civilized world. All that had happened theretofore, for a long time, was practically the last chapter of the Middle Ages. Modern life as we know it, and the use of human creative energy in a way designed to transform

1.-Indians fashioning log canoes by means of fire and tools. Craft of this sort were the first vehicles used by English speaking

the circumstances of mankind, began then. It was the time of the great awakening; the birth of mechanical power; the beginning of an epoch whose unbelievable achievements would drive the mind to madness were they not, happily, so commonplace. We are scarcely human beings any more - - merely spectators of a drama of development which has no visible end, and whose actors make up the plot as they go along.

From about 1785 until 1870 old methods and conditions went to the scrap heap, and the world, as we bump

against it, was built all over again. And in no other one feature of man's affairs, perhaps, were greater or more extraordinary changes made than in his manner of travelling. In the revolution thus accomplished America, for obvious reasons, took a part that was very prominent. There were then but two continents - Europe and America-whose peoples found within themselves the necessity of change. Africa, Australia, South America and Asia were not ready. They were to escape the period of experiment and to install, at a later day, the tested and perfected systems brought to completion elsewhere. America had an advantage over Europe in that her problem was a larger one, and presented conditions more primitive and complex. Greater necessities resulted in bigger performances. To this may also be added the fact that Europe presented, to the impending evolution in travel, a multitude of comparatively small states whose size, peculiar geographical relationships and political quarrels definitely prevented the adoption of a uniform, continental system of communication development. America, on the contrary, offered in her compact mass and shape an ideal opportunity for the planning and methodical creation of such a system. But she did not see the chance, and threw it away. Twice first when steamboats came into general use, and again in the early years of railroad building - those who had the shaping of public affairs failed to see the portent of what was taking place, and the petty jealousies of individual states were permitted to warp and disfigure the results of those vital years. Viewing the history of the whole American period under discussion from about 1630 until 1870-it seems as though the clearest perception of the significance of events and of public necessity and intent was to be found most quickly,

not in the minds of those whom history names as leaders of men, but in the collective understanding of the multitude. In their attitude toward the national need for travel facilities, during nearly all the big and important periods of the story, those famous ones have held aloof, remaining dull to opportunity and laggard in performance until the onrush of the nameless thousands swept them, like a torrent, into tardy action. Yet there were times when the multitude, as well as the head men of the country, could not understand its opportunities.

A somewhat comprehensive review is necessary-as far as the text of the record is concerned to indicate the travel conditions existing during the first hundred and sixty years of the national history, together with the human experiences and social life which accompanied them. After those things have been considered the narrative need concern itself only with the comparatively short but important epoch between 1788-9 and 1868-9. During that interval of eighty years the transformation from archaic conditions to the vehicles we use to-day was brought about. Its chief features are better known than are those of the former era. The changes made within the last forty years have been, with few exceptions, refinements or better forms of what already existed; inevitable outgrowths of methods that preceded them. They do not call for extended comment. The pictorial part of the review must necessarily be devoted principally to the eighty years during which the revolution in methods of transportation occurred.

It is but reasonable to expect, in studying any epoch of human advancement, that certain things which took place during its continuance will stand out with prominence. That is true in this case, and we find in considering the

development of travel in America and the relation of such development to the national progress that there were five events, or movements, within the years discussed, which occupy in its history positions very similar to those held by decisive battles in the story of a nation's political life. The five events were:

The governmental organization of the Ohio country and the Northwest Territory, and the beginning of a general migration to those regions, in 1787-1789;

A general public recognition of the value of steam as a means of propulsion, in 1807-1809;

The beginning of the railway building period, in 18281829;

Discovery of gold in the West and the general rush across the plains, in 1848-1849;

Completion of the first transcontinental railway, in

1869.

It is an interesting circumstance that these movements, each of which was largely due to the attitude and active participation of the whole population, followed one another at intervals of almost exactly twenty years. Whether or not they were merely a series of coincidences, or whether they had their source in some deeper condition that resulted in successive periodic eruptions of mental and physical energy affecting a whole people, may be left to experts in the psychology of a growing nation. However ably the phenomenon may be explained on the basis of chance, there will, perhaps, remain a lingering notion that it was not wholly due to accident.

The years that witnessed the slow transformation from primitive to modern conditions contained, of course, much more than is indicated by these five events. They are but later landmarks from which we may most easily take our

bearings from time to time. Nor should we fail to remember that progress, in the upbuilding of our present system, did not take place with uniformity based on the lapse of years. It often happened almost always happened, in fact that some one section of the country was far ahead of the others in its travel facilities. This was due either to earlier settlement, disparity of population, inherited customs of the people or to the physical condition of the contrasted localities. The days of the stagecoach, for instance, persisted in the West in full vigor

for a generation after that vehicle had disappeared from the eastern states. Only within the last few years have conditions become substantially the same throughout the whole three million square miles of continental area.