The Wetterhorn Aerial Railway
Reproduced by permission of The Philadelphia Museums.
There is probably no railway in all Europe upon which travel affords more wonderful scenery than this trip, suspended in the air, up the side of the Wetterhorn Mountain, the three peaks of which are all considerably more than two and a quarter miles high.
Why are They Called “Newspapers”?
Although something like an official newspaper or government gazette existed in ancient Rome, and Venice in the middle of the sixteenth century also had official news sheets, the first regular newspaper was published at Frankfort in 1615. Seven years later the first regular newspaper appeared in England.
It was customary to print the points of the compass at the top of the early single-sheet papers, to indicate that occurrences from all four parts of the world were recorded. Before very long, the publisher of one of the most progressive papers rearranged the letters symbolic of the points of the compass, into a straight line, and printed the word NEWS, and in a very short time practically every newspaper publisher decided to adopt the idea.
It is interesting to find that American colonies were not far behind England in establishing newspapers, and equally interesting to know that the most remarkable development of the newspaper has been in the United States, where, in proportion to population, its growth and circulation has been much greater than in any other country. Practically a half of all the newspapers published in the world are published in the United States and Canada.
Every trade, organization, profession and science now has its representative journal or journals, besides the actual newspapers and magazines of literary character, and Solomon’s remark might be paraphrased to read: “To the making of newspapers there is no end.”