ut of the view
now taken. The difference between the rotative velocity of the earth
in surface-motion at London and at Liverpool is about twenty-eight
miles per hour; and this amount of lateral movement is to be gained or
lost, as respects the locomotion in each journey, according to the
direction we are travelling in from the one place to the other; and in
proportion to the speed will be the pressure against the side of the
rails, which, at a high velocity, will give the engine a tendency to
climb the right-hand rail in each direction. Could the journey be
performed in two hours between London and Liverpool, this lateral
movement, or rotative velocity of the locomotive, would have to be
increased or diminished at the rate of nearly one-quarter of a mile
per minute, and that entirely by side-pressure on the rail, which, if
not sufficient to cause the engine to leave the line, would be quite
sufficient to produce violent and dangerous oscillation. It may be
observed, in conclusion, that as the cause above alluded to will be
inoperative while we travel along the parallels of latitude, it
clearly follows, that a higher degree of speed may be attained with
safety on a railway running east and west than on one which runs north
and south." There is no doubt of the tendency Mr Clarke speaks of on
the right-hand rail, but we do not think it will be found to be so
dangerous as he says. It will be greatest on the Great Northern and
Berwick lines, and least on the Great Western.'

FOREST SCENERY OF AMERICA.

The forests between Lake Superior and the Mississippi, where the
country is very flat and wet, are composed almost entirely of black
cypress; they grow so thick that the tops get intermixed and
interlaced, and form almost a matting overhead, through which
the sun scarcely ever penetrates. The trees are covered with
unwholesome-looking mosses, which exhale a damp earthy smell, like a
cellar. The ground is so covered with a rank growth of elder and other
shrubs, many of them with thorns an inch long, and with fallen and
decayed trunks of trees, that it is impossible to take a step without
breaking one's shins. Not a bird or animal of any kind is to be seen,
and a deathlike silence reigns through the forest, which is only now
and then interrupted by the rattle of the rattlesnake (like a clock
going down), and the chirrup of the chitnunck, or squirrel. The sombre
colour of the foliage, the absence of all sun even at mid-