THE SCIENCE OF DISTANCES. 533 



few, salient facts may be quoted about ships — sailing ships and steam 

 vessels — and about telegraphs and cables. 



In 1870 there were no more than ten British sailing ships which 

 exceeded or reached two thousand tons burden. In 1892 the yards on 

 the Clyde alone launched forty-six steel sailing vessels which averaged 

 two thousand tons each. In 1895 the number of large steel sailing ships 

 being built in the United Kingdom was down to twenty-three, and, 

 speaking generally, it is inevitable that sailing vessels must give way 

 to ocean steamships for most kinds of cargo — cattle, coals, wool, grain, 

 oil and everything else. 



Now let us turn to the results in shortening journeys accom- 

 plished by the progress made in the construction and in the driving 

 machinery of steamships within the last forty years, which has especially 

 been fruitful in such improvements. 



During this century the six months' voyage round the Cape to 

 India became a forty and then a thirty days' journey by what was known 

 as the overland route for mails and passengers through Egypt. By de- 

 grees it had become shorter still by the railway extensions on the Con- 

 tinent and by the unbroken steamship passage through the Suez Canal, 

 until now the mails and hurrying travelers may reach London in twelve 

 or fourteen days after leaving Bombay; and the great liners of the P. 

 & 0. Company can arrive in the Thames eight days later. This famous 

 corporation, after her Majesty had been reigning nearly ten years, pos- 

 sessed only fourteen ships, with an aggregate of 14,600 tons. Now it 

 owns a princely fleet of fifty-three ocean steamers, with a total capacity 

 of 142,320 tons. Practically the voyage to India in her Majesty's reign 

 has been diminished by one-half at least. 



Also since the Queen's accession the passage between the British 

 Isles and the Commonwealth of Australia has grown shorter, from the 

 ninety days taken by the sailing clippers to the fifty-three days occupied 

 by Brunei's 'Great Britain.' At the present time it lasts from thirty to 

 thirty-five days by the Suez Canal route, while it has been finished in 

 as little as twenty-eight days. Australia is consequently only half as far 

 away, in time, as it was; while, if the Suez Canal were closed for any 

 reason, we have at our disposal, in addition to the Cape route with its 

 quick steamers, which is linked to us by the Pacific Ocean road, the 

 splendid service of that Empire-consolidator, the Canadian Pacific 

 Railway. 



The important part played by the Suez Canal in this connection 

 will be discussed a little later. Now I am merely indicating by a few 

 well-known facts the diminution of distance by the improvements which 

 have been made in the ships themselves and in their propelling 

 machines. 



Across the Atlantic the rapidity of traveling and the general aver- 



