1884.] On Electricity and its Present Applications. 405 
^dd another contribution to the welfare and hap- 
piness of the world : he can be made to assume the character 
o an angel of light, and to give forth, by self-ignition, an 
unlimited amount of light, of a beauty and quality, and 
freedom from noxious effluvia, superior to any artificial light 
that can compete with it. 
There are various ways in which the Magi and other 
operative assistants have been able to effect this transform- 
ation, but the usual and the most efficient is by making use 
ot the intervention of another Genie, whom scientists have 
much more completely under their command. This Genie 
though belonging to a lower order of beings, has within the 
ast hundred years been proved to possess capacities— and 
has had them practically employed— for the promotion of 
the powei, civilisation, and enrichment of mankind, to an 
extent that is. apt to mislead the ignorant into a belief that 
he is equal, if not superior, to Electron himself. He may 
be described as a hybrid, generated by the impregnation of 
water by Electron, and is invisible, like his father, but, like 
other beings of semi-terrestrial origin, is continually tending 
to return to the form and substance of his mother. He is 
the most extensively known and powerful of a large class of 
similar spirits, the result of the intrigues of Electron with 
nymphs of tenestiial lineage, and he derives his energy and 
strength from his father, and his pliancy and instability from 
his mother. 
Vapoiin, 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 es- 
cape, and the strength he puts forth while making his escape, 
he can be made to do almost any kind of mechanical work 
through the intervention of connecting belts or chains, and 
of ingenious and appropriate machinery. Well, this Vaporin 
Genie 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 elearo-magnets, at the rate of several hundred 
times in a minute, and thus compelling him, in accordance 
with a law which is binding upon him, continually to respond 
to the salaams that are made to him by these elearo- 
magnets. And in the pathway to the magnets there can 
be placed small gaps or interruptions in the form of some 
material, such as carbon, which he can pass through only 
with difficulty. And so, at the points where he has to cross 
these obstruaions, the struggle that ensues betwixt him and 
the atoms of the carbon is such as to send forth a flash of 
light that can be compared only to that of the sun itself. 
