meridian of longitude
to the Atlantic Ocean.[BC]

Although the Erie is perhaps the canal which bears the most valuable
freight, it is by no means the greatest undertaking of the kind in the
Union. The Chesapeake and Ohio canal, uniting Washington and Pittsburg,
has nearly 400 locks, and is tunnelled four miles through the
Alleghanies; and the Pennsylvania canal, as we have already seen in a
former chapter, runs to the foot of the same ridge, and being unable to
tunnel, uses boats in compartments, and drags them by stationary engines
across the mountains. Nothing daunts American energy. If the people are
once set upon having a canal, go ahead it must; "can't" is an unknown
expression.[BD]

However important the works we have been considering may be to the
United States, there can be no doubt that railways are infinitely more
so; I therefore trust the following remarks upon them may have some
interest.

By the statement of the last Census, it appears that there are no less
than 13,266 miles of railroad in operation, and 12,681 in progress,
giving a total of nearly 26,000 miles; the cost of those which are
completed amounts to a little less than 75,000,000l., and the estimate
for those in progress is a little above 44,000,000l. We thus see that
the United States will possess 26,000 miles of railroad, at the cost of
about 120,000,000l. In England we have 8068 miles of railway, and the
cost of these amounts to 273,860,000l., or at the rate of 34,020l.
per mile. This extraordinary difference between the results produced and
the expenses incurred requires some little explanation. By the Census
report, I learn that the average expense of the railways varies in
different parts of the Union; those in the northern, or New England
States, costing 9250l. per mile; those in the middle States, 8000l.;
and those in the southern and western States, 4000l. per mile. The
railway from Charleston to Augusta, on the Savannah River, only cost
1350l. per mile. From the above we see clearly that the expenses of
their railways are materially affected by density of population and the
consequent value of land, by the comparative absence of forest to supply
material, and by the value of labour. If these three causes produce such
material differences in a country comparatively unoccupied like the
United States, it is but natural to expect that they should be felt with
infinitely more force in England. Moreover, as it has been well observed
by Ca