of the rails so that the engine wheels could run upon the rims. Then,
the locomotive being fixed to prevent it from moving off the pair of
wheels thus endways, it was put into revolution, its driving wheels
bearing, as already stated, upon the rims of the pair of wheels in the
rails, and thus the engine worked its feed-pumps without interfering
(by its needless running up and down the line) with the traffic. It
should have been stated, that at this time there was no link motion,
no practical expansion of the steam, and that even the reversal of the
engine had to be effected by working the sides by hand gear, in the
manner in use in marine engines. When the British Association
originated, although the Manchester and Liverpool Railway had been
opened for a year, there is no doubt that the 300 members who then
came to this city found their way here by the slow process of the
stage-coach, the loss of which we so much deplore in the summer and in
fine weather, but the obligatory use of which we should so much regret
in the miserable weather now prevailing in these islands.

In 1881, we know that railways are everywhere inserted. Steel rails,
double the weight of the original iron ones, are used. Wooden sleepers
have replaced the stone blocks, and they, in their turn, will probably
give way to sleepers of steel. The joints are now made by means of
fish-plates, and the most vulnerable part of the rail, the end, is no
longer laid on an anvil for a purpose of being smashed to pieces, but
the ends of the rails are now almost always over a void, and thereby
are not more affected by wear than is any other part of the rail. The
speed is now from 50 to 60 miles an hour for passenger trains, while
slow speed goods engines, weighing 45 tons, draw behind them coal
trains of 800 tons. The injector is now commonly employed, and, by its
aid, a careful driver of the engine of a stopping train can fill up
his boiler while at rest at the stations. The link motion is in common