90 



SCIENCE AND TRANSPORTATION. 



W. F. M. Goss. 



"No department of human endeavor is more typical of 

 modern thought and action than that embraced by the trans- 

 portation industry ; an industry which constitutes the re- 

 sponse which mankind has given to a natural desire for in- 

 tercommunication. From meager beginnings transportation 

 facilities have been multiplied, improved and extended until 

 the whole civilized world has been brought together almost 

 as a single people. 



So engaged are we with the things of the day that we 

 do not often consider how rapid has been this development, 

 nor how great has been its efifect. A hundred years ago when 

 men went down to "the sea in ships, they sailed subject to 

 the caprice of the wind and in frequent danger of being 

 blotted out of existence, unknown to the rest of the world. 

 To-day the sea has become a course for immense steam-driven 

 ships which, with a shuttle-like movement between shore and 

 shore, proceed with a degree of regularity that is but little 

 afifected by wind or weather. On one ocean at least such 

 ships are at all times in communication with others of their 

 kind, or with the land. Four weeks ago two such ships well 

 out upon the Atlantic, enshrouded in fog, came into collision, 

 and almost immediately the fact was known everywhere. 

 For hours following the accident, the friends of those in- 

 volved, in America and Europe, kept in touch with the prog- 

 ress made in apj)lying relief. Ships from the east and from 

 the w^est a liundred miles away, were called, and they left 

 their course and headed for the scene of the accident. Others 

 more distant were told that their services were not needed. 

 The transhipment of ]:)asscngers began, was finislied, and later 

 a second transhipment occurred. Sui)porting shij:)S, feeling 



