294 THE COMING OF MAN 



that i« the result of the thoughts of generations of 

 men, who have been ready to give up their own 

 comfort and ease in Hfe, in order to search out new 

 laws in nature, and apply them for the benefit of 

 mankind. Some of these have thought of new things 

 that could be done, leaving others to find the way, 

 — just as Watt said his engine ought to be able to 

 move a carriage, but Stephenson found the way to 

 make it do so. Many other men have seen in a flash 

 with their mind's eye some new way to use an old 

 discovery. 



As iron and coal must be used with steam to make 

 it the useful servant it is, so electricity could not 

 be what it is to us unless we had learned the use of 

 certain metals and minerals, such as iron, copper, 

 platinum and carbon. It is no longer a plaything 

 merely, as it is when we rub amber or rubber to get 

 its effect; not something frightful, as lightning once 

 seemed to be. It is one of the great workers of the 

 world. 



Perhaps we shall not always need in making elec- 

 tricity just what we need at the present time. 

 Probably thinking men from year to year will find 

 new ways that are simpler and better. Perhaps 

 some boy or some girl, who hears or reads these 

 words, may find an easier,* quicker way to do some- 

 thing that we now look upon as quite wonderful. 



Samuel Morse, who invented the telegraph, and 

 Alexander Bell, the inventor of the telephone, 

 thought that electricity must always travel over a 

 wire if messages were to be sent by it; but Marconi, 

 the Italian inventor, has found that he can make 



