RHODES OXFORD LIBRARY CANALS AND RAILROADS OF THE UNITED STATES. 801 The board of directors request particular attention to the cost of the road, as stated, being Cost And the amount received from capital stock dollars. cts. 1,244,122 91 823,812 20 This As the difference between these two amounts 420,310 71 forms the original debt of the company, and created its numerous embarrassments. deficiency of capital, and consequent indebtedness, have compelled the company to prosecute its business on the most unfavourable terms; until, at length, it became more than probable that the whole property would be sacrificed to discharge the certified debt, scarcely exceeding in amount one-fifth of the cost of the road and appendages. Hence, also, arose the impression that the business of the company did not meet its expenses; and, because the profits of current business were not adequate, in two years, to reimburse onefifth of what ought to have been capital, in addition to interest and expenses, that the whole enterprise was visionary, and the shares of no value. This disaster was, however, averted by the energy and confidence of those who, having embarked in the company with full knowledge of its resources and prospects, retained their belief in the intrinsic value of the road. The whole indebtedness of the company, with interest, to the 1st of June, 1844, amounts to 398,726 dollars 36 cents, qualified as follows: dollars. cts. 277,138 97 20,797 34 69,427 89 31,362 16 398,726 26 It will be observed, that a debt of 420,310 dollars 71 cents, bearing interest in part from 1841, and all from 1842, is thus liquidated on the 1st of June, 1844, at 398,726 dollars 26 cents. The receipts from the business of the road have, then, not only paid all current expenses of its management and repairs, and also the completion of many appendages, essential for the extended demands of trade, but have also actually discharged the interest, and reduced the principal. The following is a statement of the receipts of the road, for a period of five months, in each of the years 1842, 1843, and 1844 :-1842, 32,310 dollars 27 cents; 1843, 55,652 dollars 4 cents; 1844, 68,148 dollars 30 cents. Of the Statistics of the Eastern railroad.-The annual report of the Eastern railroad has been distributed to the stockholders, and will be laid before the legislature of Massachusetts at its next session. From this report, we gather the following facts :-The whole cost of the road, in Massachusetts, has been 2,361,098 dollars. There has been received, from 18,000 shares, 1,800,000 dollars. State scrip, 500,000 dollars; and sundry_accounts, 61,098 dollars. The Eastern, in New Hampshire, has cost 482,500 dollars. The trains of the two companies have made 8583 trips, amounting to 196,097 miles, and conveying 443,403 passengers; and on the Marblehead Branch, 34,531; making a total of 447,934 passengers transported during the past year. The receipts have been, from Marblehead Branch, 3460 dollars, and 293,401 dollars from main line of road. whole receipts, 257,674 dollars were from passengers, 28,393 dollars from freight, 10,068 dollars from mails, and 124 dollars from incidental sources. The expenses have been 103,452 dollars; leaving the net earnings of both roads 193,308 dollars. To this amount, rents of real estate, and Portsmouth Bridge dividends, add 5,969 dollars; making a total of income, 199,278 dollars. The payments have been 25,000 dollars for interest on state scrip, 78,855 dollars for dividends on stock in January, and 79,887 dollars for dividends payable on and after July 3rd. The sum of payments, 183,742 dollars, when deducted, leaves a balance of 15,535 dollars to profit and loss; which, with profits on sale of state scrip, 806 dollars; Boston depôt estate, 858 dollars; Cunard wharf, 2500 dollars; East Boston lands, 5864 dollars; and sundry estates, 313 dollars, makes an addition to surplus fund, after paying interest balances of 3132 dollars, to amount of 22,744 dollars. The old surplus on reserved fund was 19,920 dollars; and that account is now increased to 42,664 dollars. The report concludes by stating, as the result of the year's operations, a dividend of seven per cent, and an addition of 22,744 dollars to the surplus fund. The expenses of the company were 7202 dollars less than last year, and 46,012 dollars less than year before last. the The Portland, Saco (Mobile), and Portsmouth (New Hampshire) railroad company was incorporated March 14, 1837; organised December 25, 1840; renewed November 25, 1845. It is fifty-one miles long, connects with the Eastern by a bridge over the Piscataqua river, at Portsmouth, and with Boston and Maine at South Berwick, thirteen miles east of Portsmouth. For the year ending November 30, 1843, it divided three and a half per cent; and, for the past year, six per cent. Its cost is not definitely