attentive observer, how eminently Charleston is, by nature, calculated for an important commercial emporium. At the junction of two rivers, the Ashley and Cooper, and just below the union of the Wando river with the Cooper, the harbour spreads out into a beautiful basin, covering a space between three and four miles square, protected from the sea in all directions, except the South-east, where it admits an easy entrance, at the distance of eight or ten miles from the city, for vessels drawing seventeen feet water. The coast is a gradually shelving, sandy-bottom, so well known to navigators, and so little dangerous, that vessels are rarely stranded. The anchorage in the harbor is safe, and the largest ships are kept afloat in the stream at the lowest tide. At the wharves, where they receive and discharge their loads, they are either always afloat, or grounded on a soft, muddy bottom. The Cooper, the Ashley, and the Wando rivers, fertilize in their course a large body of cultivated and valuable lands, and afford an easy and safe transportation to their sources for vessels of from fifty to eighty tons.

By inland navigation, between the islands parallel with the coast, a safe communication is effected with the Santee river on the North-east, which, with its tributaries, flows through the whole length of the State; and with the Savannah river on the South-west, which forms the entire boundary of South Carolina in that direction, dividing it from Georgia. Except NewYork, there is no port in the United States, all things considered, more advantageously located for commerce. But where nature has done much, art has, as yet, effected little. The only artificial communication of importance, is the Santee canal, which is twenty-one miles long, connecting the Santee and the Cooper rivers. But this canal, though remarkably well executed, has been unfortunately located, and has failed of profit to the original stockholders.

The rich inhabitants of the back-country of South-Carolina, and of those parts of North-Carolina and Georgia which trade with Charleston, are obliged, at great expense, to transport their produce and receive, in return, their supplies; weeks, and not unfrequently, months, have elapsed before places not more distant, in a direct line, than one hundred and twenty miles, could effect these communications, and then, and at all times with great expense; and at no time without great risk of loss, and great delay. The profits of the planter, or what ought to be his profits, are but too often consumed in the expense of transportation, and the merchant finds it impossible to calculate with that certainty, which his operations require, the time he may expect arrivals or hear of his shipments having reached their points of destina

tion. Capital, which would otherwise be active, is thus dormant a large portion of time, and, consequently, more of it is required than would suffice, with more certain, rapid and safe communications, for the same amount of business. Travellers-and people must travel, if not for pleasure or for health, at least for business-fare as badly as goods; for if they move at all faster, it is still with a slow, tiresome pace, consuming time that might be profitably employed, and expending sums that prudent economy would readily make profitable. We will neither attempt to enumerate all the disadvantages of the present communications between Charleston and the surrounding and interior country, nor all the advantages that would result from improved communications.

Our climate presents an obstacle of no small magnitude to transportation either for goods or for persons, during, at least, three months in the year. The rivers are unhealthy, and often too low. The roads are sandy, heavy and hot; the labourers and the animals engaged in transportation are with difficulty brought to perform their task, and but too often sink beneath it. The traveller meets with all these difficulties and is made uncomfortable, and not unfrequently sick even unto death, as he heavily and slowly moves through the almost Pontine marshes of the alluvial country near the sea-board. What may we not promise ourselves, if we can, for all these impediments to our prosperity and comfort, substitute a communication which, like the rail-roads we have noticed, will at once diminish space as far as it opposes locomotion, by increasing velocity, certainty, safety, cheapness and pleasure. The Charleston and Hamburg rail-road will certainly effect these objects through its whole extent, and in every direction to which its branches may be extended; where weeks are now occupied, days will suffice, and for days, we may almost take hours; dimes will effect then what now requires dollars.

The exports of Charleston amount to ten millions of dollars per annum, whilst the direct foreign imports are scarcely more than a tenth of that amount. The merchants in the interior cannot postpone until the fall, their supplies for the season, and, as they cannot risk the approach to the city, as early as is required in the summer, to purchase them and have them transported to their respective homes by the present tedious and expensive modes, they prefer sailing to New-York, and laying them in at that place.

If we examine the large amount of produce received from the interior, and the yet larger that may be expected by an easy communication; if we advert to the fact that when the pros

perity of places so connected is increased that each increases the other, that commerce springs up, additional soils are cultivated, riches are accumulated, population is increased, travelling becomes common; if we collect these and other important observations from the history of places that are most prosperous and if we reflect that the majority of mankind can only afford luxuries and pleasures that are within a very moderate expense, we shall be at no loss to trace these effects to rational causes, and apply them to our own situation; nor will we deem those too sanguine who anticipate much from that enterprise which has set on foot the great work we are considering. Those who wish to see on what the calculations of the produce and goods to be transported are founded, may find them in the Reports of the South-Carolina Canal and Rail Road Company on that subject, and we are confident that looking forward a few years, those calculations are far short of the truth.

