are carried annually. Seventy-five millions! Let the reader pause and realize what that is, though it is not one-half the number carried by the horse-cars of New York, which annually convey about one hundred and seventy millions, or more than the combined population of the United States, France, Great Britain, and Austria. Satisfactory in most respects as the Underground Railway is, it has some defects which have been summed up by Captain Douglas Galton, late Chief Inspector of Railways in Great Britain, as follows: "An underground road is enormously expensive to construct. It greatly interferes with street-traffic during construction, from the large quantities of material to be removed and brought to the surface; it can never be wholesome or free from deleterious gases, and in foggy weather it is always full of a thick atmosphere, which increases the liability to accident, and is very disagreeable to passengers." This opinion is fully indorsed by Mr. B. Baker, an author-engineer and recognized authority.

Was it not strange that the eventual solution of the rapid-transit problem in New York should come from a physician who had first regarded the matter (from Brown's point of view) in its moral and sanitary rather than its engineering bearings? A practitioner under the eminent surgeon Willard Parker was frequently called to the tenement-houses which shelter thousands of poor families in the lower parts of the city. The misery he saw-the disease caused by the monstrous overcrowding-made him ask himself if some relief could not be found. After much pondering, he decided that the only remedy was in distribution, and distribution meant rapid transit.

His cogitations were interrupted for a time by the civil war, in which he was engaged as brigadesurgeon and as medical director at Fortress Monroe; but, when he came home again, he resumed the consideration of the subject, and invented seven different plans, three of which are now successfully embodied in the Gilbert Elevated Railway. He abandoned his profession, and became assistant executive superintendent of the New Jersey Central Railway, so that he might familiarize himself with the operation of steam-roads; but, far from considering his earlier training and practice lost, he has told the writer that a knowledge of the human frame is a very valuable complement to that of mechanics, and that anatomy and engineering are more analogous than is generally allowed. Having secured letters of patent on his several inventions, he went to Albany for a charter, the most difficult part of the business excepting the enlistment of capital, and by dint of pertinacity he secured one on June 17, 1872, which authorized the construction and maintenance of "tubular ways and railways" to be operated by atmospheric power, compressed air, or other power."

It was thus that Dr. Rufus H. Gilbert-such is the name of the physician turned engineer-made his first advance toward the achievement of rapid transit. His original idea was a pneumatic railway, for which he was unable to obtain a franchise, but the charter granted in 1872 permits the adaptation of the pneumatic plan to an elevated trestle carried over the streets, and the railway, as it now exists, can be altered at little cost to a tubular pneumatic way as soon as the directors deem a change desirable. Pneumatic tubes for dispatches also are placed under the track.

Let us glance back now at the original Elevated Railway, extending from Battery Place through Greenwich Street and Ninth Avenue to Twentyeighth Street, which was sold at sheriff's auction in 1870. It was a rather shabby and frail-looking structure, and was mockingly called, by the people who refused to ride upon it, the railway on stilts, or the one-legged railway. A succession of pillars rising from the curbstone supported a single track on brackets, and, as far as any one unlearned in mechanics could see, there was nothing to prevent the car from falling into the street in event of its getting off the track. But its builders and engineers knew better than that; as the ever-quotable Sam Weller

into the street, except through the failure of the structure, for, even though it missed the track, it could not fall over.

Having been in disuse for several months, the road was reopened in 1871, and small locomotives were substituted for the endless chain; but it did not succeed with the public as it deserved to do, though in some degree its failure was due to the fact that it had no intermediate stations, and simply connected with the Hudson River trains at Twenty-eighth Street. It was not exactly pleasant to be whirled along the streets on a level with the second-story windows, which often revealed the privacy of the laborer's tenement, and caused a modest person to blush for his intrusion. All sorts of objections were raised against the enterprise. Truckmen brought suits against it for frightening their horses; property-owners for the depreciation of their buildings; and occasional pedestrians for damage to their clothing. In the briefs of the plaintiffs' lawyers it appeared as an utterly reprehensible and good-for-nothing concern. One man sued it because some oil fell upon his clothing. "Was it a quart?" demanded the defending attorney in court. "No." "Was it a pint?" "No." Was it a gill?" "No." "Then how much was it?" "Some drops." "How many drops?"

