"Yes," was the reply, "but you see only improvements. The ferryboats are larger and you might almost say clumsier; that is all."
"I do not think so," returned the missionary. "There must be some new invention to enable entire trains, with cars filled with passengers, to be carried across such a river as this."
"Of course," said his nephew, "the boat must be strong and large. However, the ferry docks have been improved. Now, when the boat is fastened, the wharf can be raised and lowered, until it is exactly on the level of the boat. Then not only passengers, but wagons and steam cars can pass from one to the other almost without knowledge of the change."
"How far have these cars come that I see on the ferry?"
"That," said the drummer, "is one of the through trains from Montreal to Chicago. The ferryboat next beyond, going the other way, bears a train containing cars bound for New York and Boston."
"Well, well! This is convenient," said the missionary. "The passengers are saved much trouble by not being required to gather up all their traveling bundles, leave the cars for the boat, and the boat for a new set of cars. We should have thought this a great gain, forty years ago."
"But do you realize what an inconvenience this ferry causes? Much time is wasted, not only because of the slow movement of the boats, but also from the necessary delays in embarking and disembarking the cars."
"Yes, I suppose so. But what would you do? Here is the river and it is too wide for a bridge."
"Oh, no!" replied Mr. Towne. "The bridge could be built, but it would be expensive and would not pay. But what do you think of a tunnel?"
"A tunnel? What do you mean?" said the other man, with a touch of surprise in his voice for the first time. "A tunnel? Where? Not under the river?
"Yes," answered his nephew, "a tunnel under the river. There is one, a few miles north, at Port Huron. There the train, instead of being delayed hours by the ferry, passes at almost full speed directly under the river, proceeding on its way as though the river were not there."
"Is not that something new?" asked Mr. Greenleaf.
"Yes. It was opened only a half-dozen years ago. It is said to be the greatest river tunnel in the world. It is a little over a mile long and is fifteen feet below the bed of the St. Clair River. Half a mile of it is directly under the water, yet no one passing through it would realize that it was different from any one of the hundreds of tunnels through which the railroads of this country pass. It is but a natural following out of such tunnels as the five-mile tunnel under the Hoosac Mountains in Massachusetts, or the three-quarter-mile tunnels in Jersey City, or the score of tunnels on the line of the Southern Railway over the Blue Ridge in North Carolina. It is a great tunnel to-day, of course, but when the North River tunnel is finished, from New York to Jersey City, this will be of little account in comparison."