difference of opinion caused much debate and conjecture as to the practicability of the great plan.
Another cause of delay was the agitation which was now sweeping all thinking minds on the question of the new roads of (literally) iron and steam as a motive power. Such had been the progress of railways in England that it was believed by many that this method of locomotion would supersede all others. On February 5, 1825, the Pennsylvania senate granted the wish of the advocates of railways by appointing a commission to inquire into the possibility of building a railway from Philadelphia to Pittsburg. Three editions of a pamphlet, Facts and Arguments in favor of adopting railways in preference to Canals in the State of Pennsylvania, were published in Philadelphia this year. It maintained that a railway could be built from Philadelphia to Pittsburg in one-third the time it would take to build a canal and at one-third the cost; it would, moreover, be available almost the entire year, whereas the Erie Canal was navigable only two hundred and twenty days in the year. It urged that
