These single-track electric railroads covered the Americas like a network of cob-webs. They were much safer than the two-track system of railroads peculiar to the old period of 1899, when steam engines, going around curves at two miles per minute, were liable to lose their heads and lay down in the ditch to try and figure out where they were at. The single rail upon which the electric car was balanced in 1999, was built about three feet above the track. The cars were so constructed that [Two Miles per Minute.] the wheels ran along their whole length, the sides of the car being built to a point about two feet below the rail. The trolley wire overhead gave more steadiness to the car. It could not upset. Through lines from Chicago to Washington, in the State of Mexico, attained high speed, as well as the electric lines that crossed the isthmus from the State of Mexico to Rio Janeiro. It frequently happened that strawberries gathered at the base of Mt. Orizaba, in Mexico, were delivered in Chicago in season for supper the same day. Fish of highly esteemed flavor that were swimming in the bay of Vera Cruz at break of day were frequently placed on ice and reached Manhattan in time for dinner at seven p. m. the same day. CHAPTER XVII. Electrical Navigation. Strange and novel uses to which electricity was applied in 1999. Hydrophobia banished from the earth. The relations of Creditor and Debtor greatly improved. Electrical ocean, river and lake navigation. The ocean ablaze with electric lights. Ships navigated by wireless telegraphy. It has always been the conceit of every age that its own era is the most progressive and the most enlightened of all. In 1799 any man who could have stood on the deck of Nelson's flagship "Victory" and informed that gallant sailor that in 1899 warships would navigate without sails; that powder would be used that made no smoke; that heavy rifles would hurl a ton shell fourteen miles, would have been dropped overboard as a monumental liar. The age in which we live is always a conceited one; always ready to scoff at innovations. [The Bump of The Age.] Every age had a bump of its own. How these precious bumps are smoothed down one by one, is really interesting. The stage coach was king in its day. As men gazed upon the lumbering, six miles per hour coach, the bump of the period made them believe it was the swiftest and most luxurious mode of travel the world would ever see. Steam came and reduced the stage coach bump. When men saw steam locomotives drawing fast trains and covering the country with villainous smoke, they really believed it was the swiftest mode of travel the world ever would employ. Electricity then appeared and reduced the steam bump.