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The Life of Thomas Telford-Part17_Samuel Smiles(1812-1904)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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county were exceedingly good, those of the adjoining county were

altogether execrable.



Even in the immediate vicinity of the metropolis the Surrey roads

remained comparatively unimproved. Those through the interior of



Kent were wretched. When Mr. Rennie, the engineer, was engaged in

surveying the Weald with a view to the cutting of a canal through



it in 1802, he found the country almost destitute of practicable

roads, though so near to the metropolis on the one hand and to the



sea-coast on the other. The interior of the county was then

comparatively untraversed, except by bands of smugglers, who kept



the inhabitants in a state of constantterror. In an agricultural

report on the county of Northampton as late as the year 1813, it



was stated that the only way of getting along some of the main

lines of road in rainy weather, was by swimming!



In the neighbourhood of the city of Lincoln the communications were

little better, and there still stands upon what is called Lincoln



Heath--though a heath no longer--a curious memorial of the past in

the shape of Dunstan Pillar, a column seventy feet high, erected



about the middle of last century in the midst of the then dreary,

barren waste, for the purpose of serving as a mark to wayfarers by



day and a beacon to them by night.*[2]

[Image] Land Lighthouse on Lincoln Heath.



At that time the Heath was not only uncultivated, but it was also

unprovided with a road across it. When the late Lady Robert



Manners visited Lincoln from her residence at Bloxholm, she was

accustomed to send forward a groom to examine some track, that on



his return he might be able to report one that was practicable.

Travellers frequently lost themselves upon this heath. Thus a



family, returning from a ball at Lincoln, strayed from the track

twice in one night, and they were obliged to remain there until



morning. All this is now changed, and Lincoln Heath has become

covered with excellent roads and thriving farmsteads.



"This Dunstan Pillar," says Mr. Pusey, in his review of the

agriculture of Lincolnshire, in 1843, "lighted up no longer time



ago for so singular a purpose, did appear to me a striking witness

of the spirit of industry which, in our own days, has reared the



thriving homesteads around it, and spread a mantle of teeming

vegetation to its very base. And it was certainly surprising to



discover at once the finest farming I had ever seen and the only

land lighthouse ever raised.*[3] Now that the pillar has ceased to



cheer the wayfarer, it may serve as a beacon to encourage other

landowners in converting their dreary moors into similar scenes of



thriving industry."*[4] When the improvement of the high roads of

the country fairly set in, the progress made was very rapid.



This was greatly stimulated by the important inventions of tools,

machines, and engines, made towards the close of last century,



the products of which--more especially of the steam-engine and

spinning-machine--so largely increased the wealth of the nation.



Manufactures, commerce, and shipping, made unprecedented strides;

life became more active; persons and commodities circulated more



rapidly; every improvement in the internalcommunications being

followed by an increase of ease, rapidity, and economy in



locomotion. Turnpike and post roads were speedilyextended all

over the country, and even the rugged mountain districts of North



Wales and the Scotch Highlands became as accessible as any English

county. The riding postman was superseded by the smartly appointed



mail-coach, performing its journeys with remarkable regularity at

the average speed of ten miles an hour. Slow stagecoaches gave



place to fast ones, splendidly horsed and "tooled," until

travelling by road in England was pronounced almost perfect.



But all this was not enough. The roads and canals, numerous and

perfect though they might be, were found altogether inadequate to



the accommodation of the traffic of the country, which had

increased, at a constantly accelerating ratio, with the increased






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