io eS A Canadian invented the sleeping © Canadian “ ailway car now known as a “pullman. | a firsts DURING the past 10 or 12 dec- ae Canada has produced MEd. 42 ‘great ideas that have “a bet for general world progress i human betterment. I’m go- thea” remind you of a few of Shine They have to do with tis, trains, street cars and the ®sraph, You'll recall that just 20 years » the Canadian Post Office pre- €d a five-cent stamp to cele- id the centennial of the cross-: feo the Atlantic Ocean by the lia ™ driven ship, the Royal Wil- This was the first vessel to the entire Atlantic under aM power. The Claim _has been. made that Utch ship, driven by. steam Nie €r, preceded the Royal Wil- for this honor. The Dutch la P did not cross the entire At- le. “It did go to one of the a West Indian islands. To this extent sails were used on tloseg toe ship has not been dis- Og. Sta saree Royal William did not use Queda steamed all the way from --~¢ to Iondon on the power its single cylinder engine. wate hull of the Royal William Near custructed at Wolfe’s Cove, ang uebec City and the engine iler were manufactured in Montreal, ae. Heat Royal William was the la a in to cross the entire At- hot me steam power, but it was tee first steam ship to oper- Mojgot Canadian waters. The fo, 00 family of Montreal had a gs Steam tugs operating on the fun, “Wrence several years be- By LYMAN B. JACKES All these early steam boats op- erated with a single cylinder en- The steam _ pushed the n down — then the steam stack. gine. pisto escaped up the smoke whe uffs of escaping steam eed rhe masters of sailing slips to dub the steamers “float- ing tea kettles,” and to declare that they would never offer any serious competition to sail. Tt was. a young Canadian watch- ‘maker in Fredericton, New Bruns- wick, who proved them to be wrong. He gave the sea-going world the ‘first practical marine compound steam engine. His name was Benjamin Tibbits. He didn’t live to see his great idea drive the sailing ships from the seas. But he did live to see it widely adopted... . Tibbits made his first engine in 1844. It was still operating as late as 1919. Then the only part of his original engine that escap- ed the scrap. heap was the start- ing lever. That is proudly dis- played today in the Museum in Stgohne. - * The successful adoption of Tib- bits’ great idea soon brought an iverease in marine disasters. Coastal fogs began to take a heavy toll of these fast moving , ships. There was no satisfactory / means of warning a mariner away from dangerous shoals, or of guiding him to a harbor en- trance. Harbor’ masters tried ito warn ships officers by the firing of cannon and the ringing of bells; but these sounds wouldn’t penetrate the fog in a satisfactory manner. In the summer of 1853, during a fog, a passenger steamship crashed. into some submergd rocks not far from St. John. The vessel sank very quickly and there was a heavy loss of life. A music teacher of St. John, Robert Foulis by name, began to give some thought to the possibilitv of creating a low note that would not only penetrate fog, but would also give a shipmaster a good idea of the direction it came from. One very foggy summer even- ing he was returning to his home, and his musical ear picked up the low notes of a tune his daugh- ter was playing on a piano. He couldn't hear the higher or the intermediate notes. He could time the intervals when he should be hearing these notes, and when the score had advanced to a place where the low notes occurred, they were coming ‘to him. with considerable force. That observation was the birch of the steam fog horn. He con- ducted additional experiments through the autumn, and as a re- sult, a small steam fog alarm sta- tion was erected on Partridge. Is- land just a hundred years age. The low, booming note penctrat- ed the fog in a manner unknown before, and within a few years this great Caradian idea was copied all over the world and is still in use. * Canada’s first telegraph line began operation in 1848. It con- nécted Toronto with Hamilton, and Hamilton with Niagara Falls. Jt was so successful that a group of businessmen in Montreal decid- ed to erect a telegraph line be- tween Montreal and Halifax. RIDE in Canada and the ach- P ievements of her people is reflected in the excerpt from this pamphlet, Canada First ‘ched in 1871. The pamphlet one text of an address given py W. A. Foster, Toronto law- yer, who was connected with the Canada First movement of that period. ‘ at Beg 5 og We may have no native bal- for the nursery, or home- a epic for the study, no tourney feats to rhapsodize over, or mock heroes to em- ' plazon on our escutcheon; we may have no prismatic fables to illumine and adorn the pre- face of our existence, or Curl- ous myths to obscure and soft- en the sharp outline of our early history; yet woven into the