1911] on T'ravelUng at High Speeds on Surface of Earth. 135 



Such an idea we are quite justified in thinking absurd, but we might 

 have been justified in thinking many of the things absurd which Jules 

 Verne wrote about, only forty years ago, and which have since come 

 to pass. Take " Round the World in Eighty Days." In that case it 

 cost Phineas Fogg 19,000/. to take himself and his servant round the 

 world in eighty days. A telephone enquiry of Messrs. Cook an hour 

 or two ago elicited the fact that anyone present can start to-morrow 

 morning and go round the world, with a servant, in less than half the 

 above time, and for less than one-fiftieth of the above sum. 



Thus though, impelled Vjy instinct, man will ever continue to strive 

 to increase his speeds of travelling, and with the refinement of ma- 

 chinery and invention doubtless succeed in doing so, it may be safely 

 said that, notwithstanding the still increasing upward angle on some 

 of the speed lines of the charts I have shown to-night, this rate of 

 increase will before long begin to take place at a continually diminish- 

 ing rate. Such feats as the journey from Paris to London within the 

 hour may be regarded as quite a feasible engineering proposition in 

 the future, though possibly a tube will be used for the purpose, 

 without the employment of wheels, and with a modification of the 

 pneumatic system of that great genius Brunei. We should, however, 

 in doing this journey, be only travelling at half the rate we are 

 actually moving at this spot round the earth's axis, while to do it at 

 the rate we are travelling round the sun, we should only occupy a 

 quarter of a minute. This latter speed, apart from the fact that it is 

 getting very near the point at which meteors fuse with the friction of 

 the earth's atmosphere, seems to be quite outside the limit of the 

 possibilities of artificial locomotion by man ; but how far we shall go 

 towards it who can tell. 



Note. 



Since delivering the above Lecture, M. Andre Jager Schmidt, of the 

 " Excelsior," has made a tour round the world in 39 days, 19 hours, 

 43 minutes, 37 seconds. The cost of doing this was 242Z. 8s., the actual 

 cost of the railway ticket round the world being 115Z., the rest being 

 extra payment to ensure expedition. 



