quate transportation is to be furnished to the people of the United States. The railways of the country, in their present form, have been built since the close of the Civil War, or in less than fifty years, and are the wonder and admiration of students of the transportation problem who come here from other countries. There are 234,182 miles of railway, and more than 340,000 miles of track in this country, as compared with a trifle less than 300,000 miles of railway in all the other countries of the world combined. There are nearly 58,000 locomotives; more than 45,000 passenger-train cars; nearly 2,200,000 freight- and service-cars. On these tracks, and with these engines and cars were run in the year ending June 30, 1909, freight-trains for 560,602,557 miles, and passenger-trains for 491,903,107 miles, or an average of 2,883,577 miles everyday in the year. This is equal to a trip around the world at the equator 116 times each twenty-four hours.
These trains handled in the year ending June 30, 1909, 217,756,776,000 tons of freight one mile and 29,452,000,000 passengers one
