THE GENESIS OF THE RAILROAD SYSTEM. 'HERE are not many stories that are either more interesting in themselves or better worth telling for the lesson they convey, than the story of George Stephenson and his invention of the locomotive engine. It has been told, too, in a manner which upon the whole leaves little to be desired; and the great and long continued popularity of Smiles' biography is one of the most encouraging symptoms of the better and healthier education of the times. In the course of his narrative the author describes with great literary skill the genesis of the locomotive. In doing so he carries his readers along with him through episodes of opposition, discouragement, disappointment, almost defeat,-the interest in the narrative and the fortunes of its hero continually growing until it exceeds that of any work of fiction of the day, even though Walter Scott himself was then a living author,—until at last the great dramatic I |