Masterpieces of Science 



city to city, while, as auxiliaries to steam rail- 

 roads, they place sparsely settled communities 

 in the arterial current of the world, and build up 

 a ready market for the dairyman and the fruit- 

 grower. In its saving of what Mr. Oscar T. 

 Crosby has called "man-hours" the third-rail 

 system is beginning to oust steam as a motive 

 power from trunk-lines. Already shrewd rail- 

 road managers are granting partnerships to the 

 electricians who might otherwise encroach upon 

 their dividends. A service at first restricted to 

 passengers has now extended itself to the carriage 

 of letters and parcels, and begins to reach out for 

 common freight. We may soon see the farmer's 

 cry for good roads satisfied by good electric lines 

 that will take his crops to market much more 

 cheaply and quickly than horses and macadam 

 ever did. In cities, electromobile cabs and vans 

 steadily increase in numbers, furthering the quiet 

 and cleanliness introduced by the trolley car. 



A word has been said about the blessings which 

 electricity promises to country folk, yet greater 

 are the boons it stands ready to bestow in the 

 hives of population. Until a few decades ago 

 the water-supply of cities was a matter not of 

 municipal but of individual enterprise; water 

 was drawn in large part from wells here and 

 there, from lines of piping laid in favoured locali- 

 ties, and always insufficient. Many an epidemic 

 of typhoid fever was due to the contamination of 

 a spring by a cesspool a few yards away. To-day 

 a supply such as that of New York is abundant 

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