Let us now examine the proposed route of the rail-road, and the mode of construction adopted. It is an established principle of these roads, that where the transportation on them is equal both ways, they should be level. That where it exceeds in one direction, that in the opposite by five times, it should descend from a level in the direction of the greatest amount of transportation, at the rate of fifteen feet to the mile, and in certain other proportions according to the difference of transportation in the opposite direction. The data for these calculations are the known laws of gravitation, and the ascertained resistance of the wheels of a car on their axle and on the rail. The gravity, acts against the ascending, in favour of the descending line, in the proportions of the length of the road to its perpendicular height from a level, so that if the resistance to be overcome on the level be ascertained, as it is on a well-constructed rail-way, to be one in every two hundred; or that a force of one pound over a pulley, or a power equal to that, will draw two hundred pounds, then whenever the inclination of the road is such, that the load would have a tendency to run down of one pound, the gravity and friction would be equal, and the power to force it up would be doubled, which in this case, would be an ascent of thirty-two feet per mile. Thus a horse can draw ten tons on a level rail-road, and only five tons against an ascent of thirty-two feet per mile; supposing him in both cases to exert the same force; it cost as much labour, therefore, on such a road to go up one mile ascending thirty-two feet as to go two miles on a level. The surveys and examinations of our rail-road shows that the country is most favourable for the trade in the direction we desire it, and that, with a very

moderate cutting and embankment, the general rise to the summit level need not exceed, in one direction, ten feet in the mile, and in the other eighteen feet. The route passes through a remarkably well-timbered country, which will not only afford abundant material at little expense for the construction and repair of the wood-work of the road, but will furnish the very best fuel for the engines. The timber and the wood for fuel on this road, together with the produce of plantations and the return trade, may be not unreasonably expected in the first sixty miles, to pay a sufficient profit on that part of the work, and when the whole line to Hamburgh is open, we shall realize all the advantages anticipated from the road to that point. Branches must be made to Columbia and to Camden; these towns, and those who are in their vicinity, cannot suffer their trade to be turned into other channels by the want of a little enterprise. But if we anticipate much from these sources, we may, in the language of Sir J. Mackintosh, when speaking of the steam-engine, ask-" what may not a sanguine hope whis'per to itself as to the future. For ourselves, we confess that in 'contemplating what has been done, we entertain trembling 'hopes, that we should not choose to expose to the eye of the scorner"-when we extend our view to embrace the Western States by extending the rail-road to the Tennessee river. In descending the Ohio river, and ascending the Tennessee to the Muscle Shoals, and thence to Charleston by the extended line of rail-road, the trip may be performed in ten days from the junction of those rivers in this direction, and in about seven days in returning. Linked by such a tie we may yet see Charleston what she ought to be, second in the United States only to New-York.

The mode of construction adopted for the rail-road, is to drive wooden piles every six feet apart in parallel lines; the heads of these piles are bound together by transverse sleepers, these are surmounted by the longitudinal wooden-rail about nine inches square, in various lengths from fifteen to thirty-feet, on the top of which, on the inner side, the flat bar iron is nailed. The tracks are about five feet apart, and as locomotive engines are to be used, there is no road formation, and it is only where the level cannot be otherwise formed that the spade is used, and then merely to make the cutting through which the rail is to be continued. This method is not only economical, but if the piles are properly driven and the superstructure well executed, will more certainly secure the rail from sinking than the usual method of supporting it on blocks of wood or stone imbedded into the road. Another advantage is, that in passing

through cultivated fields much fencing may be saved by digging a wide, deep ditch under the rails, where they enter and pass out of the field in a transverse direction and running the common field fence through it, thus continuing the former line of the fence, only running it under the rails. The greatest objections to the whole plan of construction, are the exposure of the wood work to rapid decay, which cannot be avoided, though it may be lessened, and the rails being liable to cant in a lateral direction, which may be avoided by placing the feet of the piles further apart in the transverse direction of their heads.

When the road has once been completed it will afford such facilities, that wood, or stone for repairs, may readily be obtained and transported along the line at little expense.

Six miles of this road are complete and two steam-carriages are now in operation on it, conveying materials for the continuation of the road, and passengers for amusement. They are found to answer expectations, though they, no doubt, admit of improvements, particularly in their fire-places and boilers, as the fuel used is wood in place of coal.

Most of the road is now located over ground more favourable than that over which the experimental survey was made. The saving between the actual cost of iron for the rails and fastenings, and the estimated cost is now ascertained to be very considerable, amounting to upwards of seventy-five thousand dollars. The road has been located for upwards of sixty miles, and crosses the Edisto, the only river in the whole line to Hamburgh, at a point very favorable, and where it may be effected at less expense than at the direction first contemplated. This line has this further advantage, that the branches to Columbia and Camden, from the main line of the road, may be effected in much less distance than by that first designed. Contracts are already made at reasonable prices, for the work on most of the line that is located-and offers for further contracts are daily made. We may confidently calculate upon a speedy completion of this great work, and upon its operation producing most important and beneficial results, such as will convince even the most opposed, and gratify the most sanguine and zealous.