A NEW SYSTEM OP TRANSPORTATION.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXII, Issue 8148, 28 April 1885, Page 4

A NEW SYSTEM OP TRANSPORTATION.

From Newark, New Jersey, we receive a description of " & new system of transportation," by means of which it ia proposed "to carry overland freight of certain kinds and sufficient quantity " for the cost of half-a-crown per ton per 1000 miles. The author of the scheme, Mr J. S. Baldwin, does not undervalue the resources of civilisation, as he proposes to carry a stream oi: freight flowing at the rate of 111 tons per minute, or twenty times the volume of that borne on the most active English railway. This he intends to effect by inverting all the appliances which the experience of the last fifty yeara has evolved. He recommends " stationary power instead of locomotive, one vehicle instead or 11 train, fixed shelter and fixed running gear instead of movable, and a solid road bed instead of one that is adjustable." A series of enless chains, running on rollers of which there are, to be 54,000 to the mile, and propelled by stationary engines half a mile distant from each other, ara to give motion to a fi-jxiblc trough, 300()i't long, in which the freight is to be packed according to its nature. Tho cost is " assumed " at £25,000 per milo, and the "cost of operation and maintaining one mile for one day is flS'Bsdol." What is wanted ia a number of sealed proposals for the demonstration of the practicability of the plan, the accepted one out of which is to be rewarded by the executive committee which is to be formed, with the sum of oOO.OOOdoI. For the benefit of those of our rcadei'3 who maybe disposed to cornpet« we may add that the pamphlet describing the whole plan is published by Storms and Co., Market-street, Newark, N.S.— Builder.