Volume V Part 12 (2/2)
It was found that by the use of copper wiring electric power could be carried great distances. A line twenty-five miles long bore from the American River Falls, at Folsom, California, to Sacramento, a current which the city found ample for traction, light, and power. Niagara Falls was harnessed to colossal generators, whose product was transmitted to neighboring cities and manufactories. Loss en route was at first considerable, but cunning devices lessened it each year.
Thomas Alva Edison and Nikola Tesla were conspicuously identified with these astonis.h.i.+ng applications of electric energy. Edison, first a newsboy, then (like Andrew Carnegie) a telegraph operator, without school or book training in physics, rose step by step to the repute of working miracles on notification. Tesla, a native of Servia, who happened, upon migrating to the United States, to find employment with Edison, was totally unlike his master. He was a highly educated scientist, herein at a great advantage. He was, in opposition to Edison, peculiarly the champion of high tension alternating current distribution. He aimed to dispense so far as possible with the generation of heat, pressing the ether waves directly into the service of man.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Edison working in his laboratory.]
Thomas Alva Edison.
Copyright by W. A. d.i.c.kson.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Portrait.]
Nikola Tesla.
The bicycle developed incredible popularity in the '90's. Through all the panic of 1893 bicycle makers prospered. It was estimated in 1896 that no less than $100,000,000 had been spent in the United States upon cycling. A clumsy prototype of the ”wheel” was known in 1868, but the first bicycle proper, a wheel breast-high, with cranks and pedals connected with a small trailing wheel by a curved backbone and surmounted by a saddle, was exhibited at the Centennial. Two years later this kind of wheel began to be manufactured in America, and soon, in spite of its perils, or perhaps in part because of them, bicycle riding was a favorite sport among experts. In 1889 a new type was introduced, known as the ”safety.” Its two wheels were of the same size, with saddle between them, upon a suitable frame, the pedals propelling the rear wheel through a chain and sprocket gearing. An old invention, that of inflated or pneumatic tires of rubber, coupled with more hygienic saddles, gave great impetus to cycling sport. The fad dwindled, but the bicycle remained in general use as a convenience and even as a necessity.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Several people riding bicycles.]
Bicycle Parade, New York.
Fancy Costume Division.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Hundreds of jars with hoses attached.]
Hatchery Room of the Fish Commission Building at Was.h.i.+ngton, D. C., showing the hatchery jars in operation.
The Fish Commission, created by the Government in 1870, proved an important agency in promoting the great industries of fis.h.i.+ng and fish culture. At the World's Fair it appeared that the fis.h.i.+ng business had made progress greater than many others which were much more obtrusively displayed, though the fishtrap, the fyke net, and the fis.h.i.+ng steamer had all been introduced within a generation.
In no realm did invention and the application of science mean more for the country's weal than in agriculture. Each State had its agricultural college and experiment station, mainly supported by United States funds provided under the Morrill Acts. Soils, crops, animal breeds, methods of tillage, dairying, and breeding were scientifically examined. Forestry became a great interest. Intensive agriculture spread. By early ploughing and incessant use of cultivators keeping the surface soil a mulch, arid tracts were rendered to a great extent independent of both rainfall and irrigation. Improved machinery made possible the farming of vast areas with few hands. The gig horse hoe rendered weeding work almost a pleasure. A good reaper with binder attachment, changing horses once, harvested twenty acres a day. The best threshers bagged from 1,000 to 2,500 bushels daily. One farmer sowed and reaped 200 acres of wheat one season without hiring a day's work.
Woman's position at the Fair was prominent and gratifying. How her touch lent refinement and taste was observed both in the Woman's Building, the first of its kind, and in other departments of the Exposition. Power of organization was noticeably exemplified in the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. This body originated in the temperance crusade of 1873 and the following year, when a State Temperance a.s.sociation was formed in Ohio, leading shortly to the rise of a national union.
Related to this movement in elevated moral aims, as well as in the prominent part it a.s.signed to women, was the Salvation Army. In 1861 William Booth, an English Methodist preacher, resigned his charge and devoted himself to the redemption of London's grossest proletariat.
Deeming themselves not wanted in the churches, his converts set up a separate and more militant organization. In 1879 the Army invaded America, landing at Philadelphia, where, as in the Old Country and in other American cities, pitiable sin and wretchedness grovelled in obscurity. In 1894 there were in the United States 539 corps and 1,953 officers, and in the whole world 3,200 corps and 10,788 officers.
Without proposing any programme of social or political reform, and without announcing any manifesto of human rights, the Salvationists uplifted hordes of the fallen, while drawing to the lowliest the notice, sympathy, and help of the middle cla.s.ses and the rich. Army discipline was rigidly maintained. The soldiers were sworn to wear the uniform, to obey their officers, to abstain from drink, tobacco, and worldly amus.e.m.e.nts, to live in simplicity and economy, to earn their living, and of their earnings always to give something to advance the Kingdom. The officers could not marry or become engaged without the consent of the Army authorities, for their spouses must be capable of cooperating with them. They could receive no presents, not even food, except in cases of necessity. An officer must have experienced ”full salvation”--that is, must endeavor to be living free from every known sin. Except as to pay, the Army placed women on an absolute equality with men, a policy which greatly furthered its usefulness.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Portrait.]
William Booth.
From a photograph by Rockwood, New York.
The peculiar uniform worn by the Salvation soldiers, always sufficing to identify them, called attention to a fact never obvious till about 1890--the relative uniformity in the costumes of all fairly dressed Americans whether men or women. The wide circulation of fas.h.i.+on plates and pictorial papers accounted for this. About this time cuts came to be a feature even of newspapers, a custom on which the more conservative sheets at first frowned, though soon adopting it themselves.
CHAPTER VII.
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