The smoke of some half-dozen steam engines indicated the direction to be taken, and away we went, some hundred curious enquirers from various parts of the world-France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Scotland, Ireland and the United States-a motley crowd-some on the trot and others with a more assured and dignified step, to the scene of trial. Just before reaching the spot, a short turn in the road brought us up suddenly before an iron monster, with heart of fire and breath of steam, snorting and dashing up the hill, like a very devil of the olden time! A shout and a bound, and we left the road to his unembarrassed progress. This singular looking creature proved to be Aveling's Agricultural Locomotive Engine. It had been sent a mile distant for wood and water, and when its wild scream first startled us, had in train several tons of these essentials, though moving up the steep grade with all the majestic ease of an elephant drawing a light barouche. We afterwards saw it climbing steep hills in a stubble field, with its train full of curious spectators. A single engineer directed its movements with perfect facility, causing it to make graceful curves or short turns as occasion required, or pleasure dictated. As we entered the field the engine and windlass were stationed on the left headland, the self-moving windlass on the right. Between these the plow-which consists of a diamond shaped iron frame, on wheels, but so bent in the middle that one end is up in the air while the other is on the ground, and of 8 plows, four on each end of the frame-is pulled backwards and forwards; 4 of the plows being so pointed as to work in one direction, while the other 4 pointing in the opposite course are waiting to do their work when the machine returns. this way all turning about is avoided. In The engine appears like an ordinary locomotive farm engine, except that it has, under the boiler, a clip drum for hauling the plow. The rope used is made of wire and is kept from dragging on the ground by simple supports easily handled by a strong boy. The anchor' consists of a sheave, or clip drum, on three disc wheels, which by cutting into the ground prevent the whole concern from being dragged towards the engine. Upon the top is placed a box into which weights may be placed to cause the discs to sink deeper than they otherwise would, if required. The soil in which this plow was working is a gravelly loam, not particularly favorable to success, yet good enough. The work was well "This engine has an improved patent extralarge boiler, fitted with 37 23 inch tubes, external plates of the best Butterley iron, fire box and tube plates of Bowling iron, with extra stays for high pressure. The fire grate measures 31 inches, by 34, and is suitable for wood or coal fuel. The cylinder, 10 inches in diameter, is surrounded by a jacket and placed on the forward part of the boiler; by which arrangement priming in ascending steep inclines is prevented. The crank shaft is of common iron. The engine is fitted with improved gov-done-the furrows well turned, and about 6 ernor, reversing link motion, patent tender and water tank, under foot-plate, driving chain and gear, steam-pressure gauge, extra lock-up safety valve, steam jet blower, firing tools and wrenches, driving wheels 5 ft. 6 in. diameter, 12 inches wide, patent steerage and screw break for descending inclines." It is remarkable for simplicity and power-being capable of draw inches deep. Time required to plow an acre, about 75 minutes. This plow also operated a cultivator, similar in construction to the plow, but with 7 cultivator teeth or scarifiers instead of the 4 plows. It did its work well. The Howard apparatus differed from the preceding, in that the engine was stationary England as economical, unless it be on very large estates and under peculiar circumstances. We stick to the idea, however, and shall continue to hope for its full realization, at some day, on our glorious Western prairies. during the plowing of a given field. Instead of the clip drum for winding and unwinding the rope it has a separate reel resembling the hose cart which belongs to a common hand fireengine. This reel is placed along side the engine and operated by a shaft and cog gear, which passes over the top of the two wheels which support the drum. The power is communicated to the plow-which resembles Fow-lowing extracts are taken, was delivered before ler's-by means of a wire rope aided by four pulleys anchored to the ground; two of said anchors being located at the two corners of the field towards which the plowing is being done, and the other two so stationed as to enable the engine to pull the plow back and forth-themselves being moved up as the work progresses. This plow likewise did good work. But the great question arises, Is steam plowing in England economical? To this we are bound to reply, No, we think not. The best work that we have ever heard of either of these plows doing was ten acres in ten hours; and this is remarkable success. Six to eight acres per diem is probably the average. And when we consider the cost of the apparatus$1500 to $2000; though the engine may be used for other purposes--the wear and tear of ropes and machinery, the consumption of fuel, the number of men employed and the liability to delays by breakage and other derangements, it looks to us like small results for the invest ment. Such work as we saw could have been done equally well by four men with each an ordinary Yankee plow and one span of horses and at an expense of, say, $10; while here were employed an expensive engine--costing more than eight horses and of much less general use on the farm-a horse and cart to supply fuel and water, and eight men. But it is furthermore fair to infer that on a trial such as was this, more and better work would be done than would be practicable as the average; so that it is probably more nearly correct to offset three men with plows against the steam apparatus, instead of four. Such being our premises we cannot get the consent of our judgment to endorse the steam plowing of The Great Pacific Railroad. [The very able address, from which the fol the Convention of Corporators recently held in Chicago. Its great interest and importance constitute a sufficient apology for the space we have allowed it to occupy. We are indebted to Hunt's Merchants' Magazine for the means of presenting it to our readers in advance of its official publication by the Convention.