Plymouth Colony

a colony established by the "Pilgrim Fathers" on the coast of Massachusetts in 1620. This was the earliest permanent English colony in New England, the second in America. The site, chosen under stress of weather, was an inlet of Cape Cod Bay, on the shore of what is now Plymouth County, less than fifty miles southeast of Boston. The settlers had a patent from the London Company whose lands lay further south, and found themselves without a government. In this emergency they drew up and signed a compact. John Carver was governor for the first year. The settlers obtained a patent for their lands in 1621. The colony remained an independent republic for seventy years. It never had a charter nor a royal governor. In 1643 Plymouth joined Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Haven in a colonial union,--the New England Confederation. In 1691 King William granted Massachusetts a new charter, by the terms of which Plymouth became a part of the larger colony. See Pilgrims

Pneumatic (nu-mat'ik) Tubes, tubes for the conveyance of letters, telegrams, and other small parcels. The pipes may be of lead, iron, or other material, and have an inside diameter varying in different systems from one and one-half to three inches. Ordinarily, as in a city, the tubes radiate from a central office to outlying districts. The messages are placed in felt-covered gutta-percha cylinders or carriers that fit the pipes closely. A roll of messages is placed in a carrier, it is dropped into a tube, a lever is moved, and the carrier is whisked miles away by a current of air. The currents are created usually by a central engine. The carriers run one way, usually outward, by a direct current, and run the other way by suction, that is to say, atmospheric pressure caused by partial exhaustion. Sometimes the tubes are laid in a complete circuit, so that the current need not be reversed. A pressure of half an atmosphere, or even six pounds per square inch, makes the carriers fairly whistle through the tubes, with a speed of twenty miles an hour.

The use of tubes for practical purposes was suggested by a paper read before the Royal Society of London in 1667. The first commercial system was installed in London in 1854. The London postoffice now uses forty miles of tubes. Berlin uses thirty miles; Paris and Vienna have similar systems. Short systems are in use in the postoffices of New York and Philadelphia for the conveyance of mail to the substations and to the railway stations. Many commercial houses have systems of delivery tubes for a single building. The Western Union Telegraph Company has an extensive system in Chicago and one in New York.