644 



ANNUAL, REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1911. 



of it all lies the question of artificial power and the harnessing in 

 compact and convenient form the stored-up sources of energy in 

 nature in order to overcome the opposing resistance, and we can 

 realize that, although we have obviously reached the limits of animal 

 locomotion, we are far from having reached any limitation in regard 

 to the speed of self-propelled machines. We see that in all three 

 forms of locomotion — earth, air, and water — the advance has been far 

 more rapid during the last few years than ever before, and we can 

 realize that there is yet a considerable margin by which speed of 

 traveling could be increased as the demand for it is made; and 

 nothing is more certain than that the demand will be made. 



I began my lecture by pointing out why speed was instinctively 

 taken as a test and a measure of locomotion from the earliest times. 



ie«o 



IftSO 



1690 



1670 

 YEAR 



Fig. 6. — Progress in Atlantic steamers (Cunard). 



Shakespeare makes one of his characters say, "The spirit of the time 

 shall teach me speed," but he might have said this of any period 

 equally with that of King John, though never more so than of to-day, 

 for the changes in the requirements of civilization have only altered 

 in detail, and speed is of as much importance as ever in the struggle 

 of life. The probably unconscious recognition of this fact has always 

 led question of speed to be raised as prime factors in proposals for 

 new modes of locomotion, and it is interesting to look back only 

 a comparatively few years to see, in raising these views, this was 

 always the case, but how little any ideas of future j^ossibilities were 

 realized. When George Stephenson, backed up by a few courageous 

 and enterprising men, was fighting the battle of the railway and in 



