Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1902-12-16
The Growth of Electrical Power.

But steam is not the only motor energy
developed and applied within this period
Through the careful study of many great
men, of whom Secretary Joseph Henry of
the Smithsonian Institution was one of the
greatest, electric discovery has produced a
considerable number of astounding inven-
lions and introduced us to new chamber
of the temple Of knowledge.
Men first recognized this new force barely
hundred years ago. In two generations
they learned how to produce it, how to
control it to limited degree, how to con-
vert it into inutile motion and how to apply
it to the transmission of information over
vast distances instantaneously. Many of
these preliminary steps We're taken in
Washington. Henry invented the coils of
wire which are the most Indispensable fea-
lures of electrical engines. Morse here
thought out the elements of circuit so adj
justed that it could be made or broken as
it's operators might desire, and it was from
Washington in the middle of the century
that the first Geographic message was sent
to all the people of all succeeding ages.
Since that day the invention of Morse has
grown into 100000 miles of wire in the
United States alone and transmits daily
million messages; it has taken the form of
nearly miles OIL CdDle,
susceptible of sending and receiving fifty
words a minute, and connecting continents
so closely that in the course of ordinary
business a message and reply were sent re-
Gently from the American House of Repre-
sentatves to the English house of COM
mons in less than fourteen seconds; and it
has developed a system of market quota
tions, weather reports and news diSSemina-
ton which makes the steppeS of Siberia
nearer commercially to New York today
than New York was to Pittsburg when
the first issues of The Star were printed.
The telephone has expanded these uses
of electricity as a means OF lmpartlns
information from the year 1876 onward
In it's essentials it was the invention of
a single scientist, Alexander Graham Bel,
for many years a resident of Washington.
Its basic principle is closely allied to that
of the telegraph, except that the current
is controlled SO delicately as to transmit the
sound-waves of the operators voice. Aside
from the manifest advantage of permitting
immediate replies, avoiding errors by In
tervening operators, and placing the users
into direct communication with each other,
it has extended electric communication to
such peoples as the Chinese, whose Ideo-
graphic characters are insuSceptlble OIL
transmission by telegraph. twenty-five
years have sufficed to introduce it to every
quarter of the globe; it is as well known in
the ancient city of Tyre as in Chicago;
and it has connected cities as distant as
Washington and New Orleans Boston and
ST. Louis. Paris and Berlin.
Vast as this progress is, however, it
still manifests only shadow OF practlcai
force or power The concept OF electricity
in this latter sense dates from the begin
ming of the American civil war, when two
foreigners produced an armature and de-
signed the first dynamo. From that day
electricity has been not only a means of
communication through space but form
of practical energy. 1t now lights thou
sands of cities and millions of homes. 1t
operates cars of every known size and
weight, whether built for the passenger
traffic of suburban trolley lines or for haul
ing tons of freight. 1t cools the air Of IN
Vulnerable rooms with an equally in
Vulnerable array of electric fans. 1t sup
plies motor power for scores of elevators
and many small machines. 1t YIELDS metals,
1t plays an important part in modern
bleaching. dyeing and tanning 1t purifies
water. sewage sugar and alcoholic bever-
ages. In electro-chemistry il aids indis-
pensabIy in the manufacture of alkal, cop
per. zinc mineral acids, hydrates, disin-
fectants. scores of coal-tar products and
commercial aluminium, having reduced the
price of the mineral last named from $12
a pound in 1873 to 80 cents in 1902 These
are some of the grounds on which cleo
tricity is reckoned a great mechanical
force.
Wonderful Industrial DEVELOPMENT