16 CO. BURGE. 



tant. There is no doubt that from £30 to £100 and over, 

 per annum, in each family, making an enormous sum in the 

 total, might be saved by the invention of machinery to do 

 a considerable part of domestic work. Health also is con- 

 cerned, as, for instance, in the general use of pneumatic 

 dusters, by which dust, including all sorts of wicked germs, 

 is completely removed, instead of, as at present, being 

 lightly wafted from one resting place to another in the 

 same room. Hitherto, domestic work, large in the aggre- 

 gate, has been too much divided into small areas of action, 

 to make the application of existing methods of mechanical 

 power suitable, but, with the convenient electrical energy 

 laid on, like water or gas, this objection will be got over. 

 The cry of so many persons being thrown out of employ- 

 ment thereby, may be disregarded. The great engineering 

 works and factories, of the present age superseded the 

 local millwrights of 100 years ago, and the locomotive drove 

 out the teamster, without ultimate harm to any class of 

 worker, so we need not fear the consequences in this par- 

 ticular case, as the substitution, like others of the kind, 

 would be gradual. 



Again, we may possibly look for another fruit of the con- 

 nexion between science and engineering, in the direct 

 utilization for mechanical power of the sun's rays, by some 

 more effective means of concentration than has hitherto 

 been tried. We know, of course, that the sun's heat in 

 past geological ages, is now producing practically all our 

 power, chiefly through the instrumentality of coal, but coal 

 is not inexhaustible, and it has to be mined. Experiments 

 have been made in this direction in South Africa and else- 

 where, but though the fuel cost nothing, the expense of 

 the installation has been so large in proportion to the 

 power obtained, that no practical success has been achieved. 

 Here in New South Wales, we would willingly spare a good 



