The oasis., 1893-06-22
ELECTRICITY ION rAr."
The Mystcrisrs, Potent Fluid Handled,
 I,ougt. and Sold.
[From the Nnw Yo.k sun.l

energy was generated in the labratOry
 for experimental purposes, by few
 physicians as medicine of somewhat
 questionable repute. and in weak eur.
 rents by those who applied it to use
 in the arts. From the cylinder of
 glass or mastic, excited by friction to set cork mannikins or pitch balls a-daEcing, to the dynamo that rrns from one to dozen powerful engilNes is long step, but one that has been, taken within the memory of men who still call themselves young,
 Electricity as a commercial product
 to those who deal in it is as common place an affair as eggs or butter. The conditions and cost of it's production are positively known, and the product may be measured almost as the clerk, with his yardstick measures dry goods. You may buy your electricity in spe- cIfic quantities, and, if you have the coayenicnces, may carry it home with you as you would carry any other pur- chase. 1t can be sent to you by ex- press, or delivered by messenger, or 1t may be served over wire in meas ured quantity, ss gas and water are served through pipes. All this seems mysterious to those not technically educated, because the electricity shops do not count their product by dozens or measure it by yards and gal Ions, but use ontlandlsh denomina- tions and pnzzling scientific nomen- clature.
 Nevertheless the shopkeepers are at home with the mysterious, Timber thing in which they deal, and they never stop to think about it's mystery, although just beyond the small field which their Knowledge covers there lies an unknown area Of conjecture.
 Electricity as commercial product and @ handy tool, applicable to any thing that mechanical power can ac- complish, is thing approximately Of only the past ten years, Before that time it's cost made it mostly a mat ter of splendid practical possibilities. Now with conditions given, a skilled electrician can estimatc to hair the cost of producing the amount of cleo tricity necessary to produce q specified power. It is chiefly question Of the cost of coal
 The discovery of two simple laws made electricity a practical power for doing the worlds work. One is that when an armature is caused to rotate | within the magnetic field current of electricity Is excited in the aTmature. | and may be taken up and carried out | oyer a wire and returned to the place l of beginning That is what electri- | cians call the law of the dynamo. The i other lew is that when a current Of ! electricity is passed through an arma- ture enclosed within the magnetic | field the armature is caused to rotate. That is what electricians call the law of the motor. By the first law cur rent of electricity isset up, and by the second that current is enabled to es- tablish mechanical motion. When these two laws became known the problem of applying electricity to the worlds work mainly needed for solu- ton only cheapening ol processes, such as should make it possible to pro- duce q current at commercial rates. Every dynamo, whatever it's form as regards the communication of cleo trical energy, is essentially an electro magnet with core of soft iron, the armatu7e, enclosed in the magnetic Geld Ehicl is tae srsce between he two poes Of tae e!ecro-nasuet Lv-