EDITOR'S TABLE. 



3 



mained unexplored. Even in our own 

 century, what a long gap there was be- 

 tween the first production of the elec- 

 tric light and its application to practical 

 purposes ! It all seems ver y plain now, 

 but two generations had to elapse before 

 the electric light, as produced by Sir 

 Humphry Davy in 1S08, became avail- 

 able for general use. But if the prog- 

 ress made by electrical science was slow 

 in its earlier stages, amends are truly 

 being made now in the rapidity with 

 which new views and new applications 

 of electricity are crowding upon the 

 world. The alleged miracles of olden 

 time seem poor and commonplace in 

 comparison with the miracles wrought 

 by a little accurate knowledge. Here 

 we have a power that has been in the 

 world from the beginning, but from 

 which, down to the present century, 

 not one single valuable result was 

 drawn, for the simple reason that we, 

 or our predecessors, did not know how 

 to use it, did not even know enough to 

 recognize it in some of its manifesta- 

 tions. To-day, mankind has no more 

 obedient, or, it may be added, capable 

 servant. The early students of elec- 

 tricity had a task that closely resembled 

 putting together a complicated puzzle 

 of which there was no plan; but, as 

 piece was joined to piece, the plan be- 

 gan to reveal itself, and subsequent 

 progress was rapid. To-day, if the puz- 

 zle is not complete, at least we have, as 

 far as it goes, a very symmetrical and 

 intelligible pattern before our eyes. 



It would be vain to attempt, within 

 the limits of a brief article like the 

 present, to give even a catalogue of the 

 various applications of electricity now 

 in daily use. Like chemistry, electricity 

 has undergone a process of subdivision, 

 and no one man can pretend to keep 

 abreast of the latest developments in all 

 its branches. The year 1837" saw the 

 first telegraph for practical business pur- 

 poses, and from that time to this there 

 has been a constant stream of improve- 

 ments in the methods and appliances of 



the telegraphic art. The whole world 

 is girdled round and round with lines 

 quivering with the impulses that trans- 

 late the thoughts of men. Enormous 

 as has been the extension of telegraph 

 lines, well-nigh a million miles being 

 now in use in this country alone, they 

 would be utterly inadequate to the needs 

 of the community but for the improve- 

 ments that have been made in the way 

 of duplex and multiplex telegraphy. 

 The whole business of the world has 

 adapted itself to the changed conditions 

 which the telegraph has introduced. 

 Without the telegraph the railway 

 would be shorn of far more than half 

 its efficiency, and the press of even 

 metropolitan cities would shrink to pro- 

 vincial dimensions. It is becoming diffi- 

 cult to conceive what the state of busi- 

 ness would be without even the tele- 

 phone, which, in every large city, does 

 the work of a whole army of messenger 

 boys. How little we think of electricity 

 when we press the button that closes 

 an electric circuit and rings a bell 1 Yet 

 the electric bell is certainly one of the 

 most convenient of so-called modern 

 improvements. "Without it our great 

 hotels, our public offices, our monster 

 steamships would be much more diffi- 

 cult of management. Our signal serv- 

 ice depends upon electricity to outrun 

 the swiftest blasts of storm and herald 

 their approach. The observations of 

 the astronomer would lose much in 

 precision were it not for the simple yet 

 admirable instrument known as the 

 chronograph. For all purposes of in- 

 stantaneous registration, there is noth- 

 ing equal to the action of electricity, 

 the velocity of which is equivalent to 

 that of light itself, and its applications 

 for this purpose must go on increasing 

 in number from year to year. Even as 

 it is they are legion. 



The electric light would seem to have 

 furnished the world with the final and 

 definitive source of illumination. It is 

 not twenty years since even so good an 

 authority as Prof. Tyndall spoke doubt- 



