THE RAILWAYS OF THE WORLD.

New Zealander, Volume 8, Issue 638, 26 May 1852, Page 4

THE RAILWAYS OF THE WORLD.

TFioui ilic" Aiming Journal."] One of the most surprising circumstances attending the creation of railways is the amount of capital winch, within a limited period, lias been expended in their construction and equipment. According to the calculations supplied in a work before us, there were in operation at the commencement of JBJ9, in different pai ts of the globe, a total length of 1 fi,65G miles of railway, on which a capital of £'368,507,000 had been actually expended. Besides this, it is estimated that there were at the same epoch in progress of construction a further extent of 7829 miles, the cost of which when completed would be X'l-J.0,750,000. Thus, when these latter lines shall have been brought into operation, the population of Europe and the United States (for it is there only that railways have made any progress) will have completed, within the period of less than a quarter of a century, 26,485 miles of railway; that is to say, a greater length than would completely surround the globe, at a cost of above £500,000,000 sterling-. To accomplish this stupendous woik, human industry must have appropriated out of its annual savings £20,000,000 sterling for twenty-five successive yeais. Of this prodigious investment the small spot of the "lobe which wo inhabit has had a share which will form not the lc*>st striking fact in her history. Of the total length of railways in actual operation in all parts or the globe, twenty-seven miles in every one hundrod are in the United Kingdom ! But the proportion of the entire amount of railway, capital contributed by British industry is even more remarkable. It appears that of the entire amount of capital expended on tlxe railways of the world, ,£54 in every illoo, and of the capital to be expended on those in progress, £03 in £100, are ai^propri 1 t:d to British railways! '<