settled, but will amount to about 1,200,000 dollars, a little over 23,000 dollars per mile. It is laid with a T rail, fifty-six lbs._to the yard; highest grades, thirty-five feet per mile. Passes through the towns of Keeting, Elliot, South Berwick, North Berwick, Wells, Kennebunk, Saco, Scarborough, to Portland. The number of miles run being severally 102,036 and 117,008, and the expenditure forty-seven cents, and forty-two and a half cents per mile run. The Eastern railroad, extending from Boston to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, fiftyfour miles, was partially opened August 28, 1838, and, for the whole distance, November 9, 1840, and has also a branch of three miles, to Marblehead. Number of miles run, 204,962; number of passengers, 544,994; average cost of carrying a passenger one mile, 1.166 cents; receipt from each company per mile, 3.351 cents. Boston and Lowell railroad.—The distance from Boston to Lowell, by this road, is twenty-six miles. The total amount of capital paid in is 1,800,000 dollars. The amount of profits divided during the year 1844 was 144,000 dollars, in two dividends, of four per cent each, on a capital of 1,800,000 dollars. The amount of freight during the year has been much greater than in any preceding period, amounting to 151,731 tons. The freight and passenger tariff has been reduced since the last annual report. It was formerly one dollar for passengers, in first-class cars; it is now, in first-class cars, for passengers, from Boston to Lowell, seventy-five cents; and fifty cents in second-class cars. Merchandise, generally, at one dollar fifty cents per ton; if in cargoes, landed on the railroad wharfs at one dollar twenty-five cents per ton, without any charge for wharfage. Forty-five thousand four hundred and twenty tons were carried over this road for the factories, during the past year; and the company have a special bargain with the Lowell factories. They are charged one dollar twenty-five cents for all cotton, wool, and goods made of those articles, and one dollar per ton for all other articles. The stockholders of the Western Branch railroad, incorporated in 1843, have transferred their rights and privileges to the Boston and Lowell company. This road begins seven miles from the depot of the Lowell and Boston, out of the latter city. The road has a single tract, with a heavy Trail, of fifty-six lbs. to the yard, upon chesnut sleepers, seven feet long, and six inches in depth, two feet seven inches apart, resting upon a bed of clear gravel, two feet deep. The rails are in lengths of eighteen feet, and the joints are secured by a clasp chain of twenty lbs. weight. The whole cost of the Boston and Lowell railroad, with its depôts, cars, engines, and appurtenances, and about fifty-eight miles of single track, amounts to 1,902,555 dollars 67 cents; of which Land for tracks and land damages dollars. cts. Depôt lands and buildings Engines and cars Iron rails, bolts, and chairs Bridges (sixty-six in number) and culverts Road, excavation and embankment, trench walls, stone blocks and sleepers, laying rails, branch tracks at Lowell, superintendence, engineering, &c. Woburn Branch railroad Total 282,833 95 196,831 58 910,222 06 35,440 68 1,902,555 67 By the directors' report for 1844, it appears that the surplus on hand on the 30th of November, 1844, after paying the dividends of that year, amounts to 18,433 dollars 36 cents, which is the whole surplus remaining undivided, after nine or ten years' operations. The amount on hand in the year 1841, when it was largest, more than half of which was derived from withholding the winter dividend of 1836 (in which year only two per cent was divided), has been absorbed by the necessary expense of taking up and relaying the first track, on which too light a rail had originally been laid, as has been more fully stated in former reports. The cost of this work was 121,558 dollars 84 cents, and is spread over the three years 1841, 1842, 1843. STATEMENT of Capital paid in at date, charged and credited to construction, and whole Cost of Construction at the end of each Year, from 1835 to 1844, inclusive. November 30 of the Capital paid in Charged to con- Credited to con- Whole cost of con struction in that struction in that years. at that date. dollars. struction at the end of the year. dlrs. cts. .... 