When Mr. Plant was nine years old, there were only three miles of railroad in the United States. They were completed in 1827. Now there are 173,453 miles, and the speed of trains has been increased from ten miles an hour to more than seventy miles. The sleeping-and parlor-cars have made travel one of the great luxuries of this most luxuriant century. The first ocean steamer that crossed the Atlantic was the _Savannah_, which made the trip to Europe in the year 1819, the year Mr. Plant was born, and in 1838, the first regular line of Atlantic steamers was established. [Illustration: text decoration] [Illustration: text decoration] CHAPTER XVIII. Railroads Established--Engineering Progress--Steel, Iron Steamships--Horse Railroad--Kerosene Oil in Use 1830--Sewing Machines--Agricultural Implements 1831-51--Sanitary Progress--Philanthropic and Christian Progress--Higher Education--Medical Progress--Humane Care of the Insane--Sailors’ and Seamen’s Home--World’s Fairs--Religious Reciprocity--Arbitration--Numerous Inventions and Discoveries--Concluding Remarks. Engineering skill has greatly improved, and by its daring achievements has added much to the progress of the world during the last forty years. This is seen in the construction of railroads of vast dimensions, four of which span our own continent, and stretch over vast prairies, deep chasms, and great rivers, penetrating through the Rocky Mountains, seemingly impassable as they rear their snow-capped peaks to the clouds. The Mont Cenis Tunnel connecting the railways of France and Italy, on the direct railway route from Paris to Turin, is a marvel of engineering skill. It is seven miles, four and three fourths furlongs in length. Fourteen years passed during its construction, and it cost about six millions and a half of dollars. It was begun in 1857 and completed in 1871. The Saint Gothard Tunnel which runs through a section of the Alps to Italy, six thousand feet below the top of these mountains, is another great achievement of engineering daring. The work consumed ten years’ time, the labor of over three thousand men daily, and cost over eleven millions of dollars. The Sutro tunnel, in our own Rocky Mountains, was another grand feat of mechanical progress during the last half of the century.