ELECTRIC INVENTION OF THE FUTURE.

Waikato Times, Volume XLII, Issue 3424, 9 June 1894, Page 12

ELECTRIC INVENTION OF THE FUTURE.

The edge of the electric future is bright with the immediate promise for the world's weal.. In 1 the nearer foreground I see a practical method for the production of electricity directly from the burning of coal. This achieved, there necessarily follows the universal adoption ,of the electric motor as a prime mover; the relegation of, the steam eugine to the scrap heap; and the almost immediate realisation of the air ship as a means of transportation. Assuming the cause of chemical affinity to lie in the unlike electric charges of the combining atoms, I see the practical realisation of electric synthesis, whereby wholesome food produett? will be directly formed under the potency of electric affinities. I see, too, a marked advance in electro-theripeutics, whereby bumao life will be prolonged and its sufferings alleviated. Diagnosis and prognosis will be profoundly aided by exact electrical measurements of the various organs of the human bodjr as regards their electro-motive force and resistance. The electro-therapist of the future will employ electric charges and currents for restoring the normal charges and currents of the body, '.rs well as for the stimulation of nervous or muscular, tissues. Back of these achievement* I discern a practical apparatus for seeing through a wire, i.e., a device for looking into a recievei at one end of a mU.illic wire and seeiug therein a faithful reproduction of whatever .optical images are impressed' on a transmitter at the other •nd, even thoqgh thousands of miles intervene. I' see' the possible use of the step down transformer for tho preparation of a roadbed or road" surface by the vitrification, in situ, of clay or other suitable soil, by the intense heating power of enormous currents of electr city. These things I believe I see with fair distinctness., In the further background I faintly see, ditnly outlined trough the clouds, an apparatus for the automatic registration 0f unwritten, unspoken thought, and its accurate, reproduction at. any indefinite time afterwards. —Mr E .J. Houston, in M'Clure's Magazine (United States).