The history of the first locomotives in America. From original ...

FIRST -TRUCK-ENGINE. 233
This company (well known in Europe) was present
with, two parties at the inauguration of the Suez Canal
in Egypt, November, 1869. Excursions under their
charge are made every year to Spain and Portugal;
Norway, Sweden, and Eussia; Italy, Greece, Turkey,
Palestine, and Egypt, a trip up the Nile included ; and
special excursions twice a year to London, Paris, Vienna,
and Venice, staying over the carnival. Doubtless in a
few years these prices above will be regarded as fabu-
lous. Competition has already commenced in the routes
to the Pacific coast, as appears by the following
"UinoN Pacific Raileoad.—Two hundred and twenty-six
miles saved for Chicago by the Union Pacific Railroad, via Omaha.
One hundred and thirty-five miles saved from Indianapolis. One
hundred and seventeen miles saved from Cincinnati. Twenty-
five miles saved from St. Louis to Salt Lake City, Sacramento,
San Francisco, Sandwich Islands, New Zealand, Australia, China,
Japan, and India. The best route to Denver, Colorado, New
Mexico, and Arizona.
" Remember that only those tickets ma Omaha are sure of
places in the through Pullman palace cars. For sale at all the
principal ticket-offices in the United States and Canada."
All this is the work of the locomotive, under the
impulse of that powerful yet invisible offspring from
two of the most conflicting elements brought within con-
trol, by the ingenuity of man, in the invention of the
steam-engine, advanced as it now is to a stage of per-
fection in less than a century.
In the present improved state of this machine, it
seems to be a thing almost endowed with human intelli-
gence. It regulates with perfect accuracy and uniform-
ity the number of its revolutions in a given time ; it
regulates the quantity of steam required to do its work ;
it opens and shuts its valves with absolute precision as
to time and manner ; it helps itself to all the water it
Digitized by Microsoft®
: