1899.] SELLERS — TRANSMISSION" OF ENERGY BY ELECTRICITY. 53 



in support, claim the discovery of some new and heretofore unrec- 

 ognized power that is to supersede all known forms of energy util- 

 ized in the modern means for actuating machinery. 



With the first conception of the electric telegraph electricity 

 generated by galvanic batteries was used. The energy of the gal- 

 vanic battery was transmitted to instruments which produced mo- 

 tion and thus made visible impression upon paper, or later by 

 sound, to convey intelligence through the equivalent of dots and 

 dashes, or by sight noting the vibration of a needle, all of which 

 motions involved the transmission of power, no matter how little 

 might be required for the purpose. 



When electricity came to be transmitted for lighting purposes it 

 was not in the form of what was generally accepted as the term 

 power, but it was the transmission of a different form of energy, one 

 only of the many forms that are co-related one to the other. It is in 

 the very last decade of this century that the transmission of power 

 has come to have a meaning of greater importance than was ever 

 dreamed of in Franklin's day, or even when Michael Faraday and 

 others laid the foundation of the mass of valuable knowledge that 

 was ready to be used to advantage when the needs of man called 

 for its practical application. 



It is interesting to note that although the actual transmission of 

 power in large amounts by electricity has been carried out chiefly 

 in the last few years, yet what is now being accomplished is the 

 result of knowledge that was obtained quite early in the present 

 century. Faraday's great discoveries began in 1830, and these, 

 with what had been contributed by a host of workers before him, 

 bore fruit before the end of the first half of the nineteenth 

 century. 



I will not take up your time with recounting the steps that led 

 up to what forms the substance of our scientific knowledge of 

 electricity, nor to even mention the names of the great men who 

 have contributed to our store of information. With electricity it 

 is very much as in the case of the locomotive, that became an es- 

 tablished fact and an important factor in our civilization in 1827, 

 but was anticipated and predicted by those who in a crude way 

 operated steam carriages on common roads before that date ; and 

 long before a fairly perfect locomotive was placed upon iron rails 

 the railroad had been demonstrated to be of advantage even with 

 animal traction in mining operations. The iron railroad and the 



