INTERNAL COMMUNICATION, 31

though the time might have been prolongedwhen Rail-ways were brought into active com-petition with canals, yet its arrival would notbe the less certain.

One might be led to suppose, that the ques-tion could readily be solved by an appeal tofacts, or by the comparison of particular Canalswith similar Rail-ways; but it is here I presumewhere the difficulty lies,—we cannot perhapsfind Canals and Rail-ways whose external fea-tures are precisely the same ; we are obliged,therefore, to have recourse to a comparison ofgeneral facts or principles peculiar to eachinode, which again cannot be accomplished,unless we are fully and intimately acquaintedwith all the various properties and characte-ristics of each mode. The want of properdata was felt, and it is with a view of furnish-ing these, that the present work was under-taken ; which, by a concise and at the sametime comprehensive description of the con-struction, uses, and advantages of Rail-roads,together with an elucidation of the variousprinciples of their action, the reader might beenabled to make a comparison with othermodes of internal communication, and thusform a judgment of their relative value.

It is much to be regretted that a similarenquiry has not been made with respect to