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alone can give. The engines have been constantly varied in their weight and proportions, in their magnitude and form, as the experience of each successive month has indicated. As defects became manifest they were remedied; improvements suggested were adopted; and each quarter produced engines of such increased power and efficiency, that their predecessors were abandoned, not because they were worn out, but because they had been outstripped in the rapid march of improvement. Add to this, that only one species of travelling engine has been effectively tried; the capabilities of others remain still to be developed; and even that form of engine which has received the advantage of a course of experiments on so grand a scale to carry it towards perfection, is far short of this point, and still has defects, many of which it is obvious time and experience will remove. If, then, travelling steam-engines, with all the imperfections of an incipient invention—with the want of experience, the great parent of practical improvements—with the want of the common advantage of the full application of the skill and capital of the country—subjected to but one great experiment, and that experiment limited to one form of engine, and conducted, as I shall presently show, not on the wisest principles, nor with the most liberal policy; if, under such disadvantages, the effects to which I have referred have been produced, what may we not expect from this extraordinary power, when the enterprise of the country is unfettered,—when greater fields of experiments are opened,—when time, ingenuity, and capital, have removed the existing imperfections, and have brought to light new and more powerful principles? This is not mere speculation on possibilities, but refers to what is in a state of