1883.1 Recent Progress of Electricity. 469 
nation of water by Electron, and is invisible like his father, 
but, like other beings of terrestrial or semi-terrestrial origin, 
is short-lived, and continually tending to return to the form 
and substance of his mother. He is the most extensively 
known and powerful of a large tribe of similar spirits, the 
result of the intrigues of Electron with nymph§ of terrestrial 
lineage, and he derives his energy and strength from his 
father, and his pliancy and instability from his mother. 
Vaporin, as he may be designated, can, by the connivance 
of men, be generated within strong, iron, closed vessels; 
and by the continual and powerful efforts which he makes 
to escape, and through means of the strength he puts forth 
while making his escape, he can be made to do almost any 
amount of mechanical work through the intervention of 
ingenious and appropriate appliances. Well, this Vaporin 
Geni can be made to rouse the nobler spirit of his father 
into violent excitement by driving to and fro across his path 
a number of eleCtro-magnets at the rate of two or three 
hundred times in a minute, and thus compelling him, in ac- 
cordance with a law which is binding upon him, continually 
to come into the path most accessible, and respond to the 
salaams made to him by the eleCtro-magnets. In this path- 
way there is, too, placed a break or interruption to his 
progress, in the form of some material to which he has an 
antipathy, or at all events does not take very kindly to, and 
at the point of crossing this unpleasant obstruction he 
flashes forth such a glare and blaze of light as can be ex- 
ceeded only by that of the sun himself. In this magical 
production of light the part contributed by Vaporin is merely 
that of a mechanical slave, which could be performed almost 
as well by the force of gravitation, by wind or water power, 
or by the muscular strength of the lower animals. 
Though it has suited the drift of this paper to view 
Electron as a spirit specially belonging to the Earth, where 
we can most readily perceive and understand his agency, 
there can be no doubt that he extends throughout, and fills 
the universe itself, or at all events that he is co-extensive, 
as well as coincident, with light itself, which we know 
reaches us from the most inconceivable depths of space. 
But if we can only speculate in regard to most of his opera- 
tions here, how little can we know, or even conceive, of the 
entire purposes for which he is employed by the Almighty 
Architect ! 
Whatever may be thought of the marvellous and benefi- 
cent powers of this great Geni, as I have attempted to 
