[1] If the edition for free distribution is exhausted, these may be purchased from the Superintendent of Documents, Public Printer, Washington, D.C.

[2] The greatness of Palmyra was due to the trade along this route, and its decay began when the route was abandoned. The present town of Tadmor is near the ruins of the former city.

[3] Cosmas Indicopleustes—in early life a merchant, in later years a monk—visited India and Ceylon during the first part of the sixth century. His writings contain much valuable knowledge, but in the main they are theological arguments intended to disprove the Geography written by Ptolemy.

[4] The date is variously given as 1169, 1200, and 1241.

[5] To Waldemar III. of Denmark it dictated terms that made its power in Scandinavia supreme.

[6] For a complete list of books for reference, see p. xii.

[7] The record time on this route was made by the Lucania in five days, seven hours, and twenty-three minutes, from Daunts Rock, Queenstown, to Sandy Hook light. The fastest day's run yet recorded was made by the Deutschland—601 nautical miles, a speed of 24.19 knots.

[8] In Congress the River and Harbor Bill always receives a generous appropriation.

[9] In many instances goods designed for the spring trade in the Western States are started via the canal in October, reaching their destination at Chicago some time in April, the cargo having been frozen up in one or another of the canal basins during the winter. The rate paid for this slow transit is considerably less than the amount which otherwise would have been paid for storage; moreover, it is nearly all clear profit to the canal boatmen.

[10] The minimum depth of the canal is 22 feet; its width at the bottom is 160 feet. It was begun September, 1892, and completed January 2, 1902, at a cost of thirty-four million dollars. More than forty million cubic yards of earth and rock were excavated. All the bridges crossing it are movable.

[11] This is on the supposition that night travel will be too dangerous a risk. With a continuous travel the time would be about thirty-three hours.

[12] On one great trunk system the average ton-mile rate in 1870 was one and one-seventh cents; in 1900 it was just one-half that sum.

[13] The modern steam-making boiler has from thirty to one hundred or more tubes passing through it from end to end. The heat from the fire-box as a rule passes under the boiler and through the tubular flues; it thus increases the heating surface very greatly. The forced draught is made by allowing the exhaust steam to escape into the smokestack, thereby increasing the draught through the fire-box.

[14] A single locomotive of the New York Central has hauled 4,000 tons of freight at a speed of twenty-five miles an hour. A "camel-back" of the Philadelphia & Reading hauled 4,800 tons of coal from the mines to tide-water without a helper.

[15] The Vanderbilt boiler with cylindrical corrugated fire-box invented by Cornelius Vanderbilt, great-grandson of the founder of the New York Central, marks an important step in locomotive building. The cylindrical form largely obviates the necessity of an array of stay-bolts to prevent warping; the corrugated surface gives greater heating power.

[16] The Central-Atlantic type of locomotive illustrates a modern improvement. The driving-wheels are placed a little forward of their usual position, while the fire-box, formerly set between the wheels, now overhangs each side of a pair of low trailing-wheels. By this means the heating surface of the fire-box is increased nearly one-half. A lever controlled by the engineer enables the latter to transfer 5,000 pounds weight from the trucks to the driving-wheels when a grade is to be surmounted. The daily run of such a locomotive is greatly increased. (See cut, p. 61.)

[17] A line from Vienna to Triest was opened about 1854; Germany was joined to Italy across Brenner Pass in 1868; France was connected with Italy through a tunnel near Mont Cenis in 1871; in 1882 the traffic of Germany was opened to Mediterranean ports by a tunnel under St. Gotthard. In this manner trunk systems have gradually developed.

[18] The building of the West Shore Railroad is an illustration. After both roads had suffered tremendous losses the New York Central settled the matter by purchasing the West Shore. This was one of a great number of similar cases both in the United States and Europe.

[19] In Great Britain the ton-rate is about $2.30 per hundred miles; in Germany, $1.75; in Russia, $1.30; in the United States, $0.70. The difference is due as much to the length of distance hauled as to economical management.

