History of Humanity-Scientific and Cultural Development: From the Seventh to the Sixteenth Century - gebunden oder broschiert

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1917 edition. Excerpt: ...it annihilates space. Seventeen years is a shorter time in the view of the philospher of 60, accustomed to reviewing events in his past life half a century back, than it appears to a man of 34. It is just half the length of this young man's years. Time, as to duration, is thus comparative to different views. Seventeen years is not long for a commercial industry to take the place which the automobile business now occupies in a country as great as this. It is a short time in which to build up a business representing the figures of two billion on the mark of the American dollar. But this business, which has not been a business for even a score of years, did not arrive at its present estate without vicissitudes, and without strenuous work in removing obstacles in the way of its progress. The seventeen years in which the industry made its record, saw the rise and the fall of the steamer type of car, the wresting of an Old Man of the Sea, in the form of a discouraging patent holder from the shoulders of the manufacturers, the electric car largely depopularized and the gasoline car established in wellnigh universal favor. The procession of the more important earlier pioneers in the commercialization of the automobile started with the Pope Manufacturing Company at its head. In 1897 this company, which had successfully made bicycles, manufactured electric cars at Hartford, but was unable to find a market for them in the United States. An effort was made to get the Newport set to take them up, but the wealthy owners of Newport villas could not be induced to be even mildly interested. So the Pope company decided to send them abroad, and shipped them on the steamer La Bourgogne. But this ship sank at sea and the cars were lost. The Pope company then made...