d Railroad from Dublin passes by Maynooth, Mullingar, Athlone
(where it crosses the Shannon by a noble iron bridge), and Ballinasloe
to this place, at the head of Galway Bay, some twenty-five miles inland
from the broad Atlantic. The country is remarkably level throughout, and
very little rock-cutting and but a moderate amount of excavation have
been required in making the Railroad, of which a part (from Dublin to
Mullingar) has been for some time in operation, while the residue has
just been opened. (The old stage-road from Dublin to Galway measures
133 miles, or nearly seven more than the Railroad.) I presume there is
nowhere an elevation of forty feet to the mile, and with a good double
track (now nearly completed), there can be no difficulty in running
express trains through in three hours. From Dublin to Holyhead will
require four hours, and from Holyhead to London six more, making fifteen
hours in all (including two for coming into Galway) for the
transportation of the Mails from the broad Atlantic off this port to
London. Allow three more for leeway, and still the entire Mails may be
distributed in London about the time that the steamship can now be
telegraphed as off Holyhead, and at least twelve (I hope fifteen) hours
earlier than the Mails can now be received in London, to say nothing of
the saving of thirty or forty hours on the Mails to and from Ireland,
and twenty or so for those of Scotland. Is there any good reason why
those hours should not be saved? I can perceive none, even though the
steamships should still proceed to Liverpool as heretofore.

Galway Bay is abundantly large enough and safe enough for steamships,
even as it is, though its security is susceptible of easy improvement.
It has abundant depth inside, but hardly twenty feet at low water on a
bar in the harbor, so that large steamships coming in would be obliged
to anchor a mile or so from the dock for high water if they did not
arrive so as to hit it, as they must now wait off the bar at Liverpool,
only much further from the dock. But what I contemplate as a beginning
is not the bringing in of the Steamships but of their Mails. Let a small
steamboat be waiting outside when a Mail Steamer is expected (as now off
the bar at Liverpool), and let the Mails and such passengers as would
like to feel the firm earth under their feet once more, be swiftly
transferred to the little boat, run up to Galway, put on an express
train, started for Dublin, and