The Denison review. [volume] (Denison, Iowa) 1867-current, 1910-09-07
Chambers JOurnal.)

that shall surely have it's place in his
tory beside that other day, eighty-tve
years ago, when George Stephenson
drove the first railway locomotive be
tween Stockton and Darlington. II
the great square of the Brennan tor
pedo factory at Dillingham;, in Kent
where the figuring tops of battleships
intthe adjacent dockyard poise above
the stone coping of the wall, there was
, a line of railway laid down in circle
OF a quarter of mile. Switches link
ed it up with other lengths of line, a
straight stretch down to muddy cape
of the Midway estuary and string
of curves and loops coiling among the
stone and iron factory sheds. What
was strange about it was that it was
single-just one line of rails on sleep
ers tamped into the unstable made
ground of the place. And there was
Louise Brennan, his face red with the
chill wind sweeping in from the NoreI
his voice plaintive and Irish, discours'
ing at slow length of revolutions per
minute, of procession" and the like
The journalists from London who had
come down at his invitation fidgeted
and shivered in the bitter morning air !;
the affair did not look in the least like
an epoch in the history of transporta.
ton and civilization, till
"Now, gentlemen" said Brennan,
and led the way across the circle of
tracks.
And then, from it's home behind the
low, powder magazine-like sheds, there
rode forth a strange car the like of
which was never seen before. 1t was
painted the business-like slaty blue
gray OF the war office; it was merely
a fiat platform, ten feet wide by thirty
feet long, steel cab mounted on it's
forward end, through the windows of
which one could see young engineer
in tweed standing against the blur of
moving machine parts. 1t ran on the
single rail; it's four wheels revolved
in line, one behind another, and it
travelled with level, flexible equilibri-
UNI of a ship moving across a dock
1t swung over the sharp curves with
out faltering, crossed the switch and
tioated, fioated is the only word for
the serene and equable quality of it's
movement-round and round the quar-
ter mile circle. A workman boarded
it as it passed him and sat on the edge
with his legs swinging and its level
was unaltered. 1t was wonderful be-
yond words to see; it seemed to abol-
ish the very principle of gravitation;
it contradicted calmly ones most ia
miliar instincts. Every one knows the
sense one gains at times while watch
ing an ingenious machine at it's work
"a sense of being in the presence OF
a living and conscious thing, with
more than the industry, the pertin-
acity, the dexterity, of man. There
was moment, while watching Bren-
mans car, when one had to summon
an effort of reason to do away with
this sense of life; it answered each
movement of the men on board and
each inequality of the makeshift track
with an adjustment of balance ire
sistibly suggestive of consciousness. 1t
was an illustration of that trouble.
some theorem which advances that
consciousness is no more than the CO.
relation of the parts of the brain, and
that machine adapted to it's work is
as conscious in it's own sphere as
mind is in it's sphere.
The car backed round the track,
crossed to the straight line and halted
to take us aboard. There were not
less than forty of us and it took up
our inequably distributed weight with
oalt disturbance. The young engineer
threw his lever over and we ran down
the line. The movement was as
sweet" and smooth as the movement
of powerful motor car running slow
ly on a smooth road; there was an
utter absence of those jars and small
later shocks which are inseparable
from car running on double line of
rails. We passed beyond the sheds
and slid along narrow split of land
thrusting cut into the mud-flanked
estuary; men on lighters and a work
ing party of blue-jackets turned to
stare at the incredible machine with
it's load. Then back again, three
times round the circle, and in and out
among the curves, always with that
unchanging stateliness of gait. As we
spun round the circle she leaned in
ward like cyclist against the centrif-
ugal pull; she needs no banking Of the