THE STORY OF ELECTRICITY 293 



The story of electricity is even more marvelous 

 than that of steam. We have come to depend upon 

 it in our daily life, and remarkable are the things 

 that it will do. Men have discovered how to collect 

 electricity, how to store it and to measure it. They 

 learned too what wonderful things it can do when it 

 is harnessed in the right way. Each new discovery 

 about the laws that govern it, each new invention of 

 a way to make a practical use of it, has helped to 

 bring about even better ways, for many wise men 

 are using all their thought to find new uses still for 

 this invisible servant. 



Have you ever seen a telegram handed in at the 

 door by a messenger boy? Do you know what that 

 telegram really is, and how the words came to be 

 upon that slip of paper? Or how do you think it 

 happens, that when we talk through the telephone 

 we can hear our friend's voice so distinctly? And 

 what is it that makes it possible for us to hear the 

 voice of a great singer coming out of the phono-v 

 graph? It is electricity that does all these things, 

 but electricity held in control by the inventions of 

 men who have studied its nature and its laws. 



We are quite used to seeing wires stretched across 

 poles and we know well that those wires carry elec- 

 tricity. We know, also, that wherever those wires 

 go, into a factory, into a station, or into a house, the 

 electricity which the wires carry will be made to do 

 some work. Have you ever thought much about 

 those wires and the electricity that is traveling along 

 them? 



That little box by your telephone holds a machine 



