My life : a record of events and opinions - Wallace-online.org

132 MY LIFElittle, along pleasant lanes and paths through woodsand by streams, and up one of the wildest and mostpicturesque little glens I have ever explored. Herewe had to climb over huge rocks as big as houses,ascend cascades, and take cross-levels up steep banksand precipices all densely wooded. It was surveyingunder difficulties, and excessively interesting. Afterthe first rough levels were taken and the surveymade, the engineers were able to mark out the lineprovisionally, and I then went over the actual line toenable the sections to be drawn as required by theParliamentary Standing Orders.In this year of wild speculation it is said thatplans and sections for 1263 new railways were dulydeposited, having a proposed capital of ;^ 5 63,000,000,and the sum required to be deposited at the Board ofamount ofTr ide was so much larger than the totalgold in the Bank of England and notes in circulationat the time, that the public got frightened, a panicensued, shares in the new lines which had been at ahigh premium fell almost to nothing, and even theestablished lines were greatly depreciated. Many ofthe lines were proposed merely for speculation, or tobe bought off by opposing lines which had a betterchance of success. The line we were at work on wasa branch of the Great Western and South WalesRailway then making, and was for the purpose ofbringing the coal and iron of Merthyr Tydfil and thesurrounding district to Swansea, then the chief portof South Wales. But we had a competitor along thewhole of our route in a great line from Swansea toYarmouth, by way of Merthyr, Hereford, Worcester,and across the midland agricultural counties, called,I think, the East and West Junction Railway, whichsounded grand, but which had no chance of passing.