New Ulm weekly review., 1886-12-08
The Grand Romance Of Electric


The Grand Romance Of Electric
ity.
When the time comes for reviewing
the events Of the nineteenth century,
now so rapidly drawing to close, no
one feature OF it's extraordinary deyel-
opment will be more likely to COM
mand attention than the progress
made in discovering and adapting the
wonderful powers OF electricity. The
Rochester Herald, in an article touch
ing upon this subject, presents US with
some suggestions as to the romance
of electricity when it groups the fol
lowing facts together:
1t is only forty three years since
Morse, poor and out at the elbows,
finally got congress to vote, amid the
jeers of the multitude, and the denun-
Citations OF the wise that the thing was
a fraud, 100000 to build an expert
mental telegraph line from Washington
to Baltimore. Now the states ofevery
civilized country are festooned with
wires. San francisco talks with Hong
Kong, three-quarters of the way
around the globe, and the people Of
this country alone sent more than
forty millions of messages last year.
1t is only twenty-eight years ago that
the first flash of lightning passed under
the Atlantic ocean; now there are ten
cables on that oceans bed, all bur-
dened with their tales oil business and
OF love. For years the demonstrator
IN chemical laboratories burneda pair
of carbon points as one of his most
curious experiments. But ten sum-
mers have passed since Jablochkoff
invented the electric candle, and a less
number since the first arc light was
used for illuminating in this country.
Now every considerable city and hun
dreds OF our villages are lighted solely
by it. The fingers on both hands do
not have to be counted to num-
Der the years since the incan-
descent lamp was put into practical
use, and now it is an old, old story.
A learned professor in Padua made a
miniature electric motor in 1880; six
years ago an electric railway was ex-
hiblted more as a curiosity than any
thing else, at one of the European ex-
positions; for a year a street railway
has been successfully operated in Ber-
lin by this agent, and the New York
elevated railway people think they
have q perfect system by which it can
be substituted for steam on their
lines. 1t may be that in another half
decade we shall have it harnessed to
our cars and, without stopping for
breath, winging the impatient passen-
gers across the continent, a. hundred
miles an hour. In other ways has
this wonderful, subtle and universal
agency, at one time the shaft of Jove
that riffs the adamantine hills and at
another the faintly-wooing breath
that scarcely lifts O. filament OF gold
leaf, been bended to mans will It
catches up articulate speech, and
takes the very intonation OF the
whispered word DER many a league.
With powerful fingers it tears the pre-
clous metals apart and spreads them
IN delicate films over baser surfaces.
With an artists touch it goes over.
the finest engravings, and reproduces
them, in light and shade, in tint and
tone, hundred or thousand fold.
1t lays q bit of copper over the transi-
ent type, aud lo the sentences OF an
orator become unending words, more
indestructible than the cuneiform in
scriptions that are gathered on Assy-
rian plains. 1t comes into our houses
and rings bell if a servant should be
wanted. It guards golden store, and
summons the ministers of the law if
the treasure is attacked. It watches
over a building, and tells the distant
sentinel if unhappily fire should
start. 1t does more. We dip a pen
into it, and with one stroke write a
thousand letters upon thousand
sheets, each precisely like all the 9th
ers. So rapidly has been the move.
ment in the development ofelectricity,
SO soon do wonders dwindle to com
mon places in this swift day, that the
oge Of electricity seems but vivid
'ream.