istricts. Mr. Beaumont, of
Newcastle, is said to have been the first to lay down wooden rails as
long ago as 1630. More than one hundred and forty years elapsed before
the invention was greatly improved. Mr. John Carr, in 1776 (although not
the first to use iron rails), was the first to lay down a cast-iron
railway, nailed to wooden sleepers, for the Duke of Newcastle's colliery
near Sheffield. This innovation was regarded with great disfavour by the
workpeople as an interference with the vested rights of labour. Mr.
Carr's life, as a consequence, was in much jeopardy and for four days he
had to conceal himself in a wood to avoid the violence of an indignant
and vindictive populace.

WAY-LEAVES.

Roger North, referring to a visit paid to Newcastle by his brother, the
Lord Keeper Guildford, in 1676, writes:--"Another remarkable thing is
their _way-leaves_; for when men have pieces of ground between the
colliery and the river, they sell the leave to lead coal over the ground,
and so dear that the owner of a rood of ground will expect 20 pounds per
annum for this leave. The manner of the carriage is by laying rails of
timber from the colliery down to the river exactly straight and parallel,
and bulky carts are made with four rowlets fitting these rails, whereby
the carriage is so easy that one horse will draw four or five chaldron of
coals, and is an immense benefit to the coal merchants."

SIR ISAAC NEWTON'S PREDICTION OF RAILWAY SPEED.

In a tract by the Rev. Mr. Craig, Vicar of Leamington, entitled "Astral
Wonders," is to be found the following remarkable passage:--"Let me
narrate to you an anecdote concerning Sir Isaac Newton and Voltaire. Sir
Isaac wrote a book on the Prophet Daniel, and another on the Revelations;
and he said, in order to fulfil certain prophecies before a certain date
terminated, namely 1260 years, there would be a certain mode of
travelling of which the men in his time had no conception; nay, that the
knowledge of mankind would be so increased that they would be able to
travel at the rate of fifty miles an hour. Voltaire, who did not believe
in the Holy Scriptures, got hold of this, and said, 'Now look at that
mighty mind of Newton, who discovered gravity, and told us such marvels
for us all to admire, when he became an old man and got into his dotage,
he began to study that book called the Bible; and it appears that in
order to credit its fabulous nonsense, we must belie