Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1894-04-09
Future Transit.


of electric lights, our footsteps alone
sounding in the silence.
ssWhere was /? Why did l come
there? Who was my mysterious
guide?"
There was no response to these in
terrogations.
a long journey in the night, doors
of iron opened and closed noisily, the
descent OF staircases deeply sunk in
the earth = that was all L could sue
ceed in remembering indeed had
no leisure to think.
"You are undoubtedly asking who
lam and where you are?" said my
guide. 81 am Colonel Pierce, at your
service, and we are in America, in the
city of Boston, in astation."
ga station?' said I.
ayes, the terminus of the Boston
and Liverpool Pneumatic Tube Com
pany," and with a gesture of explain
alton Colonel Pierce pointed to two
long iron cylinders about two meters
in diameter which were not far from
me.
I gazed upon these two cylinders,
set in a mass of masonry, having enor-
nous metallic obdurators, from
whence several iron tunnels extended,
passing through the ceiling. And all
at once l understood.
remembered to have read snort
time previously, in an American news
paper, an article recounting an eX-
traordinary scheme for uniting Eu-
rope and the new world by two gigan-
tic tubes under the ocean. An inven-
ton had been made, and the inventor
was the very Colonel Pierce who was
my present guide. [ again read, IN
thought, the article in the newspaper.
The reporter went into all the de-
tails of the enterprise. He wrote that
it was constructed of iron Of length
of $500, 600 meters, weighing 3,OOO,-
600 tons; that 200 vessels of 1900 tons
each were necessary to transport the
material, each vessel making SO voy-
ages He showed that this scientific
armada carried the steel to two yes
sells at each end of the route, on board
of which the ends of the tubes were
held He explained that the tubes
themselves were extended under the
waves without intermission in Sec
lions of three meters screwed tOgeth-
er and powerfully bound by triple
band of steel plate covered with a
coat of rosin.
In regard to the matter of it's work
ing: The tubes, which resemble two
gigantic pea shooters, carried in their
interiors series of passenger cars
which were impelled by powerful cur
rents of air in the same manner as the
present pneumatic process.
A comparison with the steam rail
road system concluded the descrip-
ton, and the author enthusiastically
enumerated the advantages of the
new and audacious system. In the
tubes there are no disagreeable nois-
es to cause nervous trepidation,
thanks to the internal surface, which
is Of polished steel. The temperature
is even, the currents of air being mod
flied according to the seasons, snd the
rates for passengers Or merchandise
being extremely moderate by reason
of the economic construction and the
comparatively small running expens-
es required for working the inven
ton.
And the writer went on to state, for
getting that, despite the 1866 kilo-
meters which the rotation of the
I, CT ,1o
ed at the equator are still subject to
the laws Of gravity, forgetting that it
would be necessary to be released
from the operation of these laws to
have a speed II times greater he
went so far as to assert that trains in |
consequence of the rapidity of their
movement and the curving of the |
earth would be subject to so small an
amount of friction that they could be |
used indefinitely, perhaps to all eter
nifty.
All that came to my mind then and
there. Thus this Utopia had become
reality, and those two cylinders of
iron that were near me extended be-
You'd the Atlantic and welded togeth-
er, as it were, the two continents! De-
spite what 1 saw I was not able to
convince myself. There were the
tubes truly, but that passengers could
be taken by that route I could not
bring myself to believe.
"Was it possible that a complete
current of air could be established of
that length?" [ formulated this ques-
ton aloud