At the present time, when England, and indeed almost the whole of the civilised world, is covered with a network of railways, and the cuttings, the tunnels, and the high embankments seem almost to be physical features of the landscape that we see around us, it is difficult to realise that a hundred years ago none of these things were in existence. Our great-grandfathers and great-grandmothers, as we have seen, had to be content with very different modes of travel, and would have been amazed if they had been told that it would be possible before very long to make the journey from London to York in a few hours.

It is said that Lord Worcester in the reign of Charles II. was one of the first scientists to experiment with steam engines, and about a century later James Watt improved and utilised this invention. We have all heard of the little Scotch boy who used to sit watching the steam coming from the spout of a boiling kettle, who puzzled his head over its power and who, when he grew up, worked hard in order to earn money and be able to carry out his experiments.

The first railway was opened in 1825, but before that the steam engine invented by Watt had been in use for some time in collieries. One of these early engines, which was called "Puffing Billy," can still be seen in a London museum.

The railway trains of ninety years ago, wonderful as they were considered then, were very different from those of to-day, for there were no comfortable carriages with windows and cushioned seats, and the passengers had to travel in open wagons. There were no waiting rooms or platforms either, and the speed was very moderate, fifteen to twenty miles an hour being thought marvellous and even dangerous.

This is what a writer says in the year 1837:

"The length of the Liverpool railway is thirty-one miles, and the fact that passengers are regularly conveyed that distance by locomotive engines in one and a half to two hours produced an extraordinary sensation."

As the years went on, railways and the trains which ran on them improved very quickly and stage coaches became hopelessly old-fashioned, but for some time a railway journey was something of an adventure and many strange plans were made in order to prevent accidents.

One of the most eccentric of these ideas was that the last carriage or van on a train should have a roof sloping backwards towards the ground and fitted with railway lines, so that if the train to which it was attached were overtaken by another, there would be no collision, for the second engine would run up the sloping roof and travel along on the top of the slower train.

Nowadays, railway travelling has become much safer and also more luxurious, and our trains, with their sleeping berths and restaurant cars, would have been considered marvels by the early passengers who crowded contentedly into the jolting open trucks of 1839. One of the most interesting of modern trains is to be seen on the Sudan line. It is painted white for the sake of coolness and has wooden venetian blinds instead of windows.

At first it was considered impossible for railways to be constructed except on level ground, but difficulties were gradually overcome and for many years there have been trains running up the Rigi and other mountains. Now a line has been made to the summit of the Jung Frau, which is over thirteen thousand feet high, and by it tourists can be taken far into the region of perpetual snow.

Towards the end of the nineteenth century a new power began to be used, and we hear of locomotives driven not by steam but by electricity. Now, although steam has not been ousted from the field, there are many electric trains, and in almost every city of Europe electric trams run through the streets and often far out into the country beyond.

Another invention of the nineteenth century which made, as time went on, a new means of travel, was the bicycle, but although the first of these machines appeared more than a hundred years ago, they were very strange-looking contrivances indeed, and were considered ridiculous and useless.

The first of all cycles—if it can be dignified by such a name—made it dÉbut in 1808 in Paris. It was called a "hobby-horse" and consisted of two wheels placed one behind the other, and connected by a bar on which was a small saddle. The rider kept his feet on the ground, and when he came to a hill raised them and let the machine carry him down. At corners, however, he had to lift up the hobby-horse and turn it round.

The dandy-horse, which had a movable front wheel, came next, and then there was a long succession of strange inventions, many of which hailed from America. One of these consisted of a large rocking-horse mounted on two wheels, and another had one very large wheel in which the rider sat. Some of these machines were propelled with the feet, others with the hands. Croft's invention was punted along by two long poles in the hands of the rider, and Mey's machine had a large front wheel in which a dog ran round like a squirrel in a cage.

While experiments were being made with these extraordinary contrivances, more practical bicycles were already in use. They were called velocipedes, or bone-shakers, and very wonderful they were thought to be, although to our modern eyes the high bicycle of thirty years ago with its large front wheel on which the rider was perched and small back wheel, seems almost as curious as the quaint hobby-horse of earlier times.

The present form of bicycle was first made towards the end of the last century, after the invention of pneumatic tyres, but motor-cycles are now beginning to take its place, and we are all familiar with these wonderful little vehicles, many of which have a side-car for an extra passenger, and are able to travel at the rate of thirty, forty, or even fifty miles an hour.

From cycles we go to motor-cars, and now when the roads are thronged with these swift conveyances it is strange to think that for a long time "horseless carriages" were considered an impossibility and spoken of with jeering incredulity.

More than a hundred years ago, however, a Frenchman invented a steam carriage which could travel at the rate of two miles an hour, and during the next half-century other vehicles of the sort were patented besides several very curious mechanical carriages.

A picture and description of one of these appears in a magazine of the time, and we see that it was a large carriage with four wheels. One man sits in front, holding what are apparently quite useless reins, while a second man, standing behind in a kind of box, works a machine with his feet and so propels the heavy conveyance along. Another and an even more extraordinary-looking carriage was invented by a Mr. Boller in 1804. It was propelled by a very complicated arrangement of large and small cog-wheels.

Progress was made during the next few years, and in 1829 two inventors had constructed a steam carriage which could travel at the rate of fifteen miles an hour. A little later we learn that there was a regular service of steam coaches running between Gloucester and Cheltenham.

After that, however, many years elapsed before horseless carriages came into general use, one reason being that such conveyances were heavily taxed and subjected to many rules. It was not until 1896 that these were altered, and then immediately there was a change and cars driven by steam, electricity, and petrol came into use.