"For miracles are ceased;
"And therefore we must needs admit the means
"How things are perfected."
--Henry V, Act I.
It was well understood by the Romans in their palmy days that a
great empire could not be held together without means of easy
communication between distant provinces, and their fine hard roads
ramifying from Rome to the remote corners of Gaul or Dacia, testify
to their wisdom and enterprise in this respect. When Great Britain
in the eighteenth century, full of inventive skill, reared men who
by means of improved roads, well-bred horses and fine vehicles
raised the rate of travel to ten miles an hour from end to end of
the kingdom, a great deal of complacent satisfaction was indulged
in over the advantages likely to result from such rapid travelling.
This great speed, however, was made to appear quite slow in the
first half of the nineteenth century when locomotives were invented
capable of covering sixty miles an hour. Nowadays the old cumbrous
locomotive, rumbling and puffing along and making only sixty miles
in sixty minutes, is a very dilatory machine in comparison with
our light and beautiful rocket cars, which frequently dart through
the air at the rate of sixty miles in one minute. The advantages
to a country like ours, over 3,000 miles wide, of swift transit
are obvious. The differences in sentiment, politically, nationally,
and morally, which arose aforetime when people under the same
government lived 3,000 miles apart have disappeared to be replaced
by a powerful unanimity that renders possible great social
movements, utterly impossible in the railway age, when seven days
were consumed in journeying from east to west. The old idea that
balloons would be used in this century for travelling has proved
a delusion, almost their only use now being a meteorological one.
Our rocket cars were only perfected in the usual slow course of
invention, and could neither have been constructed nor propelled
a hundred years ago, for neither was the metal of which they are
constructed produced, nor had the method of propulsion or even the
propulsive power been developed. Inventors had to wait till science
had given us in abundance a metal less than a quarter the weight of
iron, but as strong and durable, and this was not until some fifty
years ago when a process was discovered for producing cheaply the
beautiful metal calcium. But calcium would have been little use
alone. Aluminium, which is now so plentiful, had to be alloyed
with it, and aluminium was not used to any great extent till the
beginning of this century, when an electric process of reducing it
quickly from its ore--common clay--was discovered. The metal known
as calcium bronze, which is now so common, is an alloy of calcium,
0.75; aluminium, 0.20; and 0.05 of other metals and metalloids in
varying proportions according to different patents. This alloy has
all the useful properties of the finest steel with about one-fourth
its weight, and is besides perfectly non-oxydisable and never
tarnishes. Without the production of a metal with all these
combined qualities, we might still in our journeys, be dawdling
along at sixty miles an hour in a cumbrous railroad car behind
a snorting, screaming locomotive.
Our swiftly darting cars were not at first constructed on such
perfect principles as now. Invention seems to follow certain laws,
and has to take its time. A new discovery in physics has to be
supplemented by one in chemistry, and one in chemistry by another
in physics, and so on through a whole century, perhaps, before any
great invention is perfected. Thus it happens that, though the
principle of the rocket has been known for an age, it is only
comparatively recently that it has been applied to the propulsion
of cars. An invention, too, always presents itself to an inventor
at first in the most complicated form, and frequently many years
are passed in attempts at simplification. What a wide interval is
there between the steam locomotive with all its complex mechanism,
and the magnificently simple rocket car! A century of ceaseless
invention is comprehended between the two! Before the simplicity
of our cars was arrived at, inventors had to give up boilers,
fire-boxes, valves, steam-pipes, cylinders, pistons, wheels,
cranks, levers, and a host of minor parts. Wheels died hard.
Electric locomotives using them were brought out and were
considered to do the very fastest thing possible in locomotion,
and such was in fact the case while wheels were used, for wheels
could not have borne a faster pace without flying to pieces from
centrifugal force. But when an inventor devised a machine on
runners to move on lubricated rails, a great step was gained,
though the invention was not a success, and when, after this,
liquid carbonic acid, or carbonic acid ice expanding again to a gas
was employed as a motive power, another advance was made. Then the
greatest lift of all was given. The solidification of oxygen and
hydrogen by an easy process was discovered and mankind presented
with a new motive power. In due time a way was found to make the
solid substance re-assume the gaseous form either suddenly or by
degrees, and thenceforth thousands of potential horse-power could
be obtained in a form convenient for storing or carrying about.
It is now as simple a matter to buy a hundred horse-power over
the counter as a pound of sugar.
From Toronto to Winnipeg in thirty minutes! From Winnipeg to the
Pacific in forty minutes! Such is our usual pace in 1983. By hiring
a special car the whole distance from Toronto to Victoria can
be accomplished in fifty minutes. A higher speed still is quite
possible, but is not permitted because of the risk of collision
with other cars. Collisions have never yet occurred on account of
the rigid adherence to very strict regulations. Cars that take
short trips of 50 to 100 miles between stations, seldom travel more
than 500 feet from the earth, but for long distances about 1,500
feet is usual. The broad metal slides for receiving the cars and
for their departure, which extend for a mile on each side of all
our stations, are the only portions of the rocket system which much
resemble anything connected with railroads. It is said that great
skill and long practice on the conductor's part are required to
cause the cars to alight well on the slides and draw up at the
stations. The slides at many stations are nearly level with the
ground, but ascend in opposite directions, till at the distance of
a mile, where they end, they are 100 feet high. The cars are now
made quite cylindrical, tapering off abruptly at the closed end.
