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The world is growing smaller. Perhaps you don't believe it. Well, it took Christopher Columbus sixty-nine days to cross the Atlantic Ocean, when traveling just as fast as anyone could in those days. But Charles Lindbergh crossed the ocean in less than two days. The Atlantic must have grown smaller!
When President Lincoln was killed, only about seventy years ago, it was seven days before the people in California learned about what had happened, although the news was rushed across our country with the greatest speed. But today you can sit in your home here in America and listen to a man talking in Germany, or England, or Italy. Admiral Byrd, far down at the bottom of the world, told us almost every day what his men were doing.
Yes, it does seem as though our world is growing smaller. It seems also that we are living closer together than people did one hundred years ago. Why? You have probably already guessed the answer. Because men have learned things and invented machines—machines that make it possible for people to move rapidly from place to place and to send messages with lightning speed.
You are going to read about how men travel and send messages. You will learn of Admiral Byrd's Antarctic trip, how brave dogs and men carried medicine over ice and snow to save lives in the far North, how the mail was carried before the railroads came, and how Lindbergh flew from New York to Paris. As you read these stories, think of how progress in transportation and communication makes the world grow smaller.