358 ELECTRICITY DURING THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 



from a vaciuun tu})c. hut omitted, singiiliir as the fact is. from rare 

 su])staiic('s extracted from certain minerals. Leaving;' out of consider- 

 ation the great value of the X ray to physicians and .surgeons, its 

 effect in stimulating scientitic inquir3" has almost been incalculable. The 

 renewed study of effects of electric discharge in vacuum tubes has 

 already, in the work of such investigators as Lenard, fJ. el. Thomson, 

 and others, apparently carried the sul)divisi<)n of matter far ])eyond 

 the tiuie-honored chemical atom, and has gone far toward showing 

 the essential unity of all the chemical elements. It is as uidikely 

 that the mystery of the* material universe will ever ))e completely 

 solved as it is that we can gain an ade([uate conception of infinite 

 space or time. But we can at least extend the range of our mental 

 vision of the processes of nature as we do our i-eal vision into space 

 depths by the telescoj^e and the spectroscope. There can now be no 

 question that electi'ic conditions and actions are more fundamental 

 than many hitherto so regarded. 



Th(^ nineteenth century closes with many important })ro])lems in 

 electrical science as yet unsolved. What great or far-reaching dis- 

 coveries are yet in store, who can telH What valuable practical 

 develo])ments are to come, who can predict^ The electrical pi'ogress 

 has been great — very great — l)ut after all only a part of that grander 

 advance in so many other fields. The hands of man are strengthened 

 b}' the control of mighty forces. His (dectric lines traverse the moun- 

 tain passes as well as the plains. His electric railway scales the .lung- 

 f rau. But he still spends his best effort, and has always done so, in the 

 construction and equipment of his engines of destruction, and now 

 exhausts the mines of the world of valuable metals for ships of war, 

 whose ultimate goal is the bottom of the sea. In this, also, electricity 

 is made to play an increasingly important part. It trains the guns, 

 loads them, fires them. It works the signals and searchlights. It 

 ventilates the ship, blows the fires, and lights the dark spaces. Per- 

 haps all this is necessary now, and, if so, well. But if a fraction of 

 the vast expenditure entailed were turned to the encouragement of 

 advance in the arts and emplojniients of peace in the coming century, 

 can it be doubted that, at the close, the nineteenth century might 

 come to be regarded, in spite of its achievements, as a rather wasteful, 

 semibarbarous transition period ? 