The outside is entirely of metal, very highly polished, and showing
no projections except a flange on each side, two broad runners
underneath, and a 40 foot rear flange or vane. The dimensions are
usually--diameter of cylinder, 20 feet; length, 45 feet. The high
polish is necessary to avoid heating when the highest speed is
attained. Passengers are seated in a luxurious chamber in the
interior of the cylinder, which is suspended like the compass of a
vessel, and therefore always retains an upright position whatever
may be the position of the car when travelling. About fifty
passengers can be accommodated at one time. The tube emerging
a little beyond the mouth of the cylinder, through which the
expanding gases are expelled, can be slightly deviated from its
axial position in any direction, and thus what little steering
is required is easily effected. The long projecting 40 foot vane
or tail which steadies the motion of the whole machine is, in
the newest patents, made to assist it in alighting on the slides
easily and without jarring. Such is the splendid apparatus,
briefly described, which brings all the ends of the earth together
and makes the whole world a public park, the most distant parts of
which can be visited and returned from in the course of a day. Long
tedious voyages of a week or a month belong to the forgotten past,
for Paris, Calcutta or Hong Kong can be reached in a fraction of
the time formerly occupied in going from Toronto to Montreal. No
passenger traffic is ever carried on now in dangerous vessels upon
the treacherous ocean, but solely in the safe and comfortable
rocket-car through the air a thousand feet or more above the cruel
waters. Steamships, electric ships and sailing vessels are still
common round our coasts engaged in transporting heavy freight, but
they only cross the ocean to convey some bulky produce which cannot
be divided and go by car.
Private vehicles and travelling have also undergone wonderful
changes. The much-abused horse has vanished from cities entirely,
and is not permitted to enter them, greatly to the preservation
of health and cleanliness. All our vehicles have the automatic
electric attachment and move along briskly through the clean wide
streets. The handsome electric tricycles we are so familiar with,
were hardly thought of a hundred years ago; now there are few men
who do not possess a single or a double one.
How dismal must night have been in the times when only gas lamps
or a few electric lights were used in the streets, although our
great-grandfathers appear to have extracted a good deal of
merriment from the dimly lighted hours after sundown. Our domestic
lighting is now done almost entirely by electricity, or the
brilliant little phosphorescent lamps, gas having long been
banished from dwelling-houses; and our method of lighting the
streets is a grand advance, indeed, upon the flickering yellow
gas lamps of old. The great glass globes, which we see suspended
from the beautiful Gothic metal framework at the intersections of
streets, contain a smaller hollow globe, about eighteen inches in
diameter, of hard lime, or some other refractory material, which
is kept at white heat by a powerful oxyhydrogen flame inside. In
this way our cities are illuminated by a number of miniature suns,
making all the principal streets as light by night as by day.
One of our most interesting cities, and one to adopt all the newest
improvements as soon as they come out, is Churchill, Hudson Bay,
that most charming of northern sea-side resorts. Churchill's
population is already 200,000, and is rapidly increasing. Here are
the celebrated conservatories which help to make the long winter
as pleasant to the citizens as summer. These famous promenades,
or rather parks under cover, have a frontage of a mile and a half
along the quay, with a depth of nearly 500 feet. They contain two
splendid hotels and a sanitarium, the latter being surrounded by
a grove of medicinal and health-giving plants and trees from all
parts of the globe. A summer temperature is kept up through the
vast building by utilising the heat from the depths of the earth,
and by natural hot springs which flow from deep bores. Another
fine city of which we may well be proud is Electropolis, on Lake
Athabaska. Electropolis can boast of 100,000 inhabitants, and
most enterprising citizens they are. Their great idea is to work
everything by electricity, and to them belongs the credit of all
the latest discoveries in electrical science. Their beautiful
city is a great centre of attraction for scientific men, and many
European electricians make a practice of coming over every Saturday
to stay till Monday. Here are the colossal thermo-electric
batteries which work throughout the year by there being stored up
in immense solid blocks of aluminium the heat of summer and the
cold of winter. The hot blocks, which are protected in winter, are
exposed to the sun in summer, and are heated nearly to red heat by
the rays concentrated upon them by a series of large mirrors. The
cold blocks are simply exposed to the intensest cold of winter and
protected from the heat of summer. Thus two permanent extremes of
temperature are provided during the whole year, and the batteries
only require to be placed in suitable positions with regard to the
blocks to work continuously.
