In 1920 the idea of going around the world in ten days was as preposterous as that projected by Jules Verne in 1873 when he wrote _Around the World in Eighty Days_.  But time has a way of hurling ridicule back as effectively as a boomerang.  For we have seen and marvelled at the shattering not only of the mythical eighty-day record but even the ten-day record, as progress wends its ceaseless, ambitious, difficult and almost fantastic way through the years.