THE RAILWAY SYSTEM-COAL, STEAM, AND IRON.

83

erection of a pyramid equal to the largest and the loftiest in Egypt. To show that this is no idle boast, the following facts may be men

undertaken in the year 1586, and the day for raising the obelisk was marked with great solemnity. High mass was celebrated at St. Peter's, and the architect and tioned:-According to ancient auworkmen received the benediction thors, betwixt 100,000 and 300,000 of the Pope. The blast of a trum- men were engaged for twenty years pet was the given signal, when in building the great Pyramid of engines were set in motion by an Egypt, at an expenditure of labour incredible number of horses; but which has been estimated as equal not until after fifty-two unsuccess- to lifting fifteen thousand seven ful attempts had been made was hundred and thirty-three millions the huge block lifted from the (15,733,000,000) of cubic feet of stone earth. As the ropes which held one foot high. From a computation it had somewhat stretched, the by M. Dupin, it appears that the base of the obelisk could not reach steam-engines of England would the summit of the pedestal, when equal the whole product of this a man in the crowd cried out, immense application of human la"Wet the ropes!" This advice was bour, in lifting stones, within the followed, and the column, as of it- short space of eighteen hours. In self, gradually rose to the required the construction of the southern height, and was placed upright on division of the London and North the pedestal prepared for it. Western Railway, the labour, as estimated in the same manner, is twenty-five

THE RAILWAY SYSTEM- -COAL,
STEAM, AND IRON.

thousand millions (25,000,000,000) of cubic feet of similar material lifted to the same height, being 9,267,000,000 (nine thousand two hundred and sixty

Coal, steam, and iron, are the threefold power which has created the vast system of railways. It has, chiefly in England and Scot-seven millions) more than was lifted land, and betwixt the years 1843 for the Pyramids, and yet the Engand 1849, increased the number of lish work was performed by about miles of railway previously con- 20,000 men, in less than five years. structed from 1857 to 5000 miles; According to another calculation, and the year 1848 conveyed from illustrating the enormous extent of one part of the kingdom to an- these works, called into existence other 57,965,000 passengers, and by the united influence of iron, expended on these works the enor- coal, and steam, in making the mous sum of £200,000,000, double division of railway just referred the amount being required in to, and which is 112 miles in order to complete the existing and length, as much earth was rethe contemplated lines. Miss Mar- moved as would form a footpath tineau, after travelling in the a foot high and a yard broad, East, and seeing the Pyramids of Egypt, in the account of her journey, expressed regret that the art by which the stones of these immense structures were elevated is lost. An engineer, in reference to this regret, sent a letter to the Times, stating, in effect, that he, or any engineer of the day, would have no objection to undertake the

round the whole circumference of the earth;-the cost of this division of the railway in penny pieces, being sufficient to form a copper kerb or edge to it.-When the train has been connected, consisting of passenger-carriages, luggagevans, horse-boxes, carriage-trucks, and, as on the leading English lines, a travelling post-office-the loco

York on the other, calculate to an hour on the arrival of the steamer, and are seldom disappointed.

LAVOISIER'S DISCOVERIES AND FATE:

motive engine is moved to the front. This is the steam-horse, which has drunk a thousand gallons of cold water to prepare him for his journey, and taken in provender to the extent of one ton of fuel. The engine-driver takes his place, and opens a valve, the steam enters and commences its work, the engine works, the train follows, and in a brief space, at the rate of forty, fifty, and even sixty miles an hour, it rushes through tunnels which have been cut for miles in the solid rock, along embankments which have been piled up in the valleys, over morasses whose profoundest depths have been fathomed and piled, through cuttings on the sides of mountains, along precipices with the ocean lashing their bases -across viaducts, over rivers and ravines, crossing arms of the sea by means of tubular bridges of iron. "While the train is almost on the wing," observes Sir F. B. Head, "beating the eagle in its flight, the passengers are reclining in their easy-chairs, thinking or sleeping, reading or writing, as if they were in their own happy homes-safer, indeed, than there, for thieves cannot rob them by day, nor burglars alarm them by night. The steam-horse starts neither at the roar of the thunderstorm, nor the flash of its fire. Draughts of a purer air expel the marsh poison from its seat before it has begun the work of death, and, surrounded by conductors, the delicate and timid traveller looks without dismay on the forked mes-volution, he was thrown into prisengers of destruction, twisting the spire, or rending the oak, or raging above the fear-stricken dwellings of man."

