The Hastings Standard Published Daily. FRIDAY, JAN. 8, 1897. THE PROGRESS OF ENGINEERING.

Hastings Standard, Issue 215, 8 January 1897, Page 2

The Hastings Standard Published Daily.

FRIDAY, JAN. 8, 1897. THE PROGRESS OF ENGINEERING.

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the wrongs that need resistance, For the future in the distance. And the good that we can do.

No one would credit the progress the world has made during the roign of Her Majesty Queen Victoria, unless they had tin- facts clearly put before them as in the present instance, hy the President of the Institution of Civil Engineers in Kngland. In inaugurating the THth .session of that body he delivered a mo.st interesting address on engineering progn ss during the present reign. Prior to the Queen's accession, only the StocktonDarlington, the Newcastle-Carlisle, the Liverpool-Man-chester, and some isolated railways, had been opened and worked by locomotives, and none of the main arterial lines had been completed, it 1H;!7 the mileage opened probably did not exceed 1000 miles. Now the mileage worked is j upwards of 21,(XX) miles, and the capital expended up to the present is 1000 illusions sterling. The improvements in transit by sea. have not been less great. At the date of the Queen's accession it was considered by high authorities to be a mathematical impossibility for vessels dependent only on steam to cross the Atlantic, thtnigh the voyage had been accomplished by a sailing \e el with auxiliary engines. Now the journey from KugSand to New York occupies only a little over live days. The (I reat Eastern was found useless from her huge size. Shi was only before her time. The dimensions of the P< tin >y 1 vania, recently kuiiched at Belfast, dwarf of the (I rent Kastern, and tins *'monster of the deep" is perfectly adapted for the requirements and the harbors of the present day. The ruin ing industry has also made great stride ~ and th« output of ccml has infrom W»,000,000 of tons in IMM to 200,000,000 in With tin* increased railway facilities hits come an uunieus.- development in the postal service. '1 hn number of letters arid ii-w-papers < 'wliverwi by the English l'<>-t office bus n»en from ' 100,000,000 and 70,000,000 reipec- i ,

tively, in 1887, to 2,650,000,000 of letters and postcards and 1,200,000,000 of newspapers in 1895. Prior to 1851, there was no submarine cable across the English Channel, none to the United States till 1858, and none to India, Australia, or South Africa till 1865, 1872, and 1879, respectively. Now, there are 162,000 miles of submarine cables, the capital employed in them being £40,000,000, and, through the Post Office alone, the number of foreign and colonial telegrams sent produce about £7,000,000 sterling. Besides these, there are a great many messages sent by the submarine companies, without the intervention of the Post Office. Enormous progress has been made in every other branch of engineering, and altogether the advance, even if it stood alone, would be sufficient to render " the record reign " the most memorable period in the history of the world.