"But do you realize what an inconvenience this ferry causes? Much time is wasted, not only because of the slow movement of the boats, but also from the necessary delays in embarking and disembarking the cars." "Yes, I suppose so. But what would you do? Here is the river and it is too wide for a bridge." "Oh, no!" replied Mr. Towne. "The bridge could be built, but it would be expensive and would not pay. But what do you think of a tunnel?" "A tunnel? What do you mean?" said the other man, with a touch of surprise in his voice for the first time. "A tunnel? Where? Not under the river? "Yes," answered his nephew, "a tunnel under the river. There is one, a few miles north, at Port Huron. There the train, instead of being delayed hours by the ferry, passes at almost full speed directly under the river, proceeding on its way as though the river were not there." "Is not that something new?" asked Mr. Greenleaf. [Illustration: A RIVER TUNNEL.] "Yes. It was opened only a half-dozen years ago. It is said to be the greatest river tunnel in the world. It is a little over a mile long and is fifteen feet below the bed of the St. Clair River. Half a mile of it is directly under the water, yet no one passing through it would realize that it was different from any one of the hundreds of tunnels through which the railroads of this country pass. It is but a natural following out of such tunnels as the five-mile tunnel under the Hoosac Mountains in Massachusetts, or the three-quarter-mile tunnels in Jersey City, or the score of tunnels on the line of the Southern Railway over the Blue Ridge in North Carolina. It is a great tunnel to-day, of course, but when the North River tunnel is finished, from New York to Jersey City, this will be of little account in comparison." Detroit was soon left, Lake Erie was reached, and night came on. The next morning the steamboat reached its journey's end at Buffalo. Our friends hastened across the city and were soon seated in a sleeper, on the train for New York. CHAPTER VIII. MODERN LAND TRAVEL. Soon after the train had started from the Buffalo station conversation began between Mr. Greenleaf and his nephew. "The steam is the same as in my day," remarked the former; "the steam pushes the piston in just the same way; there is no change in this direction. But all else is new." "Yes," said the drummer, "you must see great changes; tell me some of them." "Very well," was the reply. "The most noticeable thing about a railroad train used to be the jerking motion. We seemed to be going 'bump-i-ty-bump' all the time; and starting and stopping a train would often throw us off our feet."