The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1903-01-04

long trips has been taken, not the records
made in short distances.
Fifty miles an hour on land and TWEEN
ty-six miles an hour on the water do
not by any means represent the fastest
time that has been made.
4 number of torpedo-Doat chasers and
small steam racing yachts have left the
miles behind at the rate of thirty or
more and the new transatlantic liner
Kaiser William H., now building at
Stettin, Germany, is expected to attain
an average speed of twenty-eight miles
an hour.
There is still greater difference between
the average and the possible speed OF
locomotives For short spurts they have
been known to flash along the rails at
the rate of a mile in thirty-five seconds.
The twenty hour trains between New
Yor kand Chicago are composed OF three
to five coaches weighing fifty tons apiece
and an engine Weighing IA tons, yet
this vast bulk CT nearly so tens is hurl-
ed forward at an occasional speed of
eighty-three miles an hour-l22 feet per
second.
placed by the Scientific American. to
which we are indebted for many of these
figures at the sum of 100000 And the
priceless lives OF - passengers add TO
the responsibility of the engineer who
guides the flying thunderbolt OF wood
and steel through a maze of flashing
signals.
Yet up TO the present time no serious
accident has happened to these flyers
and there is every reason to believe that
the American system of fast expresses
between distant points will be adopted
in both Europe and Asia
BY method of relays, changing loco
motives $50 or 175 miles. a high rate of
sreed is maintained without injury to
the locomotive.
But even this amazing rate of speed
Is not regarded i'll any sense final by
experts Herr Robnedu. the German cleo
trical expert. recently told the Kaiser
that the use of electricity in the place
OF steam would make n trip around the
world possible in - dayS-nine on land
and thirteen on water. Robneau declared
that before ten years it would be posi-
days at the present rate of rapid transit
development.
The present -the-world time ia
bic is as follows:
New York to Southampton. days;
Southampton to Brinds. 3l2 days: Brin-
disi to Yokohoma by Suez Canal. AZ days;
YolIohoma to San Francisco 10 days;
San Francisco to New York. i12days,
making a total of e6 days.
1t will be seen that two-thirds of the
time is used in making the long sea jour
ney from Brindisi to Yokohama. The
new route which has been made possible
by the completion of the Trans-Siberian
Railroad is not only shorter but makes
possible q sped of fifty miles an hour
as against twentysix by sea.
In Jules Verne's imaginative novel Phil
cas- Fogg succeeded in making hisSglobe
circling trip in eighty days. In 1889 Mel
lie Bly, sent by the New York World,
first made clear the possibilities of in
ternational rapid transit by travelling
around the would in seventy-two and
one-quarter days. Her trip was made
via the Suez canal, Colombo Singapore.
and San Francisco.
Nellie Bly's record was not broken
until 1894, when George Griffith. sent by
an English magazine, made the trip in
sixty-siX days.
The astonishing nature of these per-
fCrmances may he better realized when
il is remembered that the first American
locomotive was not built until 1880. and
that Fulton's first steamboat, the Cler
mont, did not make her first trip until
1907. Thus all the improvements that
have made twenty-eight day trip
around the world possible have been ac-
conlplished in less than single century.
One hundred years ago the average
rate of travel was not five miles an
hour. A proposition was made to con-
eress by George Washington during his
Presidency to increase the speed at
which the mails were carried to at least
five miles an hour. showing that the
average rate at that time was less.
At the rate of five miles an hour a
world grip would take 1SS days. or almost
seven times as long as the number of
days required il this age of the steam
boat and the loo omotive.
The first locomotive designed for ac-
tual service in this country was built
at the West Point foundry. New York.
and was put TO work on the South Caro-
lima railroad. This engine attained
speed OF thirty-five miles an hour with
out train and with four or five ears
filed with passengers il ran at the rate
of twenty miles an hour
At that time this rate Of travel was
considered Amazingly fast as well as
exceedingly dangerous.