. Morton memorial; a history of the Stevens institute of technology, with biographies of the trustees, faculty, and alumni, and a record of the achievements of the Stevens family of engineers. he squares of her velocity, it is obviousthat the power required to propel her must also be increased in the same ratio. Not so with asteam carriage; as it moves in a fluid eight liundred times more rare than water, the resistancewill be proportionally diminished. Indeed the principal resistance arises from friction, whichdoes not even increase in a direct ratio with the velocity of the carriage. If, the
. Morton memorial; a history of the Stevens institute of technology, with biographies of the trustees, faculty, and alumni, and a record of the achievements of the Stevens family of engineers. he squares of her velocity, it is obviousthat the power required to propel her must also be increased in the same ratio. Not so with asteam carriage; as it moves in a fluid eight liundred times more rare than water, the resistancewill be proportionally diminished. Indeed the principal resistance arises from friction, whichdoes not even increase in a direct ratio with the velocity of the carriage. If, then, a proa can bedriven by the wind (the propulsive power of which is constantly diminishing as the velocity ofthe proa increases), through so dense a fluid as water, at the rate of twenty miles an hour, I cansee nothing to hinder a steam carriage from moving on these ways with a velocity of one hun-dred miles an hour. To this bold conjecture Mr. Stevens adds this note, more sagacious, even, than theconjecture: The astonishing velocity is considered here as merely possible. It is probable thatit may not, in practice, be convenient to exceed twenty or thirty miles an hour. Actual experi-. FiRST Train on the Cxaidex Railroad ence, however, can alone determine this matter; and I should not be surprised at seeing steamcarriages propelled at the rate of forty or fifty miles an hour. Should it not seem that, to the teeming and enthusiastic mind of this most in-genious engineer, the actualities of railvirays and locomotives, which we witness now at adistance of forty years from this prophecy, had been, as it were, revealed? Every capability,indeed, and recommendation of railways seem to have been present to Col. Stevenss mind,—as, for instance, their military importance: In a military point of view the advantages resulting from the establishment of theserailways and steam carriages would be incalculable. It would at once render our frontiers onevery side invulnerable. Armies
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