THE RETROSPECT OF THE YEAR. 135 



being slacked, in pits for a period of three years. After 

 the decline of the Roman empire, road-making came prac- 

 tically to an end, although Me Adams succeeded in mak- 

 ing some fine roads in England and elsewhere. Railroads 

 were introduced in 1825, with George Stevens as an en- 

 gineer ; the speed from eleven to twelve miles an hour, 

 with an outrider on a horse to warn the people of the ap- 

 proach of a train. The aim has been to cheapen transpor- 

 tation, and to-day it is less than one cent per mile for a 

 ton. 



In the United States, the improvements for travel be- 

 gan with canals ; canal speed is limited and there are now 

 few canals much used. The Ganges canal in India is the 

 greatest, being about 1,000 miles in length. The lecturer 

 spoke of the various projects for communication in Eu- 

 rope, Africa and America and gave a number of interest- 

 ing facts and statistics in illustration of his subject. 



Monday, May 5, 1890. Prof. John Ritchie, jr., of 

 Boston read a paper on " Ramie and Flax," a new indus- 

 try for our New England mills. The Salem Gazette says, 

 "The subject has special local interest from the fact that the 

 process of converting it into a commercial article was orig- 

 inated by Mr. Charles Toppan of this city." Many sam- 

 ples of ramie in the form of raw material were shown and 

 gave evidence of what might be accomplished with the 

 stuff. 



Ramie is the inner bark of a shrub and is no new mate- 

 rial, the cloth in a crude form having been used for wrap- 

 ping up mummies thousands of years ago. It was intro- 

 duced into this country and England about the year 1800. 



The lecturer spoke of the various difficulties in manu- 

 facturing, of removing the bark, the ungumming of the 

 fibre and the special material for spinning. Mr. Toppan's 