1,505,645 33 1,508,394 75 1,575,663 50 1,698,476 21 1,729,242 59 1,834,893 07 143,393 02 1,978,296 09 31,638 24* 1,863,746 16 Cost of rail iron for repairs, originally charged with rail iron for construction, and now transferred to its proper head. § Depreciation in value of engines and cars. STATEMENT of the Receipts, Expenses, Dividends, Profits, Surplus, &c., in each Year, from 1835 to 1844. * Advance on 600 shares new stock sold at auction, for account of the corporation. + Balance of interest account charged to expenses. The cost of a share on the 30th of November, 1835, when the first annual settlement of accounts was made, after the opening of the road, including interest, at six per cent on the assessments from the time when they were laid, and deducting the dividend paid for the fraction of that year, amounted to 540 dollars 75 cents, or almost exactly eight per cent on the par value. Since then, in the nine years which have followed, the dividends have averaged 7.1-9 per cent on the par value of the shares. THE Annexed Table of the Length, Cost, Receipts, Expenditures, &c., &c., of the Railroads in Massachusetts, is compiled for the Merchants' Magazine, from Annual Reports to the Legislature of Massachusetts. Deducting the Cost of the Fitchburg Railroad, which was only open to Acton, Twenty-seven Miles, on the 1st 1844, the net Income was 7.11-100ths per cent upon their cost. of October, Western Worcester.... mls. dollars. dollars. dollars. dollars. dollars. dollars. 233,273 195,164 miles dirs. 44 2,914,078 234,634 193,803 428,437 miles. miles. 220,623 1.94 1.05 0.89 0.62 0.89 Norwich and Worcester.. Berkshire Providence... Taunton..... New Bedford. 21 430,961 Lowell........ 26 1,800,000 Nashua... 14 380,000 47,165 89,853 225,508. 75,054 150,454 113,319 44,949 158,268 1.43 0.47 0.96 27,645 137,492 2.06 0.82 1.24 21,570 2.32 1.15 1.17 40,396 1.60 0.59 1.01 164,574 1.92 1.03 0.89 42,350 2.23 1.40 0.83 Boston and Branch..... 6 280,259 7,787 26,866 34,653 20,683 13,970 8,771 Fitchburgt... 49 1,150,000 22,447 20,312 42,759 15,924 26,835 27,600 27,724 Total.... 568 23,071,503 1,644,534 1,168,246 2,830,517 1,244,290 1,586,227 1,030,519 688,675 1,769,194 1.60% 0.70 0.90 * Let to Housatonic railroad. CANALS AND RAILROADS OF NEW YORK. THE ERIE CANAL.-This great work, by far the most important canal in the United States, extends from the tide waters of the Hudson river, at the city of Albany, to Lake Erie, terminating at the city of Buffalo. Its general course from Albany is a little north of west, passing up the valley of the Mohawk river, which it crosses at the lower aqueduct, then follows the left or north bank of the Mohawk for thirteen miles, which it recrosses at the upper aqueduct; thence pursues the south bank of the above river, through the counties of Schenectady, Montgomery, Herkimer, and Oneida, where it leaves the Mohawk valley, and continues west through the counties of Madison, Onondaga, Cayuga, the northeast angle of Seneca, Wayne, touching Ontario on the north at Port Gibson, Monroe, Orleans, Niagara, and Erie, where it terminates. Its whole length, including the basin at Albany, is 364 miles; passing through several flourishing towns and villages, many of which have sprung into existence since its completion. It is intersected by several lateral canals of much importance, all of them communicating with other navigable waters. At the Cohoes, in the town of Watervliet, it forms a junction with the Champlain canal; at Utica, it connects with the Chenango canal; at the village of Rome, with the Black River canal and Feeder; in the town of Vernon, with the Oneida Lake canal; at the village of Syracuse, with the Oswego canal; at the village of Montezuma, with the Cayuga and Seneca canal; and, at the city of Rochester, with the Genesee Valley canal. From Albany west there is a succession of locks, until what is termed the "long level" is reached, in the town of Frankfort, Herkimer county, elevated 425 feet above the Hudson, extending to Syracuse, a distance of sixtynine miles and a half, without any intervening lock; from thence the line descends, and then re-ascends until it reaches Rochester, elevated 506 feet, where there is another continued level of sixty-four miles. At Lockport, the canal ascends the mountain ridge, by five double combined locks, each 12.4 feet rise. Nine miles west of Lockport, the canal enters the Tonawanda creek, with which, for a distance of about ten miles, it is identified; at a further distance of twelve miles, this magnificent work unites with Lake Erie. Total rise from the Hudson river to Lake Erie, 560 feet; rise and fall, 692 feet. It was commenced in 1817, and finished in 1825, at a total cost of 10,731,595 dollars. By an act of the legislature in relation to the Erie canal, passed May 11, 1835, directing the canal commissioners to enlarge and improve the Erie canal, the very expensive project of enlarging this previously great work, was adopted; the want of additional facilities for conducting the increased trade flowing through this channel having become apparent. Considerable progress has been made on this stupendous undertaking, which, when finished, will command the admiration of the civilised world. There was put under contract prior to January, 1839, more than 100 miles of the enlarged canal, including the heavy rock cutting at Lock |