The Cape Girardeau Democrat. (Cape Girardeau, Mo.) 1876-1909, 1900-12-29
THE PROGRESS OF
THE 18th CENTURY.
Wonderful Advancement in Means of
LOcomOtiOn Since Fulton Sailed his
Steamboat 10 tie Present daV.
By Malcolm L Richards PHI d

CcHlUIltS nave WltHeSSeu progress IOI
man, who was cropping after better
things hundreds of years ago., has never
refrigerated, but. whatever the future
may have in store, it is still safe to say
that coming historians will give to the
present century the credit for having
achieved more in the improvement OF
the race n any of its predecessors.
A century that has given to the
world such poets, such scientists and
such inventors as the nineteenth, can-
not be robbed of it's prestige.
What a chaSm lies " the last
year of the eighteenth century and the
last year of the nineteenth. The world
was then 100 days in diameter, but that
time diameter has now disappeared. a
hundred years age it required more
than -four months to convey a thought
from n point to its a%ntipodes, while
it now arrives at one end of the earth
almost as soon as it leaves the other.
To-day, if a person desires to travel
from n end of the world to the other.
he a do so in perfect comfort n Will
be required to spend but a compare
lively snort pace of time.
At the close of the eighteenth CEN
fury our ~forefathers had made little
more progress in the matter OF rapid
conveyance than had the first man who
sat o a horse, padded a canoe or
sailed a boat.
1t was in 1893 that Fulton first turned
his attention to the subject of steam
navigation and six years later he
launced his boat on the Seine He ex-
pected great results from this craft.
but it sank the M it touched the
water. Still the inventor was not dis
cuuraSed. Again and again he con-
structed bis boats ana in some cases he
was able to operate them successfully,
but it was not until 1907 that he per-
fected his invention.
This boat. which was called the Cler-
mont. was built at a shipyard on the
East River. in New York city, and lis
first trip, which occurred on August II,
1907. was made up the Hudson to AL
bany. II required just ~thirty-two
hours. This was the beginning of
steam navigation. and from that day
the advancement in the art of ship
building has never ceased.
The first ocean going vessel to be
driven by steam was the Savannah,
which made the Atlantic trip eighty
years ago, in the remarkable time of
twenty-six days, but the real era of
progress in transatlantic navigation
did not open until 1910, when the first
regular line OF Atlantic steamships was
~inaugurated.
The pioneer in this vast ocean traffic
Was the Britannia, which was one of a
feet of four wooden ships with side
wheels. but her appearance in Boston,
after having made the trip across the
ocean in the unprecedented time of
fourteen days and eight hours, created
almost as profound A sensation as the
Great Eastern did later.
The queer old sida-whee1 steamships
of this time We're used until 1862, when
the China. the first vessel to be pro-
PEELED by a screw. was put on. From
tina day the progress in ocean naviSa-
ton has been so phenomenal that yes
sells like the Oceanic or the Kaiser Will
helm der Crosse no longer attract at
tention. and it is considered an inordi-
nate waste Of time to spend more than
six days in making the trip from
side of the Atlantic TO the other.
ON LAND.
What has been dCne during the pas
century on the sea. however, has also
been done on land. II Is true that there
were railroads in the eighteenth century
but as the steam cnEine had not then
been invented they were necessarily
very primitive. II Us not until lh"2
he first progressive step WaSMhH-
At that time Eiylard 1-evithick took
out a patent in england for a high
pressure engine adapted tn molten on
and twelve years later George
So han.un built his first engine Tor tn"
worth Coi36ry-
For more Than 4 Go2on years tu1sh
arEires were used. Il -svr as " '.'-
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