RAILROADS, TELEGRAPHS, AND CIVILIZATION. 311 

 RAILROADS, TELEGRAPHS, AND CIVILIZATION. 



By Hebe C. HEEZOG. 



THERE has hardly been a more quiet decade in the political his- 

 tory of the nineteenth century than the one between 1830 and 

 1840. Yet that decade was the cradle of a new epoch, in which inven- 

 tions first came into view, or were brought to practical completion, 

 which have had a deeper and more permanent influence than any 

 political event could have upon the shaping of human society. The 

 first steam-railroad in Europe was built in the beginning of this decade, 

 after George Stephenson had solved the problem of the locomotive in 

 1829. In 1833 Gauss and Weber fixed the first telegraph-wire be- 

 tween the Observatory and the Physical Cabinet in Giittingen, and 

 thereby laid the foundation of electro-magnetic telegraphy, building 

 on which Morse in 1836 invented the writing-telegraph. In this year, 

 1836, also, the first screw-steamer was built in England, and the trans- 

 atlantic steam-traffic was opened two years later, or in 1838. 



Only a few sharp and enlightened minds could have been able at 

 that time to form a conception of the effects which these discoveries 

 were destined to exercise upon the world ; but their development from 

 those feeble beginnings to the present day has immeasurably surpassed 

 the most sanguine expectations. 



The length of the railways, of which three hundred and thirty-two 

 kilometres were in operation in 1830, had risen in 1883 to more than 

 444,000 kilometres ; and, if the lines were joined one to another, they 

 would have gone around the earth in its longest circumference more 

 than ten times ! Like a net, the meshes of which are continually 

 drawing closer together, their lines are woven over all the countries of 

 Europe ; in both Americas, they have made way into the hitherto 

 pathless wilderness ; they have climbed the Rocky Mountains of the 

 North and the Cordilleras of Peru, and have broken through the 

 nation-dividing walls of the Alps ; the largest streams of the earth 

 wear the yoke of their bridges ; in Southern Africa, in the East Indies, 

 and in Japan, they are pressing unintermittingly into new regions, and 

 even in the Chinese Empire trial-surveys are making for advantageous 

 routes. 



Steamship navigation has grown on a similarly grand scale. Nearly 

 ten thousand steamers, with a capacity of seven million tons, traverse 

 the ocean, and connect all parts of the earth with one another. Inde- 

 pendent of wind and tide, they maintain communications with a swift- 

 ness, security, and regularity rivaling those of the railways, whose 

 complement they are in providing for the world's trade. 



More rapidly and extensively than both of these has the telegraph 

 taken possession of the world. The conductor which, in 1833, con- 



