G.—ENGINEERING. 189 
Hertz in 1888 found their first practical application in Marconi’s Italian 
experiments in 1895 and his demonstrations in England during the follow- 
ing year. Much of the rapid progress was due to his perseverance, 
vision, and courage in perfecting apparatus for short-distance work, and 
simultaneously experimenting over long distances, and thus, in the year 
1901, settling by actual demonstration across the Atlantic the vexed 
question as to whether the waves would pass around the earth over dis- 
tances of several thousand kilometres or go off into space. 
The accomplishment of long-distance communication bristled with 
difficulties, largely due to unsuspected atmospheric effects which are still 
little understood; but such progress has been made and is continually being 
made that one dare not now adopt an incredulous attitude to the wildest 
dreams or forecasts of what is to be accomplished by ‘ wireless.’ The 
commonplace facts of to-day would have appeared beyond the bounds of 
possibility ten or twenty years ago. 
I have attempted to trace, in a necessarily somewhat superficial, but, 
I trust, none the less interesting, manner the development during the last 
hundred years of some of the principal applications of electricity to the 
service of mankind. In preparing this address, I have been greatly im- 
pressed by the enormous advances made, especially during the last thirty 
or forty years, in the mastery of man over the resources of nature, and in 
the use of these resources to the amelioration of the conditions of life. 
By theaid of electricity the energy of the coal or of the lake or river a hundred 
or even two hundred miles away is transmitted noiselessly and invisibly 
to the city, to supply light and warmth, to cook the food, to drive the 
machinery, to operate the street-cars and railways. 
By its aid one can flash intelligence to the most distant part of the 
globe, hold conversations with friends hundreds or even thousands of miles 
away, or sit in one’s home and listen to music and lectures broadcast for 
the entertainment or instruction of all who care to equip themselves with 
what may almost be regarded as a new sense. Whereas thirty years ago 
a ship at sea was completely isolated from the life and thought of the world, 
it is now in continuous communication with the land and with every other 
ship within a wide range. 
In no branch of electrical engineering, however, is there any suggestion 
of having reached finality ; on the contrary, rapid development is taking 
place in every direction, and we can look forward with confidence to an 
ever-increasing application of electricity to the utilisation and distribution 
of the natural sources of energy for the benefit of mankind. 
