Fourthly. In my letter to Mr. Ricardo, in answer to his pamphlet against me, I observe, that after totally omitting to take into consideration the important effect which momentum (_as well of the air itself as of the vehicle_) would have in modifying the motion, and preventing the stoppage of the carriage, in the way you describe at page 21, you exclaim, “This then, is a true philosophical explanation, of what will take place in the action of a carriage impelled by atmospheric pressure!”
Against such philosophy as this I protest, in justice both to myself and the public. As the basis of lectures delivered at your Mechanics’ Institution, where
—“words of learned length and thundering sound Amaze the _operatives_ rang’d around,”
it may have sufficed. But when held up as a criterion by which the public mind is to take its tone for my condemnation, I am compelled to pronounce it philosophy of which its author ought to be ashamed.
These evidences being all of dates several years anterior to the period when Mr. Badnall states the idea of his “Undulating Railway” first occurred to him, I shall be liable to no charge of proposing to avail myself of momentum _in consequence_ of his having proposed “_Undulating_ Railways.”
J. S. HODSON, Printer, 15, Cross Street, Hatton Garden.
{ 4a} I have known a barge of (apparently) fifty tons burthen, come up the whole length of your canal, with nothing but fourteen tons of coal to land at your basin.
{ 4b} In his Report on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, Mr. Walker states the price of the 40,000 tons of coal, which he supposed might be required for the locomotive engines, at 5_s._ 10_d._ per ton. The 25,000 tons which he supposed might be required for the stationary engines, he states at the price of 2_s._ 6_d._ per ton.
In their review of this Report, Messrs. Stephenson and Locke state the price of coal at 4_s._ 6_d._ per ton for 37,222 tons.
{ 5} The capital requisite to complete this railway was first announced to be a million and a half. Then it was raised to two millions. Then it was raised to three millions, in order to admit of a “quadruple line” (that is, eight lines of rails,) being laid down. And credit is now taken for its _cheapness_, because, after announcing that three millions would be sufficient to lay down a “quadruple” railway, two millions and a half are stated as the _estimated_ expense of a “double” railway. That is, after having, by advertisement upon advertisement, announced that three millions would be enough to lay down eight lines of rails, credit is taken for finding out that four lines will cost two millions and a half: when the fact is, that the estimated expense is reduced only one-sixth, while the work which said three millions were stated to be enough to do, is reduced one half. In other words, twopence-halfpenny is charged for _half_ the loaf, after it had been, in every possible way trumpeted forth, that the _whole_ loaf would be sold for threepence: while even this twopence-halfpenny is liable to additions such as the following pages advert to.