Chapter VIII: Transportation and Communication

1

Think of the foods that you had on your dinner table yesterday. Where did each come from? How did it get here? Was there anything which came from our own neighborhood, and which did not have to take a long journey either to the factory where it was manufactured or to the store where it was sold?

Examine the clothing you are wearing. Of what material is each article made? Where did the materials come from? Where were they manufactured? Which had to come a long journey before it reached your home?

Look around the school-room and name the materials which had to travel a long distance before we could have them for our use.

Imagine trying to get our food, our clothing and our shelter materials right near our school. How much could we be sure of having?

2

Perhaps you have seen products being brought into the city. You may have seen the milk trains unloading their many shining cans. Surely you have seen the freight cars with their signs painted on the outside telling that they are refrigerator cars, or coal cars, or other kinds of cars. What do they carry?

Most of the things we need are brought here on trains. Where is there in our neighborhood a freight railroad station? Is it near our school?

Some products are taken from the country to the town in wagons. You have seen the big hay wagons which go a long way from some farm to take food for the city horses.

How else are products carried? Coffee, rubber, pepper, chocolate and much silk are brought here from distant lands in ships. If you go to the harbor of a large city you can see hundreds of busy men unloading the big steamers.

3

Ships and railroads carry not only foods but people too. There are many ways of carrying people and products. These are some of the ways:

1. On the backs of animals, as horses, camels, elephants.

2. In wheelbarrows.

3. In wagons.

4. In automobiles.

5. In trolley cars.

6. In railroad trains.

7. On boats, or ships.

8. In sleighs.

9. On bicycles.

10. In airships.

In which of these ways have you traveled? Can you tell what power is used in each case?

In order to travel safely and quickly we need more than something in which to carry the people and products. We must have good wagon roads, well built railroads, tunnels through the mountains, and bridges over the rivers. Lighthouses are necessary to warn the vessels of the rocks at night or in the storms.

4

When people need things from a distance they cannot always go all the way to the place and bring back the products or articles. It is quicker and easier to send messages asking for what is needed. How would your mother send an order to the butcher for meat if she did not wish to go for it? How could a farmer send a message to the city ordering new milk cans and strawberry boxes? How do messages come to your house?

In olden days the persons had to carry all of their messages for themselves or send them by other persons. The messenger would often run for miles without resting so as to deliver the letters as soon as possible. At last the people decided to give all of their letters to a postman who would ride on horseback from place to place with the mail. Stagecoaches were next used. It took a week for a coach to go as far as a train can go now in a few hours. Our mail is now carried from one place to another by trains or vessels, and then the letter carriers deliver it at our city houses or to our town post office or rural mail-box.

The quickest way to send a message is by cable, telegraph, telephone or wireless message. Over the electric wires or through the air the words are flashed for miles in a few minutes.