of leiectricat Science. 19 



news-vender is not slow to see the situation, 

 and if the development is too slow to suit the 

 public demand his fertile brain supplies the 

 lack. So that every few days we hear of some 

 great discovery made by some one it may be 

 unknown to fame. It has served its purpose. 

 Tlu- public mind has had its mental toddy and 

 has been saved from a fit of intellectual de- 

 lirium tremens that it was in danger of from 

 lack of its accustomed stimulus. 



Having given you a very limited outline of 

 the history of electricity, from ancient times 

 down to the present, we will endeavor now to 

 uhi you an elementary notion of the science 

 as it stands to-day. To the common mind the 

 science is a blank page. So little is known of 

 it by the ordinary reader, who is fairly in- 

 telligent in other matters, that to account for 

 anything that we do not understand it is only 

 necessary to say that it is an electrical phe- 

 nomenon and he accepts it. Electricity is a 

 synonym for all that we cannot understand. 

 Inasmuch as magnetism is so closely related 

 to <!< ( trinity in its uses as related to every-day 

 .ve will carry the two subjects along to- 

 gether, as the one will to a large extent help 

 to explain the other. In our next chapter we 

 will look at the history of magnetism. 



