Dodge City times. [volume] (Dodge City, Kan.) 1876-1892, 1881-10-20

force which pervades the universe
seems to choose it as the favorite
agency for its manifestations. Earth,
air and water are filled with it. 1t is
inexhaustible and indestrdctible. Its
power is inconceivable, and vet it can
be stored in thimble and held there to
send messages from New York to Eu
rope. 1t can drive colossal hammers
or propel cars, or it can be made TO
perform the most delicate operations.
Ii sends out messages round the world.
lets US talk to each other miles apart,
rings our iire-belis. lights our streets
and houses, runs our machinery, cures
our sick, performs surgical operations,
takes photographs. runs sewing-ma-
chimes. plates our dinner services, al
lows itself to be condensed and stored
away in boxes, regulates the blood, ger
inmates seeds, is the most favorite form
in which Nature chooses TO display her
energy, and is even pronounced capa-
BILE of Transporting the tremendous
horsepower of Niagara to undertake
mechanical work in Montreal, New
York, Philadelphia, and Boston at once
and all this though we are standing
only on the threshold of its science, and
rs yet know comparatively little of
its possibilities.
Almost every day seems to add to
these possibilities. The latest of them
is Mr.. Siemens' curious experiments
with the electric light in its influence
upon vegetation. Hitherto it has been
known that vegetation needs light, and
it has been also supposed that vegeta-
ton must repose in the darkness, or, to
speak more Familiarity, tina: plants must
sleep at night, as they do not grow in
the darkness. Mr.. Siemens boldly con-
eeived that they ought to grow in the
night rs well as in the day, and that
they would do so if he could provide
them with an artificial sunlight At
first his plants withered and sickened
in the electric light, but by diifusing it
through clear glass shade he repealed
the refrangible rays in the electric arc
which destroy vegetable cells, and shed
upon them only those which quicken
their life. The result was marvellous.
lie compelled his flowers and fruits to
grow night and day. giving them no
rest except Sunday nights, and he says
that the "grapes have stronger flavor
than others, the melons are more arc
matte, the Strawberries are richer col
ored. and the bananas have less than
usual the taste of unscented soap" To
generate the electricity he has to have
an engine, but he manages to make it
profitable by substituting the waste
steam condensed for his former green
house stoves. What he does upon a
small scale he thinks can be done by
wholesale. which leaves the London
Times 10 draw the following glowing
picture of the possibilities of this inter-
esting discovery:
There is no reason why the Man
chester mill-owner. after displaying his
calico machinery, should not usher his
guest into wineries and pineries on the
other side OF the wall. There the light
which moves the shutt,es will have
been up all night mellowing fragrant
fruit. The iron and steel kings of the
North and the West will be able in the
morning to reveal to the bewildered
visitor Titanic hammers tractable to the
thrill of wirefui of electricity. After
dinner they may escort him mile off
TO see one cornfeld growing yellow
ander the radiance of the SAME light
which subiugated the metal mass. and
another crop already falling beneath an
electric sickle. The neighborhood of a
factory or 4 forge, now the most insu-
perable of objections, will then be
distinct attraction. Advertisements
may be expected to dwell rhetorically
on the advantages OF garden land in
fan x-Insns+-- Of h1- inf al,