  The travel of to-morrow! It is a fascinating subject, for, as we look backward through the last century and see the marvellous progress that has been made, it is impossible to believe that now we have come to a standstill. How then shall we travel in the future? Will it be in some new form of railway train or motor-car, with increased speed and added comfort? Or shall we leave solid earth behind us altogether and make our journeys in great airships and aeroplanes? We will begin with the more commonplace methods, and consider the possibilities of improvements and innovations in railway travel. Lately a great deal has been said and written about the mono-rail, and it seems quite likely that alterations will take place in this direction, for a single-line railway is comparatively cheap to construct, and has many other advantages, among them that of greatly increased speed. It is estimated that this could easily reach two miles a minute. A real mono-railway with engines, railway carriages, and trucks is already in existence in Ireland, where it runs between Listowel and Ballybunion. The line is raised some feet from the ground, and is about 10 miles in length. The engine is a very curious-looking machine, with a boiler on each side and two funnels. This is arranged so that the weight is evenly balanced. There are also methods by which the trains on a mono-railway may be steadied by means of a wonderful contrivance called a gyroscope. Closely allied to the single-line railway is the hanging railway, which was first invented to carry loads of merchandise or minerals across rivers or over rough forest lands where an ordinary line would be difficult and expensive to construct. There is one of these hanging railways in Rhodesia, where a strong wire crosses from bank to bank of a river, and carries a chair-shaped seat which can hold two passengers. This is dragged backwards and forwards by means of a second wire. MONO-RAIL CAR, WITH GYROSCOPE. Sometimes, instead of wire, rope is used, and Other and more elaborate railways in the air have been made in Germany, and there is one for passengers running between Barmen and Elberfield. In this case the single rail is raised on high trestles, and the carriage, which looks very much like a large tramcar, runs along the line suspended beneath the trestles. Then, too, we may in the future have railways that will take us across the English Channel, either through a great tunnel or over a bridge, reaching, as was proposed in 1884, from Folkestone to Cape Grisnez. A third plan that has been suggested for crossing to France is that of a submarine bridge, upon which a curious construction or platform would run, and on this the trains themselves could be taken from shore to shore, while still another proposal was that large ferry-steamers should be built, on the lower decks of which the trains could be carried. And now we will leave the earth and look at the pictures of airships and the wonderful aeroplanes, which, although improvements are being made every day, can already travel at an almost incredible speed and with a security that only a little while ago would have been considered quite OVERHEAD TROLLEY. From very early times, however, inventors and scientists have dreamed and experimented, and no less than seven hundred years ago, Roger Bacon, one of the most learned men of his day, seems to have looked down through the centuries and to have actually seen the aeroplanes with which we are now familiar. "There may be made a flying instrument," he says, "so that a man sitting in the midst of the instrument and turning some mechanism may move some artificial wings so that they may beat the air like a bird in flight." It was a strange prophecy, but in those far-off times—the dark ages we call them—men had already fixed their hopes on flight, and school children were trained in the use of wings as in that of the globes. We are not told what advantages this curious accomplishment gave to the little boys and girls of the thirteenth century, and, indeed, it may have brought them ill-fortune, for in those days inventors were often accused of witchcraft, and new ideas were looked upon with suspicion. Even MONOPLANE, THE FIRST TYPE TO CROSS THE CHANNEL. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries some very strange flying machines were made, and even before that time, in the reign of James IV. of Scotland, we find that "The Abbot of Tungland tuik in hand to flie with wingis." The bold Churchman, however, did not succeed in his rash venture, but fell from the wall of Stirling Castle and broke his thigh. In 1709 another monk planned a wonderful flying ship which was to carry twelve men besides stores of food, and about sixty years later a Frenchman made himself "A whirl of feathers, curiously interlaced and extending gradually at suitable distances in a horizontal direction from his head to his feet." In this eccentric costume the would-be bird-man fluttered down from a height of seventy feet and escaped uninjured. WATERPLANE, BIPLANE, AND SCOUT BALLOON. The makers of balloons, meanwhile, met with more success, and they bravely experimented with their frail contrivances, which at first were filled with heated air and necessitated a fire in the basket-work car, fed with fuel of chopped straw. As may be imagined, many accidents occurred, but the inventors went on their way undaunted, Nadar's ambitions, however, did not stop at this marvel. Indeed, the "Giant" was only intended to be a means of raising funds for the making of a flying machine, which was to be called the aeronef and have wings and a screw propeller. The difficulty then, and for many years afterwards, was to make an engine which at the same time should be sufficiently strong and yet light. It was not until another fifty years had passed that this problem was solved and then we find the modern aeroplanes and hydroplanes being gradually developed and improved. In 1909 a French aviator crossed the Channel for the first time, and since then the progress has been extraordinary, so that now we think little of feats which a dozen years ago would have Side by side with the aeroplanes, dirigible balloons have been developed, and we can hardly doubt that in the future this mode of travel will come to be as safe and almost as commonplace as our railways and motor-cars of to-day. PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY Uniform with this Book. HAPPY HOMES By A. A. 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