Round the World in Seven Days.

Pahiatua Herald, Volume IX, Issue 1226, 2 May 1902, Page 4

Round the World in Seven Days.

America id proveroial for doing things on a grand scale, an 1 ibe latest project mooted in the United States is quite in keeping with its reputation. It is nothing less than a scheme to travel round the world in seven days. Incredible as the project may seem, it is said to have the support of tb« famous Stee: Trust, who agents are already scattered all over the world negotiating for franchises and concessions. It is proposed to construil railways on a new system of suspended cirs driven by electricity, and capable of travelling at a rate of 250 tildes an hour. T'ho c mipany, if successfully floated, will be called the In'er Continental Transit Company and the capital wiil ha one and a half billion dollars, The scheme, of course, involves an immense expenditure. The avorago cost of constructing this system of transportation is only Jt'GOOO a mile, inclusive of bridges of ordmaiy length, as against the £57,000 per mile repre srnled by existing railway lin'd in England ; but the gigantic nature of the project, involving so uiauy thousand miles of railway, will entail u huge initial outlay. The coßloflhus “ holding with steel all the continents of the earth" is estimated at £000,000,000, which is a figure calculated to make one pause, even iu these days of billion dollar trusts. The inventor, however, like mist of his class, is very sanguine, and promises that by his Bystem, it will be possible, within the next ten years to encircle the globe. llis suspended cars, be declares, will convey passengers from New York to San Francisco in less than twelve hours, and from New York to Paris, via Asia, Mn less than a week. The main inter Continental nilwny would run from Mexico lip the Pucilic coast to Behring Strait, across this by means of a tunnel into Asia, where it would connect with the company’s own line of oil turbines, capable of travelling at a of fifty miles per hour. A branch line would run through Spain under the Sirails of Gibraltar into Africa, parsing along the North African coast to Cairo, and thence to Capetown. “ And thus,’’ says the London Eifiess, describing the scheme, “ will thb great Steel Trust control the world's transportation, and at the same time create for ils.df the greatest market liv the construction of the largest railway Bystem iu the world."