The canal was first opened for traffic in 1869. By the overland route the distance from London to Bombay has been reduced to 5,221 miles, and to Calcutta, 6,471 miles. The contract time for the transmission of mails is 16½ and 18½ days respectively. Sir Douglas Fox, engineer of the railway from Acre to Damascus, speaking of the proposal to extend that road to the mouth of the Persian Gulf, prophesied that in a few years the journey from Charing Cross to India will be covered in eight days! It will be accomplished in about the same length of time, _via_ Russia, when the great trans-Siberian railway is completed. When that is accomplished, the actual running time of an excursion around the world may possibly be reduced to thirty days or even less. * * * * * In preceding pages reference has been almost exclusively made to the development of steam navigation on the North Atlantic; a brief allusion must now be made to the effects produced on the commerce of other parts of the world by the introduction of steam power. The Atlantic steamers were probably the first to bridge the ocean; they are, perhaps, the most numerous to-day; certainly they include some of the largest and most magnificent specimens of marine architecture in existence, but they are only a wing of the world’s fleet of steamships. There are other great lines of ocean steamers performing services of equal importance elsewhere, though with their history and their “records” we are less familiar. An excellent summary of the lines of communication with India, and the East generally, is given in “Whitaker’s Almanacks” for 1896 and 1897, under the caption of “Our Ocean Mail.” Mr. Macdonald, in “Our Ocean Railways,” devotes a couple of chapters to an interesting survey of this branch of our subject. THE PENINSULAR AND ORIENTAL COMPANY,