Identifier: triumphswonderso01boyd (find matches)
Title: Triumphs and wonders of the 19th century, the true mirror of a phenomenal era, a volume of original, entertaining and instructive historic and descriptive writings, showing the many and marvellous achievements which distinguish an hundred years of material, intellectual, social and moral progress ..
Year: 1899 (1890s)
Authors: Boyd, James Penny, 1836-1910
Subjects: Progress Inventions
Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa., A. J. Holman & Co
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation

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e wholesome play, and opens freshvistas for all possibilities. We applaud Franklin for seizing the lightning inthe heavens, dragging it down to earth, and subjugating it to man. Let thispass as part of the poetry of physics. But when ethics comes to poetize, letit be said that electricity as an applied force lifts man up toward heaven,. WONDERS OF ELECTRICITY 47 quickens all his appreciations of divine energy, draws him irresistibly towardthe centre and source of natures forces. There is no dragging down andsubjugation of a physical force. There is only a going out, or up, of geniusto meet and to grasp it. Its universal application means the raising of man-kind to its plane. If electricity be the principle of life, as some suppose,what wonder that we all feel better in an electric-car than any other ? Themotor becomes a sublime motive. God himself is tugging at the wheels, andwe are riding with the Infinite. Enthusiasts say the trolley is only the beginning of electric locomotion, and
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ELECTRIC RAILWAY. THIRD RAIL SYSTEM. that there is already in rapid evolution an electric system which will supersedesteam even for trunk-line purposes. In vision, it presumes a speed of one hun-dred and twenty-five miles an hour instead of forty; greater safety, cleanli-ness, and comfort; and what is most momentous and startling, an economy inconstruction and operation which will warrant the sacrifice of the billions ofdollars now invested in steam-railway properties. The proposition is not tosacrifice the steam-railway track, but to add to it a third rail, which is to carrythe electric current. Then, by means of feed-conduits alongside of the track,and specially constructed electric locomotives and cars, the system is sup-posed to reach the practical perfection claimed for it. Experiments with suchan electrical system, made upon branch lines of some of our trunk-line rail- 48 TRIUMPHS AND WONDERS OF THE XIX1 CENTURY ways, as the Pennsylvania, Xew York Central, and New Haven & Ha

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