road were straightened; faster time was made, in response to the requirements of an imperious public; and trains were run on Sundays because the business man in Chicago must be in New York on Monday.

But all these changes and improvements consumed years of time and vast sums of money for their accomplishment. It will take until the end of time to make a perfect railroad, for a railroad can never be finished. It requires superhuman effort to keep it in passably good shape, and when times are bad and crops are poor (as they

nights in the cramped cushioned seats of an ordinary coach-luxurious as it was then in comparison with the ancient coach of twenty years before-conceived the idea that a sleeping-car was a necessity. Necessity became the mother of invention, and the palace car of to-day is the outgrowth of an inventive genius.

With the creation of the comfort furnished by the sleeping-car came a host of demands for more exclusiveness and luxury than was served in the ordinary day coaches. The American travelling public

are free-born aristocrats by birth and education. Nothing in a railway train is too good for the American who has money, and he is willing to pay well for all that he demands, provided that he gets it. If he doesn't get it, he "kicks"-and rightly,

too.

Following the sleeping-car came the exclusive parlor car, for seats in which an extra fare is charged for short and long journeys by daylight; then the dining and

SLEEPING-CAR REPUBLIC "

lunch cars without which, to-day, no railway line of any importance is unprovided. In most cases meals are served à la carte,that is, a fixed price is charged for what one orders to be served, but there are some roads which continue to charge a dollar per meal, whether it be an eight

course dinner or a crackers, cheese, and beer luncheon. It is a matter of strife between roads as to which shall provide the best food, properly cooked and served. The cuisine of our American dining-cars compels enthusiasm from even our saturnine English cousins.

Steam heat for all cars in trains; vestibuled cars and coaches; electric lights in the ceilings and sides of cars and at the heads of berths in sleeping-cars (for those

who are afflicted with insomnia, or who wish to read after their neighbors have retired for the night), are perhaps the latest additions to the close of the nineteenth century's improvements. What additional novelties will follow in the twentieth century the writer does not attempt to prognosticate. In his thirty-five years in the railway passenger service he has seen perfected the larger portion of the various items herein recorded, besides many not referred to at all.

The consolidation of many short, independent lines into large railway systems has been a boon to railway travellers, in that fewer changes of day coaches occur on long journeys, while (for illustration) a passenger can traverse several routes across the United States with not more than one change of sleeping-cars en route.

The speed of railway trains has been increased from ten miles an hour in 1840 to an average rate of from fifty to sixty miles per hour in 1900. At what rate shall we travel ten years hence? Of what service to our railway systems will electricity be when we know its power and how it can be fully utilized? May we not look forward to the time when we can breakfast in New York and dine in the early evening in Chicago?

The mechanical contrivances which make American railway travel safe, speedy, comfortable, and luxurious, call forth the admiration not only of our own people, but of all who travel. And yet the foregoing are but a few of the items which show the development of the system of railway passenger traffic in this the greatest of all civilized countries.

The present arrangement of "booking" or ticketing passengers for short and long distances is most complete. Nearly every railway couponticket seller can tell the inquiring passenger what is the fare from his station to any principal city in the world, and, what is more, can furnish the ticket with its few or many coupons, as the case may be; he can also tell the time at which the traveller must start, the trains he must take, the railways, steamship lines, or stages he must connect with to reach his destination, and the time, to an hour, at which he will reach his journey's end. At least all this is printed in the "timetables" and rate-book with which the ticketseller is furnished by his General Passenger Agent, and there is no excuse for his not imparting the information. Moreover,

the passenger's baggage will accompany him all

the way, without having to be hunted up at the transfer points. The American baggage-checking system is well-nigh per

fect.

In this connection it may not be amiss to state that the railway passenger department excels many educational institutions in teaching the geography of the world by means of its maps, timeschedules, illustrated pamphlets, and books which are used as advertising mediums. Time was, years ago, when every road had the straightest line (on its man) be

tween any two or more competitive points; but nowadays the public demands actual facts and truth-telling maps, and, again, it gets what it requires.

It may interest some of SELF CULTURE'S readers to quote a few statistics gathered

OBSERVATION CAR "LIBERTAS "

from a recent report of the Interstate Commerce Commission:

There are over 2,000 railway corporations in the United States.

The total mileage, in round numbers, is 186,000 miles.

The number of miles of railroad per 10,000 inhabitants is 252.

The number of locomotives in service is 37.

000.

The number of passenger cars in service is 34,000.

The number of passengers carried per annum is 510,000,000.

The revenue derived from this number of passengers is $268,000,000.

The number of persons employed in railway service is about 900,000.

In a great degree the influence of railway passenger traffic has an effect in controlling shipments of freight over lines which are the best advertised and are the most popular among commercial travellers and merchants. Trade follows the flag of a first-class road.

