whether the directors, being themselves carriers, should not exercise those functions with great caution and prudence, in which their peculiar situation renders it necessary that they should act as judges over other carriers competing with them. The conduct of the directors may have been unimpeachable;—the conduct of the engineer may have been free from blame. I make no charge against either; but the public generally will never believe in the purity of the one, or the blamelessness of the other, until the strong appearances which circumstances of their own creating have raised against them be removed. The next step in the progressive improvement of the art of inland transit, is the adaptation of the steam-engine to propel carriages on common roads. The practicability and advantage of the same power on railroads leads necessarily to enquire, whether there is any and what difference in the quality of railroads and turnpike roads, which would render a power of traction so profitable on the one impracticable on the other. I have seen that the resistance to the rolling motion of a carriage on a well-constructed turnpike road may be fairly estimated, cæteris paribus, at about twelve times the resistance on a railroad. It follows, therefore, that whatever be the power of traction used, it will be capable of drawing a load of proportionally less amount on the turnpike road. The surface of a turnpike road is necessarily more uneven than that of a railroad; and, therefore, subject to greater variation in the resistance which it offers to the power of traction. A level railroad may be considered as presenting a nearly uniform resistance; and whatever impelling power is used upon it, it need be susceptible of no change in its intensity. The want of the same evenness on the
