"No pent-up Utica contracts your powers, But the whole boundless continent is yours." SEWALL. 66 Facility of communication in social, commercial, and political intercourse is a distinguishing index of civilization." "Let observation, with extensive view, SAMUEL JOHNSON. XXII. THE EVOLUTION OF THE RAILROAD. PROGRESS toward higher civilization and social development is hastened by the growing perfection of the means of communication and transportation. The body politic, like the human organism, must have its vital currents; and their circulatory processes are carried forward by means of arteries and veins. The roads of a country provide for its pulsations of living activity, and their superiority is an index of its progress, not only in commerce, but in art, science, and literature. Barbarism is universally characterized by the lack of any adequate facilities for travel and commercial intercourse. It is therefore in accord with Natural Law that the presence or absence of adequate roads indicates a dividing line between two diverse conditions of society. When the Roman Empire was at the height of its power and grandeur, it was distinguished for its roads, and all led to Rome. Portions of the famous Appian Way, built three hundred years before the Christian era, still remain. It was over three hundred miles in length, spacious, and smoothly paved with hewn stone blocks, laid in cement. Numerous other roads, equal in character to our best city streets, diverged from Rome for thousands of miles, to the most distant parts of the empire. Mountains of rock were tunnelled, and rivers and ravines were spanned by massive stone bridges, over which her invincible legions could march without interruption, while she was mistress of the world. These great works were so substantial that fragments of them still remain, notwithstanding the disintegrating influences of the frosts and floods of twenty centuries. In contrast, the feudal age of comparative barbarism was destitute of highways, and had no facilities for communication. The baron of old England, or on the Rhine, who ruled the adjacent region, perched his castle on inaccessible heights. He built no roads or bridges, for communication was not desired. Wheeled vehicles, except a few of the rudest sort, were unknown, and all travelling was done on foot or on horseback, through fields, forests, and streams. Then there could be no social or mental progress, no commerce, and no reciprocal activity. Industrial development was impossible for lack of channels. By Natural Law, friction produces heat; so inter-communication excites mental activity, and stimulates art, science, and invention. Nothing has so contributed to dispel the lethargy of ages, and to quicken the current of investigation, as the utilization of steam and electricity. Even turnpikes were not constructed in England until the early part of the last century, and the first English canal was dug as late as 1760. The yearly movement of merchandise on all the through land routes of the world a century ago, would not equal that of one of our great trunk lines of the present time. Long-distance transportation by land, except for the most concentrated and valuable products, is entirely a thing of the present. We are more inclined to look at the present and the future, but a brief retrospect is often instructive. Not till 1833 was there a daily mail between London and Paris. The English postage on foreign letters was from twenty-eight to eighty-four cents, besides the foreign rates and ship charges to be paid by the receiver. On inland letters, at the same time, the postage was twenty cents per sheet. In our own country, up to 1845, inland rates were from six to twenty-five cents, according to distance. In 1851, a reduction was made to |