-ED.] MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN.-Our national character was never better illustrated than on the present occasion. In the midst of a causeless and desperate rebellion against the happiest form of government which humanity was ever inspired to establish, while in the midst of an enormous expenditure of treasure, and the effusion of our most precious blood to preserve this Union, undeterred and undismayed we assemble here to-day under the authority of the National Legislature to organize an enterprise of the vastest proportions and with the most momentous results. A railway across a continent, a connection between the two great oceans of the globe, and a change in the traffic of Europe, Asia, and America-these are the objects which present themselves for our consideration. After years of discussion, numerous surveys, and a general conviction that the proposed work is within our power and our resources, we have been selected to give form and tone and character to the project, and we here thoughtfully, I trust, assume a responsibility which is not for a day, but all time. It is with this feeling I approach the subject, happy to be among the number of those to whom so great and honorable a trust is confided by the people of the United States. This is a meeting of corporators for the time being, intrusted with important duties, so important that on our present action the success of the enterprise may essentially depend. This Pacific Railroad is an absolute, exacting necessity. We have a sister State on the shores of the great ocean, which we early sought to reach, to which the star Empire was leading us, and at which we now have actually arrived, unequalled for its mineral wealth, its admirable climate, and its exhaustless fertility, an empire in itself, an ally, a friend in need, the most civilized and prosperous country on the whole Pacific Ocean, not a colony of tawny natives, mixed up with European masters, held * * * It by force, and robbed by them at pleasure, but a republican State, recognizing the laws of Christianity and civilization, already mature and prosperous. Sprung originally, like another Minerva, from the brain of the American Jove, California could, after a few years, build this road alone. According to the government survey she possesses four hundred thousand square miles of territory, which would give eight States as large as New York, fifty as large as New Jersey, and fifty-seven as large as Massachusetts. With a population equal per square mile to that of New Jersey, California would support eighteen millions of inhabitants; if equal to New York, twenty millions; and if equal to Massachusetts, forty millions. That she will be a staunch supporter of the work is very certain. Her representatives in Congress in fact secured the passage of the act. Her sons are here with us to-day to see if we comprehend the vastness of the enterprise. To leave such an ally and friend to the hazardous connection of long and dangerous voyages, to the border intrusion of two large foreign dependencies, Russian and British America, would be but a poor return for their loyalty to the Union, and a poor exchange for the valuable products she now sends to us through her golden gates, and which enable us to meet the unfriendly drain of the foreign bankers, not only with impunity but indifference. In the spirit of enlightened selfishness, then, if in no other, we must perceive, that the construction of this railroad is an absolute necessity and an unexampled advantage to ourselves. We have not only a large and profitable trade with California, but with countries far beyond, which has been conducted, though spiritedly, perseveringly, and profitably for many years, yet at an unnecessary cost. The road to India, to China, to Japan has been a long and circuitous one; we have had to pay toll to the turnpike keepers, the bankers of Liverpool and London, when we wished to pass to the East for our teas, our silks, or our drugs. Freights, insurances, commissions, and premiums on bills of exchange have piled up their charges upon our imports, on something of the principle of Kepler's famous law, increasing "as the square of the distance." Let us have this road and our invoices will be shorn of most of these itens, so formidable in any European account rendered, as many of us no doubt have happened to know. All we save in these will be a reduction in price to the consumer here at home. The day is near at hand, I trust, that when we drink our cup of tea, we shall do so without having lost a single drop to any inimical banker. The extent and importance of our East India trade have been growing familiar to the American comprehension. But before we examine into this, let us see what we are to gain by it for ourselves. In Congress, and while the Pacific bill was under consideration, Mr. McDou gall, the Senator, and Mr. Phelps, a Member of Congress from California, most ably presented this subject before it, being comprehensive and masterly in their arguments in favor of its passage. Mr. McDougall stated the fact, that the United States Government paid yearly for transportation to California, to be saved by the use of this road, no less a sum annually than $7,357,000. This was no guess work, it was taken from the Report of the Chairman of the House Committee. It is about 100 per cent more than the interest guarantied by the Government on the completion of the road. This difference, with the five per cent reserved to the Government by the bill, will pay the whole principal an interest of the bonds years before they mature.