Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1885-04-25
THE ELECTRICAL AGE.
Wonders of Electricity to be Realized
Before Many Years

Wonders of Electricity to be Realized
Before Many Years.
Robert Luce in Van Nostrand's Magazine.
The possible application of the prin-
ciple of the electrical transmission of
power are almost numberless. We shall,
believe, at no distant date, have great
central stations, possibly situated at
the bottom of coalpits, where numer
trio machines. We shall have wires
laid along on every street, the cleo
tricity tapped into every house, and
the quantity of electricity in each
house registered as gas is at
present. The storage battery will
fill place corresponding to the gasome-
ter in the gas system, making the current
steady, rendering the consumer indie
pendent of the irregular action or stop
pages of the dynamos of the central
station, and enabling the use Of dynamos
of the highest tension j. e.. those which
produce the currents Of the greatest. in
tensity. The electricity will be passed
through little electric machines to drive
machinery to produce ventilation, to re-
place stoves and to work all sorts OF ap-
paratus, as we'll as to give everybody an
electric light. Solar heat will be used to
run the dynomos in the cloudless re-
gions. Everywhere the power of the
tides, and such waterfalls as Niagara are
to be utilized. Is not millennium to be
anticipated when the water power of q
country shall be available at every door?
Steam, which in the last century has
conferred so many benefits on the world,
will give way before electricity. The dy-
namo will replace the steam engine
This prediction seems wild and vision
airy, yet when steam was first thought of
as an available force its advocates were
considered just as the advocates of dy-
namical electricity to. day are considered,
mere enthusiasts. But public opinion
never stops the march ofintellects. After
it had proved the powers of steam to be
enormous, genius never halted, but
straightway went On anticipating still
more wonderful discoveries in the realms
of electricity.
The prophetic ken of science was hap
PLY exhibited by DR.. Lardner. in his
treatise on the steam engine. "Philos-
ophy." said he, half a century ago, cal
ready directs her fingers at sources of
inexhaustible power in the phenomena
of electricity and magnetism, and many
causes combine to justify the expecta-
ton that we are on the eve of me-
chanical discoveries still greater than
any 8 which have yet appeared;
and that the steam engine itself,
with the gigantic powers con-
ferred upon it by the immortal Watt
will dwindle into insignifcance in com.
parison with the hidden powers of ma
ture still to be revealed, and that the day
will come when that machine which is
now extending the blessings of civiliza-
ton to the most remote skirts of the
globe will cease to have existence except
in the page of history"
To-day we are beginning to appreciate
the truth of this prophecy. To-day we
see dynamical electricity in the forefront
of the physical sciences. The principle
of the transmission of power by electric
ity fast approaches its realization. We
are, in truth, just entering upon won
derful age.