THE RETROSPECT OF THE YEAR. 135 
being slacked, in pits for a period of three years. After 
the decline of tlie Roman empire, road-making came prac- 
tically to an end, although Mc Adams succeeded in mak- 
ing some fine roads in England and elsewhere. Raih-oads 
were introduced in 1825, with George Stevens as an en- 
gineer ; the speed from eleven to twelve miles an hour, 
with an outrider on a horse to warn the people of the ap- 
proach of a train. The aim has been to cheapen transpor- 
tation, and to-day it is less than one cent per mile for a 
ton. 
In the United States, the improvements for travel be- 
gan with canals ; canal speed is limited and there are now 
few canals much used. The Gauges canal in India is the 
greatest, being about 1,000 miles in length. The lecturer 
spoke of the various projects for communication in Eu- 
rope, Africa and America and gave a number of interest- 
ing facts and statistics in illustration of his subject. 
Monday, May 5, 1890. — Prof. John Ritchie, jr., of 
Boston read a paper on " Ramie and Flax," a new indus- 
try for our New England mills. The Salem Gazette ^ay^, 
"The subject has special local interest from the fact that the 
process of converting it into a commercial article was orig- 
inated by Mr. Charles Toppan of this city." Many sam- 
ples of ramie in the form of raw material were shown and 
gave evidence of what might be accomplished with the 
stuff. 
Ramie is the inner bark of a shrub and is no new mate- 
rial , the cloth in a crude form having been used for wrap- 
ping up mummies thousands of years ago. It was intro- 
duced into this country and England about the year 1800. 
The lecturer spoke of the various difficulties in manu- 
facturing, of removing the bark, the ungumming of the 
fibre and the special material for spinning. Mr. Toppan's 
