The Arizona champion., 1890-09-06
THE ELECTRIC AGE.
A Word About the Influence of Electricity
 in Modern Life.


 i The life of to-day has derived its most essential characteris tic-rap pidity-from the wonderful natural force. electricity. We are living under the sign of cleo | tricity, and yet the science that lras brought it about is very young. The coming year will witness its twenty | fifth birthday only, for there could be no talk of a technical utilization of electric currents prior to the invention of the dynamo machine. And next year will give us, as has been finally de- cided, an international electrical exhi- bition in Frankfort-on-the-Ma
 Although Germany was the original home of the telegraph, the methods of quick telegraphy that have done more than any thing else to create this age of electricity have been developed in England and America. In the past year the Wheatstone apparatus. which is capable of transmitting from 47O to coo words a minute, was first introduced into our country. Similar mechanisms are in use in France, among them the Bau- dot multiple printing instrument, with which from 21G to 252 dispatches of 20 words can be forwarded on a single wire; whereas with the Morse in strument the limit was twenty five, and with the Hughes instrument sixty messages. These im- proyements in the apparatus have been accompanied by remarkable economy in the wires since Siemens, Frischen and Edison have developed the method of multiple telegraphy. It is now pos sible to send several messages simul- taneously on the same wire, and even in opposite directions. In short time the entire globe will be encircled with the telegraph, as the San Francisco Board of Trade has resolved in favor of laying Pacific cable by way of Homo lulu and Tutuila.
 Another memorable advance is the bringing of widely distant places into direct oral communication, as by the Rome and London line, that has been in operation since Decem Der l, 1889. During the year 18SS-S9 the number of cities provided with the telephone in- creased from 174 to 200, and the number of telephone stations rose to 38, 769, an increase of T,444
 For generating currents for electric lighting throughout the world about 1000, 900 horse-powers are employed, capable of total illumination of goo, 900, 900 standard candles. The floating capital employed amounts to S4OO, 900, GOO. In the United States alone S625, 900, coo is in- vested in the electrical industries. In electrical conduits Germany leads all nations, even the practical Americans, as no less an authority than Edison has acknowledged. Central generating es- tablishments exist in the great cities, not merely for the purpose of supplying illumination, but for conducting elec- trical currents for other purposes into the houses of consumers; and here a3 prospect is opened for electricity to pl an important part in the domestic social economy of the future. With thN growth in the number of consumers ana improvements in the insulation and | dynamos, the supply of power is becom- ing constantly cheaper, and the time is i not far of when the artisan will be en- abled to drive his little machines with the electric current, relieving his mus cles and placing it in his power to de- velop a manual dexterity that in certain directions can produce results beyond the attainment of manufacturing pro- cesses. Thus it is seen that there is virtue in electricity to aid in the solu- tion of some of the social questions that are stirring the world.-Unsere Zeit