-[See Evening Post, July 6th, on Mr. McDougall's speech.] But let us see for a moment, and realise if possible, the results of Mr. McDougall's calculations, which I learn from him, were the result of months of careful consideration, and which are below rather than above the mark. From his speech in the United States Senate on the bill, we make the following extracts: STARTLING CALCULATIONS AS TO THE PACIFIC RAILROAD. The present cost and loss of the transportation of men and merchandise between Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore on the one side, and San Francisco on the other, from the best compiled statistics, may be stated thus: Passenger transits both ways, including overland transits, 100,000, averaging $150 per capita. ..$15,000,000 Time of passenger transits, average forty days, and counting them as dead labor, while in transit and otherwise, their average labor worth two dollars per diem.. Freights both ways around the Horn, 215,000 tons, at an average of $20 per ton..... Value of freights both ways, other than gold and silver, $110,000,000. On this, by the reason of twice passing through the tropics, there is, from leakage, sweating, and other causes, a loss of not less than seven per cent not covered by insurance,...... Insurance, and gross losses uninsured; that is, where parties are their own insurers, three per cent... Interest on the capital which may be considered dead while 135 days in transitu-say four per cent..... Government transportation, as stated.. Isthmus transportation (excluding passengers and insurance on the same... Freights to Nevada Territory, employing 2,000 8,000,000 4,300,000 7,700,000 3,300,000 4,400,000 7,357,000 3,250,000 teams 200 days each year, at a cost of twentyfive dollars per team.. 10,000,000 Passenger transits to and from Nevada............. 2,500,000 Passengers and freights to and from Denver and Salt Lake, estimated without data at..... 10,000,000 Ten days each passenger in transit, loss $2 per One hundred tons gold and silver, $300 per ton Nevada, Utah and Colorado passengers and as Nor was Mr. Phelps out of the way when he 2,000,000 said this. Its construction is even now 30,000 1,250,000 much dreaded by our foreign enemies, as the restoration of the Union itself. Not long since 2,500,000 I cut from a leading London journal a para1,600,000 graph founded upon this very supposition, 3,773,800 though first suggested by speculations in a $22,970,466 California print. It reads thus, and is so pertinent that I may be excused for asking atten tion in its details: But there is another important view of this subject. Mr. Phelps, the Member of Congress from California, in his speech on the same sub- "The California papers state that an enorject, exhibits a statement eqally astounding as mous sum of money would be saved by Engto the condition of our East India trade, and lish, French, and American merchants in prethe losses it is subjected to on its present basis.miums on gold if a steam communication He remarks: existed between San Francisco and China. * * * * * "Our imports from China in the year 1857 California sends to the eastern States of Ameramounted to $8,356,932, and our domestic ex-ica, England, and France, eight millions sterlports to China, $3,019,000, leaving a balance ing of gold yearly to pay for goods which it against us of $5,337,032. In 1858 our imports wants. San Francisco is twenty-five days were $10,570,536, and our exports $2,467,645, from China, the Eastern States of America are leaving a balance against us of $8,102,891.- seventy days, and England and France are In 1860 our imports from the same source were sixty days from China. A New York house, $13,566,641, and our exports $7,170,784, leav- we will say, imports every year £100,000 worth ing a balance against us of $6,395,802. These of goods from China, and exports goods to the figures exclude the exports of gold and silver. same amount to California. That State pays It will be observed that our trade with this na- three per cent on the £100,000 worth of gold tion is rapidly increasing, our imports having sent to the New York house, and the latter risen from 1857 to 1860 about sixty per cent. pays six per cent to send It to China. Now if steam packet communication existed between San Francisco and China, there would be no necessity to incur the expense of thus sending specie three parts round the globe. California could pay to China the £100,000 owed by the New York house, and thus California, China, and New York would by quits. A telegram from New York to San Francisco could manage the business. In the same manner, California could pay to China what it owes to France and England. In ten days, by means of the Continental American Telegraph, A, in London or Paris, could send to B in San Francisco, to forward to C in Hong Kong, the amount owing from B to A, and which A owes to C. About seven per cent out af nine would thus be saved. Now, seven per cent on £8,000,000 is nearly £600,0000." 000. "It is reasonable to suppose that under any circumstances the balance of the trade will not at any time be less than in 1860; say, $6,400,This amount of indebtedness is mostly paid through English houses, at a cost to us of about twenty per cent. At this rate, continues Mr. Phelps, the cost of remittance is $1,280,000 annually, and becomes a part of the price to the American consumers of tea. "If we can, by the construction of this road, turn this treasure shipment to new channels, and it can be made from San Francisco in twenty-three days, saving from the present specie route at least sixty days in time, reducing the cost of shipment, including exchange, freight, interest, and insurance, to not exceeding four per cent, it would cause a net annual saving to our people of $984,000. To the sum thus saved should be added the cost of the same amount of treasure shipped from San Francisco to New York, which cannot be done at less rates than three and one-half per cent, and would amount to $259,000. "I may very properly add, that the entire balance of trade against us on what is known in mercantile parlance as the East India trade, will not fall short of $18,000,000 per annum. On this sum the saving in exchange would amount to $3,600,000. But these are but a small