794 The Outline of Science 



Rutherford says, exercised a wide influence on electrical theory, 

 and has been the starting-point of attack on numerous electrical 

 problems. Long before this discovery electricity had become our 

 handmaiden; it was a mysterious force, the nature of which was 

 little understood, but we now know a great deal about the old-time 

 mysterious forces of electricity and magnetism. 



The revolution which has been accomplished in modern life 

 by electricity has been so quietly effected, so steadily cumulative, 

 so all-embracing that the ordinary man, perhaps, fails to ap- 

 preciate the scope and the majestic proportions of the work of 

 modern electrical engineering science. A cinematograph picture 

 that would contrast things as they were done only fifty years ago, 

 with the same things done by means of electricity to-day, would 

 strikingly illustrate the triumphs of applied electricity. The 

 Institution of Electrical Engineers celebrated its Jubilee in 

 March, 1922; less than fifty years ago the electrical engineer was 

 looked upon as a glorified showman, displaying his wares from 

 town to town. Sir Alexander Kennedy, at the meeting referred 

 to, recalling the electrification of the Houses of Parliament in 

 1890, said he remembered an urgent request that an effort should 

 be made to keep the lights steady, "especially during the Speaker's 

 dinner." Sir Oliver Lodge described the impetuous course of the 

 first British electric tram, "which came to rest in a shop window." 

 Godalming was the first town to be lighted by the Swan lamp, and 

 Mr. S. Evershed related how "the supply cables were laid, in 

 innocence, in the open gutter." 



The present generation has grown up with the ever-evolving 

 wonders of electricity and has probably ceased to wonder at them. 

 The majority of persons know next to nothing about electricity, 

 and few could explain the principles that underlie the generation, 

 transmission, and utilisation of electrical energy. It would be a 

 task even to enumerate the various spheres of the wonder-working 

 activities of electrical power. It will drive the transcontinental 

 express up the dizzy heights of the Rocky Mountains ; it will haul 



