Rensselaer Union, Volume 1, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 May 1869 — An Age of Wenders. [ARTICLE]

An Age of Wenders.

Wa often declare this an age <sf wonders, bitt so rapidly do events crowd upon us, so dazzling is their splendor, so marvelous their character, that our finite tfilnds. in attempting to grasp them and comprehend their relations to each other, td the past and to the future, grow wearied and confused. Think of.it! “Hats off; prayer now to be offered." said the operator at Promontory Summit, on Monday noon; and inr'tntaneously off camfe the hate, and serious grew the faces in a hundred telegraph offices. In Washington City, in San Francisco, in New Orleans, the voice of the desert operator was heard and simultaneously obeyed. Then came a short silence—then tap, tap, tap—it was the hammer driving the last spike. Chic go heard it, Washington City beard it; New Orleans heard it! Bang!—lt was the gun actually touched off on the Pacific shore by the last blow I When the Erie Canal was completed, a relay of cannons, stationed so that the gunners standing with lighted matches qould fire them in succession as the sound of the ptt ceding discharge reached their cars, announced the fact In this way, sound moving only 1,100 feet per second, the news was communicated but slowly when contrasted with the literally lightning rapidity at which the nows of the comple-' tion of the Pacific Railroad was sent all over the world. Age of wonders, ’udecd I —CMhvo PoD. May 1»A