t he had long before, "formed the project of laying iron
railways for baggage waggons on the great roads of England," and, in
order to prevent tear and wear, he proposed, instead of conveying heavy
loads in one huge waggon, to have a train of small waggons. With the
modesty of true genius, which never over-estimates or forms wildly
sanguine expectations, he thought that each waggon might perhaps carry
one ton and a half! Edgeworth also suggested that _passengers_ might
travel by such a mode of conveyance. Bold man! What a goose many
people of his day must have thought him. If they had been alive now,
what geese they might have thought themselves. The Society of Arts,
however, were in advance of their time. They rewarded Edgeworth with
their gold medal.

This man seems to have been a transcendent genius, because he not only
devised and made (on a small scale) iron railways, but proposed to take
ordinary vehicles, such as mail-coaches and private carriages, on his
trucks, and convey them along his line at the rate of six or eight miles
an hour with one horse. He also propounded the idea of the employment
of stationary steam-engines (locomotives not having been dreamed of) to
drag the trains up steep inclines.

Another semi-prophetic man of these days was Thomas Gray, of Leeds, who
in 1820 published a work on what he styled a "General Iron Railway, or
Land Steam Conveyance, to supersede the necessity of Horses in all
public vehicles, showing its vast superiority in every respect over the
present pitiful Methods of Conveyance by Turnpike-Roads and Canals."
Gray, whose mind appears to have been unusually comprehensive, proposed
a system of railway communication between all the important cities and
towns in the kingdom, and pointed out the immense advantage that would
be gained to commerce by such a ready and rapid means of conveying fish,
vegetables, and other perishable articles from place to place. He also
showed that two post deliveries in the day would become possible, and
that fire insurance companies would be able to promote their interests
by keeping railway fire-engines, ready to be transported to scenes of
conflagration without delay.

But Gray was not esteemed a prophet. His suggestions were not adopted
nor his plans acted on, though unquestionably his wisdom and energy gave
an impulse to railway development, of which we are reaping the benefit
to-day. His labours were not in vain.

Horse railways so