d cost three times more than the
estimate; and the claims for compensation were enormous. Although the
contracts were let within the estimates, very few of the contractors were
able to complete them without the assistance of the Company, and many
became bankrupt.

The magnitude of the works, which were unprecedented in England, was one
of the most remarkable features in the undertaking. The following
striking comparison has been made between this railway and one of the
greatest works of ancient times. The Great Pyramid of Egypt was,
according to Diodorus Siculus, constructed by 300,000--according to
Herodotus, by 100,000--men. It required for its execution twenty years,
and the labour expended upon it has been estimated as equivalent to
lifting 15,733,000,000 of cubic feet of stone one foot high. Whereas, if
the labour expended in constructing the London and Birmingham Railway be
in like manner reduced to one common denomination the result is
25,000,000,000 of cubic feet _more_ than was lifted for the Great
Pyramid; and yet the English work was performed by about 20,000 men in
less than five years. And whilst the Egyptian work was executed by a
powerful monarch concentrating upon it the labour and capital of a great
nation, the English railway was constructed, in the face of every
conceivable obstruction and difficulty, by a company of private
individuals out of their own resources, without the aid of Government or
the contribution of one farthing of public money.

The labourers who executed this formidable work were in many respects a
remarkable class. The "railway navvies," as they are called, were men
drawn by the attraction of good wages from all parts of the kingdom; and
they were ready for any sort of hard work. Some of the best came from
the fen districts of Lincoln and Cambridge, where they had been trained
to execute works of excavation and embankment. These old practitioners
formed a nucleus of skilled manipulation and aptitude, which rendered
them of indispensable utility in the immense undertakings of the period.
Their expertness in all sorts of earthwork, in embanking, boring, and
well-sinking--their practical knowledge of the nature of soils and rocks,
the tenacity of clays, and the porosity of certain stratifications--were
very great; and, rough-looking though they were, many of them were as
important in their own department as the contractor or the engineer.

During the railway-making period t