he greatest of all railway
structures--was not half erected. The Colony of Canada has now more than
3000 miles in active operation along the great valley of the St.
Lawrence, connecting Riviere du Loup at the mouth of that river, and the
harbour of Portland in the State of Maine, _via_ Montreal and Toronto,
with Sarnia on Lake Huron, and with Windsor, opposite Detroit in the
State of Michigan. During the same time the Australian Colonies have
been actively engaged in providing themselves with railways, many of
which are at work, and others are in course of formation. The Cape of
Good Hope has several lines open, and others making. France has
constructed about 400 miles in Algeria; while the Pasha of Egypt is the
proprietor of 360 miles in operation across the Egyptian desert. The
Japanese are also making railroads.

But in no country has railway construction been prosecuted with greater
vigour than in the United States. There the railway furnishes not only
the means of intercommunication between already established settlements,
as in the Old World; but it is regarded as the pioneer of colonization,
and as instrumental in opening up new and fertile territories of vast
extent in the west,--the food-grounds of future nations. Hence railway
construction in that country was scarcely interrupted even by the great
Civil War,--at the commencement of which Mr. Seward publicly expressed
the opinion that "physical bonds--such as highways, railroads, rivers,
and canals--are vastly more powerful for holding civil communities
together than any mere covenants, though written on parchment or engraved
on iron."

The people of the United States were the first to follow the example of
England, after the practicability of steam locomotion had been proved on
the Stockton and Darlington, and Liverpool and Manchester Railways. The
first sod of the Baltimore and Ohio Railway was cut on the 4th of July,
1828, and the line was completed and opened for traffic in the following
year, when it was worked partly by horse-power, and partly by a
locomotive built at Baltimore, which is still preserved in the Company's
workshops. In 1830, the Hudson and Mohawk Railway was begun, while other
lines were under construction in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and New
Jersey; and in the course of ten years, 1843 miles were finished and in
operation. In ten more years, 8827 miles were at work; at the end of
1864, 35,000 miles; and at the 31st of Decembe