The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1893-04-21
THE FUTURE OF ELECTRICITY.

WIN lIS use you only pay Tor the good
you get.
THE FUTURE OF ELECTRICITY.
In all the fields of human endeavor
there is none in which the promise and
potency of future achievement is greater
than that of the development of that
wonderful fo;m of energy which we
know as electricity" In this field pro-
gress is advancing in two paths; the one
leading to the production of the force
cheaper than by known means, and the
other toward new devices and ways for
applying it to the practical needs of
mankind. The first path is the least at
tractive; but it leads to by far the most
momentous discoveries as affecting our
every day life. The current which now
supplies our lamps and motors is OBJ
tanned by revolving a coil of wire in the
field of the magnet. The steam engine
does this justa as it turns coffee mill, or
churn, or a lathe. Therefore, coal is
burned under the boiler to produce
steam, and steam drives the engine, the
engine turns the dynamo, the dynamo
delivers its current on the wires which
lead to the lamps. Hence the efficiency
of the whole system depends mainly up
on the efficiency of the engine and boiler
which furnish the power. The best en-
CINE and boiler do not utilize more than
ten per cent of the energy locked up in
the fuel; and this is due, not to faulty
construction or bad management, but
chiefly because of natural laws mainly
dependent upon the temperature in
which we live. To improve the dynamo
or the lamps simply means greater econ
omy in the utilization OF the obtained
ten per cent. 1t does not affect the prob
lena of how to get more than ten per cent,
and that is the great discovery of the
future-so great, that the man who finds
the way to convert, not eighty or ninety,
but even twenty per cent of the stored
energy liz fuel into electricity will do
more for human civilization than all the
inventors of all the marvellous applica-
tions of that force put together have
done since electricity was discovered.
Present indications point to the voltaic
cell as the probable means of attaining
this result. Not to a cell consuming
zinc, of course: for electricity thus pro.
duced is al out twenty-five times dearer
than that obtained from the steam en-
CINE and dynamo; but to a cell directly
consuming carbon, not by hot combus-
ton, but by cool, chemical combination
with the boundless store of oxygen in
the air. Carbon is cheap, and air is
cheaper; and if they can be made to
combine at low temperature by means
perhaps no more costly than the CRATE or
furnace in which we make them unite at
nigh temperature, then we shall get very
much more than ten per cent of the avail
able energy. 1t is not necessary to seek
any further reason for the end of the
reign of steam. When people can get a
machine which wastes even eight, or
seven, or six dollars out of ten, they will
no longer use an apparatus which wastes
nine. All along the frontier of the
science open innumerable paths with
endless vistas fascinating in their invi-
tations to the student and to the invent
or. Even in the oldest of our electrical
marvels 1.-THE telegraph) the possibilities
are still wonderful. A pen guided in
g. -,
the autograph of the operator, so that a
bank might safely pay the check to
which it is appended. We are multiply
ing the number of dispatches which can
be sent simultaneously; and we are rap
| idly approaching the time when uulimit-
ed messages can be transmitted at per-
ceptibly the same instance in opposite
directions over single wire. We have
contrived systems of communicating
time which will possibly enable thou
sand clocks at once, distributed all along
the continent, and perhaps from one end
of the world to the other, to work in
synchronism and with a current less
than is required for ordinary telegraph
ing. Whether this will result in the es.
tablshing of absolute time throughout
the world and the final deposition of the
sun as timepiece remains to be seen
We have found substances which are sc
sensitive to light that they will modify
an electric current in accordance will
the intensity of the light ray which
strikes them-and there is the germ
of the picUure-te telegraph. Before the
next century expires, the grandsons o.
the present generation will see one an
other across the Atlantic, and the grea
ceremonial events of the world as they
pass before the eye of the camera will b.
enacted at the same instant before al
mankind. The use of the high-frequency
electrical current with possibly screens
from outside inductive influences, is be
lieved by many to offer at last a solution
to the diflicnlues which prevent tele
phOning over long submarine cables. i
this be realized, and with the transmits
sion of images and possibly of color'
over the wires likewise achieved, ther
the nations of the earth will indeed
stand face to face and speech to speech
Park Benjamin, in the New York In
dependent.