Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 83.djvu/344

340 which requires several hours to cross, and though easily navigated, trade is greatly impeded by this water barrier. The advantages of a railway connection across the Irish Channel are many and easily understood. Such a railway would shorten the time for crossing the

Atlantic from America by a day or more, and develop terminal ports on the Irish coast, thereby enormously increasing the local commerce, and offering larger chances for employment and extended opportunities to its people. The Irish railways would, in fact, become the through routes from America to India and the far east, instead of being subordinated, as they now are, for local business from Liverpool and