distinct source the evidence that upon careful inquiry it appears that four hundred and fifty thousand tons of coal were sent by railroad from ports on Long Island Sound, during last year, to ports in Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts, all of which could be supplied from Newburg, if our own road were opened to the Hudson, at lower rates than is now done. Lowell, Nashua, and Manchester consume more than one hundred thousand tons annually. The consumption of coal is rapidly increasing throughout New England, by the constant building of new mills and factories, and by the more general use of coal for domestic purposes.

"But this is not all. The amount that the road may earn for its stockholders is but a small portion of its probable benefit to the public. You must bear in mind that this road connects the capital of Massachusetts with the great railroad of the country. This road is to make the station on Summer Street an important outlet to the sea for the great New York and Erie Railroad-in fact, by building this twenty-six miles of road, you connect Boston with St. Louis by the shortest, easiest, and best route."

This link of twenty-six miles has not yet been. completed. It is, however, in active progress, and, when finished, it will constitute the eastern continuation of the New York and Erie road, which will then extend in an unbroken line from Buffalo to Boston, crossing the Hudson River at Newburg.

CHAPTER XX.

RAILROADS IN NEW JERSEY.

THE great through route between New York and Washington consists, first, of the Railroads in New Jersey between New York and Philadelphia, namely, the Camden and Amboy road, and the New Jersey Railroad; second, of the Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Baltimore Railroad, from Philadelphia to Baltimore; and third, the Washington Branch of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, from Baltimore to Washington. Passengers who take the Camden and Amboy line have a fine sail between New York and Amboy. They have to cross the Delaware River at Camden, but there is now no delay in making connections at Philadelphia. By the New Jersey Railroad, also, there is now neither delay nor detention. By crossing the Delaware River on the railroad bridge at Trenton, and by passing to the west of Philadelphia, the delay which was formerly experienced at that city is now avoided; and by the recent construction of the fine railroad bridge over the Susquehanna at Havre de Grace, the delay which was formerly experienced at the ferry there is now avoided; so that the trip might be made, and ought to be made now, by express trains, in seven hours, which would be thirty-three miles per hour. This rate of speed is maintained on some roads in the

United States; and in Europe forty miles per hour, for express trains, is not unusual.

There is a delay of about half an hour at Baltimore, which ought to be avoided. On arriving at the Philadelphia depot, at President Street, the passengers are not required to leave their seats, but the locomotive is detached, the train is broken up, and each car is drawn separately by five horses, through Pratt Street, to the Washington depot, on Eutaw Street. Here the train is made up afresh, the passengers from Baltimore are hitched on in additional cars, a fresh locomotive is furnished, and the train takes a fresh start for Washington. There is a double track between Baltimore and Washington, and between these two cities there are fourteen passenger trains daily; seven running each way. Between Washington and New York there are eight trains per day, four running each way.

It is difficult to realize what the condition of the country was between New York and Washington before these railroads were built. It was a good six days' distance between the two cities, and few persons made the journey in less than eight days. There was an excellent turnpike road, and a daily line of stage coaches. But the more wealthy people made the trip in their carriages, and many persons travelled on horseback. The country, except immediately along the line of the road, was comparatively rude and uncultivated; and the best lands were held at a low figure compared with the prices which they now command. The soil was not worked to one-quarter of its capacity, because its capacity was not known. Of New

Jersey, for instance, which is now one of the most fertile and fruitful States in the Union, it was supposed that the soil of the whole State was either all sand, or all pine. A recent writer says that the State was "traversed by the old high-road between Philadelphia and New York, laid out by the British Government in. colonial days, and protected at various points by block-houses and barracks, in which garrisons of troops were stationed. Some of these block-houses remain to this day. Along this royal highway passed all the early travel between the New England Colonies, and those south and west of the Delaware and the Potomac. After the colonies had been severed from the parent country, this road continued to be, up to the advent of steamboats and railroads, the only thoroughfare between the two cities of Philadelphia and New York. Stage coaches occupied five weary days between them, the horses exhausted and jaded by wading through a deep, tenacious sand in summer, or the still deeper and more sticky mud through which they floundered in winter. On many miles of this road the sand was frightful. No local authorities worked it, no merciful builder of turnpikes ever thought of reclaiming it. It lay, from generation to generation, as waste and wild as when the native pines were first cleared away. Access was so difficult and laborious, that few strangers visited the region through which it passed; and the land was held in large tracts, whereon but few settlers had made any clearings. Everybody judged the soil to be as worthless as the deep sand in the highway. Where some adventurous settler had cleared up a farm, his

labors presented no inviting spectacle to the passing traveller. If manure was known in those days, the farmer did not appear to value it, for he neither manufactured nor used it. Phosphates and fertilizers had not been dreamed of. If the farmer spread any fertilizer over his fields, it was but a starveling ration; hence his corn crop was a harvest of small, worthless ears; and this again gave the soil of New Jersey a bad name.

"Wheat he never thought of raising. Rye was the sole winter grain; and rye-bread, rye-mush, and rye pie-crust, held uncontested dominion, squalid condiments as they usually are, in every squalid farm-house. Ragweed and pigweed took alternate possession of the fields; cultivation was at its last point of attenuation; none grew rich, while all became poor; and as autumn came on, even the ordinarily thoughtless grasshopper climbed feebly up to the abounding mullein stalk, and with tears in his eyes surveyed the melancholy picture of desolation around him." Such is a true picture of the condition of New Jersey up to the building of the railroads of that State.

"No wonder," says this graceful writer, "that the great public who passed over this road should think that the whole State of New Jersey was all sand, seeing that in their passage through it they beheld but little else. The sandy road alone was seen, while the green and fertile tracts that lay beyond and around it were unknown, because unseen."

All this was changed, as if by enchantment, as soon as the New Jersey Railroad, and the Camden and Amboy Railroad had been built. "Every mile of the