Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1874-07-13
WHY NOT
THE GOOD TIMES COMING.

ence and invention, he is fool who
doubts the possibility of anything. All
things are possible. There is no limit,
short of infnity, to the genius of man.
The appended speculations of the New
York Herald may seem little largely
drawn just now, but the child is already
born that may see them all dull, COM
mon-place, everyday realities. :
Wendell Phillips said in recent
speech that the time was coming when
we might communicate instantly with
San Francisco without either wire or OPP
orator. The audience laughed at him.
Perhaps his statement is not so extrava-
giant as it seemed. Had the ordinary
work now done by the magnetic tele-
graph been predicted forty years ago, it
would have been received with the same
incredulity. The truth is that science,
like politics and love, always develops
in unexpected directions. No sooner are
men fixed in their scientific opinions,
than some startling discovery reveals
their ignorance and shows the world that
all things are possible under the sun.
Ever since the invention of the use of
steam, men have agreed that only hot
vapor had the least power but quite
recently Philadelphia machinist exhib-
tied an iron globe, no larger than gal
lon jug, full of cold vapor, showing
pressure of twenty thousand pounds to
the square inch, and neither time nor
temperature diminished its tremendous
power. The discovery is said to have
been accidental. The inventor was ex-
perimenting with an engine run by COM
pressed air and vacuum, when to his
profound establishment, he stumbled on
the cold vapor secret and it was some
time before he could make gauge strong
enough to test its power. Until then he
had not imagined such a discovery pos
sible.
Nature seems to coquet with the en-
quiring intellect of man, until he is sure
of some great secret, when she confounds
him with disappointment but in his
less inquisitive moments, she reveals
what he never dreamed of Modern sci
ence is a paradox. Water, which was
always considered the most incombusti-
Bile matter in nature, produces the great
est heat known. Watch springs burn
like pitch. The chemist prepares deli
cate muslin so that it can be cleansed
with fire. Arsenic is prescribed for dan
gerous diseases. Frozen feet are saved
by plunging them into snow. Children
are told to keep away from iron during
thunder storms, yet hardware stores are
never struck by Lightning. Persons suf-
fering with hydrophobia go into convul-
sions at the sight Of water. A French
physician, however, has cured fifty cases
of this awful malady with hot baths.
An editor of New York newspaper lost
his sight until surgeon put a knife in
to his eye-balls, whereupon the man re-
covered and went about his work.
The widest imagination is unable to
predict the discoveries of the future. For
all we know, families in the next centu-
ry may pump fuel from the river, and
illuminate their houses with ice and
electricity. Iron vessels, properly mag
netized. may sail through the air like
balloons, and trip to the mountains
may be made in an hour. Perhaps with
in fifty years. American grain will be
shot into Liverpool and Calcutta through
iron pipes laid under the sea. By means
of condensed air and cold vapor engines,
excursion parties may travel along the
floor of the ocean, sailing past ancient
wrecks and mountains of coral On land,
the intelligent farmer may turn the soil
of a thousand acres in day, while his
son cuts wood with platinum wire and
shells corn by electricity. The matter
now contained in New York daily may
be produced ten thousand times min
ute, on little scraps of pasteboard, by
improved photography and boys may
sell the news of the world printed on
visiting cards, which their customers
will read through artificial eyes. Five
hundred years hence a musician may
play piano in New York connected
with instruments in San Francisco, Chi.
cago. Cincinnati, New Orleans and 9TH
er cities, which will be listened to by
half million of people. A speech de-
livered in New York may be heard in.
stantly in the halls of those cities, and
when fashionable audiences in San Fran.
Cisco 90 to hear some renowned singer
she viii be performing in New York Oh
Philadelphia.
In the year 1900, man may put Oh
his inflated overcoat, with pair of light
steering wings fastened to his arms, and
go to Newark and back In an hour. AL
the great battles viii be fought in tht
air. Patent thunderboIts viii be used
instead of cannon. a boy in Hoboker
will go to Canada in the family air car
rage to see his sweetheart, and the mex
day his father viii chasten him with {