Annual Address by the President. 7 
through the agency of a hundred thousand incandescent lamps ! Or, 
again, what would they think of transmitting electric energy 184 miles 
at the enormous pressure of 40,000 to 60,000 volts, as is done in Cali- 
fornia by the Bay Counties Power Company, the energy derived from the 
water power of the Yuba River being utilized to generate the current. 
In the beginnings of science new truths were discredited, or were 
received with doubt even by those possessed with more than the ordinary 
share of learning, and had constantly to fight against the prejudices of 
the masses. Slowly, as the manifold applications of these principles to 
man’s use were made, and their economic value shown, prejudice gave 
place to tolerance, and tolerance to warmest welcome. The world has 
been so dazed with the wonderful applications of science that the wildest 
and apparently most improbable statements are received and credited if 
they come even within the shadow of the mantle of science. 
The discoveries of Benjamin Franklin were not accepted even by the 
Royal Society at first and no publisher would risk the reputation of his 
paper by putting them in print, but when Roentgen announced the dis- 
covery of the X-rays the fact was scattered broadcast throughout the 
world, the experiments repeated, the meaning of the discovery enlarged 
and the wildest speculations as to its power and utility immediately 
indulged in. So also with liquid air, for somewhat more slowly following 
Dewar’s researches upon extremely low temperatures came the machinery 
for producing liquid air on a commercial scale, and again the masses 
indulged in prophecies of all manner of applications and uses. From 
Hertz’s experiments upon electric waves has come the principle of wire- 
less telegraphy, still in its infancy, yet already enjoying governmental 
notice and financial aid in many quarters. Applied science has taught 
the world to stand ever ready to seize upon and make use of every new 
principle as soon as unearthed and often furnishes the suggestions that 
lead to further discoveries. 
The printing press and the electric telegraph now serve to spread infor- 
mation throughout the world, but by far the most potent factor in every- 
day civilization at the present time is the facility of transportation by 
sea and by land. Scarcely a hundred years ago it cost as much to trans- 
port a ton of wheat one hundred miles on land as it did to produce the 
wheat on the farm. The advent and growth of the steam railway during 
the last seventy-five years has chauged all this. Prior to that those coun- 
tries that bordered upon the great waterways enjoyed immense advantage 
over their inland neighbors, because of their facilities for marine trans- 
portation. Steadily and swiftly railroad lines have been pushed outward 
into hitherto inaccessible regions, increasing property values wherever 
they have gone, and bringing communities into closer touch with each 
other. Transportation has been steadily cheapened and the time of 
transit shortened, while the influences of civilization have been extended 
