=347. Relative decline in importance of canals.=—Of canals as of roads it may be said that their days of usefulness are far from past. One class, indeed, that of the great ship canals, has grown rapidly in importance in recent years. Many economists believe that even the barge canals should be maintained and improved. There is still an active canal traffic in Europe, especially in Germany, and in the last-named country a notable project for extending the canal system is under consideration. The future of canals seems to depend largely on the introduction of improved forms of motor (electricity, gasoline). [Illustration: WATERWAYS OF NORTH CENTRAL EUROPE _Bormay Eng. Co., N. Y._ ] The canal has certainly yielded the place of first importance in internal transportation to the railroad. Its great merit, cheapness, has declined in importance with the reduction of railroad rates, while its drawbacks are felt more and more under the conditions of modern business. The canal is not only much slower and more uncertain than the railroad; its vital weakness is the fact that in temperate climates its usefulness is destroyed during at least a part of the winter. Since 1850 canal systems have grown slowly, if at all, and in some countries they have declined greatly. Nearly half of the English canals are now controlled by the railroads; some are closed and out of repair, and traffic is diverted from others by heavy tolls. =348. Origin of the steam railroad.=—Soon after 1800 the American inventor, Evans, asserted more than once that he could manage to drive wagons on railways by steam. He expressed an idea that was by no means new, and that was then floating in the minds of many men. He said truly, however, that one step in a generation is enough, and that the monstrous leap from bad roads to steam railways could not be taken at once. Roads were improved, canals were extended, and still there was a demand for better means of transportation. Rails, first of wood and then of iron, had long been laid to enable horses to draw heavier loads at mines and quarries. George Stephenson, among others, conceived the idea of applying steam as the motive power on these railways, and distinguished himself above all predecessors by constructing, in 1814, a locomotive, _Puffing Billy_, which proved capable of hauling coal over a stretch of nine miles, from the mine to tide-water. Stephenson improved his original model, especially by the introduction of the steam blast to help the draft and so increase the power of the boiler; and in 1825 secured the adoption of the locomotive on the Stockton and Darlington Railway in Yorkshire. The call for this improvement had now become pressing. The port of Liverpool and the important manufacturing center, Manchester, distant only about thirty miles, were now connected by three canals, yet these were so crowded with traffic that it took sometimes a month for cotton to reach the factories from the sea.