WASTED FORCES. 2 95 



purposes, to take the place of coal or wood. For domestic purposes, 

 however, in the form of gas-stoves, even at the present high cost of 

 this form of gas, it has been already largely adopted, and with advan- 

 tage and economy ; while for every form of light work, where power 

 is only required intermittently, as in printing-offices, elevators, hoists, 

 and the like, gas-engines, using ordinary coal-gas, are, even at pres- 

 ent prices, decidedly more economical than steam, since they may 

 be started and stopped instantaneously, and when idle are wasting 

 nothing. And in the case of a steam-engine the steam must be kept 

 up all the time, though the engine may not be wanted more than an 

 hour or two in the day. 



I look forward to the time, and I believe it is not far distant, when 

 we shall have "heating-gas" laid through the streets of our cities and 

 towns, side by side with lighting-gas and water-mains, and when our 

 mills, and factories, and workshops, our parlors and kitchens, will be 

 supplied with heat from that source, and when fires of wood and coal, 

 with their abominations of dirt and ashes, and extravagance, will be 

 looked upon as nuisances of the "good old times" when they knew no 

 better. 



To come back again to the subject of the steam-engine, from which 

 I have digressed further than I had intended, I may mention the cir- 

 cumstance that the enormous wastefulness of this species of motor has 

 originated the thought that electrical engines might be constructed to 

 develop power more economically. A consideration of this topic, 

 however, would take so much of our time this evening that I must 

 pass it by with the brief remark that the galvanic battery can not 

 compete in economy with the steam-engine, until some cheap mode of 

 generating electricity shall be discovered. The fuel of the battery is 

 zinc, and, even though we can get fifty per cent, of its theoretical 

 power by burning it in the battery, its cost is so much higher than that 

 of coal, the fuel of the steam-engine, that the latter has the advantage, 

 at the present time, of forty to one on its side. 



The recent great advances, however, that have been made in the 

 construction and improvement of what are known as dynamo- electric 

 machines, by which mechanical power, no matter how generated, 

 whether from the steam-engine, the wind, or waterfall, could be di- 

 rectly converted into electricity, appear to have solved the problem 

 of the cheap generation of electricity in any quantity, and have opened 

 a wide field of speculation as to the possible extensive introduction of 

 magnetic engines to take the place of steam. For I need scarcely 

 tell you that electricity can be transmitted with but very little loss 

 over great distances, by metallic conductors properly insulated, and 

 made to drive magnetic engines to do the work of steam, or to furnish 

 light for cities and towns, at pleasure. I shall take occasion to revert 

 again to this very interesting topic in the course of the evening. 



This remark brings us at length directly to the theme of my dis- 



