intelligent observer during the past twenty or thirty years--that is
to say since the suburban railroad began to take its place as an
important factor in determining the locating of population.

To a very large extent the automobile will be rather a feeder to the
railway than a rival to it; and all sorts of by-roads and country
lanes will be improved and adapted so as to admit of residents running
into their stations by their own motor-cars and then completing their
journeys by rail. But when this point has been reached, and when
fairly smooth tracks adapted for automobile and cycling traffic have
been laid down all over the country, a very interesting question will
crop up having reference to the practicability of converting these
tracks into highways combining the capabilities both of roads and of
railways.

In an ordinary railroad the functions of the iron or steel rails are
twofold, first to carry the weight of the load, and second to guide
the engine, carriage or truck in the right direction. Now the latter
purpose--in the case of a rail-track never used for high speeds,
especially in going round curves--might be served by the adoption of a
very much lighter weight of rail, if only the carrying of the load
could be otherwise provided for. In fact, if pneumatic-tyre wheels,
running on a fairly smooth asphalt track, were employed to bear the
weight of a vehicle, there would then be no need for more than one
guide-rail, which might readily be fixed in the middle of the track;
but this should preferably be made to resemble the rail of a tram
rather than that of a railroad.

"Every man his own engine-driver" will be a rule which will
undoubtedly require some little social and mechanical adjustment to
carry out within the limits of the public safety. But the automobile,
even in its existing form, makes the task of completing this
adjustment practically a certainty of the near future; and as soon as
it is seen that motor tracks with guide lines render traffic safer
than it is on ordinary roads, the main objections to the innovation
will be rapidly overcome. The rule of the road for such guide-line
tracks will probably be based very closely on that which at present
exists for ordinary thoroughfares. On those roads where two tracks
have been laid down each motor will be required to keep to the left,
and when a traveller coming up behind is impatient at the slow rate of
speed adopted by his precursor he will be compelle