in that direction.  At three minutes to 7 the engineers and conductor come on board; the former to place the powerful oxyhydrogen charge in the great breech-loading tube, the latter to close the doors against ingress or egress.  Precisely at 7 the signal is given.  A furious and powerful hissing is then heard, as well as a momentary scraping of the car on its runners.  In another second she is high in the air, and already Halifax has nearly receded from the engineer’s sight.  The rate of a mile in three seconds is kept up till Sydney rapidly appears in view.  In the next few seconds the engineer exerts his skill and the car lands gracefully on the slide, still in brisk motion.  After a little scraping and crunching on the runners, she pulls up at the station platform at the bottom of the decline, ten minutes only after leaving Halifax.  The next spring is made to St. John’s, Newfoundland, which is reached in fourteen minutes.  Here a few minutes are taken up in pointing the car accurately for Galway.  Great caution is necessary, and very delicate and beautiful instruments are employed.  When all are on board again and ready for the supermarine voyage, the engineer loads up with a much more powerful charge than before.  He prepares at the start for a speed of a mile in three seconds, then, when fairly out over the sea, a stronger electric current is applied to the huge charge, and a speed of a mile, or even more, a second is obtained.  This fearful velocity is not permitted overland, for fear of collisions, as car routes cross each other.  But no routes cross over the sea between St. John’s and Galway, nor is the Galway car allowed to leave till the St. John’s car has arrived, and vice versa, therefore the highest speed attainable is permitted.  Before land again looms in view, speed is much slackened, and now the engineer requires all his experience and his utmost skill.  The high winds across the ocean may have caused his car to deviate slightly from its path, so as soon as land appears the deviation has to be corrected, and only two or three seconds remain in which to correct it.  However, the engineer is equal to his task, and the car is now in the same manner as before, brought to a stand in Galway at 6 minutes to 8, just 30 minutes out from St. John’s and 54 from Halifax.  At 8 o’clock Dublin is reached, next comes Holyhead, and then London at 8.20.  Here passengers for the South of Europe change cars.  As the car for the South does not start till 8.30, there is time for a hasty glance at the enormous central depot just arrived at—­one of the wonders of the world.  Cars are coming in every minute punctually on time from all parts of the country and the world.  The arrival slide is here shaped like the inside or concavity of a shallow cone, two miles in diameter, with the edge rather more than 150 feet from the ground.  In the centre, where the cars stop, is a hydraulic elevator, by which they are immediately let down below to make room for the next arrival.  The passengers are then disembarked