Camden And Amboy Railroad PDF Download

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1891 edition. Excerpt: ... THE CAMDEN AND AMBOY RAILROAD. Origin, Early History, And Present Position In A Consolidated Railway System. By j. ELFRETH WATKINS, C. E. Curator of the Section of Transportation and Engineering U. S. National Museum, Washington. The wheel is a dial by which can be reckoned the degree of progress of every civilization When a people learn how to make and use it, the crooked ways are made straight--the rough places smooth. Footpaths are replaced by level highways, bridges are built over streams once forded, intercommunication is accelerated, commerce is stimulated, and a rapid national development follows. Such is the sequence of events frequently recorded in the history of the remote past, a history again forcibly repeated in this century of progress, when the construction of the iron highway closely followed the invention and perfection of the steam-driven wheel, the introduction of which in America united North and South and East and West in one grand empire. From the beginning mankind has been equally dependent upon the road-maker and the wheelwright for safe and rapid movement over land. So we, who are assembled here to-day to view the handsome stone erected by a generous parent to commemorate an important event in the infancy of an adopted child, are glad to pay homage to the memories of Watt, Trevithick, the two vStephensons, and the other mechanical engineers whose genius made it possible, here, to put the iron horse to work on the Camden and Amboy Railway, in the first movement by steam in the State of New Jersey, three-score years ago to-day. Nor shall we fail to recall with gratitude the remembrance of the labor of the great civil engineer who designed the original rails -- the type now in use in many lands, but first laid upon...