Cologne and Minden. Another main line
issues from Berlin eastwards, directed to-
wards Russia and the Polish provinces, by
Frankfort-on-the-Order, Posen, Dantzic, and
Konigsberg. The line is in a forward state
of progress.

There are three other lines partially or to-
tally executed. Two proceed from Berlin to
Hamburg and Stettin respectively, and the
third will put the capital in immediate com-
munication with Silesia, and unite with the
great northern Austrian line already men-
tioned. It is in this way that the continuous
communication between the Mediterranean
and the North Sea and the Baltic will be

completed.

, Length open
Total length. for trnflic.
Miles. Miles.

Berlinto Stettin...... 89........ 89

“ to frontier ofSaxony. . .. 9-1. . .. . . .. 94
“ to Austrian frontier by
Frankfort and Breslau . . .. . 323 .  . ..240
Breslau to Saxon frontier. . . . . . 66 . . . . . . 25
“ to Fribourg . . . . .  36 .. . 36
Berlin to Potsdam and Magdc-
burg........ .....   80 . . . . . . .. 16
“ to I-Iambur    174.... 
Leipsic to frontier of Brunswick 110 . . .. . . .. 110

Cologne to Belgian frontier.. .. 54 .. .. . . .. 54

“ to Bonn............... .-....... 20
Dusseldorf to Elberfield........ 17 . . . . .  17

Tota1................1063 ...... .331

Besides these, which are already planned
and in actual progress, there are several other
lines in contemplation by the Prussian go-
vernment. Among them may be mentioned
a more direct line from Berlin to Dresden,
by Iuterbogt and Riesa; the line from Co-
logne to Minden, and the line from Lippstadt
to Cassel.

We have lately seen the tramc returns and
other accounts, to 31st December, 1845, of
eleven principal Prussian lines, which were
open throughout that year——the total length
of which is 600 miles. The total cost of con-
structing thcse has been $5,640,000, being
at the rate of £9400 per mile. The gross
receipts for passengers was £306,570, and for
merchandizc, £179,980. The number of
passengers booked was 5,006,814. The
amount, therefore, received per passenger
was 191. Thus the average distance travel-
led by each passenger does not exceed twenty
miles~—showing again that short fares are
the main source of railway revenue. The

uantity of .merchandize transported -was
475,000 tons, for which £17,980 were paid ;
being at the average rate of 7s. 6d. per ton.
Taking the average rate of the traffic at 2§d.
per ton per mile, this would show that the
average distance to which the goods have
been transported was thirty-six miles. The
expense of working these lines was £285,000,
which, deducted from the gross receipts, left
a net profitof £201,550, giving a dividend
of 5} per cent. on the capital: a portion of
the expense of constructing the lines was de-
frayed by loans obtained at 4 per cent.

The Bavarian system of railways consists
of three great trunk lines, which intersect the
kingdom in different directions. The first
rests at one extremity on the Lake of Con-
stance, at Lindau; and at the other, unites
with the Prusso-Saxon system at Ho.f——~tra-

AMERICAN RAILROAD JOURNAL.

versing in its course,Augsburg,Donauworth,
Nuremberg, and Bamberg. A great portion
of this line is open for traffic. The second
line crosses the kingdom east and west; join-
ing, on the one side, the railways of Wirtem-
berg and Baden, and on the other, those of
Austria. The third great line issues from
Bamberg to Frankfort-on the Maine, where
it unites with the numerous systems centering
there.

Of this system of lines, the total length is.5'73 miles.
Length of the part open for commerce . . . 159 “

The enlightened zeal of the present mo-
narch of Bavaria for every improvement
which tends to advance the arts and civiliza-
tion, is well known. He appropriates each
year, to the construction of this system of rail-
ways, a considerable revenue saved from his
privy purse, and the public revenues of his
kingdom.

The measures adopted by the more con-
siderable of the Germanic states for the es-
tablishment of improved means of internal
commerce, necessarily gave a corresponding
impulse in the same direction to the smaller.
ones. Saxony and Hesse have undertaken
the‘ oenfinfia' i‘Bava-
rian railway from Horf to Leipsic by Dres-
den. Lines are also in progress connecting
Dresden, Gorlitz,Chemnitz, Riesa, Bamberg,
and Eisenach: also Dresden with Prague,
Cassel with Frankfort-on-the-Maine, Lipp-
stadt, and Hanover. These small states have
planned above a thousand miles of railway;
more than one-fourth of which is completed,
and open for commerce.