portion of the benefits this country would derive from the diverting of the specie route of the world into American channels of trade." Fifty millions of treasure which annually find their way to the East by the old commercial routes, would necessarily change their direction and come westward over this road. | is advanced by the Government? In this view of the subject our greatest difficulties absolutely disappear. * * * * * must not think this so formidable an enterprise, nor be alarmed at undertaking it. If we leave posterity a war debt to pay off, we give them the means to do it with. There are no doubt many conservative and over-timid minds that shrink from the very idea. So there were when the great Clinton projected the Erie Canal, and was told that it would never be this, it is now demonstrated that railways may be built at a far less cost than formerly. One hundred and thirty-seven new railways are about to be commenced in the small islands of But to conclude, as we may obtain a better Great Britain, under the inducement that they idea of a great structure by viewing it from a may be built for nearly one-half less than they distance, than by looking up at it from its doorformerly were. Have we laborers in sufficient way, so of this project, we may best comprenumbers to accomplish the work rapidly. This hend its grandeur by a slight change in our problem is solved by the fact, that we shall angle of vision. At the end of the present have at the close of this war nearly a million century it is calculated that the United States of men, who have been inured to fatigue, and will contain a population of one hundred milthe toils of the pick, axe and the spade, who lions of people. What will be then the aggrehave not only shown a love of adventure and gate wealth of the nation no one has computed. action, but the qualities of endurance and res- Whatever it is now, will be then in the ratio of olution. Their employment will be congenial one hundred millions to twenty-seven, and to their newly acquired taste and habits, and equal to all the responsibility which in the ensure liberal and profitable remuneration.-course of events may fall upon it. We shall Emigrants from abroad will flock towards this leave our descendants no petty patrimony of a line of industrial competition, just as when crowded birth-place and room scarce enough our canal system was commenced, or the gold to struggle in, but a eontinent accessible to of California was discovered. As the work every son and daughter of industry, and withwill be continuous for many years, we may ex-out a limit to the energies of posterity. We pect to see colonies settling around the local stations, each station a village or city perhaps, ganglions, knots, and supports to the great nerve which is to thrill with life, to become supports to it as it extends, and braces as it reposes, the great sympathisers with its activity and life. Nor is the work too gigantic in itself. It is said there were giants in other days. I think I can see such now. The Amer-filled except with the tears of a ruined people. ican railway system was a Titantic labor, but So in our own city of New York. The Croton it was completed. In ten years ending in 1860 water system had honest opponents, who preits progress was unexampled. In 1850, the dicted that it could never be carried into effect number of miles of railway in operation was except at the risk of bankruptcy; men of pru8,588 79-100 miles, at a cost of $296,260,128, dence they were, who preferred the safer course about the amount of the whole specie in the of buying water from the tea pump at a penny country. In 1860, the number of miles was a bucket, to the hazardous one of bringing a 30,592 72-100, the cost $1,134,432,909, an in- large country river into town. So of the Cencrease in mileage of 22,000 3-100 miles, and tral Park, a monument of a refined and philoof construction $838,192,781. And four-fifths sophic spirit, so crowded with grateful visitors, of this increase of these lines and this expen-that an admission fee of half a dime each diture were in the loyal States of this Union, would produce a revenue of $200,000 a year. that having been their proportion in pretty The Panama Railway, which is a faint adummuch everything but political power, in what-bration of the Pacific, was a wondrous underever has been accomplished for the prosperity taking. But its capital and cost of about and glory of this Republic. In this honorable career of railway enterprise, the State of Ohio has led the van, having about 3,400 miles of rails laid within her limits. Illinois comes next with 2,854, New York next with 2,600, Pennsylvania with 2,300, Michigan with 1,673, Indiana with 1,284, Wisconsin with 803, Tennessee 837, and Missouri with 657. $7,000,000 are now practically equal to $40,000,000, on which interest is earned regularly and large dividends paid, while a fund is accumulating for future distribution and profit. I do not pretend to foresee what will be the dividend value of the Pacific Railroad to its stockholders. But when even Europe may traffic with Asia more securely, with more rapidity, and with more profit than by any route in the old world by sea or land, and when the distance from London to Canton, as now navigated, is 18,000 miles, and from New York to Canton will be but 11,000, I perceive that New York has advantage over London which must inevitably tell on the future of both cities, and In comparison, then, with the actual amount of money expended on railways during the ten years mentioned, and the increase of mileage 22,000, the work of constructing a railway to the Pacific appears to be but a very simple and easy undertaking. If 22,000 miles of these new railways could be made in so short a time, and $90,000,000 readily found for their eon-end in the supremacy of that mart which comstruction, can we not build one not the tenth part of the distance within ten years, and especially when the greatest part of the money mands the greatest trade. The business of this Pacific road will certainly enrich this country "beyond the dreams of avarice." |