Chamberss Edinburgh Journal, No. 455 | Page 2

great mineral wealth has been locked up, and next thing to useless. What an outlet will the Strasbourg and Manheim Railway furnish! Paris may be as well and as cheaply supplied with coal as London.
Belgium--a kind of little England--has for a number of years been well provided with railways; and you may go by locomotion towards its frontiers in all directions, except one--namely, that of Holland. This odd exception, of course, arose from the ill-will that has subsisted for a number of years between the Belgians and Dutch; the latter being not at all pleased with the violent disjunction of the Netherlands. However, that coolness is now passing off. The two neighbours begin to find that ill-nature does not pay, and, like sensible people, are negotiating for a physical union by rail, seeing that a political one is out of the question. In short, a railway is proposed to be laid down in an easterly direction from the Antwerp branch, towards the border of Holland; and by means of steam-boat ferries across the Maas and other mouths of the Rhine, the junction will be effected with the Rotterdam and Amsterdam series of railways. The north of Holland is yet a stranger to railways, nor are the towns of such importance as to lead us to expect any great doings there. But the north German region--from the frontiers of Holland to those of Russia and Poland, a distance of something like 1000 miles--is rapidly filling up the chasms in its railway net-work. Emden and Osnaburg and Gottingen in the west, Danzig and K?nigsberg and Memel in the east, are yet unprovided; but almost all the other towns of any note in Prussia and North Germany are now linked together, and most or all of the above six will be so in a few years.
The Scandinavian countries are more interesting in respect to our present subject, on account of their railway enterprises being wholly written in the future tense. Denmark has so little continuous land, Sweden has so many lakes, and Norway so many mountains, that, irrespective of other circumstances, railways have not yet reached those countries. They are about to do so, however. Hitherto, Denmark has received almost the whole of its foreign commodities via the two Hanse towns--Hamburg and Bremen; and has exported its cattle and transmitted its mails by the same routes. The Schleswig-Holstein war has strengthened a wish long felt in Denmark to shake off this dependence; but good railways and good steam-ship ports will be necessary for this purpose. When, in April 1851, a steamer crossed rapidly from Lowestoft to Hjerting, and brought back a cargo of cattle, the Danes felt suddenly independent of the Hamburghers; but the route from Hjerting to Copenhagen is so bad and tiresome, that much must yet be done before a commercial transit can really be established. There was at that time only an open basket-wagon on the route; there has since been established a diligence; but a railway will be the only effective means of transit. Here we must correct a mistake in the last paper: Denmark is not quite without railway accommodation; there is about 15 miles of railway from Copenhagen to Roeskilde, and this is to be continued across the island of Zealand to Kors?r. The Lowestoft project has led to important plans; for a railway has been marked out from Hamburg, through the entire length of Holstein and Schleswig to the north of J��tland, where five hours' steaming will give access to the Swedish coast; while an east and west line from Hjerting to Copenhagen, with two breaks at the Little Belt and the Great Belt, are also planned. If Denmark can by degrees raise the requisite capital, both of these trunk-lines will probably be constructed.
Norway has just commenced its railway enterprises. It seems strange to find the familiar names of Stephenson and Bidder, Peto and Brassey, connected with first-stone layings, and health-drinkings, &c., in remote Norway; but this is one among many proofs of the ubiquity of English capital and enterprise. The government of Norway has conceded the line to an English company, by whom it will be finished in 1854. The railway will be 50 miles in length; it will extend from Christiania to Lake Mi?sen, and will connect the capital with an extensive chain of internal navigation. The whole risk seems to have been undertaken by the English company; but the benefits will be mutual for both companies--direct steam-communication from Christiania to some English port being one feature in the comprehensive scheme.
In Russia, the enterprises are so autocratic, and ordinary joint-stock operations are so rare, that our Stock Exchange people know very little about them. The great lines of railway in Russia, either being constructed or definitely planned, are from Warsaw to Cracow (about 170