Foot-prints of a letter carrier; or, a history of the world's correspondece

by James Rees

SOMETHING ABOUT RAILROADS.

Railroads, although evidently of ancient origin, were first used near Newcastle-upon-Tyne, in 1650. Wooden rails four to eight inches square, resting upon transverse sleepers two feet apart, were in use for many years, when railroads of the same description covered with thin plates of iron were substituted.

In another part of this work we speak of the lost arts. Proofs of their existence are found in the excavated cities, and even in those vestiges which establish the belief of an antediluvian state of society equal to any that has existed since. Egypt abounds with antiquities. Where are the ramparts of Nineveh, the walls of Babylon, the palaces of Persepolis, the temples of Baalbec and Jerusalem? Where are the fleets of Tyre, the docks of Arad, the looms of Sidon, and the multitude of sailors, pilots, merchants, and soldiers? Where are those laborers, those harvests, those flocks, and that crowd of living beings which then covered the face of the earth?[48]

The temples are crumbled down, the palaces are overthrown, the ports are filled up, the cities are destroyed,—all,—all. Earth itself is only a desolate place of tombs. Yet specimens of high art remain, and also indications of a classic taste far superior to that which boasts of refinement since. We have every reason to believe that railroads were known to the Asiatics long, long before these cities fell in their ruins, carrying along with them the charts by which we could have traced their cause of greatness. The cities of the desert—that of Palmyra, for instance—could never have been built so far away from “marble-quarries” if railroad facilities had not been known and afforded the means of conveying those vast blocks of marble which formed its pillars.

The cities of Palmyra and the spot which marks the site of Tadmor present an imposing spectacle in rising from the sands of the desert. It looks like a forest of columns. The great avenue of pillars leading to the Temple of the Sun, and terminated by a grand arch, is 1200 feet in length. The temple itself is a magnificent object. The city is a vast collection of ruins, all of white marble. How were these huge columns of marble conveyed to this city of the desert?

The sculptures of the Memphite Necropolis say that Memphis once held a palace called the “Abode of Shoopho.” Shoopho was the owner of vast copper-mines: he was termed “pure king and sacred priest.” Historians doubted the power he exercised over Egypt, and also the amount of labor performed in erecting pyramids and monuments,—as, for instance, it is maintained that he employed 100,000 men for twenty years in erecting a monument for which ten preceding years were requisite in preparing the materials and the causeway whereon the stone was to be carried. The monument, as described by historians, was of immense proportions, the base of which was 764 feet each face, the original height 480 feet, containing 89,028,000 cubic feet of solid masonry and 6,848,000 tons of stone. The distance these materials were carried was twenty miles from the quarries on the eastern side of the Nile. What sort of a causeway was that which could transport these huge masses of stone a distance of twenty miles? Again, this great pyramid is lined with the most beautiful and massive blocks of sienite, of red granite, not one particle of which exists twenty-five miles below the first cataract of the Nile, at Aswan, distant six hundred and forty miles up the river from the pyramid. Blocks of this sienite are found in this pyramid’s chambers and passages of such dimensions, and built in such portions of the masonry that they must evidently have been placed there before the upper limestone masonry was laid above the granite. There not being in its native state a speck of granite within six hundred and forty miles from the pyramid, is a proof that Shoopho did rule from Memphis to Aswan, and from Migdol to the tower of Syene. How he conveyed the material that distance involves the question of the origin of railroads.

Let us pass on to Alexandria. Pompey’s Pillar stands upon a pedestal twelve feet high. The shaft is round, and, with the Corinthian capital, one hundred feet in height; the diameter is nine feet. Cleopatra’s Needle is of one shaft of granite, covered with hieroglyphics: it is sixty-four feet high, and eight feet square at the base. There are a great number of pyramids scattered over Egypt, but the most remarkable are those of Djizeh, Sakhara, and Dashour. When seven leagues distant from the spectator they seem near at hand, and it is not till after having travelled several miles that he is fully sensible of the size. The largest is ascribed to Cheops. They are on a platform of rock situated one hundred and fifty feet above the level of the desert. Ten years were consumed in preparing a road whereon to draw the immense blocks of stone, and the labors of 100,000 men were employed, who were relieved once in three months.—Herodotus.

What sort of a road and the manner these blocks were carried are matters of conjecture. We incline to the opinion of railroads.

HOW THE PYRAMIDS WERE BUILT.

The stones used in building the pyramids of Egypt, it is supposed, were raised to their places by piling up immense inclined planes of sand, up which the blocks were pushed with rollers. If inclined planes were used to raise large blocks to a great height, is it to be supposed that a similar mode, or railroads, were not used to convey them on a level plane?