t achieve.
But the great miracle of the nineteenth century--the building of a new
nation, reaching more than three thousand miles from sea to sea, giving
sustenance to more than one hundred million free people, and diffusing
among them the necessities and comforts of civilization to a greater
extent than the world had ever known before is explained by the
development of harvesting machinery and of the railroad.

The railroad is sprung from the application of two fundamental
ideas--one the use of a mechanical means of developing speed, the other
the use of a smooth running surface to diminish friction. Though these
two principles are today combined, they were originally absolutely
distinct. In fact there were railroads long before there were steam
engines or locomotives. If we seek the real predecessor of the modern
railroad track, we must go back three hundred years to the wooden rails
on which were drawn the little cars used in English collieries to
carry the coal from the mines to tidewater. The natural history of this
invention is clear enough. The driving of large coal wagons along the
public highway made deep ruts in the road, and some ingenious person
began repairing the damage by laying wooden planks in the furrows. The
coal wagons drove over this crude roadbed so successfully that certain
proprietors started constructing special planked roadways from the mines
to the river mouth. Logs, forming what we now call "ties," were placed
crosswise at intervals of three or four feet, and upon these supports
thin "rails," likewise of wood, were laid lengthwise. So effectually did
this arrangement reduce friction that a single horse could now draw a
great wagon filled with coal--an operation which two or three teams,
lunging over muddy roads, formerly had great difficulty in performing.
In order to lengthen the life of the road, a thin sheeting of iron was
presently laid upon the wooden rail. The next improvement was an attempt
to increase the durability of the wagons by making the wheels of iron.
It was not, however, until 1767, when the first rails were cast entirely
of iron with a flange at one side to keep the wheel steadily in place,
that the modern roadbed in all its fundamental principles made its
appearance. This, be it observed, was only two years after Watt had
patented his first steam engine, and it was nearly fifty years before
Stephenson built his first locomotive. The railroad originally was as
completely dis