[20] Thus, A, B, and C are roads whose chief terminal points are Chicago and New York City. The road C is the shortest of the three lines, but its grades are very heavy. B is, say, one hundred miles longer, but has no heavy grades. A is a very indirect route, and its New York traffic must be trans-shipped at Boston, or perhaps at New London, and sent a part of the way by water. If now an absolute ton-mile rate is fixed for either road, it is evident that neither of the others can carry through freight without altering rates. If C fixes a rate, then A and B must either charge higher rates between Chicago and Montreal, or Chicago and Albany, than between their terminals. And although this is illegal in most States, the laws are evaded by "rebate," or repayment of a certain sum to the shipper. Of the three roads B, on account of easy grades, is in the best position to fix rates. It therefore makes, not the lowest rate, but the one that will yield the best returns. C conforms to this, and A takes what it can get, hauling at a very small profit. But if A happens to be outside of the limits of the United States, it may openly cut rates, because pretty nearly all the through freight it gets is clear profit, and inasmuch as none of the laws of a State apply to the Canadian portion of the road, it may do what the others cannot. And while B is struggling with A, the three roads X, Y, and Z are perhaps endeavoring to have some of the freight sent from Buffalo eastward over their own lines. In instances similar to the foregoing it is customary for B and C to divide the through business and to allow a "differential" to A—that is, on account of its slower delivery of through freight, to carry it at a slightly lower rate. B then adjusts its traffic with X, Y, and Z in a similar manner; and on the whole this is the fairest way to all concerned.

The following, one of many instances, shows the difficulties in fixing rates that will not be unjust to either party: Danville and Lynchburg compete for a certain trade. The Southern Railway passes through both cities, but the Chesapeake & Ohio makes Lynchburg by another route; Danville, therefore, is not a competing point, while Lynchburg is. As a result, the Southern Railway charged $1.08 for a certain traffic from Chicago to Danville and only 72 cents to Lynchburg, some distance beyond, this being the rate over the other road. The matter finally reached the Court of Appeals, and the latter sustained the Southern Railway. The rate to Danville was shown to be not excessive, but if the railway were required to maintain a rate to Lynchburg higher than 72 cents, it would lose all its traffic to that point, amounting to $433,000 yearly. In a case of this kind there can be no help except by a consolidation of the two roads; by virtue of the consolidation all the Lynchburg freight will then go over the line having the easiest haul.

[21] That is, the Government pledged its credit for the money borrowed, and in addition gave the companies alternate sections of public land on both sides of the proposed line, the land-grants being designed partly to encourage immigration and partly to increase the building funds of the various companies. In several instances both the land-grants and the money subsidies were scandalously used. At least one road used its earnings to build a competing line and, after disposing of the land-grant and pocketing the proceeds, allowed the Government to foreclose the mortgage and sell the original road.

[22] From the Latin "castra," a camp.

[23] In 1897 the world's crop was 2,226,750,000 bushels, and as a result, the countries in which the crop was short suffered from high prices. Had it not been for the prompt carrying service of railways and steamships famine would have resulted.

[24] In order to yield a crop of twenty-five bushels per acre the soil must supply 110 lbs. of nitrogen, 45 lbs. of phosphoric acid, 30.5 lbs. of lime, 14.5 lbs. of magnesia, and 142 lbs. of potash; these are approximately the mineral elements taken out of the soil with each crop, and it is needless to say that they must be replaced or the grain will starve for want of nutrient substances.

[25] In the United States there are about seven wheat-districts, each characterized by particular varieties that grow best in the given locality. In the New England and most of the middle Atlantic division Early Genesee Giant, Jones Winter Fife, and Fultz are chiefly grown. In the Southern States Fultz, Fulcaster, Purple Straw, and May are foremost. In the north central group of States Early Red Clawson, Poole, Dawson's Golden Chaff, Buda Pest, and Fultz are common. In the Dakotas and Minnesota Scotch Fife and Velvet Blue Stem (both spring wheats) are generally planted. In Kansas and Texas and the adjacent locality the principal varieties are Turkey, Fulcaster, and Mediterranean (all winter wheats). In California and the southern plateau region Sonora, California Club, and Defiance are the principal kinds (all winter wheats). In Washington and Oregon Little Club, Red Chaff, and Blue Stem (which are either winter or spring) are the main varieties.

