The Fulton County news. [volume] (McConnellsburg, Pa.) 1899-current, 1903-03-26
FULTON COUNTY NEWS.
EARTH GROWS SMALL.
Time and Space Annihilated
by Modern Methods.

says Robert B. Armstrong in the
National Magazine, the world to.
day is as great as in the days Of
the Pharaohs. A hundred years
ago it still retained that formida.
bic girth. o.dsy, measured by
the hour glass, the planet has
shriveled into % mere miniature
of its former self. Under the
compressure of electricity, steam
and steel bridges a spectacle is
presented of practical time and
space annihllation.
Seas have been dried up, conti-
nents pushed together and ls-
lands welded that this might be.
Nations once isolated are now in
earshot of one another, and the
markets of all peoples line a sin.
gle street. American wheat
fields are days, not months, away
from British bake shops
French wines are hours, not
weeks, removed from American
dinner tables. New York is on
the outskirts of London, and Par.
is is not block away. Deep sea
cables and land wires hem the
buyers and sellers of the world
into vortex of competition,
whose diameter is a minute, and
within whose circumference are
gathered all the products and all
the purses of mankind.
Into this vortex American en-
ergy has plunged, and the splash
has been called american Inva-
sion" Compared with future
possibilities in the game of inter-
national barter the recent activ-
tiles of American men of affairs
abroad are merely preliminary
and almost experimental. That
American ingenuity and vigor
have contributed much to the
dwarting of the planet is an earn
est that Americans will take a
keen advantage of every opportu-
nifty to produce a still smaller Pc
riphery to the globe. Meantime
the shortened circumference has
brought complications which
have bearing of great import
ance on the com mercial pros.
poets of the United States.
A century has been a revolu-
ton in time annihilation. And
America, young as it is, has caus-
ed many sparks to fly IN this
greater activity. In 1900 the
world was sluggish. Thousands
travelled in saddle bags and men
crawled at a snail's pace over
land and sea. In America there
was no such thing as expedition.
kentuckians knew nothing of the
election of James Madison to the
Presidency of the United States
until three months after the last
ballot had been counted. There
would have been no Chesapeake
and Ohio canal but for the argu.
ment that by means of it the de-
crees of Congress were to be
speedily transmitted to the cities
beyond the Blue Ridge and the
Alleghenies.
The pony express was the ac-
me of rapidity in the days of
George Washington, who requir-
ed more time to ferry a message
from New York to Brooklyn than
an American does to-day to flash
a message around the globe
Imagine the amazement of Ben
Jamin Franklin if he could have
stood the other day as many mod
ern scientists did, and seen one
or the most remarkable exploits
OF time humiliation on record. -
lt was test of thought trans
mission halfway around the
globe. A thirty word dispatch
sung over the wires to San Fran
CISCO, then to Vancouver, from
there to Nova Scotia, whispered
under the waters of the Atlantic
10 London and back to New York.
Every wire had been cleared for
the test, and before the operator
mad reached the last word of this
TEST message another operator in
1'ie same room was taking the
nrst word of the same dispatch
not from the cable direct from
London.
The whole world has caught
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