachusetts, Rhode | | | | Island, and Connecticut| 2,845 | 23,100,987 | 567 | 8,123 | | | | Atlantic States, | | | | including New-York, the | | | | Jerseys, Pennsylvania, | | | | Delaware, and Maryland | 3,503 | 27,952,500 | 2,020 | 7,979 | | | | Southern States, | | | | including Virginia, the | | | | Carolinas, Georgia, | | | |