While speaking of cities in the far north, that of Bearville, on
the shores of Great Bear Lake, in latitude 65 degrees, must not
be passed over. Bearville is the metropolis of one of the finest
mineral districts in the world, but had it not been for the
inexhaustible deposits of all the useful metals in its vicinity,
it is probable a city would never have sprung up in such an
inhospitable region. Between the Coppermine and Mackenzie Rivers
gold and silver are abundant. Platinum and iridium are also common,
and are exported from here to all parts of the world; they are in
great demand by chemists and electricians. A rough population from
all quarters has been attracted to the district, of which Bearville
is the centre, and it would astonish people who seldom come to
the North to see how the ingenuity of man has made life not only
tolerable, but enjoyable, in the neighborhood of the Arctic Circle.
Coal seams crop up above the ground in many places, and wherever
this is the case, large frame conservatories are built which are
lighted, not from the roof, but by wide double windows reaching
from the eaves to the ground, and heated by numerous stoves into
which the coal just taken from the ground is thrown. Electric
lights, magnesium lights and lime lights help to make the long
nights of winter as cheerful as day elsewhere.
In this region wonderful blasting operations are performed by
charges of solidified oxygen and hydrogen. The charges are placed
at the bottom of a 40 foot bore and exploded by a powerful electric
spark. The effect is very different from that of other explosives
which usually rend the rock into large fragments that have to
be blasted again in detail before a clearance is made, for the
oxyhydrogen charge has such terrible force that it completely
pulverizes the rock, scooping out, even in granite, a deep wide
pit of parabolic section of which the spot where the charge was
is the focus. The dust is blown out in a cloud high in the air.
Our finest and largest cities are Halifax, St. John's, Rimouski,
Quebec, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Hamilton, Saulte Ste Marie, Port
Arthur, Winnipeg, Brandon, Edmonton, New Westminster and Victoria.
Toronto, Montreal and Winnipeg each contain more than 2,000,000
inhabitants, while the others range between 500,000 and a little
over 1,000,000. At Halifax is one of the greatest car depots in the
world, and here the traveller can step on board a car for London,
Rome, Jerusalem, Bombay, Cape Town, Melbourne, Sydney, Auckland,
etc. St. John's, Fredericton and Campbelltown are large cities,
the latter being a great rendezvous for pleasure-seekers in summer.
Rimouski is a manufacturing centre and a large car depot. Cars
spring from here to Tadousac, Lake St. John's, Lake Mistassinie
and Hudson Bay ports. Quebec retains much of its old-world
picturesqueness while keeping up well with the times; its
inhabitants number about 700,000. Montreal and Toronto are without
doubt the most magnificent cities in the Dominion, perhaps in the
world. They are both famous for the grandeur of their buildings.
In them, for the most part, each block is a complete structure and
not a conglomeration of little buildings of all shapes and sizes, a
two-storey house next to a four-storey one, and so on. Thus, among
a number of blocks a pleasing harmony in architectural styles is
obtained, which is a golden mean between the rigid uniformity of
some new cities and the antique irregularity of old ones. Winnipeg
is generally reckoned to contain the finest brick buildings to be
seen anywhere; many blocks in brick may be seen of eight and nine
storeys in the grandly decorated modern style. Victoria has grown
into fame by its immense trade with the old Asiatic countries. The
ancient Orient and the modern West here combine. The broad busy
streets are thronged with a motley crowd, in which representatives
of Asiatic races mingle with Anglo-Saxons and representatives of
European nations, all speaking the universal English language. New
Westminster increases its attractions every year. It contains the
noted observatory with the splendid telescope through which living
beings have been observed in the countries in Mars and Jupiter.
In its Hall of Science is the great microscope which magnifies
many million times, and shows the atomic structure of almost any
substance. Its College of Inventors and Physical Institute are the
most perfect establishments. From its extensive Botanical Gardens,
where the Dominion Botanical Society make their experiments with
plants and trees from all countries, great national benefits have
been derived. Here are grown specimens of herbs and shrubs which
prevent or cure every human disease. On one side is seen the plant,
before the smoke of whose leaves when inhaled, consumption
succumbs; on another, the shrub whose berries eradicate scrofula
from the system, and thus through all the catalogue of ills. New
Westminster also boasts a fine University, a College of Physicians
and a Sanitarium; the two latter cause the city to be the resort of
invalids from far and near. No diseases are here called incurable.
At Mingan harbour, on the Gulf of St. Lawrence, are situated the
great works where all the rocket-cars for the Dominion are built.
The site was chosen on account of the large tract of desolate
country to the north of it. The cars as soon as built are tested,
first at short flights, then at longer ones, and conductors are
trained to manage them. There are no regular lines of cars through
or over Labrador, and so there is no risk of collision in the trial
trips. Considerable difficulty is experienced at first in taking a
car a flight of 100 miles, but by practice flights of over 1,000
miles are managed with perfect safety.
The contrast between the present and past might be drawn out to
any extent, but enough has been said to enable the dullest mind
to realize the truly marvellous development of our great Dominion.
And if the development and advance have been great industrially
and commercially, so have they been great, almost greater,
socially; for socially we have set examples which the whole
world has not been slow to follow.