[26] Sometimes the owner sends it to the nearest elevator at tide-water where the grain is stored, not in bulk, but in the original packages, subject to his demand. In the course of a month or six weeks it absorbs so much moisture that the gain in weight more than pays the storage charges.

[27] The elevators are equipped with "legs" or long spouts, within which belts with metal scoops transfer the grain from car to vessel or vice versa. The elevators at Buffalo will fill a canal-boat in an hour's time, or load six grain-cars in five minutes. A large whaleback steamship may be relieved of its 200,000 bushels in about three hours. Most of the east-bound wheat of the Middle West is transferred to the seaboard by rail, but that of the northwest, which forms the chief part of the crop, is shipped from Duluth through the St. Marys Falls Canal to Buffalo, where it is transferred to cars or to canal-boats. New York is the leading export market, but Boston, New Orleans, Galveston, Baltimore, and Philadelphia are also important shipping ports.

[28] The following is approximately the yield of the chief wheat-growing countries in bushels per acre:

The low average in Australia, India, and Algeria is due mainly to lack of rainfall; in the United States and Russia, mainly to unskilful cultivation.

[29] It seems to have been introduced into Turkey from India about the latter part of the fifteenth century, after which it was occasionally heard of in Europe as "Turkey corn."

[30] The "tortilla," the national bread of the Mexican, consists of a thick corn-meal paste pressed into thin wafers between the hands, and baked on hot slabs of stone. The corn-meal "mush" of the American, the "polenta" of the Italian, and the "mamaliga" of the Rumanian are all practically corn-meal boiled to a thick paste in water.

[31] The gin, invented by Eli Whitney in 1793, enabled one man to do by machinery about the same amount of work as previously had required one hundred laborers. For want of the laws necessary to protect his invention, Whitney was defrauded of the profits arising from it. Neither Congress nor the courts gave him any relief from the numerous infringements, and he died a poor man.

[32] The commercial distinction is a sensible one: hair is hard, crisp, straight, and does not felt; wool is soft, curly, and felts readily.

[33] An ounce of eggs produces about forty thousand worms, and these, during the grub stage, require about fifteen hundred pounds of leaves, about one-half of which is actually consumed.

[34] Charles II. of England also forbade its use (1675) and attempted to close the coffee-houses that had sprung up in London, but in spite of the ban and the prohibitive tax laid upon it, the use of coffee became general. Similar efforts to close the coffee-houses in Constantinople failed.

[35] The full-grown leaf attains a length of from four to nine inches; those picked rarely exceed one-and-a-half inches in length.

[36] Brick tea consists of leaves moulded into bricks under heavy pressure. Refuse and stems are also thus prepared for the cheaper grades.

[37] The following are the chief rubber-producing trees: Siphonia elastica, or Hevea brasiliensis, Amazon forests, yields ParÁ rubber; Manihot Glaziovii, also a tapioca-producing shrub, CearÁ province, Brazil, furnishes CearÁ rubber; Castilloa elastica, Central American States, Nicaragua rubber; Ficus elastica, British India, and Urceola elastica, Borneo, Indian rubber. There are rubber-producing trees in Florida, but they have little commercial value at the present time. African rubber is taken from a variety of plants.

[38] The process of vulcanizing was made practicable during the ten years ending in 1850. It was invented and perfected by Goodyear in the United States and by Hancock in England; for ordinary purposes, where both strength and elasticity are required, about five per cent. of sulphur is added. The addition of about fifty per cent. changes the rubber to a hard black substance known as "ebonite," or "hard rubber."

[39] In 1823 a Scotchman, Mackintosh, applied the discovery, that rubber gum was soluble in benzine, to the water-proofing of the cloth that bears his name. This invention was about the first extensive commercial use to which rubber had been put.

[40] From the fact that most of the dwellings in the United States are built of wood, the United States is a very heavy consumer of turpentine.

[41] A slender strip of metallic lead was used instead of graphite in the first pencils made. The use of graphite did not become general until about 1850. The hardness of a pencil is regulated by mixing clay with the powdered graphite.

