Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 September 1895 — The Speed of Electricity. [ARTICLE]

The Speed of Electricity.

The speed of electricity under the most favorable conditions is now established to be 180,000 miles a second. What this enormous speed implies Is somewhat dimly suggested by an Illustration recently used by the eminent scientist Sir Robert Bell. Suppose that a row of telegraph posts 25,000 miles long were erected around the earth at the equator. Suppose that a wire were stretched upon these posts for this circuit of 25,000 miles, and that then another complete circuit was taken by the same wire around the same posts, and then another and yet another. In fact, let the wire be wound no fewer than seven times completely about this great globe. We should then find that an electric signal sent Into the wire at one end would accomplish the circuit In one second of time.—St. Louis GlobeDemocrat. At last accounts the wonjan who started the shirt waist fashion had more followers than the Lord.