Of the relative importance of the railways of the United States, Great Britain, Germany, France, British India, and Russia this picture may be drawn:

The United States has 58,000 miles more than all the other five countries named. Our railways annually handle more than twice as much freight as do the roads of Great Britain, and, indeed, almost as much as do the rail carriers of all the other countries together. The people of Great Britain travel more than Americans do, or at least they make more short journeys. A vast number of English people travel from country to town and back again every day, thus giving the roads an immense shorthaul passenger traffic. The United States is next to Great Britain in number of passengers carried, and Germany follows not far behind them.

Both Great Britain and Germany have more passenger cars than the roads in this country

own, but it must be remembered that the European passenger cars are much shorter than ours, and cannot accommodate so many people, so that while our roads have only about onehalf as many cars as Great Britain has, their capacity is greater.

No country in the world furnishes such luxurious and comfortable railway trains as the United States has produced at the end of the nineteenth century, nor are passengers transported elsewhere at so cheap a rate of fare. The so-called "limited" trains of to-day are marvels of beauty. They combine all the attractions and requirements of home, office, and library, with the appointments of a firstclass hotel. They are as near perfection as the inventive genius of to-day can make them, but who shall say what the future decade may bring forth?

And when SELF CULTURE has attained its twentieth volume perhaps some other contributor will review this article and point out the development of railway passenger traffic between now and then, thus carrying this brief history of events along for the benefit of those who come after the present generation of seekers after knowledge.

ments.

T

RAVELLERS who have gathered from books their first impressions of tropical and semi-tropical forests, and have formed the idea that they differ very much from similar growths in more northern climes, are generally disappointed on visiting equatorial lands. Approaching

from the sea, the observer notes little radically different from the appearance of forests in more temperate latitudes, excepting the spreading tops of the palms, the long pendent vines, and some difference in the foliage. On entering the forest, however, he will find much to interest him.

One important difference between tropical countries and those of temperate climates is the larger proportion of wooded land in the former. The eye looks in vain for long stretches of prairie or bare mountain sides. There are no woodless summits. The prairies are usually covered with groves of pines. On the ridges single trees stand in artistic curves or groups of from eight to twelve trees, on an average, to the acre. Underneath these trees the gravelly soil is covered with a soft green carpet. In the hollows between the rolling ridges the trees stand nearer each other, mixed with underbrush and linked together with vines. The trunks of these trees are bare for about twenty feet from the ground, whence the limbs spread out symmetrically in all directions, and the tree tapers uniformly to its top. On the lower branches, near the trunk, are frequently found bouquets of beautiful lichen blos

soms.

Approaching the rivers, the forest trees become larger and stand closer together, the trunks being proportionately more slender and upright, and rearing their leafy tops high above the ground. The universal presence of forests in these countries is, no doubt, one cause of the great amount of vapor precipitated during the year. The trade winds in these latitudes cause a surplus of air which, warmed by the influence of the vertical rays of the sun, rises and flows off toward the poles. As it enters colder currents, the vapor is squeezed out of it, and is precipitated in abundant showers over valleys and mountains and even on volcanic peaks, clothing all the country with forests. There is much beauty in stem, branch, leaf, and

flower in these forests, but the tints that characterize the northern October woods are seldom seen in Central America. In the tropics, however, the foliage is, with slight exception, ever green, yet with variations from dark green through glossy bright to silvery white, mingled with the hues of numberless flowers nestling among the leaves. Graceful pines, with their curving forms stretched out overhead; ferns, with their serrate leaves fifty feet long; and mossy tufts forming a canopy in the branches overhead,- all these attract attention and are full of interest; but there is little change from month to month except that new flowers form a new background.

In the rainy season the rivers run between full banks, and drooping vines trail upon the water. Along the banks and on the sand-spits, among the zacate and gramalote grass, are countless aquatic flowering plants. On bright days every bend of the stream reveals brown mudencrusted alligators lying upon the bank, and others lifting their ugly snouts above the water. After sunset a tapir or manatee may be seen crossing the river, and sharp eyes may detect, every now and then, a huge iguana hugging a branch overhead; or it may be that the first intimation of his presence is a splash, as he drops into the water from a height and with a force that would seem sufficient to burst him. Innumerable small iguanas, of bright metallic hues and with ugly spinal fringes, bask on the logs and snags near the bank, and, when disturbed, dart for the shore, moving their feet and tails so rapidly that they fairly walk upon the water. A falling branch reveals a troop of monkeys in the trees above. They grimace, break off and throw down boughs, and shake the limbs as if in uncontrollable rage. A musky odor tells of a drove of wild pigs upon the bank. White and blue herons stand along the river side, or soar lazily from point to point; macaws, parrots, and parrakeets scream in the trees; buzzards circle high in air; an occasional hawk darts swiftly from bank to bank; and black and yellow songsters flit along the banks. The air above the river is never silent, for from the first suspicion of morning light, when the howling-monkeys wake the forest