Ignaz Jastrow

“ The construction of the railways in insular countries is governed wholly by mercantile considerations, while, in countries whose boundaries are exposed, military and political objects claim prominence. Thus, an English railway-map affords a most accurate picture of the relations of the country to production and trade, and of the office of the railroads as the medium of communication between the great coal and iron fields on one side and the world's mart on the Thames on the other side. ”

“ Remarks upon the influence of soil and climate on plant-life are as old as the study of botany itself, but a scientific plant-geography has been developed only since Humboldt took the subject up. It has been followed by the study, upon similar principles, of geographical influences on animal life; and since Carl Ritter's time the diversified aspects of human civilization have been subjects of unceasing study from similar points of view. ”

“ Herr von Weber brings out many other features in illustration of his theory, and, without assuming that he has made even an approach to exhausting the subject, summarizes his conclusions in the remark that “the railway system of every region having distinctly marked geographical characteristics appears to be a product of its physical structure, soil, and climate, just as its flora and fauna, except that man has stepped in as an intervening agent between the natural conditions and their product. ”

“ At some future period, when railways shall have spread over the whole earth, account will be taken in the particular adaptation of the new institutions of yet more widely differing and more distinctly marked geographical conditions, and the forms they assume will become so diversified that we shall be able to speak of the geography of railway-life as we now speak of the geography of the animal-world and of the plant-world.”—Translated for the Popular Science Monthly from Das Ausland. ”

“ IT should be regarded as a prominent purpose, in any scientific description of the earth, to point out how geographical influences have impressed their mark on organic and inorganic nature and in the field of human civilization. Alexander von Humboldt set an admirable example of the manner in which this should be done when he studied the relations existing between the geographical structure and the vegetation of different regions. ”

“ Now, with the growing scarcity of wood, and abundance of iron and steel, and the greater facility of transportation afforded by the railroads themselves—heavy steel rails, firm embankments, iron and stone bridges, and more substantial buildings, are taking the place of the former flimsy structures, and the “American” type of railway-structure as above described has nearly become a thing of the past. ”

“ Regarding the lines in the mercantile aspect, we find that the relative importance of their freight and passenger traffic is likewise subject to such influences. While in Germany freight is the all-important element in estimating the value of the business done by the railroads, and it would be thought folly to depend chiefly on the receipts from passengers, this is not the case in all countries. Herr von Weber gives a table of the relative value of the passenger and freight business of six countries, from which the results are deduced that in Austria it is as 1 to 4 ”

“ The clearly mercantile features of the organization of the railroads in states whose natural boundaries give them security are thus neither more nor less appropriate than the military and administrative methods prevalent in states whose political integrity is precarious ”

“ In the first three countries here named, the excess is very largely in favor of the freight traffic; in England, the values of the two kinds are more nearly equal, while in Italy and Denmark the excess is on the side of the passenger traffic. ”

“ Still, having the earlier American railroads in view, Herr von Weber shows that the solid wagons of European construction could not be trusted to the insecure foundations of these imperfectly finished tracks. The stiff carriages must be made more flexible, and thus originated the adjustable trucks of the American cars and locomotive. ”