This Tube Line runs without a curve from one division of the road to another, except in rare cases where a bend is absolutely necessary.  In a mountainous region I noticed a stretch of Tube Line without a bend running sixty miles, according to our measurement.  On prairies, the unbroken stretches are much longer.

The cars in this Tube Line travel with fearful rapidity.  It requires two or three miles to reach dashing speed, after which a run of fifty miles is made in eight or ten minutes.  No precaution need be taken by the motorman as nothing can get into the tube and only one train is allowed in a section at one time.  Certain hours are given to passenger traffic and others to freight traffic.  An immense amount of freight can thus be carried in one hour.  It is possible to send a through freight car two thousand miles in ten or twelve hours.  Express cars are never connected with passengers cars.  They are run on their own schedule and sometimes attached to freight cars.

This immense Tube Line was built by the government at great expense, but it is proving very satisfactory.  No storms or floods interfere.  No grade-crossings and no flying dust are known in this Tube Line which has brought the ends of Ploid together.  Think of a person crossing a vast continent in a day, for the cars in this Tube Line run with frightful speed across the long stretches of level.  They make as high as a three-hundred mile run in forty minutes, without stopping.

The signal and telegraph stations are fifty miles apart, sometimes more.  In these long runs the motorman stops only when a signal is turned against him or if by accident he discerns a train in the Tube ahead of him.

The Tube Line is lighted by oval transparencies, in size and shape resembling an egg, soldered in specially prepared holes of the Tube.  The cars are not supplied with air from the tube.  Fresh air is obtained from the evaporation of a semi-solid.

On the top of this Tube Line there is a double railroad used for local travel, both passenger and freight.

THEIR STORAGE BATTERIES.

Compared with our world, the fuel of Ploid is very scarce, but less is required to supply the industries.  Nearly all power is obtained from the winds, running water and the sun’s energy.

The winds are harnessed so that they blow not in vain.  Almost every home of ordinary intelligence owns one of the many kinds of storage batteries used in this world.  These batteries are usually located beneath the lowest floor of the house, and they constitute the reservoir whence is obtained the necessary power for lighting, heating and cooling the apartments of the home.

People who live along streams of water utilize these streams for similar purposes.  It is now conceded in Ploid that the storage batteries of the home can be supplied as economically and effectively by winds and the sun’s heat as by running streams; hence it is a common sight to see residences throwing out the old water machinery and introducing the latest design of wind-employers or sun-harnessers.