[42] These percentages are on the supposition that the ores are chemically pure; the percentage of metal actually obtained is somewhat less.

[43] These percentages are on the supposition that the ores are chemically pure; the percentage of metal actually obtained is somewhat less.

[44] These percentages are on the supposition that the ores are chemically pure; the percentage of metal actually obtained is somewhat less.

[45] These percentages are on the supposition that the ores are chemically pure; the percentage of metal actually obtained is somewhat less.

[46] The limestone has no essential part in the smelting of the ore except to produce an easily-flowing, liquid slag; hence it is called a flux. Some ores smelt and flow so easily that a flux is not required.

[47] Under ordinary circumstances about two tons of coal, or three-quarters of a ton of coke, are required to produce a ton of pig-iron.

[48] Terne plate is sheet-iron coated with an alloy of lead and tin.

[49] Heredity is likewise a factor. The seeds of knotty, scraggly trees are very apt to produce trees of their own kind and vice versa.

[50] This sum represents more than ten times the amount of gold coin now in existence. Less than five per cent. of the business of the great industrial centres is a cash business. Even if the money existed, the transfer of such immense sums would greatly retard commerce. In order to effect a speedy settlement of payments, clearing-houses are established. At the clearing-house the representatives of the various banks meet daily and liquidate the checks drawn against one another; and although the total yearly volume of payment aggregates the sum mentioned above, the balances for a year are but little more than two billion dollars. Even this does not always represent cash payment, for a bank that is a debtor to another at the close of one day may be a creditor for an equal sum on the next.

[51] These roads are financed by the Northern Securities Company and form a link in the Hill-Morgan lines. Their intercontinental traffic is large.

[52] Their dividing line is the centre of a street.

[53] The brand consisted of any specific device, such as an initial, a monogram, or a conventional form that might be easily recognized. The device was registered and imprinted with a red-hot iron on the flank of the animal. Ear-marks, such as notches or similar devices, also indicated ownership.

[54] In many cases Government land, not owned by the rancher, has been fenced in. No objection was made, however, until the sheep-grazier came. He demanded the removal of the fences, claiming that he had an equal right to graze his herds on public lands. But inasmuch as a range once grazed by sheep is ruined for cattle-growing, the quarrel between the grazier and the rustler has become one in which both the grazier and the rustler turned upon the sheep-owner.

[55] It is one-third of their capital stock plus the bonded indebtedness.

[56] The high latitude of the wheat-region, which in most cases is too cold for the growing of food-stuffs, in this region is tempered by occasional warm winds known as "Chinook winds." These winds are the saving feature of wheat-growing. They prevail also in British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon.

[57] Freight rates from Coatzacoalcos to San Francisco are already fixed at $6.50 per ton; by the transcontinental railways they vary from $12 to $15 per ton.

[58] The entire Cuban crop is comparatively small, being but little more than one-eighth that of the United States.

[59] Vegetable ivory is the seed or nut of a species of palm (Phytelephas macrocarpa). The kernel of the nut gradually acquires the hardness and appearance of the best ivory, for which it is employed as a substitute.

[60] The leaves of this shrub (Erythroxylon coca) contain a stimulant substance that in its effects is much like the active principle of coffee. They are much used by the native laborers to ward off the feeling of lassitude that comes with severe labor in a tropical climate. A native porter will carry a load of one hundred pounds a distance of sixty miles with no food or rest, but merely chewing a few coca-leaves. The plant yields the substance cocaine, now in demand all over the world as an anÆsthetic in eye and throat surgery.

[61] More than a score of species of the tree from which this bark is obtained grow in the higher eastern slopes of the Andes, but a very large part is obtained from the tree, Cinchona calisaya. The medicinal substance, quinine, is extracted from the bark, and in the past half-century it has become the specific for malarial fevers. So great is the demand for it, that the cinchona-tree is now cultivated in India, Java, and Mexico.

[62] Only a very small proportion of the Panama hats in the market are genuine. Many of the imitations, selling at retail for ten dollars or more, are serviceable hats; most of them, however, have but little worth.

