TRANSPORTATION AND COMMUNICATION
1
Think of the foods that you had on your dinner table yesterday. Where
did each come from? How did it get here? Was there anything which came
from our own neighborhood, and which did not have to take a long journey
either to the factory where it was manufactured or to the store where it
was sold?
Examine the clothing you are wearing. Of what material is each article
made? Where did the materials come from? Where were they manufactured?
Which had to come a long journey before it reached your home?
Look around the school-room and name the materials which had to travel a
long distance before we could have them for our use.
Imagine trying to get our food, our clothing and our shelter materials
right near our school. How much could we be sure of having?
2
Perhaps you have seen products being brought into the city. You may have
seen the milk trains unloading their many shining cans. Surely you have
seen the freight cars with their signs painted on the outside telling
that they are refrigerator cars, or coal cars, or other kinds of cars.
What do they carry?
Most of the things we need are brought here on trains. Where is there in
our neighborhood a freight railroad station? Is it near our school?
Some products are taken from the country to the town in wagons. You have
seen the big hay wagons which go a long way from some farm to take food
for the city horses.
[Illustration: CHINESE TRANSPORTATION.]
How else are products carried? Coffee, rubber, pepper, chocolate and
much silk are brought here from distant lands in ships. If you go to the
harbor of a large city you can see hundreds of busy men unloading the
big steamers.
3
Ships and railroads carry not only foods but people too. There are many
ways of carrying people and products. These are some of the ways:
1. On the backs of animals, as horses, camels, elephants.
2. In wheelbarrows.
3. In wagons.
4. In automobiles.
5. In trolley cars.
6. In railroad trains.
7. On boats, or ships.
8. In sleighs.
9. On bicycles.
10. In airships.
[Illustration: TRANSPORTATION IN ARABIA.]
In which of these ways have you traveled? Can you tell what power is
used in each case?
In order to travel safely and quickly we need more than something in
which to carry the people and products. We must have good wagon roads,
well built railroads, tunnels through the mountains, and bridges over
the rivers. Lighthouses are necessary to warn the vessels of the rocks
at night or in the storms.
4
When people need things from a distance they cannot always go all the
way to the place and bring back the products or articles. It is quicker
and easier to send messages asking for what is needed. How would your
mother send an order to the butcher for meat if she did not wish to go
for it? How could a farmer send a message to the city ordering new milk
cans and strawberry boxes? How do messages come to your house?
In olden days the persons had to carry all of their messages for
themselves or send them by other persons. The messenger would often run
for miles without resting so as to deliver the letters as soon as
possible. At last the people decided to give all of their letters to a
postman who would ride on horseback from place to place with the mail.
Stagecoaches were next used. It took a week for a coach to go as far as
a train can go now in a few hours. Our mail is now carried from one
place to another by trains or vessels, and then the letter carriers
deliver it at our city houses or to our town post office or rural
mail-box.
The quickest way to send a message is by cable, telegraph, telephone or
wireless message. Over the electric wires or through the air the words
are flashed for miles in a few minutes.