RAILROADS, TELEGRAPHS, AND CIVILIZATION 315 



reached an unprecedented development, and this as regards quantity 

 and variety and quality. If Industry knew what it was doing when 

 in 1829 it offered a prize for a locomotive-engine available as a draught- 

 power, its knowledge has brought it rich fruits. With that inven- 

 tion it gained a basis for increased production, and made it possible to 

 bring together the raw material and the power at points where human 

 skill and the other favorable conditions for production were found. 

 The railroad carried coal and lime to the iron-mines, and cotton to the 

 valleys where men's hands and valuable water-powers were waiting to 

 be used ; blast-furnaces and forges rose here, spinning and weaving 

 establishments there. Industry was released from its bondage to the 

 few spots where all the conditions favorable to its development ex- 

 isted together: and became mobile. It was enough after that if any 

 one of those conditions was given in any place ; what was wanting 

 could be supplied at relatively small expense by means of the railway. 

 Thus have great industries developed themselves mainly under the 

 operation of these agencies. The remarkable phenomena in the eco- 

 nomical field connected with these enterprises are the division of labor 

 and the tendency to the equalization of wages, both as between differ- 

 ent places and as against fluctuations in the prices of goods ; the for- 

 mer prominently exemplified in the confinement of particular enter- 

 prises to special branches of production ; the latter favored by the 

 easy migration of laborers from place to place, and the rapid spread of 

 news of advances in wages, as well as by the possibility of coalitions 

 against uneven scales. 



Just as a community of interest has been produced in the world's 

 trade by the operation of railroads and telegraphs, so it has been in 

 industries. Every advance in technics shortly becomes known and 

 common, while those who are backward in taking it up suffer during 

 the transition. On the other hand, local crises are felt by related in- 

 dustries far from the place of their origin, till, in fact, the distance 

 becomes so great that the market is protected against the effects of the 

 shock by the cost of transportation. But here, again, the flexibility 

 and efficiency of the means of communication are of great help in 

 overcoming such crises and equalizing their mischievous consequences. 



The movement of persons has undergone quite as important a growth 

 as that of goods. In the " Review of the World's Economy," already 

 named, the number of passengers carried by all the railroads in all 

 parts of the world, in 1882, is estimated at 2,400,000,000, or an average 

 of six and half million a day. The absolute number of passengers 

 carried on steamers is smaller ; but here, as was also the case with 

 goods, they are carried for longer distances, and more days' journeys, 

 than on railroads ; so that, estimated by the mile or the day, the 

 amount both of freight and passenger work the steamers do will ap- 

 pear to much better advantage. 



The significance of the facilitation of passenger transportation is 



