upon all who did not possess bread, although they could command the means to buy at the cheap legal rate, but in the dearth produced by the attempt to make capital cheap, the whole calamity falls upon the borrower, the unfortunate victim of legislative care. Our statute fixing interest, forbids us, under penalties, to invite capital by the allurement of high prices to our market, and forces us to contract our business by bankruptcy and ruin to the quantity of capital which under, or in spite of the legal standard, can be had. It is precisely as if a famished city should kill its inhabitants, till the numbers left were proportioned to the quantity of food on hand, The committee are aware that improvident and ruinous loans are contracted, and would continue to be with or without legal restraint; but so far from requiring legislative interposition, these losses are the only legitimate and effectual restraints upon improvident borrowing. Capital is borrowed solely with a view to gain; a pledge is required by the lender equivalent to the loan, which pledge is surrendered if the capital is dissipated. Here then are two motives of equal force to guide and control the borrower-the hope of gain and the fear of loss. If the hope of gain be strong, the fear of loss is equally so; if the desire for acquisition be inordinate, the fear of loss will be equally controlling. With hopes and fears thus balanced, experience and observation alone are required to guide the judgment, and nothing can be more impressive and admonitory than to witness a neighbor struggling for years, and sinking at last under a load of debt charged with a high rate of interest; all who witnessed would avoid the danger as they value their former acquisitions or their future hopes. Losses are incident to all pursuits having gain for their object, and they admonish to prudence and caution. Ship building ceases when low freights give warning to the merchant that navigation has been pushed to excess-importations are arrested by a losing market-so money borrowing ceases when it results in loss. The committee have come to the conclusion that the best interests of the State will be advanced, 1st. In promoting the free circulation of foreign and domestic capital over our State, by giving stability and security to its invest ment, and by extending legislative facilities to associations who borrow and lend capital unconnected with currency-as Savings banks, Trust companies, &c. 2d. By restraining banks in their circulation to the amount of their capitals, and by restraining them in their discounts to 6 per cent. 3d. By repealing the usury penalties, except in relation to banks, and fixing the legal rate of interest at 6 per cent. If, however, the usury penalties should not be repealed, we would object to reducing the limit of interest from 7 per cent, which seldom presses upon the market rate, except in the new parts of our State and fixing that limit at 6 per cent, which in many parts of our State, and at all times, would press upon the market rate, aggravating the evils incident to the present standard of interest. If these amendments generally should not prevail, then we would respectfully recommend that the further progress of the bill under consideration be arrested, in conformity with the prayer of all the memorials addressed to the Senate. DOCUMENTS. All internal improvements are very much injured and interruptted, owing to the soil being, it may be said in constant motion, by the operation upon it of the climate, in its continual variations and changes, from dryness to moisture, and from heat to cold. In our northern climate, the rapid and violent alternations of heat and cold, render it more especially difficult to give fixedness to the foundation of a rail-road.* Even in the more moderate climate of England, these difficulties are of constant occurrence;t they have, many years since, been obviated; but not by giving fixedness to the foundation stone of the rail-road. The chair has a circular top, is firmly attached to the foundation stone, moves with, and is part of it. The rails are fastened by a circular pin driven through them, and the sides of the chair, and they rest on the circular top of the chair. Whenever the foundation is displaced, by the operation of the climate or otherwise, its circular top revolves under the rails, still supporting, but not displacing them.‡ William Strickland, Esqr. a citizen of Philadelphia, in the year 1825, was sent to England by the Pennsylvania society for the promotion of internal improvements, to collect information on all subjects calculated to promote the objects of the society. It is from *The operations of heat and cold are very perplexing. Heat expands and cold contracts bodies. Heat expands water or moisture into steam; but water or moisture is also expanded by cold. A very thick cannon, cast with a very small bore, filled with water and closely stopped, was exposed at Petersburgh, to extreme cold; the water freezing, burst the cannon as gunpowder would have done. To this paradox, Professor Silliman has verbally given the following explanation. Water or moisture, in its expansive state, is contracted by cold, until the cold becomes so severe as to produce frost. In the transition of water, from a liquid to a frozen state, it is formed into crystals: this change of form causes an expansion which nothing can repress. Changes to which the soil is subject, by the alternations of dryness and moisture, of heat and cold; and their combined operations upon each other, render it very difficult, as every occupant of the country must have experienced, to give strength or permanency to any post or fixture placed in the soil. + See plate 1, F, I, X, and the American edition of Wood, pages 47, 48, 49, &c. See plate 47, taken from Strickland, as are also the following references: Edge rail used on the Hetton road. Top view, with the half lap joint. Side view in the chair. End view in the chair. A A. The cast iron chains with the holes through which they are pinned to the foundation stone B B. The joints made by the ends