THE SMALLEST WORKERS 



views as to the nature of this most remarkable of 

 workers. 



On every side in this modern world we are confronted 

 by this strange agent, electricity. The word stares us in 

 the face on every printed page. The thing itself is mani- 

 fest in all departments of our e very-day life. You go 

 to your business in an electric car; ascend to your office 

 in an electric elevator; utilize electric call-bells; receive 

 and transmit messages about the world and beneath 

 the sea by electric telegraph. Your doctor treats you 

 with an electric battery. Your dentist employs elec- 

 tric drills and electric furnaces. You ride in electric 

 cabs; eat food cooked on electric stoves; and read 

 with the aid of electric light. In a word, the manifes- 

 tations of electricity are so obvious on every side that 

 there can be no challenge to the phrasing which has 

 christened this the Age of Electricity. 



But what, then, is this strange power that has pro- 

 duced all these multifarious results? It would be 

 hard to propound a scientific query that has been more 

 variously answered. Ever since the first primitive man 

 observed the strange effect produced by rubbing a 

 piece of amber, thoughtful minds must have striven to 

 explain that effect. Ever since the eighteenth-century 

 scientist began his more elaborate studies of electricity, 

 theories in abundance have been propounded. And yet 

 we are not quite sure that even the science of to-day can 

 give a correct answer as to the nature of electricity. At 

 the very least, however, it is able to give some interest- 

 ing suggestions which seem to show that we are in a fair 

 way to solve this world-old mystery. And, curiously 



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