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FROM fHE JOURNAL OF TUfc FRANKLIN INSTITUTE.
COST OF TRANSPORTATION ON RAILROADS.
The importance of ascertaining the expense of transportation onrailroads, to a large portion of the population of this country, lias ledto many discussions, and many inquiries, with a view to its determi-nation. No general method has, however, yet been produced, bywhich it can be ascertained with any tolerable degree of accuracy.The difficulty appears to have arisen, in a great measure, from thefact, that these expenses consist in a variety of elements, whichincrease and diminish in value by different laws, and at rates whichdepend on the combinations of these elements in each particular case.It has, also, to some extent, grown out of the fact, that during theprogress of this system, every year has produced some new work ofimprovement, which has supplied new data to calculators—and, un-fortunately, data which have preceded the effect of the two greatestcauses of expenditure—tlie destruction consequent on use, and naturaldecay. Without referring to another difficulty—the extravagant esti-mates of the friends of particular projects, and,sometimes, the grossmisrepresentations of the enemies of others—we see that the subjectis much too complicated to be unraveled without close study, andmature reflection. To make a general solution, we have, obviously,to allow for differences of grade, differences of tonnage, differencesbetween the amounts of travel, and have due regard to the length,and even the age of the improvement.
Now, to attempt to go through this whole subject, and produce andanalyze the data on which are founded all my conclusions, wouldrequire much more labor, than 1 have a disposition, at this time, to ap-propriate to the question. What I now propose to do, is again to pointout the law which governs railroad expenditures, and to fix, withgreater accuracy, the values of the constant coefficients than waspracticable when I first offered the formula which are here repeated.
It is my intention to submit, in the first place, the law which gov-erns the expenditures on a new road, and attempt to offer a reasonableexplanation,and a just estimate, of the difference between the expensesincident to a new road, and an old one. If my method be true, thereasons, and the values which I assign for this difference, must be ob-viously just. The general law must first satisfy the mind, and the rateof increase, in passing from a new to an old road, must likewise berational and convincing. If, after this preparatory evidence, I bringforward a certain new road of great length, and show that the calcu-lated cost corresponds well with the actual result, it will certainly bea strong confirmation of the general correctness of the method. Butstill, for a prudent man proposing to risk his fortune, this alone oughtnot to be sufficient. This particular example might be. selected be-
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