GILBERT ELEVATED RAILWAY.-STATION AT THE CORNER OF TWENTY-THIRD STREET AND SIXTH AVENUE.

The road was not so bad as its opponents made out, though it had some objectionable features; the dummy-locomotives emitted little smoke, blew no whistle, and seldom let a cinder or a drop of water or oil fall into the street, and the trains made very little noise. The traffic gradually increased, when provision was made for way-passengers, and turnouts were constructed so as to permit trains at shorter intervals; the horses and people on the street became used to seeing the cars overhead, and were no longer scared by them; the track was extended across the Battery to South Ferry, and up-town to Central Park, and improved rolling-stock was introduced. In May and June, 1875, one hundred and seventy-two thousand eight hundred and forty-six passengers were carried; in the same months of 1876 the number had nearly doubled; and in the same months of 1877 it was five hundred and sixtythree thousand, or triple.

In 1876 the property passed into the hands of a new, wealthy, and energetic company, with Cyrus W. Field, of Atlantic-Cable fame, at the head, and it was immediately proposed to extend the road, which, until that time, had been confined to the extreme west side of the city; but all work was obstructed by the relentless and litigious opposition of the horse-car companies and the real-estate owners, which manifested itself in court above court, and in injunction after injunction. The ablest lawyers were employed on both sides, and eventually the case reached the Court of Appeals, where application was made for the annulment of the charter on the ground of its unconstitutionality. Here the obstructionists met their final defeat- the court, without a dissentient voice, confirming the validity of the franchise, and leaving the possessors of it free to fulfill its purpose. The opposition did not seem altogether unreasonable to Brown, and most people who did not live directly on the line of the road were neutrals during the litigation, for, in truth, the elevated scheme was not half so handsome in its external accessories as the underground, the pneumatic, or the arcade, but it was feasible, and wary capital, that had hitherto looked askance at rapid transit, was willing to invest in it.

Under the new and vigorous management the Ninth Avenue Railway has grown in favor, and, though it may not be the most desirable form of steam-conveyance in cities, it is vastly superior to the surface-roads, and has elicited the commendation of Douglas Galton, the engineer previously referred to, who says of it: "It is simple in construction; economical; pleasant to travel upon; comparatively free from risks of collision; easy of access; and freer from objection than any other form of road for rapid transit in town"-in all of which we cannot concur, however.

The southern terminus is at South Ferry, where the passengers ascend a stairway to a platform and reception-room, small and plainly furnished, but infinitely preferable in wet and windy weather to the street corner at which Brown has been in the habit of waiting for the horse-car. The uniform fare for

any distance is ten cents, payable by tickets that are sold singly or in packages of one hundred and ten for ten dollars, to passengers as they enter the cars, which in exterior and interior resemble those of any other railway. Now a steam-railway car does not seem particularly luxurious until it is contrasted with a New York horse-car, and then-well, we have explained what the discomforts of the latter are, and the reader can imagine how grateful our multitudinous Brown is in stepping from an orderly platform into a spacious, cheerful, prettily-frescoed interior, warmed in winter, and ventilated without dust in summer. The seats are ranged longitudinally, and overcrowding is unknown. The cushions are of crimson velvet or perforated wood, and Brown can read or take his ease.

Without any clamor, straining, or ringing of bells, the train glides out of the station along the track, running between stations at the rate of about thirty miles an hour, and making, with stoppages, about sixteen miles an hour. It is controlled by atmospheric breaks and electric signals, and can be brought to a standstill in a little more than its own length. The stoppages are made with scarcely any jolting, and with very little delay. The platforms at the rear and front are inclosed by iron railings and gates, which are not opened until the train is still, and are closed the moment it moves again. The employés have acquired the admirable system of the London Underground.

