The midland journal., 1916-04-21
EVOLUTION OF SPEED
WRITER HAS TRACED ITS PROG.
REss rHRoUeH CENTURIES.
All Of Mans ingenuity, However, Has
Not Caused Him to Devise Means
TO Travel Faster Than
the Little Swallow.

. 4 - E p
Those twittering swallows have
something to twit about. Until an
hour ago I thought of them only as
friendly decorations in the sky. Now
see them in their true light, as
mans rivals In the struggle for speed
supremacy.
l was sitting by a sunny bay win
dow, overlooking a stretch Of the main
street in sleepy Southern village. In
all the landscape nothing had stirred
for half an hour but the swallows, o
passing motor car, and schoolhOy
racing in its wake In the vain hope OF
hooking" ride. Motion, however,
even so little of 1t as this-has a way
Of monopolizing our attention from
everything else. It set me to thinking
about speed; wondering, In particu-
lar, how motor cars and swallows and
self-propelled humans compared in
the worlds record. / got down q
newspaper almanac, pad Of paper,
and pencil, and began to enliven
some slow moments by tracing the
dizzy evolution of speed.
The standing Of the self-propelled
human, soon enough discovered, was
pitifully low in the averages. In his
lightest apparel and favored with
spiked shoes and a well-rolled track OF
cinders. the best that tho best man
among us can run a mile In is at a
rate that would carry him only IA
miles an hour. Even If human mus
Gle could maintain for an hour the
pace Of worlds championship 100
yard dash, our record would be only
81 miles and a small fraction.
But see how mans pride and his
lust for speed have urged him to ex-
pedients. Mounted on the best of race
horses he has managed to have him
self propelled for a mile at rate of
nearly 40 miles an hour.
BY inventing the bicycle he then
r,,ised the rate at which he could
cover a mile at a speed Of 81 1-S miles
an hour. The motor cycle, almost
succeeded in doubling this pace. Its
rate for the mile Is 100.
Meanwhile. man was developing
other inventions. In locomotive he
attained speed, over short course,
of 100 miles an hour. He experiment.
ed with flying machines, until in the
fastest monoplanes he managed to hurl
himself through the air at a rate OF
six and one-half more miles an hour
than he had been able to force out OF
a railway engine. This rate is enough
to make the brain reel, but think, next,
OF the terrific speed at which he has
driver motor car-142.8 miles an
hour.
Cause for congratulation truly, but
not yet enough to allow him to crow;
for, even with this. man has not be-
come the speed king Of creation.
Hawks and vultures, our scientists
say, can attain q speed OF $50 miles
an hour. And not only can they pass
up in short-distance swoops and
spurts they also can maintain their
greater speed over long courses. On
an air route from Antwerp to Com
piegne, swallow-ilo picked athlete,
either, but (suppcsedly) a common,
homebody bird, eager to get back to
the family chimney few 14O miles
the other day at an average speed of
1913 miles an hour. No worlds cham
tion motor car or monoplane has
record that compares favorably with
this for such distance.
Man is swiftly progressing; he can
motor a mile now at speed ten
times as fast as he can run it; and
he may yet become the speed king OF
creation. But meanwhile-and this is
what gals him-he has to take off his
hat to an ordinary little twittering
swallow Charles Phelps Gushing. In
New York Evening Post.