The Book of the Railway. By George Mitton. (A. and
C. Black. Gs.)—This is a very pleasant book, pretty to look at, and interesting to read. It arranges and corrects a quantity of know- ledge which most of us possess partially, vaguely, and confusedly. And it tells us about things which, to many readers at least, will be new. There is the device, for instance, by which the time spent in watering the engine is saved, and the weight to be carried is diminished, both improvements tending to speed. The engine scoops up water for itself by help of a most ingenious mechanism. We have the system of signals explained—" our safety lies in signals "—and as we'read remember the primitive method, far less than a hundred years old, when a candle in the window of a cottage inhabited by a railway labourer used to serve. But the contrast between the first half of the nineteenth century and the first decade of the twentieth is not a little amazing. Of the novel matter the "Story of a Ticket" will be found a good specimen,—one railway alone issues four hundred and fifty sorts.
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