The stations are small, light, and, in some instances, ornamental, the sides and the ends being covered with corrugated iron and the roof with tin, while the platforms, their supports, and stair-frames, are of wrought-iron. The distance between them varies from a quarter of a mile to a third or half a mile. The cars, which, as we have said, are similar to those in use on ordinary steam-railways, weigh about sixteen thousand pounds, and are forty-one feet in length by seven feet in width, having seats for forty-eight passengers. An experiment is now being made with a new pattern, painted a handsome maroon color, rounded at the corners, and having doors in the sides on the English plan. The dummylocomotives weigh, including coal and water, about fourteen thousand pounds, and can draw a train of three cars up a grade of two feet in one hundred, the maximum of the road. They have very little likeness to their big brothers of the Pennsylvania, Erie, and Hudson River Railways: a comfortable little cabin with glass windows all around incloses them and shelters the engineers; they are named after suburbs especially dear to the toil-worn city men; and only the least bit of smoke-pipe projecting above the roof indicates the complicated machinery and robust power which the glass windows hide.

The view of the track from the head of an advancing locomotive is thrilling to a novice. The little engine is more unsteady than the loaded passenger-cars, and reels along the narrow track in a way that makes one shiver. It is impossible to avoid a thought of the consequences of a collision. Vehicles are rumbling in the roadway below, and pedes

trians are crowding the sidewalks. We observe a man-by what subtile current of magnetism are we attracted to him, who for a moment shapes our destiny?-a commonplace and ordinarily unnoticeable

about six million five hundred passengers were carried over the road without any serious accident.

As we have stated, the line is on the extreme west side of the city, following Greenwich Street

and Ninth Avenue, and it has been of little benefit to residents of the east side. It is now connected with Fulton Ferry, Union Square, and the Grand Central Depot, by a service of wagonettes, each holding four passengers, the fare by which is ten cents; and, soon after this article reaches the reader, it will be extended by an entirely new branch from South Ferry, through Front and Pearl Streets, the Bowery and Third Avenue, to Sixty-first Street, a distance of five miles, at a cost of about one million six hundred thousand dollars, the ultimate intention of the company being to belt the city from end to end, in connection with the Gilbert Railway. The old West Side line was originally a single track, but a double track is now nearly completed. The new Third Avenue or East Side line has a double track throughout, and has a capacity of carrying eleven million eight hundred thousand passengers annually. It is estimated that the receipts will be one million and eighty thousand dollars annually, of which about forty-five per cent. will be expended in working expenses, leaving five hundred and ninety-four thousand dollars as net earnings, or the magnificent profit of thirty-eight and three-eighths per cent. per

being, who idly and indifferently watches the train spinning along the elevated trestle, like one of those ingenious toys called a Blondin top on a string. In an instant his hands are withdrawn from the warm indolence of his pockets, and the stolid fatness of his face is lightened by a horrified intelligence; the traffic on the street is checked; and we behold another train running into us from around the sharp curve ahead. The disaster-the cars and engines tumbling into the street, and crushing those on board and those below-is awful; but it is altogether "in the mind's eye, Horatio." The novelty of our situation excites the imagination to such a degree that we become as visionary as the charming Monsieur Joyeuse, in Daudet's last novel-the man at the corner is still standing with his hands in his pockets, the curve is made in safety, and the little dummy seems to be swallowing the shining rails and the cross-ties with an omnivorous appetite as it advances.

Looking ahead, we now see one reason why the train cannot get off the track, except, as we have said, through a collision or the failure of the struct

annum.

The new structure differs in several particulars from the old one, which detracts from the little beauty that the streets through which it passes have. Front and Pearl Streets, from South Ferry to Franklin Square, are narrow, and the roadway is bridged by transverse lattice girders from curb to curb. From Franklin Square to the junction of Third Avenue with the Bowery the roadway is wide, and separate tracks are carried upon separate rows of pillars along each curb. Third Avenue from the junction through its whole length is also wide, and here the track of the railway is supported upon a line of columns placed at each side of the street-car tracks, and connected at the top by light, open, elliptic-arch girders. This is the handsomest part of the structure, and the columns have twenty-two feet clear in the centre of the street, and seventeen feet nine inches between their outer lines and the curbstones

a width sufficient for teams passing each other either between the columns in centre of the street or between the columns and the curbstones. There