ELECTRICITY, WHAT ITS MASTERY 



MEANS: WITH A REVIEW 



AND A PROSPECT 



GEORGE ILES 



[From "Flame, Electricity and the Camera," copyright 

 by Doubleday, Page & Co., New York.] 



WITH the mastery of electricity man enters 

 upon his first real sovereignty of nature. As we 

 hear the whirr of the dynamo or listen at the tele- 

 phone, as we turn the button of an incandescent 

 lamp or travel in an electromobile, we are par- 

 takers in a revolution more swift and profound 

 than has ever before been enacted upon earth. 

 Until the nineteenth century fire was justly ac- 

 counted the most useful and versatile servant of 

 man. To-day electricity is doing all that fire 

 ever did, and doing it better, while it accom- 

 plishes uncounted tasks far beyond the reach of 

 flame, however ingeniously applied. We may 

 thus observe under our eyes just such an impetus 

 to human intelligence and power as when fire 

 was first subdued to the purposes of man, with 

 the immense advantage that, whereas the subju- 

 gation of fire demanded ages of weary and un- 

 certain experiment, the mastery of electricity is, 

 for the most part, the assured work of the nine- 

 teenth century, and, in truth, very largely of its 

 last three decades. The triumphs of the elec- 

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