The smaller northern states——Hanover,
Brunswick, Mechlinburg, and the Hanse
Towns—-have not been backward in contri-
buting their quota to this vast work. By a
law passed by the legislative chamber of
Hanover in 1842, the construction of a sys-
tem of railways in that state was decided on.
The main line is to run east and west, con-
necting Hanover with Brunswick, Magde-
hurg, and Minden. Another is directed north-
ward upon Hamburg by Luebourg and Zcll;
another northwest on Bremen, and a short
line to unite with the Cassel railway. These
lines are all in a state of advancement, and
considerable parts are already open for com-
merce.

In the Duchy of Brunswick, with a popu-
ra:uoa"n'6t greater than -an.eig_ht,l,;_,of that of

7.

The great Baden line runs parallel with the
Rhine, forming the continuation of the line
from Cassel through Frankfort and Darin-
stadt. This line, which terminates at Bale,
passing through all the chief towns traversed
by the Berg Stress, and lying between the
Rhine and the Black Forest, is open for traf-
fic throughout nearly its entire extent. Its
object is to facilitate the communications of
Germany with Switzerland and Italy. An-
other line, traversing VVirtemberg from south
to north, issues from Frederickshofen on the
Lake of Constance, meets the Austro-Bava-
rian line at Ulm, and, passing through Stutt-
gard, terminates at Heidelbuag, where it
unites with the great Baden railway. Thus
will be united Vienna, Munich, and Stuttgard,
the three capitals of southern Germany;
while a similar chain of lines unites Berlin,
Warsaw, Dresden, Hamburg, and other ca-
pitals of the north. The total length of rail-
ways projected by Baden, Wirtemberg, and
Frankfort is 500 miles, of which above 200
are completed. '

According to the work of Baron Von Re-
den, to which we are indebted for much valu-

_—“

T

able information concerning the railways of
his country, the entire system of Germanic
lines, when completed, Will consist of 1600
German lines, equal to 7600 British miles
of railway. At the close of 1845, the part
of this open for traflic was 4760 miles.-—
When the system shall have been completed
one third will have been constructed by t-he
state, and two-thirds by companies under the
authority of, and subject to, the control ofthe
state. The total amount of capital absorbed
by this great undertaking will be £74,793,-
600, being very nearly at the rate of £10,000
per running mile. The average cost of the
part already constructed has been very little
above £8000 per running mile.

The low cost of construction, as compared
with the railways of France and England, is
due, in a great measure, to the low price of
the land, and the inferior rate, generally, of
the wages of common labor. On the other
hand, however, the German states have to
struggle with peculiar disadvantages. The
country, in many places, has presented for-
midable engineering difliculties. The rails
and road materials generally, aswell as the
machinery and the mechanicians, have to be
imported from England and Belgium, and

the British metropolis, there are alriiiWy”7s"é7“9“3n~il'9m the United Slates Of America-“'

venty-five miles of railway completed, or
nearly so. The Duchy of Mechlinburg is
traversed by the main line of railway from
Berlin to Hamburg, and by a branch con-
necting Weimar with Berlin by Schwena
and Boetzenburg.

The Hanse Towns form a common centre
for most of these lines; and in immediate
connection with them is the important line
from Altona to Keil, with branches on Sies-
wig and Tonningen.

The total length of railways projected in
these smaller states is 700 miles; of which
about one-third is open for traffic.

’1‘o complete this view of the German rail-
ways, it remains to notice those of Baden,

Wirtemberg, and the free cityof Frankfort.

And the favorable circumstance of cheap
hand labor has been, in some degree, done
away by the demand for it, created by the
railways themselves. In 1844, eight mil-
lions of laborers were employed on the Ger-
man railways; and their wages had then ri-
sen thirty-three per cent. Still the works.
proceed with speed and activity. _

A movement affecting in so many impor-
tant respects the social condition_ and com-
mercial relations of states, could -not take
place among those to which we have advert-
ed, without being shared more or less by the
other countries of Europe, Russia, Denmark,
Holland, Switzerland, the Italian states, and

their consciousness of the expediency of some

even the Peninsula, have shown signs of _