and heat, will contribute immeasurably towards the
improvement of the conditions of life. Electricity distinguishes itself
from all other motor power in that, above all, its supply in Nature is
abundant. Our water courses, the ebb and tide of the sea, the winds, the
sun-light--all furnish innumerable horse-powers, the moment we know how
to utilize them in full. Through the invention of accumulators it has
been proved that large volumes of power, which can be appropriated only
periodically, from the ebbs and tides, the winds and mountain streams,
can be stored up and kept for use at any given place and any given time.
All these inventions and discoveries are still in embryo: their full
development may be surmised, but can not be forecast in detail.

The progress expected from the application of electricity sounds like a
fairy tale. Mr. Meems of Baltimore has planned an electric wagon able to
travel 300 kilometers an hour--actually race with the wind. Nor does Mr.
Meems stand alone. Prof. Elihu Thomson of Lynn, Mass., also believes it
possible to construct electromotors of a velocity of 160 kilometers,
and, with suitable strengthening of the rolling stock and improvement of
the signal system, of a velocity of 260 kilometers; and he has given a
plausible explanation of his system. The same scientist holds, and in
this Werner Siemens, who expressed similar views at the Berlin
Convention of Naturalists in 1887, agrees with him, that it is possible
by means of electricity _to transform the chemical elements directly
into food_--a revolution that would hoist capitalist society off its
hinges. While in 1887 Werner Siemens was of the opinion that it was
possible, though only in the remote future, to produce artificially a
hydrate of carbon such as grape sugar and later the therewith closely
related starch, whereby "bread could be made out of stone," the chemist
Dr. B. Meyer claims that ligneous fibre could eventually be turned into
a source of human food. Obviously, we are moving towards ever newer
chemical and technical revolutions. In the meantime, the physiologist E.
Eiseler has actually produced grape sugar artificially, and thus made a
discovery that, in 1887, Werner Siemens considered possible only in the
"remote future." In the spring of 1894, the French ex-Minister of Public
Worship, Prof. Berthelot, delivered an address in Paris at the banquet
of the Association of Chemical Manufacturers upon the significance of
chemist