Page 12: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (January 1889)

II

RAILWAY WOULD EVER CROSS THE JAXARTES and join both the great rivers that flow into the Aral Sea, connecting com- merce with the Aral and Caspian, as well as China, and so onward to the

Pacific Coast.

A factor}' was eventually established by Baron Rumin, on the Banks of the Volga, for the construction of steamers, and practical workmen were sent to this factory from the establishment of Mr. Francis, at Greenpoint,

Brooklyn, New York.

This brief account of Russia's struggle for supremacy among the family of nations, so intimately interwoven with the history of one of

America's foremost inventors in the life-saving field, is another instance o^ the Providence that rules the destinies of the world, through the lives of unassuming and patient workers.

From experiment came invention. The Life-Car, in this instance the outcome of extended experiment on the part of Joseph Francis, proved the value of the corrugating system, the fame of which, within a few years, spread all over the world. The Life-Car, the first construction under the corruga- ted system, was merely the germ of the widespread uses to which the system was and is applicable, as has been shown. Steamships, floating docks, pontoon bridges, military wagons and railway cars are only a few among the many con- structions to which the Francis system of corrugated iron was applied by him and those to whom he sold the right to manufacture. The Life-Car, then, was the suggestion that led to the construction of the portable, strong, light- draft ship, which proved the most powerful implement, in Russia's hands, of working out the vastest scheme of empire ever conceived in the brain of man*

Mr. Francis, successful in all his inventions, has been honored beyond most men by foreign potentates, and now is about to receive what he holds to be the crowning honor, the bestowal of the gold medal awarded him by two Congresses, with the double thanks of this chosen body of representatives of the people.