PREFACE 7 



my book, The New Cosmogony, in 1898, in Invisible 

 Light in 1900 and in The Cities of the Sun in 1901. 



My attention was first called to this subject about 

 twenty years ago when Prof. Henry built the first 

 electric street railway ever built in this country. 

 It was built on East Fifth Street, in Kansas City, 

 Missouri, the city where I was living, and attracted 

 much attention. It was used for only a short time 

 because the machinery was not sufficiently perfected, 

 and there was too great a waste of power, and the 

 insulation was bad, for it magnetized and stopped 

 the watches in the pockets of the passengers. While 

 pondering over this electric railway and its mysteri- 

 ous force, as I sat in the twilight in the parlor of 

 the old Coates House, a servant came in to light 

 the gas. Instead of using a match, he turned on 

 the gas, took a few gliding steps over the car- 

 pet and lit the gas by a flash of electricity from 

 his finger, produced by touching his finger against 

 the tip of the gas jet. I was surprised and said, 

 "Have you enough fire in your body to light the 

 gas?" He answered, "Yes, sir." I said, "Can you 

 do that again?" "Yes, sir," and he turned on 

 another jet took a few gliding steps over the car- 

 pet, touched the tip of the jet with his finger ; there 

 was a flash and the gas was lit. 



I was amazed, for this was a new electric mani- 

 festation to me. He said, "You can do it, sir." 

 "Well, I'll see if I can," and I took a few gliding 

 steps over the carpet. He turned on the gas, 

 I touched the jet with the tip of my finger and a 

 flash of electric fire, an inch long, lit the gas. This 

 I did many times afterwards and saw a dozen others 

 do the same thing. In fact the servants seldom used 



