THE CONQUEST OF TIME AND SPACE 



mile record was so completely smashed, corroborates 

 the idea of improved mechanism rather than improved 

 conditions. In any event, the jump from 39 to 343- 

 seconds is a notable one; as will be evident from a 

 simple computation which shows that the record- 

 holders of 1905 would have run away from the cham- 

 pion of 1904 at the rate of no less than nineteen feet 

 for each second of the mile. 



Let us pass at once — omitting transition stages — 

 from these records to the new mark set on March i6th, 

 1 9 10, at Ormonde Beach by Mr. Barney Oldfield. 

 Driving a Benz automobile of two hundred horse- 

 power, he compassed the mile in 27.33 seconds. The 

 new record has a peculiar interest, not merely because 

 it is the fastest mile ever made by an automobile, but 

 because it is in all probability the fastest mile ever 

 travelled by a human being who lived to tell the tale. 

 A few unfortunates, falling from balloons, or from 

 mountain cliffs, may have passed through space at a 

 yet more appalling speed ; but they lost consciousness, 

 never to regain it, long before the mile was compassed. 

 The automobile driver retains his senses throughout 

 his breakneck mile — they are keenly on the alert in- 

 deed — and comes away unscathed to tell the story of 

 what must be a truly thrilling experience. 



Nor is it merely in contrast with other human experi- 

 ences that the new performance takes on "record^* 

 proportions. It is at least doubtful whether any mem- 

 ber of the animal kingdom ever passed through a mile 

 of space at such a speed as that attained by Mr. Old- 

 field, The fastest quadruped on the globe is almost 



[166] 



