He utilized improved
applications, but the principles of themselves were ever the same,
whether in the war chariots of Achilles and Pharaoh or the mail-coach
and diligence of the European traveller, the cavalry of the Huns or
of Prince Rupert, the triremes and galleys of Greece and Rome or the
East India-men and clipper ships of the last century. But when the
moment came to alter the methods of travel, the change was so
sweeping that it may be safely classed as a revolution. Though the
discovery of steam attaches to the honour of the last century, the
potency of the new power was not felt till the beginning of this. By
1800 small steamers were being used for coasting purposes in England;
1830 witnessed the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway;
while it was not until 1838 that the Atlantic was first crossed by
the steamships Great Western and Sirius. In 1869 the East was made
next-door neighbour to the West. Over almost the same ground where
had toiled the caravans of a thousand generations, the Suez Canal was
dug.
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