Chapter 26

THE ARTIFICIAL PRODUCTION OF LIGHT, HEAT, AND POWER, AND THEIR UTILIZATION.

The practical procurement of necessary light and heat for our dwellings, as well as of necessary mechanical power for the world's work in mills and factories, _in some less expensive and laborious manner_ than through vast consumption of wood, coal, and oil, is believed to be now so close upon realization that we may even call it _un fait accompli_.

The conversion of the momentum of rivers, and of the power of cataracts, tides, and winds, into vito-magnetic or electrical fluid; the transportation of this fluid to any locality through wire or cable; and its final transmutation into light, heat, or mechanical force sufficient for all work, are already demonstrated as practicable.

There is no reason then why the Mississippi should not be made to roll, and Niagara to fall through our workshops, or even to impel our street-cars. They may as well work as to be idle as they go.

But in all this, startling as it seems, man is only imitating Nature in her every-day operations through sun and earth. Even the order is similar. The sun is the _river_ giving its constant impulse through the vito-magnetic cable of the solar cone. The _earth_ end of the cable is adjusted by means of the atmosphere, for the production of light and heat for this earthly habitation.

It indues the globe with magnetic influence which we have called gravity. And in its workshop, its mechanical and vital forces are keeping up all motions in animal and plant, earth, ocean, and air.

And thus light, heat, gravity, mechanical power, electricity, magnetism, vital force and universal motion, are but one principle variously expressed. This principle we have designated vito-magnetic fluid. But have we reached a climax and an end? No. This vito-magnetic river or current flows on. Its flood is never stayed. But yet we find no accumulation. Light and heat have neither been piled up to the sky, nor have they become annihilated. Their essential element has only changed form, and proceeded on its busy way, turning earth into a magnet, vivifying and operating all organisms, travelling upon all currents, gathering up and utilizing all the fragments and waste of its workshop, transmitting and conserving its energy _en route_ to the poles. And finally, _the same element that signalized its entrance at the earth's more central regions_ AS HEAT, _now signalizes its departure along earth's polar extremities_ AS COLD.[D]

Nothing is lost. Such a mighty flowing current cannot be stopped. If it rolls _in_ we may be assured that _somewhere_ it will roll _out_. And this is but THE GRAND COSMICAL CIRCUIT, already made mention of.

FOOTNOTES:

[D] We would not define cold as "absence of heat." Cold is rather the opposite electrical condition to heat.