wagon
transport of 330 miles,--while, moved that distance by railroad
it is worth $44.55 per ton.

The social effect of railroads is seen and felt by those who live in
the neighborhood of large cities. The unhealthy density of
population is prevented, by enabling men to live five, ten, or
fifteen miles away from the city and yet do business therein. The
extent of this diffusion is as the square of the speed of transport.
To illustrate. If a person walks four miles an hour, and is allowed
one hour for passing from his home to his place of business, he can
live four miles from his work; the area, therefore, which may be
lived in is the circle of which the radius is four miles, the
diameter eight miles, and the area 501/4 square miles. If by horse he
can go eight miles an hour, the diameter of the circle becomes
sixteen miles, and the area 201 square miles. Finally, if by
railroad he goes thirty miles an hour, the diameter becomes sixty
miles, and the area 2,827 square miles.

In the case of railroads, as of other labor-saving (and
labor-producing) contrivances, the innovation has been loudly decried;
but though it does render some classes of labor useless, and throw
out of employment some persons, it creates new labor for more than
the old, and gives much more than it takes away.

Twenty years of experience show that the diminished cost of
transport by railroad invariably augments the amount of commerce
transacted, and in a much larger ratio than the reduction of cost. It
is estimated by Dr. Lardner that three hundred thousand horses,
working daily in stages, would be required to perform the
passenger-traffic alone which took place in England during the year
1848.

Regarding the safety of railroad-travelling, though the papers teem
with awful calamities from collisions and other causes, yet so great
is the number of persons who use the new mode of transport, that
travelling by railroad is really about one hundred times safer than
by stage. The mortality upon English roads was for one year observed:
--one person killed for each sixty-five million transported; in
America, for the same time, one in forty-one million.

If we should try to reason from the rate of past railway-growth as
to what the future is to be, we should soon be lost in figures. Thus,
in the United States,--

In 1829 there were 3 miles.
In 1830 41 miles.
In 1840 2167 miles.
In 1850