The Atlantic is now crossed almost every week from January to December, and the passage seldom lasts beyond twelve days; insomuch that the merchants of Liverpool on the one side, and Boston and New

Lavoisier proved that the fixed air (carbonic acid) of Black was a compound of carbon and oxygen; that atmospheric air consisted of oxygen and nitrogen; and that oxygen was the agent in combustion and respiration, as well as in the process of oxidizing metals, and in the formation of acids (the acids formed by hydrogen being then unknown to the science). Lavoisier thus generalized the discovery of Priestley, and superseded the phlogiston theory by that of oxygen. Lavoisier's theory of combustion, if we may be allowed the metaphor, kindled the torch which has lighted succeeding chemists along the path of discovery. Lavoisier enjoyed the privilege-rarely awarded to great discoverers in science-of seeing his views speedily adopted throughout Europe. Such, also, we are reminded, was the reward of Hervey, who, after suffering years of obloquy and persecution for promulgating the doctrine of the circulation of the blood, had the satisfaction of living to witness his principles taught in all the medical schools of the civilized world. But, less fortunate than Hervey, Lavoisier was persecuted by more unrelenting men, who struck him down in the heyday of his scientific reputation and usefulness. During the French Re

son on a charge of adulterating tobacco, factitiously brought against him as a pretext for confiscating his property. He became a victim of the guillotine in 1794-❝ A_melancholy proof," Mr. Whewell remarks, "that in periods of political ferocity, innocence and merit, private virtues and public services, amiable manners and the love of

GUTTA PERCHA.

friends, literary fame and exalted genius, are all as nothing to protect their possessor from the last extremes of violence and wrong, inflicted under judicial forms."

GUTTA PERCHA.

85

The

small quantities annually. people fell the trees, strip off the bark, and collect the milky juice in a cavity formed by the hollow stem of the plantain leaf-when, being exposed to the air, it coagulates. Dr. Oxley, who writes a description The tree yielding this useful sub- of the tree in the Journal of the stance was first observed by Mr. Indian Archipelago, printed at the Lobb, while engaged in a botanical Mission Press of Singapore, menmission in Singapore, in the Eastern tions that only a short time ago the Archipelago; but gutta percha was tree was tolerably abundant in the first brought into general notice in island of Singapore, but that already 1845, by Dr. Montgomery, whose all the large timber has been felled, attention was attracted to it by and few, if any, other than small seeing it employed by the Malays plants are now to be found. The to make handles for implements. range of its production, however, He found that the material could appears to be considerable, it being be advantageously substituted for found all up the Malayan peninsula caoutchouc in the construction of as far as Penang. Numerous patents the parts of surgical instruments have been taken out for applications hitherto made of that substance; of gutta percha to the arts and for which discovery the London sciences. Like caoutchouc it is Society of Arts awarded him its soluble in naphtha. Hot water gold medal. He ascertained from (above 150°) has a remarkable acthe natives that the tree yielding tion upon the substance; contrary the gutta (Malayan for gum) attains to the usual effect of heat, the gum a height of 60 or 70 feet, and a dia- contracts and becomes plastic, and meter of 3 or 4 feet, that its wood may then be made to assume any is valueless as timber, but that its form, which will be permanent at fruit yields a concrete oil, which is an ordinary temperature. This used for food. The tree is found in property fits it for many important Singapore, Borneo, and the adjacent purposes to which caoutchouc canislands. Dr. Montgomery was as- not be adapted. In surgical pracsured by Mr. Brook, the Rajah of tice it renders gutta percha of Sarawak, that in the woods of great value. Amongst the ornaBorneo it acquires a diameter of mental purposes to which it has 6 feet. Several hundred tons of been successfully applied are casts gutta percha are now annually ex- of medals, and other objects requirported from Singapore; but there ing a smooth surface and sharp imis reason to apprehend, from the pression. The Gutta Percha Comwasteful method in which the na-pany alone imported between 600 tives collect it, that this supply and 700 tons of the material, chiefly must speedily be diminished, if it for commercial purposes, betwixt do not altogether cease. The largest the years 1844 and 1848. From quantity of juice yielded by a single 60 to 80 tons are said to be imtrunk is only 20 or 30 lbs.; and the improvident Malays will rather sacrifice a tree of a hundred years' growth, for the sake of obtaining all its juice at once, than submit to the process of tapping the trunk, and allowing the gum to exude in

