Relation of Transportation and Communication.—Rapid and exact communication is as important as rapid and safe transportation. The two have grown up together and can scarcely be separated. On tilt whole, however, communication is farther advanced than transpor, tation, for it is less hampered by geographical conditions. A mai' route can be established among mountains where a railroad or eve] a good automobile route would be too expensive because of the sparsit: of population. Even where the mails are carried by very primitiv; modes of transportation such as dog teams and reindeer in Alaska l pack horses in Asia Minor, and yaks among the Himalayas the regu lotions as to the care and cost of the mail service are almost as highl; !developed as in places where express trains are used. It is a noteworthy fact that in backward countries like Turkey, the mail service is safer and more like similar services in advanced countries than almost any other work of the government. Of course the mail may arrive only once a week on the Yukon or once a month in Persia, but even in such remote places the mail is an international matter, and is regulated by strict agreements identical in all countries.
What is true of the mail is largely true of the telegraph. Geo graphical conditions interfere relatively little with telegraph and tele phone lines. Of course it is more expensive to lay a cable under the Atlantic or run a wire across the Caucasus than to string a hundred wires across Indiana where the plain is level and wood for poles can be had not far away. Nevertheless when the cable or wire is once laid, the interrup tions to telegraphic or telephonic communication by wind and storm are far less important than the interruptions to transportation in the same regions. One of the most formidable difficulties in communica tion is the extreme complexity of telephone exchanges, and the fact that the more extensive the service the greater the cost of each individual telephone. The system of exchanges without operators, however,
removes part of this difficulty, for each user of the telephone does his share of the work.
The wireless telegraph and telephone reduce the importance of geographical conditions almost to the vanishing point. Except for the temporary interruptions by electrical storms or by atmospheric disturbances which occur by day much more than by night, an explorer in the forests of Africa or the great desert of Arabia can communicate with the rest of the world, with comparative ease at almost any time. A recent explorer in the northern Amazon region talked with Panama every day. The one thing that is lacking in order to make communi i.cation practically perfect is the ability to see the face of the person who is talking, but even in that direction the first steps have been taken. To sum up the whole matter, modern communication, unlike transpor tation, can penetrate anywhere at any time, and can give almost perfect opportunities for the exchange of ideas without being hampered by the need of elaborate terminals and expensive roadways. Terminals are indeed necessary, but are relatively small so that they can be set up almost anywhere.
Such perfection of communication may perhaps be a forerunner of similar perfection of transportation. At any rate good means of communication are one of the most important aids to transportation. Without the telegraph it would never have been possible to run fast •trains at frequent intervals over the railroads. And wireless telegraphy and telephony make transportation by sea and in the air far safer than hitherto. The telephone and telegraph also replace millions of letters, and save the necessity of millions of miles of travel by business men. They also prevent much waste. For example, carloads ` of perishable fruit are sometimes saved by diverting them from their destination to a better market through the use of the telegraph.