The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1880-05-06
The Great Feature Of the Century.
The engineering achievements of th

| century, beyond a question, are tnOse IOr
which it will be most famous and longest
remembered. Theologians and philoso.
pliers may split hairs about metaphysical
science, but they will all join in the cele-
bration Of what the engineers have done
for modern progress.
The past fifty years have been the most
fruitful in the whole history of engineer
ing, and, therefore, the review of its ac-
complishments in that time, given in a
recent address by MIR. William Henry
Barlow, the President of the Institution
of Civil Engineers of England has a gen.
eral interest. When that institution was
chartered in 1928, the question of trans
portation was one of great urgency. The
canals, which dated in England, from
about the year 1853, had increased to a
length exceeding 5000 miles, but they
were inadequate to the commercial needs
of the country. In the United States the
Erie Canal had been opened in 1925, and
had been hailed as an engineering feat Of
astonishing magnitude; and about the
same time lesser canals had been con-
structed in other States. Both here and
in England much attention was bestowed
on turnpike roads during the first quarter
of the century.
The steam locomotive was then only in
it's early experimental stages. In 1880,
however, the Liverpool and Manchester
Railway was opened, and George Ste
phenson's predictions regarding the value
of locomotives for tractive power began
to be realized. So great was the want of
improved methods of transportation, that
the spread of the railway system was rap
i'd, far beyond even Stephenson's e1pecta.
ton. In his address to the British Asso-
citation in 1875, forty-fve years after, Sir
Jno. Hawkshaw estimated the total length
of railroads then existing at 16O, 900 miles,
and the total capital invested in them at
$16,OO0,OO0,0OO.
Since that time railroad extension has
gone on throughout the world, though
during the last FIVE years, owing to the
prevailing business depression, the prog
ress has not been 80 rapid as it was just
previously. Yet even in England, which
already seemed well supplied with rail.
ways, the increase in miles was more
than two thousand between 1870 and 1880;
and the railway traffic has nearly quad
rupled in twenty-five years. With US,
from 1872, the year when railways we're
built with such astonishing rapidity,
reaching 7,34O miles of new construc-
tions, up to last year, there was decline
in the progress; but 1879 witnessed the
addition Of 4,430 miles of rail, and 1880
promises to be one of the most active
years we have ever known in the business.
The total mileage of railway in the United
States, was, at the beginning Of 1880, &c.
263 miles, or one mile Of railroad for ev-
cry 574 inhabitants, ratio greatly in
excess of that of Europe, which has one
mile of railroad to every $500 persons.
Outside the new railroads to be built
in the United States, there is field enough
for railroad extension in Asia and Africa.
China has as vet no railroads. Japan has
only begun to lay them, and Africa is al
most without railways for the 350, ,000, 900
inhabitants Mr.. Brassey gives that conti-
nent. South America, also, still only
supplied to very limited extent, and in
CentralAsia they must be vastly extended.
Steam navigation has had nearly its
whole growth within the last fifty years.
It is true there were 344 steam vessels in
existence in 1928, but they were of an
average of only about ninety tons each,
and were chiefly employed in river and
coasting traffic. Ocean steam navigation
had not yet been attempted, and not till
1888 did the successful voyages of the ST.
rius and Great Western make it an ac-
complished fact. Before 1886, the largest
ships aAoat were between 300 and 900
tons burden and about 220 horse power.
Now the Cunard steamship Servia is of
$500 tons, and 10000 horse power, while
the Iuhexible of the British navy has o
tonnage of Ii 600 tons, and its engines q
power of 5000 horses, and the Italia of
the Italian navy will be of 13,2O0 tons
burden and $4,000 horse power.
The telegraph, which was at first brought
into practical use in this country in 1S44,
between Washington and Baltimore, en-
ployed 100000 miles of wire as long ago
as 1875. Since that time its extension
under the sea and on land has been enor-
nous.
The employment of gas as means of
illumination was only beginning fifty
years ago, but now the capital invested in
the London Gas Works alone amounts to
s6O,OOo,O0o, and in the whole United
Kingdom it amounts to $2O0,O00,OOO.
And these are only few of the engi-
neering achievements of the half cen:
tury. Mr.. Barlow estimates the total
capital invested in engineering works du-
ring that time at $l7, 100000 900, or
about s350,0OO,000 annually. Of this
vast sum nineteen.twentieths belong to
railways, steamships, docks, harbors and
telegraphs, all of which are directed to
improving and extending the means of
transport for passengers and merchan-
disc, and the communication OF intelli-
gence.
The great feature of the last half CEN
tury, therefore, has been the improve
ment of the methods of transportation,
in obedience to the urgent demand; made
by commerce for new and swifter means
of intercourae.-Mey York Sun.