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Show ! Hundred Years of Railroad This year i;:;n'ks the centennial of the I steam locomotive. From a curious, crude mechanism, d awing a few tons of coal at the rate of five miles an hour, I the steam ki.--o:n it v.- ins pushed its way j into every part oi tiie world, and today I trains deluxe are flying over superb tracks, yawning chasms spanned by wonderful bridges ard thru mountains, into lands which were unbroken and savage one hundred years ago. The locomotive lo-comotive has miid possible our great seaports and cities; it has created states out of vast vacant territories Without it the products of the world would have remained practically where they grew,, ard only a small ' frac'.ion of what is raised wou'd be grown. The greatest working inst: u nent of industry in times of peace, yet i qually essential to modern warfare. It is the shuttle which weaves the fabric of a nation, by reason of quick and easy intercommunication. It has become in these days the pioneer, and the people, pulpit, and press now follow in its wake instead of blazing for it a path. So dependent upon its service have we become that to utterly paralize its operation for long would mean death from cold and famine to rmflions'of our people. ; What of the locomotive of the future? Judging tiie future by the past, the motive power in a hundred years will he ; as far ahead of the locomotive of today as is the superheated, compound engine ahead of "Purring Billy " of Stephenson's clay. . |