ported monthly. The sonorous property of gutta percha is interesting. By speaking in a voice little above a whisper, it will be heard through a tube of the substance at the distance of three-quarters of a mile.

WEIGHING MACHINE AT THE BANK OF ENGLAND.

lives were lost. The hole, thirty-!

OF ENGLAND.

87

The most interesting place connected with the machinery of the Bank of England is the weighingoffice, which was established a few years ago. In consequence of a

eight feet deep, was closed with WEIGHING MACHINE AT THE BANK bags of clay and hazel-rods, the water pumped out, and the works resumed in September. On Jan. 12, 1828, the river broke in a second time, and filled the tunnel in less than ten minutes; when the rush of water brought with it a strong proclamation concerning the gold current of air that put out the circulation, it became very desirlights; six of the workmen were able to obtain the most minute aclost. For some distance, Mr. Brunel, curacy, as coins of different weight junior, struggled in total darkness, were plentifully offered. Many and the rush of the water carried complaints were made, that sovehim up the shaft. The tunnel reigns which had been issued from was again cleared, and the part one office were refused at another ; completed found to be sound. Hundreds of plans were proposed for its completion; the funds of the company were too low to proceed, and above £5000 was raised by public subscription.

For seven years the work was suspended; but, by advances from Government, it was resumed in 1835. On April 23, 1837, there was a third irruption of the river; a fourth on Nov. 2, 1837, with the loss of one life; and, on March 6, 1838, the fifth and last irruption took place. Thus, of the Tunnel there were completed—

Leaving only 60 feet to complete.

Meanwhile, the tunnel works proved a very attractive exhibition. In 1838, they were visited by 23,000 persons, and, in 1839, by 34,000. By January 1841, the tunnel was completed from shore to shore1140 feet, and Sir I. Brunel, on August 13, was the first to pass through. On March 25, 1843, the tunnel was opened to the public, with a demonstration of triumph.

The cost of the work has been nearly four times the sum at first contemplated; the actual expense being upwards of £600,000.

and though these assertions were not, perhaps, always founded on truth, yet it is indisputable that the evil occasionally occurred. Every effort was made by the directors to remedy this, some millions of sovereigns being weighed separately, and the light coins divided from those which were full weight. Fortunately, the governor for the time being (Mr. W. Cotton), before whom the complaints principally came, was attached to scientific pursuits; and he at once turned his attention to discover the causes which operated to prevent the attainment of a just weight. In this he was successful, and the result of his inquiry was a machine, remarkable for an almost elegant simplicity. About 80 or 100 light and heavy sovereigns are placed indiscriminately in a round tube; as they descend on the machinery beneath, those which are light receive a slight touch, which moves them into their proper receptacle; while those which are the legitimate weight, pass into their appointed place. The light coins are then defaced by a sovereign-cutting machine, remarkable alike for its accuracy and rapidity. By this 200 may be defaced in one minute; and, by the weighing machinery, 35,000 may be weighed in one day.

Ån eminent member of the Royal