Atlantic Monthly | Page 2

road from which produce may be brought is much greater with
the former than with the latter. The actual determination of the width of
the band is a simple problem, when the commercial nature of the
country is known.

The people of the great valley have not been slow, where Nature has
denied them the natural, to make for themselves artificial rivers of iron.
These railroads are more completely adapted to the physical character
of the Western States than would be any other mode of communication.
The work of construction is oftentimes very light, little more being
necessary for a railway across the prairies of the West (generally) than
a couple of ditches twenty or thirty feet apart, the material taken
therefrom being thrown into the intermediate space, thus forming the
surface which supports the crossties, the sills or sleepers, and the rails.
Indeed, the double operation of ditching and embanking is in some
cases performed by a single machine, (a nondescript affair, in
appearance half-way between a threshing-machine and a
hundred-and-twenty-pound field-piece,) drawn by six, eight, or ten
pairs of oxen.
It is even probable that in a great many cases the common road would
cost more than the railway in the great central basin of America; as the
rich alluvial soil, when wet in spring or fall, is almost impassable, and
lack of stone and timber prevents the construction of artificial roads.
The influence of the railroad upon the Western farm-lands is quickly
seen by the following figures, extracted from a lately published work
on railroad construction.
_Table showing the Effect of Railroad Transport upon the Value of
Grain in the Market of Chicago, Illinois_.
WHEAT CORN Carried by Carried by Carried by Carried by railroad
wagon railroad wagon
At market $49.50 49.50 25.60 25.60 Carried 10 m. 49.25 48.00 24.25
23.26 do. 50 m. 48.75 42.00 24.00 17.25 do. 100 m. 48.00 34.50 23.25
9.75 do. 150 m. 47.25 27.00 22.50 2.25 do. 200 m. 46.50 19.50 21.75
0.00 do. 300 m. 45.00 4.50 20.25 0.00 do. 330 m. 44.55 0.00 19.80
0.00
Thus a ton of corn carried two hundred miles costs by wagon transport
more than it brings at market,--while, moved by railroad, it is worth

$21.75. Also wheat will not bear wagon transport of 330 miles,--while,
moved that distance by railroad it is worth $44.55 per ton.
The social effect of railroads is seen and felt by those who live in the
neighborhood of large cities. The unhealthy density of population is
prevented, by enabling men to live five, ten, or fifteen miles away from
the city and yet do business therein. The extent of this diffusion is as
the square of the speed of transport. To illustrate. If a person walks four
miles an hour, and is allowed one hour for passing from his home to his
place of business, he can live four miles from his work; the area,
therefore, which may be lived in is the circle of which the radius is four
miles, the diameter eight miles, and the area 501/4 square miles. If by
horse he can go eight miles an hour, the diameter of the circle becomes
sixteen miles, and the area 201 square miles. Finally, if by railroad he
goes thirty miles an hour, the diameter becomes sixty miles, and the
area 2,827 square miles.
In the case of railroads, as of other labor-saving (and labor-producing)
contrivances, the innovation has been loudly decried; but though it does
render some classes of labor useless, and throw out of employment
some persons, it creates new labor for more than the old, and gives
much more than it takes away.
Twenty years of experience show that the diminished cost of transport
by railroad invariably augments the amount of commerce transacted,
and in a much larger ratio than the reduction of cost. It is estimated by
Dr. Lardner that three hundred thousand horses, working daily in stages,
would be required to perform the passenger-traffic alone which took
place in England during the year 1848.
Regarding the safety of railroad-travelling, though the papers teem with
awful calamities from collisions and other causes, yet so great is the
number of persons who use the new mode of transport, that travelling
by railroad is really about one hundred times safer than by stage. The
mortality upon English roads was for one year observed: --one person
killed for each sixty-five million transported; in America, for the same
time, one in forty-one million.

If we should try to reason from the rate of past railway-growth as to
what the future is to be, we should soon be lost in figures. Thus, in the
United States,--
In 1829 there were 3 miles. In 1830 41 miles. In 1840 2167 miles. In
1850 7355 miles. In 1856 23,242 miles.
Thus from