Proceedings of the Polytechnic Association. 929 



Thirteenth street to the .Hudson river railroad. A tube is also to 

 girdle the city, passing through South and Washington streets so as 

 to touch all the ferries and landings where mails arrive and depart, 

 bringing these points into immediate communication with the general 

 post-office. Tubes are also to extend through Chatham street, Bowery 

 and Third avenue, also along Broad, Pearl, Canal, Grand, Bleecker and 

 Fourteenth streets, and wherever the public requirements may need 

 them ; all the sub-post-offices are of course beiflg coimected with the 

 general post-office. Further, it is proposed to extend the postal tube 

 under the East river, or over the suspension bridge, if constructed, 

 to Brooklyn, and through the principal streets of that city, also under 

 the North river to Jersy city, where it will connect with the Pneu- 

 matic Dispatch Con:ipany of New Jersey, to whom, as before stated, 

 a charter has already been granted. By this company it is proposed 

 to extend their lines as soon as possible to the nearest important cities, 

 l^robably Newark and Elizabeth. By means of such a net-work, no 

 doubt the mails of the suburbs and suburban cities would be delivered 

 at head-quarters with great rapidity. The postal cars, it is stated, 

 could be run at the rate of thirty miles per hour, including all delkys 

 at intermediate stations. Thus, letters might be sent up town as high 

 as Forty -second street, and replies received almost with the speed of 

 telegraphic messages. The advantage to business men could not be 

 over-estimated, assuming successful operation of such a project. At 

 the present time we know that letters, in many cases, must be 

 deposited, ten or twelve hours up town prior to the mail-closing hour 

 down town, so as to secure transmission by that mail. Letters for 

 the early mails must be deposited on the night before, or they fail to 

 go, and to send a letter up towni and expect an answer on the same 

 day would be to hope against hope. In this connection it is only 

 necessary to say that in whatever respect a pneumatic dispatch would 

 be of value as a mail bearer, it would alsa be valuable as a bearer of 

 packages, and not by any means its least important business would 

 be the delivery of newspapers at the various depots for the sale of 

 that most valued necessity and luxury juucto in una. 



Leaving to the imaginations of our accomplished readers the plea- 

 sant labor of converting, with all the material here afforded them, our 

 confused and crow^ded city, with its no less crowded water boundaries^ 

 into a terrestrial paradise, where easy locomotion on land, on water, 

 beneath them both or in the air, can ])e enjoyed at will, we close thi& 



[Inst.] 59 



