New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1855-07-16
LOCOMOTION.

motion-scarcely behind that Of light or light
ming. In our age, embodied spirits have found
means to transmit their thoughts through space
at an equal rate of velocity; but as to transmit
TING themselves, compounded of matter and
mind. they have stuck fast for some years at
rate of fifty or sixty miles an hour, with con-
siderable chance ofdissolving the said compound
by even that velocity. Will they always stick
here Is railroad speed the highest that can
be attained with safety either for parcels or
personsl
The grossest forms Of matter, even huge
worlds, fly through space with motions incom-
parably swifter than any which the belligerents
at Sevastopol can give TO the missiles they hurl at
each other, and seldom meet with any accident
to passengers or baggage. What hinders pro-
portionate velocity of projectiles or vehicles on
the surface Of our planet is the resistance OF the
air. Were it not for this, railroad trains could
be very economically moved at the rate Of sew
eral hundred miles an hour; We do not say VIII
any increase of safety to the passengers, but the
resistance encountered would be less for the
fast than for the slow trip, and with the en-
eineerlng requisite for the circumstances the
swifiest cannon ball night be easily outstripped
But in all places accessible to spirits in the
body Natures "horror of vacuum" is pro-
verbal, and whenever we don't find anything
else we are sure to find air of some sort 1t is
in vain to think of getting up vacuum for loco
motive purpOses, even though we might be put
through one of any length while we could hold
breath Still, there is an available chance of
getting rid of the resistance of the air so as to
move with the velocity of sound, or at least
with that of fast cann'n ball. We have only
TO get the air itself into the motion of which it
ia capable, and move with it, and we cease to
encounter its resistance. Certain meteOr,og-
zeal causes not yet we'll understood but doubt
less operating to produce only slight approach
to a local vacuum, agitate the air in hurricanes
and tornadoes in which its velocity must far
exceed one hundred miles an hour. still
higher velocity of air may easily be produced in
tube. For example: Suppose tube very
nearly -tieht-that is, as nearly so as can be
made without difliculty-of ore foot in diameter,
to extend from New.York to Albany. Ii is per-
fectly easy to cause every particle OF the air IN
this tube to pass through pumps worked at one
end of it in less than half an hour, aud at the
close Of the operation, the other end OF the
tube having been left open, it will be as full of
air as e1er. Consequently air can be made to
travel f ON Albany to New-York in half an hour
or LEES. Experiments have satisfactorily es-
tablished this, aud have equally proved that
the moving air may be made to carry very con-
siderable loads with it without materially re-
tarding its velocity The economy of the mo-
tive power in this species of lOcOmoton, no
engineer, so far as we know, pretends to dis
pute. So long ago as June 1851, special Com
mittee of the United States Senate, on the
Memorial of Ithiel S. Richardson upon the
"subiect of his proposed atmospheric tele-
"eraph' reported in favor Of the construction
of tube for conveying the mail from Washing
ton to Baltimore on this plan. The report (No.
1911 is model of scientific research and practi-
cal good sense. Nobody has anywhere undertaken
TO confute its arguments in favor of the expert
ment it proposes. But this, like hundred
other plans for the public good, has had TO step
aside for the extension of Slavery that being
the business for which the general Government
now mainly exists It is not likely that the
branch of the Government charged with the mail
service, any other, will have leisure to treat this
new plan Of lOcomOtion for some years. In the
mean time, why should it not be tested for some
other purpose than that of conveying the mails
Many things will bear transportation at high
speed which will not pay at low one. If there
is no greater expense in the motive power neces-
ssry to transport given weight given dis
tance by atmospheric pressure through tube
than over a railroad, and it can be done in one
tenth of the time, the gain in time may be deci-
siye. If 200 miles could be trayersed in two
hours and half, the fresh salmon of the North
snd the early vegetables of the South could
change places to a certain extent in an April
morning before breakfast, and leave profit at
both ends of the tube. The sum which is ex-
pended in the market Of any Of our great cities
for edibles in advance of the season is enormous;
and for great part of those that are in season
the prices rude much higher than they would if
there were means of transportation ten times as
rapid, equivalent to a corresponding enlarge
ment of the back country. For great variety
of articles, salsble only when perfectly fresh,
the large cities, in spite of railroad rapidity, are
at the mercy of very limited district Accord.
ingly, the prices of many desirable articles rule
above the means of the mass Of consumers.
Could these consumers combine their resources
and put themselves in hourly communication
with some fertile valley two hundred miles dis
tant, they might be dining on the best marrow.
fat peas instead of soapy potatoes of Iast year;