[63] Nitre, or "nitrate," is a native nitrate of potash, or nitrate of soda. The latter, commonly called cubic nitre or Chile saltpetre, is the kind occurring in Chile. Inasmuch as it is very soluble, a plentiful rainfall would soon leach it from the ground and carry it to the sea. The nitrate is thought to be of vegetable origin.

[64] The pod of a shrub (CÆsalpina coriaria); it contains a considerable proportion of tannin and is used for tanning leather.

[65] The pericarp or pod contains about twenty-four prismatic-shaped nuts.

[66] The cattle for Cuba and Brazil must be shipped in open pens in crossing the tropics. With the exports for Europe the case is different. If it is summer at the one port it is winter at the other, but it is always summer in the tropics, and cattle-ships fit for one zone are not fit for the other—hence the great difficulties in shipment of live animals to Europe.

[67] For this reason Great Britain is practically a free-trade country. A protective tariff on imported food-stuffs and materials to be manufactured would hurt rather than protect British industries.

[68] This is equivalent to the imposition of a tax on all the sugar consumed at home.

[69] Most of the lithographic stone is obtained at Solnhofen.

[70] This is a little greater than the average ton-mile rate on the New York Central Railroad between New York and Chicago.

[71] The name Zuider, or Zuyder, means "south"; it was so named to distinguish it from the North Sea.

[72] Some years ago many of the most valuable vineyards were destroyed by an insect pest known as the phylloxera, introduced from California. The trouble was overcome by replanting with American vines, the roots of which were immune to the pest. On these roots were grafted the choice French vines, the leaves and twigs of which were immune. In this manner the vineyards were restored with vines that are proof against attack, and the wine output has reached its normal amount.

[73] It is cultivated as an ornamental tree in the Southern States and in California.

[74] A small vein of coal occurs near Freiburg.

[75] The St. Gotthard tunnel is almost nine and one-half miles long; the Arlberg tunnel is six and one-half miles in length. The tunnel now nearing completion under the Simplon Pass is more than twelve miles long. Five railways cross the northern frontier into Germany, and German commerce profits most by them.

[76] Persian rugs are the finest. As a rule the designs are floral and many of them contain legendary history worked in fantastic but beautiful patterns. Among those of especial merit are the Kermanshah tree-of-life fabrics, now somewhat rare. The rugs of Tabriz and Shiraz are also of high value. In general, Persian fabrics are characterized by very fine weaving, a short pile, and elaborate designs. Turkoman rugs are usually a rich brown or maroon in color, and are apt to contain slightly elongated octagonal figures. The Bokhara and Khiva-Bokhara, or Afghan rugs, are the best examples. The Baluchistan rugs are usually very dark in color, with bright red designs and striped ends of cotton warp. Turkish rugs are made almost wholly in Asia Minor or Anatolia. Large carpets of American and European designs are made at Ushak and Smyrna. "Smyrna" rugs are made in Philadelphia.

[77] The most valuable Kermanshah rug, now no longer made there, is the tree-of-life prayer-rug, an illustration of which is shown on p. 350. The design is emblematic of the story of the Garden of Eden.

[78] In 1900 the aggregate value of the wheat exported to Great Britain was only £2,200.

[79] Since the treaty of 1901, which forbids the importation of fire-arms, a number of large plants for the manufacture of fire-arms, smokeless powder, and fixed ammunition have been established on the lower Yangtze.

[80] The islands are mainly in the belt of prevailing westerly winds. More rain, therefore, falls on the west than on the east coasts.

[81] This region is also known us the Gold Coast. Formerly it furnished the chief British supply of gold, and the gold coin known as the "guinea" received its name from this circumstance.

[82] This region was formerly comprised in the Boer republics, Orange Free State and South African Republic. In 1899 they declared war against Great Britain, with the result that they were defeated and annexed to that country—the former as Orange Colony, the latter as Transvaal Colony.

[83] It is estimated that twenty-two acres of land are necessary to sustain one adult on fresh meat. The same area of wheat would feed forty-two people; of oats about eighty-five people; of maize, potatoes, and rice, one hundred and seventy people. But twenty-two acres planted with bread-fruit or bananas will support about six thousand.