* * * * *
SPEED ON RAILWAYS.--In the first of a course of lectures on railways,
delivered in the early part of last year at Manchester by Dr Lardner, he
gave the following account of the speed attained by locomotive engines
at different periods: “Since the great questions which had been agitated
respecting the effect which an increased width of rails would have on
railway transit, and the effect which very large drawing wheels, of great
diameter, would have on certain railways, the question of very vastly
increased speed had acquired considerable interest. Very recently two
experiments had been made, attended with most surprising results. One was
the case of the Monmouth express. A dispatch was carried from Twyford
to London on the Great Western Railway, a distance of thirty miles, in
thirty-five minutes. This distance was traversed very favourably, and
being subject to less of those casual interruptions to which a longer
trip would be liable, it was performed at the rate of six miles in seven
minutes, or six-sevenths of a mile in one minute (very nearly fifty-one
and a half miles an hour). He had experimented on speed very largely
on most of the railways of the country, and he had never personally
witnessed that speed. The evaporating power of those engines was
enormous. Another performance, which he had ascertained since he arrived
in this neighbourhood, showed that great as was the one just mentioned,
they must not ascribe it to any peculiar circumstance attending the
large engines and wide gauge of the Great Western Railway. An express
was dispatched a short time since from Liverpool to Birmingham, and
its speed was stated in the papers. One engine, with its tender, went
from Liverpool, or rather from the top of the tunnel at Edge Hill, to
Birmingham, in two hours and thirty-five minutes. But he had inquired
into the circumstances of that trip, and it appeared that the time the
engine was actually in motion, after deducting a variety of stoppages,
was only one hour and fifty minutes in traversing ninety-seven miles. The
feat on the Great Western was performed on a dead level, while on the
Grand Junction the engine first encountered the Whiston incline, where
the line rises 1 in 96 for a mile and a half; and after passing Crewe,
it encountered a plane of three miles to the Madeley summit, rising 20
feet a mile, succeeded by another plane, for three miles more, rising 30
feet a mile; yet with all these impediments it performed the ninety-seven
miles in one hour and fifty minutes, or 110 minutes; consequently the
distance traversed in each minute was 97 divided by 110, or 52 ¹⁰⁄₁₁ths,
nearly 53 miles an hour--a speed which, he confessed, if he had not
evidence of it, he could scarcely have believed to be within the bounds
of mechanical possibility. The engine which performed this feat had
driving wheels of 5½ feet diameter; their circumference would be 17¼
feet. Taking the speed at 53 miles an hour, it was within a very minute
fraction of 80 feet in a second of time. This was not the greatest speed
of the engine, but the average speed spread over 97 miles and there could
be little doubt that it must have exceeded sixty miles an hour during a
considerable portion of the distance.”
* * * * *
That man should be happy, is so evidently the intention of the Creator,
the contrivances to that end are so multitudinous and so striking, that
the perception of the aim may be called universal. Whatever tends to make
men happy, becomes a fulfilment of the will of God. Whatever tends to
make them miserable, becomes opposition to his will.--_Harriet Martineau._
* * * * *
Printed and published every Saturday by GUNN and CAMERON, at
the Office of the General Advertiser, No. 6, Church Lane,
College Green, Dublin.--Agents:--R. GROOMBRIDGE, Panyer Alley,
Paternoster Row, London; SIMMS and DINHAM, Exchange Street,
Manchester; C. DAVIES, North John Street, Liverpool; SLOCOMBE and
SIMMS, Leeds; FRASER and CRAWFORD, George Street, Edinburgh; and
DAVID ROBERTSON, Trongate, Glasgow.