of the rail, applied to each other in what is called a half lap. DD. Section of a cylinder, forming part of the chair, on the apex of which the ends of both rails bear, so that if the chair moves upon the pin G, in the direction of the line of way, the ends of the rails will still retain their relative position. G. A pin or bolt, which passes through a hole in each side of the chair, and in each of the rails, and secures them together. his most able and valuable reports, the plate referred to has been extracted, and annexed to this communication, In page 24th, Mr. Strickland observes: "It is important for me to remark, while upon this portion of the subject, that foundations formed in the manner above described, would not stand the changes and severity of the climate of Pennsylvania, without some additional precaution. I will therefore suggest some plans which I am of opinion will answer the purpose substantially without much increase of cost. Where blocks of stone can be easily and cheaply obtained of various lengths on the line of the road, they ought to be used in the following manner, viz: dig out shallow holes about a foot or eighteen inches in depth, at four feet apart from centre to centre, and fill them in with small broken stone or gravel, flush with the surface of the road upon which the foundation props may be laid and bedded securely from the action of the frost. Where stone is not to be had but at an expensive rate, I would recommend the use of scantling pieces of oak or locust, six inches by eight inches, and of various lengths, not less than two feet, which may be sawed out of one another lengthwise in the shape of a long wedge. These should be driven into the bottom of a square or round pit, dug out about two feet in width, and from two to three feet in depth, and the pit afterwards filled up with broken stone, rammed in on all sides. The effect of the stone will be to keep the post or prop firm in its place, and to prevent its rising up by the action of the frost, which can have no power to move it laterally. When the posts have been secured in this manner, the heads of them throughout any section of the line may be sawed off to the proper level. The iron chairs or standards must in this case be cast with a flange on the bottom, of three inches in depth; and a corresponding mortise cut into the head of the post, to receive the flange of the chair, which may be pinned through in the usual manner of mortise and tenon," See plate No. 43, annexed to this communication. In the climate of New-York, still more severe than that either of England or Pennsylvania, the committee suggests the foundation stones of rail-roads to be made in the form of an upright cone, (See plate 43, figure XIII,) about 24 inches square at bottom, 8 inches square at top, and 30 inches in height, The violent changes of our climate are continually causing the soil to contract and adhere to square or round stones or posts, more especially if their sides be rough and uneven; when the soil expands and rises it displaces or raises the posts, with a force not to be resisted. The expansion of the soil operating upon the sides of a cone rather presses it down than otherwise, and when it rises loosens its hold and recedes from the cone, It is presumed this character of the cone induced the Egyptians, in building upon the flat and soft lands annually overflowed by the Nile, to construct their pyramids, Cleopatra's Needle, the Pyramidal Propylon, and other im mense structures, in the shape of a four sided cone. Russell's View of Ancient and Modern Egypt,) (See M. In Holland also, where they have to contend with the flat and soft soil as that of Egypt, with the addition of severe frosts, the foundations of their houses are of a similar shape; and when some of the natives of that country migrated to the shores of the Hudson, to a spot consisting, it is true, of both hill and flat land, yet the soil of the former remarkable for its want of firmness and tenacity, they built the foundation of their houses of the same shape. The antique houses yet remaining in Albany are monuments of firmness and durability, while the modern buildings erected a long period subsequently, and after this principle had been forgotten, are many of them injured by the settling and displacement of their walls. Very smooth ice forming on the rails destroys the adhesion of the wheels of the locomotive engine. The committee have been informed by those who have been eye witnesses, that this is obviated on the Liverpool and Manchester rail-road, by placing one of the cars before the locomotive; the wheels of the car easily break and displace the ice. It is understood snow is removed from the Baltimore and Ohio rail-road by a machine preceding the locomotive, supposed to be in the shape of a double moulded plough, and is perhaps what is termed the Swedish snow plough. The use of a snow plough extending across the whole width of a rail-road, on rails within a few inches of the ground, would produce in our deep snows very considerable retardation. It is proposed to build our rails a considerable height from the earth, which with our great command of wood can be easily accomplished, in some such mode as the following. ft. in. The top of the cone will be higher than the ground,................... 0 06 On each cone place a block of wood 12 inches square and 14 inches in height,. Tying the bottom of the blocks together by transverse beams, and the tops of the blocks together by longitudinal beams, on these blocks place rails, say 5 inches by 12,... 1 Top of the rails higher than the ground,.. 1 02 2 08 Snow very seldom lies to the depth of two feet eight inches; small snow ploughs would readily clear the rails of snow, The accumulation of snow in the space between the rails would be of no importance where horse power was not made use of, It might be difficult to fasten rails of the depth of 12 inches so firmly in the chairs as to prevent leverege; in that event they may be rendered firm by transverse beams, connecting the opposite and parallel rails, midway between the cones, |