tapestry of our past, are whole volumes of touching ‘We need or Our New Nationality, pub-— poetry and great tomes of glowing prose that rival fic- tion in eagerness of incident, and in marvelous climax put fable to the blush. We need not ransack foreign romance for valorous deeds, ’ “nor are we compelled to go abroad ‘for sad tales of priva- tion and suffering. The most chivalrous we can match; the most tried we can parallel. . . sos x 5g Times have changed, how- ever, and there is no reason why this year should not be but the dawn of our prosperity. All that has been done here, has been accomplished in the teeth of competition with a nation which calls itself, and is generally accepted as, the most enterprising of all na- tions; which “beats all crea- tion” in everything it does, not go abroad...’ “steals the keys from snoring Destiny,” and outruns time in its hurry to do it. We have Ddeen alternately flattered and threatened, yet- neither wile nor threat- has mortgaged our country with ~ dishonor, or caused us to sac- rifice our identity. So if we take pride in the past there is some excuse for us; if we hope for the future, we have, at least, some justi- fication. Thanks to Dr. Ryerson, our school children have now the means of acquiring a know- ledge of Canadian geography - without first searching through , every state in the American + Union to find the country they — live in, and can now learn something of Canadian history without first pumping dry the reservoir of Yankee bun- combe. ... to Windsor. PACIFIC TRIBUNE — SEPTEMBER 10, 1954 — PAGE 9 eee en TTT Newton Gisborne,.:a native of Halifax, was appointed manager of the new company. At once he saw the commercial possibilities of connecting Prince Edward Is- land with the system. The point of the island nearest to the New Brunswick mainland was across the Straits of Northumberland, a Cistance of some 12 miles. Gisborne began to wonder how le could insulate a wire against the corrosive action of sea water so that it could be laid on the bed of the straits. He prepared a wire by winding it around it several miles of cotton strips that had been impregnated with bee’s wax. He fed this out from barges and when the circuit was com- pleted the city of Charlottetown was in telegraphic communication with the mainland. It was the first submarine iele- graph line to operate. ‘(Its suc- cess led the British government | to lay a similar cable on the bed of the English Channel and con- nect Britain with continental Europe). Gisborne next prepared an improved wire and connected Newfoundland with his Montreal- Halifax Telegraph Company. This cable was almost 70 miles in length — the longest vet to be constructed and operated — and its success led to. the laving of the first Atlantic cable. * During that time something very interesting was going on in Hamilton, Upper Canada, Samuel Sharpe was the master mechanic of the Great Western Railway. The shops were in Ha- milton. ‘The main line of that railway ran from Niagara Falls In 1858 the night trains were equipped with cars that permitted the space between the seats to be turned into beds. These were the first railway sleeping cars’ in world history. The sleeping car did not appear in the United States until after the Civil War. car made its initial run from Washington when it conveyed the body of the slain Abraham Lincoln to its final resting place. That was eight years after the Canadian, Samuel Sharpe, had given the world the idea. ae One more first — and this time we'll be talking about street cars. In the early 1880's several at- tempts were made to operate street cars by electric power on a crude third rail system. Good insulating materials were not then available and all those early electric railways broke down dur- ing wet weather. In the summer of 1882 an ex- perimental line was constructed in Toronto. It ran from the foot of Strachan Avenue to the Exhi- bition grounds. Like all others of that date it was a third rail idea, and the first rain storm stopped ali operations. The following year, the little railway carried more than 26,000 people into and out of the Exhi- bition through rain and shine. It was able to do this by reason of another great Canadian invention.. This was the overhead wire and trolley pole. That system was invented by John Wright and Arthur Vander- pole, right in the City of Toronto. Like so many other Canadian ideas it was copied all over the world. Well, there are five of our 42 “firsts.” Why should we have pioneered in navigation — in in- ventions that have to do with transportation and communica- tion? I don’t think it’s any acci- dent. When vou think of the size and position of Canada — I think sont realize it had to be like at. e Condensed from a CBC talk given by Lyman B. Jackes, well known Toronto historian and educator. The first Pullman, .