it in him to discover
laws of matter and energy does incomparably more for his kind than if he
carried his talents to the mint for conversion into coin. The voyage of
a Columbus may not immediately bear as much fruit as the uncoverings of
a mine prospector, but in the long run a Columbus makes possible the
finding many mines which without him no prospector would ever see.
Therefore let the seed-corn of knowledge be planted rather than eaten.
But in choosing between one research and another it is impossible to
foretell which may prove the richer in its harvests; for instance, all
attempts thus far economically to oxidize carbon for the production of
electricity have failed, yet in observations that at first seemed
equally barren have lain the hints to which we owe the incandescent lamp
and the wireless telegraph.

Perhaps the most promising field of electrical research is that of
discharges at high pressures; here the leading American investigators
are Professor John Trowbridge and Professor Elihu Thomson. Employing a
tension estimated at one and a half millions volts, Professor Trowbridge
has produced flashes of lightning six feet in length in atmospheric air;
in a tube exhausted to one-seventh of atmospheric pressure the flashes
extended themselves to forty feet. According to this inquirer, the
familiar rending of trees by lightning is due to the intense heat
developed in an instant by the electric spark; the sudden expansion of
air or steam in the cavities of the wood causes an explosion. The
experiments of Professor Thomson confront him with some of the seeming
contradictions which ever await the explorer of new scientific
territory. In the atmosphere an electrical discharge is facilitated when
a metallic terminal (as a lightning rod) is shaped as a point; under oil
a point is the form least favourable to discharge. In the same line of
paradox it is observed that oil steadily improves in its insulating
effect the higher the electrical pressure committed to its keeping; with
air as an insulator the contrary is the fact. These and a goodly array
of similar puzzles will, without doubt, be cleared up as students in the
twentieth century pass from the twilight of anomaly to the sunshine of
ascertained law.

"Before there can be applied science there must be science to apply,"
and it is by enabling the investigator to know nature under a fresh
aspect that electricity rises to its highest office. The laboratory
routine of