MONOMETALLISM 



3893 



MONORAIL 



who holds extreme views in regard to it, is de- 

 risively spoken of as a "monomaniac." See 

 INSANITY. 



MONOMETALLISM , mo no met' al iz'm. See 

 BIMETALLISM. 



MONONGAHELA, monongahe'la, RIVER, 

 the larger of two streams which unite to form 

 the Ohio River, the other being the Allegheny 

 (which see). The Monongahela is formed by 

 the confluence of the Tygart and West Fork 

 rivers, in Marion County, Va. It flows north- 

 east in an irregular course across the boundary 

 of Pennsylvania to the mouth of the Cheat 

 River, and then north until it unites with the 

 Allegheny at Pittsburgh. The Cheat and the 

 Youghiogheny are its chief branches, the latter 

 entering it at McKeesport, and it drains an area 

 of over 7,300 square miles. Its length is about 

 150 miles, excluding its branches, and by means 

 of a series of locks and dams it has been made 

 navigable from Fairmont in West Virginia to 

 its junction with the Allegheny. It traverses 

 a fertile country in which bituminous coal is 

 found. The first glass factory west of the Alle- 

 ghany Mountains was built at New Geneva, on 

 the Monongahela. Near its junction with the 

 Allegheny River the army of Braddock was de- 

 feated in 1755 in the French and Indian War 

 (see FORT DUQUESNE). 



MONOPOLY, monop'oli, the exclusive right 

 to deal in some commodity or to trade in a cer- 

 tain market. During the seventeenth and eight- 

 eenth centuries it was common for European 

 sovereigns to grant such coveted privileges to 

 persons or corporations, and the greatest vari- 

 ety of operations were conducted in this way. 

 Such special privileges are now generally re- 

 garded as contrary to the general welfare of a 

 community or state. They worked a great hard- 

 ship on the people of the early modern period, 

 because prices were not regulated by open com- 

 petition but were fixed according to the will of 

 the owner. The greatest of the English mo- 

 nopolies was that enjoyed by the powerful East 

 India Company, which had the exclusive right, 

 by government grant, to trade privileges in 

 India. See EAST INDIA COMPANY. 



At the present time monopolies of the kind 

 mentioned are not encouraged by enlightened 

 governments, but monopolies of another sort 

 have survived. The great trusts of America 

 came into being as the result of the efforts of 

 a group of men to control markets and to regu- 

 late the prices of the commodities in which they 

 dealt (see TRUSTS). Monopolies are also cre- 

 ated by buying up the available supply of any 



commodity, such as valuable ore lands, oil wells, 

 etc., and it was to prevent such misuse of natu- 

 ral resources that the conservation movement 

 had its origin (see CONSERVATION). It is be- 

 coming an established principle that industries 

 which are recognized as monopolies must be 

 subjected to public control, so the owners may 

 reap only reasonable profits. Certain kinds of 

 public service may be rendered most satisfac- 

 torily by monopolies created by franchise, such 

 as telephone and street-railway service in cities. 

 These are called natural monopolies. The mod- 

 ern tendency is either to subject them to rigid 

 regulation or to operate them as public proper- 

 ties. See MUNICIPAL OWNERSHIP. 



Consult Levy's Monopoly and Competition; 

 Ely's Monopolies and Trusts. 



MONORAIL, mon'orayl, SUSPENDED. In 

 1901 a German engineer, Eugene Langen, com- 

 pleted an electric railway a little over eight 

 miles long connecting the towns of Eberfeld 

 and Barmen, near Cologne, and introduced a 



MONORAIL CONSTRUCTION 



new method of construction. He suspended a 

 single rail hence the name monorail by means 

 of trusses from curved arches ; he put the trucks 

 on the top of the car, one at each end, each of 

 two wheels placed tandem, that is, one after 

 the other. These flanged wheels ran on the sus- 

 pended rail. The truss work supporting the 

 rail is on one side of it, for the other side must 

 be clear to allow the fastenings supporting the 

 car to reach up to the trucks. It appears at 

 first glance to be a dangerous device, but the 

 center of gravity of the car is under the sup- 

 ported rail. The cars used on this German road 

 are thirty-eight feet long, eight feet wide and 

 seven feet high; they weigh twelve tons. At 

 stations where passengers enter and leave the 

 car, the latter is supported by guard rails, to 

 prevent its swaying. 



The advantages of the monorail are cheaper 

 construction and operation, safety, greater 

 speed and much less noise. The line admits of 

 sharp curves, for the car having a pendulum 



