Lippincotts Magazine, May 1876 | Page 7

command in the "World's Ticket and
Inquiry Office," the abundantly comprehensive name of a building near
the north-east corner of Machinery Hall. In a central area sixty feet in
diameter tickets to every known point are offered to him by polyglot
clerks. Here, too, a wholesome interchange of ideas in regard to the
merits of the various traveling regulations of different countries may be
expected. Baggage-checks or none, compartment or saloon cars,
ventilation or swelter in summer, freezing or hot-water-pipes in winter,
and other like differences of practice will come under consideration
with travelers in general council assembled. Give and take will prevail
between our voyagers and railway officials and those of the Old World.
Both sides may teach and learn. Should the carriage of goods instead of
persons be in question, the American side of the materials for its
discussion will be found in the building of the Empire Transportation
Company, where the economies of system and "plant," which have for
a series of years been steadily reducing the expenses of railway-traffic
until the cost of carrying a ton one mile now falls within one cent, will
be fully detailed. A further reduction of this charge may result from the
exposition if exhibitors from Europe succeed in explaining to our
engineers and machinists how they manage to lighten their cars, and
thereby avoid carrying the excess of dead weight which contributes so
much to the annihilation of our tracks and dividends.
[Illustration: SPANISH BUILDING.]
The telegraph completes the mastery over space in the conveyance of
thought that the railway attains in that of persons and property. Its
facilities here are commensurable with its duty of placing thousands of
all countries in instantaneous communication with their homes. Those
from over-sea will find that, instead of dragging "at each remove a
lengthening chain," they are, on the exposition grounds, in point of
intercourse nearer home than they were when half a day out from the
port of embarkation, and ten days nearer than when they approached

our shores after a sail of three thousand miles. To get out of call from
the wire it is necessary to go to sea--and stay there. Another hundred
years, and even the seafarer will fail of seclusion. Floating
telegraph-offices will buoy the cable. Latitude 40° will "call" the
Equator, and warn Grand Banks that "Sargasso is passing by." Not only
will the march of Morse be under the mountain-wave, but his home
will be on the deep.
[Illustration: BRITISH BUILDINGS.]
The submarine and terrestrial progress of the telegraph was in '67 and
'73 already an old story. At the Centennial it presents itself in a new
role--that of interpreter of the weather and general storm-detector. This
application of its powers is due to American science. Indeed, the
requisites for experiments were not elsewhere at command. A vast
expanse of unbroken territory comprising many climates and belts of
latitude and longitude, and penetrated throughout by the wire under one
and the same control, did not offer itself to European investigators.
These singular advantages have been well employed by the United
States Signal Service within the past five years. Its efforts were
materially aided by the antecedent researches of such men as Espy and
Maury, the latter of whom led European savants into the recognition of
correct theories of both air- and ocean-currents. Daily observations at a
hundred stations scattered over the continent, exactly synchronized by
telegraph, yielded deductions that steadily grew more and more
consistent and reliable, until at length those particularly fickle
instruments, the weather-vane, the thermometer, the barometer and the
magnetic fluid, have formed, in combination, almost an "arm of
precision." The predictions put forth in the "small hours" each morning
by the central office in Washington assume only the modest title of
"Probabilities." Some additional expenditure, with a doubling of the
number of stations, would within a few years make that heading more
of a misnomer. Meanwhile, the saving of life and property on sea and
land already effected is a solid certainty and no mere "probability." At
the station on the exposition grounds the weather of each day, storm or
shine, in most of the cities of the Old and New Worlds will be
bulletined. "Storm in Vlaenderlandt" will be as surely announced to the
Dutch stroller on Belmont Avenue as though he were within hearing of
his cathedral bell. Should such a "cautionary signal" from beyond the

ocean reach him, he may ascertain in what, if any, danger of
submergence his home stands, by stepping into one of the branch
telegraph-offices dispersed over the grounds. Or he may satisfy all
possible craving for news from that or any other quarter in the Press
Building. This metropolis of the fourth estate occupies a romantic site
on the south side of the avenue and the