The Sun.
London, England, 1846-05-11 00:00:00

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SUN OFFICE, Seven o' Clock.

RAILWAY COMMITTEES.
(THIS DAY.)

GROUP IV.

PEITH AND INVERNESS.
(Continued from our Afternoon Edition.)

Mr. Aunts said then it became his duty to comment upon the
case of the Perth and Inverness promoters. He contended that the
Committee could not, in the peculiar circumstances of these two cases,
decide upon the engineering evidence without having reference to the
subject of local accommodation, or without looking at the general
system of the two schemes. The Learned Gentleman, after com-
menting upon the engineering evidence adduced on both sides, di-
rected the attention of the Committee to the fact that the Great
North of Scotland line comprised only 133 miles of rails, while the
rival scheme for accomplisbirg the same object took up 221
miles and a. half. Now the cost of the first, which was
proposed to be, wholly a double line of rails, was
estimated at a million and a half, while the cost of
the other, which was only partially double, was 20,444,0001.
while to make the line double it would take 203,0001. more, or
20,787,0001, giving a saving of a million in favour of the Great North
of Scotland line.
The CHAIIIMAN said the Learned Counsel was including the cost of
the line from Nairn to Aberdeen, which was hardly fair, when he
was comparing a line from Bertha to Inverness with the Great North
of Scotland.
Mr. At7STIN said then lie would not touch again on costs,but come
at once to an immediate comparison with the engineering merits of
the two lines. Well, then, the summit of the Highland line was
1,4.50 feet high, while the summit of the Great North of Scotland
only reached an altitude of 500 feet. On the Great North line the
severest gradient was 1 in 100, oar the Highland line 1 in 70150 n thee
Great North line out of 138 miles thee were Bl
re onl
on a gradient of lin 105, while on th igyhla.nd mhllinees
there were 15 miles under lin 150. On the Highland ne t ere
were 8 miles of 1 in 75, 7 of 1 in 84, 21 of 1 in 100, 4 of 1 in 102, and
lofl in 104. This summit and these gradients, he boldly. asserted,
we pr
re unecedented. Mr. , the gentleman who ld out the
line, the Committee would see Mitchell from this, was the greatestai mountain
climber that had ever been -heard of. He beat Napoleon outright,
and quite eclipsed Hannibal. He recollected reading a work of
several hundred pages, written by a gentleman at Cambridge, and
detailing hew Hannibal crossed the Alps, but after this line will have
passed, he had no doubt there would be quarto's written about Mr.
Mitchell.—(Laughter.) He thought then he had shown that this line
reached the greatest altitude with the severest gradients through
the wildest country, and with a single rail, of any line known in Bri-
tain. Besides the decision of the Committee in its favour, then there
was only one thing that would surprise him, and that was the mak-
ing of the line. Now Ile came to the question of cost of making,
and after the evidence of Mr. Lee, it was important for the Com-
mittee to take this question into their serious consideration. Mr.
Lee had told them that upon the Sheffield and Manchester, a line
infinitely more superior to thie in point of gradients, and nothing
near its length, the cost of working swallowed up a clear half of the
gross receipts. What, then, would be the cost in this case?
That was an important point for the Committee to decide, and
one which alone he thought ought to prove fatal to the passing of
this Bill. He said then there was sufficient to justify the Committee
in refusing to hear any further evidence in favour of the Perth and
Inverness line, and to say that their sanction to the Groat :North of
Scotland Bill ought not further to be delayed.
The Committee postponed their decision till to-morrow, and ad-
journed shortly after four o'clock.