The outside is entirely of metal, very highly polished, and showing
no projections except a flange on each side, two broad runners
underneath, and a 40 foot rear flange or vane. The dimensions are
usually--diameter of cylinder, 20 feet; length, 45 feet. The high
polish is necessary to avoid heating when the highest speed is
attained. Passengers are seated in a luxurious chamber in the
interior of the cylinder, which is suspended like the compass of a
vessel, and therefore always retains an upright position whatever
may be the position of the car when travelling. About fifty
passengers can be accommodated at one time. The tube emerging
a little beyond the mouth of the cylinder, through which the
expanding gases are expelled, can be slightly deviated from its
axial position in any direction, and thus what little steering
is required is easily effected. The long projecting 40 foot vane
or tail which steadies the motion of the whole machine is, in
the newest patents, made to assist it in alighting on the slides
easily and without jarring. Such is the splendid apparatus,
briefly described, which brings all the ends of the earth together
and makes the whole world a public park, the most distant parts of
which can be visited and returned from in the course of a day. Long
tedious voyages of a week or a month belong to the forgotten past,
for Paris, Calcutta or Hong Kong can be reached in a fraction of
the time formerly occupied in going from Toronto to Montreal.
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