o long a time should elapse between the moment of his
first improvements over nature in the matter of locomotion and that of
the radical changes he was ultimately to compass. The principles which
were his before history was, were his, neither more nor less, even to the
present century. He utilized improved applications, but the principles
of themselves were ever the same, whether in the war chariots of Achilles
and Pharaoh or the mail-coach and diligence of the European traveller,
the cavalry of the Huns or of Prince Rupert, the triremes and galleys of
Greece and Rome or the East India-men and clipper ships of the last
century. But when the moment came to alter the methods of travel, the
change was so sweeping that it may be safely classed as a revolution.
Though the discovery of steam attaches to the honour of the last century,
the potency of the new power was not felt till the beginning of this. By
1800 small steamers were being used for coasting purposes in England;
1830 witnessed the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway; while
it was not until 1838 that the Atlantic was first crossed by the
steamships _Great Western_ and _Sirius_. In 1869 the East was made
next-door neighbour to the West. Over almost the same ground where had
toiled the caravans of a thousand generations, the Suez Canal was dug.
Clive, during his first trip, was a year and a half _en route_ from
England to India; were he alive to-day he could journey to Calcutta in
twenty-two days. After reading De Quincey's hyperbolical description of
the English mail-coach, one cannot down the desire to place that
remarkable man on the pilot of the White Mail or of the Twentieth
Century.

But this tremendous change in the means of locomotion meant far more than
the mere rapid transit of men from place to place. Until then, though
its influence and worth cannot be overestimated, commerce had eked out a
precarious and costly existence. The fortuitous played too large a part
in the trade of men. The mischances by land and sea, the mistakes and
delays, were adverse elements of no mean proportions. But improved
locomotion meant improved carrying, and commerce received an impetus as
remarkable as it was unexpected. In his fondest fancies James Watt could
not have foreseen even the approximate result of his invention, the
Hercules which was to spring from the puny child of his brain and hands.
An illuminating spectacle, were it possible, would be af