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Atlantic Monthly, Volume 02, No. 13, November, 1858, The
The Project Gutenberg EBook of Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November,
1858., No. XIII., by Various This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
Title: Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII.
Author: Various
Release Date: January 30, 2004 [EBook #10867] [Date last updated: July 12, 2005]
Language: English
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*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY ***
Produced by Cornell University
THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY.
A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.
VOL. II.--NOVEMBER, 1858.--NO. XIII.
RAILWAY-ENGINEERING IN THE UNITED STATES.[1]
Though our country can boast of no Watt, Brindley, Smeaton, Rennie, Telford, Brunel, Stephenson, or Fairbairn, and lacks such experimenters as Tredgold, Barlow, Hodgkinson, and Clark, yet we have our Evans and Fulton, our Whistler, Latrobe, Roebling, Haupt, Ellet, Adams, and Morris,--engineers who yield to none in professional skill, and whose work will bear comparison with the best of that of Great Britain or the Continent; and if America does not show a Thames Tunnel, a Conway or Menai Tubular Bridge, or a monster steamer, yet she has a railroad-bridge of eight hundred feet clear span, hung two hundred and fifty feet above one of the wildest rivers in the world,--locomotive engines climbing the Alleghanies at an ascent of five hundred feet per mile,--and twenty-five thousand miles of railroad, employing