Modern industrial society depends for its very existence on

the rapid and efficient movement of people and goods. The

transportation revolution which has made the development

of this society possible has taken place in the span of }ust

150 years. The evolution of our present modes of travel has

thus been rapid, but it has left vast areas still almost

untouched. There are, for example, some 200 million

automobiles in use thoughout the world, but over 90% of

them are in the countries of North America, Western Europe

and ]apan. There are other curious features as well,

Although transportation is one of the principal technologies

of our civilization, it would be interesting to speculate on the

percentage of passenger-miles still traveled on foot or on the

simplest of man s transportation aids, animals and bicycles.

It even remains true that in parts of the world a man may

bs born into the stone age and progress in his lifetime

through thousands of years of transportation history to pilot

a supersonic airplane.

The advance of transportation before the Industrial

Revolution has owed something to the life style of various

cultures as well as to their level of economic development

and technical capability.

The invention of the wheel some e,000 years ago, for

example, represented a notable advance, but the Incas

and other American Indian civilizations managed very

successfully without it.

In ancient times the Romans developed land transportation

to a peak of efficiency, largely by virtue of their remarkable

network of roads. But with the decline of the Empire the

roads decayed and were not replaced, and for some 1,500

years advances in transportation by land were limited to

marginal improvements to such features as harnessing and

wagon suspensions,

At sea, however, the situation was very different. Ancient

peoples made some remarkable voyages in the interests of

trade and exploration. The Phoenicians are reputed to have

sailed around Africa in 600 Be, while some 1,500 years later

Polynesians crossed the Pacific to New Zealand. and Vikings

took their long boats across the Atlantic to North America.

Remarkable as they were, these voyages were limited in

their implications for society and the world in general. By

contrast, the great voyages of discovery of the 15th and 16th

centuries, made possible by file development of more

effective rigs, stronger construction and greater size, vastly

extended man s horizons, his knowledge of the world, and

his contacl with other cultures. The growth of sea

transportation brought increased and wider trade and

communication, and it brought long-distance sea warfare

and colonization.

Technologically this revolution in transportation by sea was

complete by about 1600. Thereafter there were no qr :

significant advances in shipping for nearly 200 years, when

man s impatience and competitive instincts led to the

creation of the clipper ships. Sailing over twice as fast as

earlier freighters, clippers transported valuable cargoes

across oceans, and they carried determined prospectors to

the gold rushes in California and Australia, But their day

was short, because by then the modern mechanical world