Portland, Oregon, A.D. 1999, and other sketchesHayes, J. W. (Jeff W.)
Science
Portland, Oregon, A.D. 1999, and other sketches
Hayes, J. W. (Jeff W.)
American fiction -- 20th century; Portland (Or.) -- Fiction; Short stories, American
"Of course," she began, "I may not be able to tell you all that is in
store for future generations, but I will say enough to interest
everybody and to warn everybody who will care to heed my admonitions.
"The era of quick transit has already arrived and people love to travel
fast, and opportunity will be given all who care to adopt this pastime.
Very soon the locomotive and trolley car will be altogether too slow for
travel and aerial voyages, both for pleasure and business will ensue.
The force used for this purpose will be varied and may be electricity,
gasoline, compressed air, or perhaps still another potent agent, at
present undeveloped, which will usurp the place of all others, be
cheaper, safer and more reliable than any known energy. The cars will be
made entirely of steel bands and so constructed that but little damage
may be apprehended from a collision with another flying machine. A
parachute, arranged to work automatically will be the chief protector of
this winged machine and this part of the apparatus will be so
constructed as to render an accident almost an impossibility. Indeed,
these carriers will be so made that a party soaring in the air at a
height of 500 feet will look down and express a feeling of sympathy for
those who must brave the dangers besetting life on the surface of this
mundane sphere.
"These air carriers will be simple, and a good bright boy can
manufacture his own vehicle to take him to and from school and at a less
expense per day than is now paid for street car fare, and at a lesser
risk to life and limb. The grocer will make his deliveries by his air
machine. The butcher boy will abandon his automobile and bring his meat
deliveries by the way the bird flies. As there can be no tracks laid in
the air, no one will be pestering the City Commission for a franchise to
run his company's cars over a certain strata of air, but there will be
cars for hire, just the same, and there will be, no doubt, long trains
operated in the air not much unlike the system at present in vogue on
the surface. The death dealing automobile will be a thing of the past
and even the merry motor cycle will have gone the way of the equine.
Railroads and railroad stocks will suffer and the roads will languish
and die. Aerial locomotion will usurp the place of the steamer and the
steamship, since it will be proven to be quicker, safer and less
expensive. Country homes will be easy of access and, consequently, more
popular and the suburbs will be peopled by an ever-increasing number.
There is no end to the advantages which the flying machine possesses
over the present modes of locomotion and it is merely a question of
solving the problem of entire safety, economy and simplicity of
construction and operation, all of which will have been surmounted in
A. D. 1999.
"Although the aerial navigation is itself an important feature of future
progress, it is not at all the most prominent of innovations. I will
tell you of the new era of building.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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