Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 November 1895 — What Electricity is Doing. [ARTICLE]

What Electricity is Doing.

The Mining and Scientific Press thus sums up the uses to which electricity is applied. It enters into the preparation of what we eat, drink and wear, and there are many articles of utility now produced by its aid. The residents of many citizens in the United States have their houses protected, lighted and heated by electricity. They go to their places of business in cars run by electricity, the elevator by which they reach their office in high buildings, or the machinery in their factory, is run by electricity, the bell which summons them to church is rung by electricity and the church organ is played by electricity. Electricity brings the news to them from all parts of the earth; stamps their letters, automatically sounds the alarm in case of fire, rings the door bell, cooks the food, and fans them while eating it. When they go to the dentist their teeth are drilled and filled by electricity, and miniature electric lamps are now constructed for the use of doctors in diagnozing diseases. The patient swallows a lighted lamp, which illuminates his person so as to enable the physician to make a correct diagnosis. The barber cuts or singes the hair by means of electricity, the streets are lighted and the farm cultivated by it. By means of it we can talk with our friends 500 or 1,000 miles away and hear their voices as distinctly as though they were in the same room. The telephone is perhaps in more general use in this country than electric lighting. Even in small towns telephones form apart of the furniture of many private houses, and are used to transmit orders to the butcher, baker, etc. There are now some eighty-five electric railways in the United States and 9,000 miles of track, employing 28,000 cars. With the aid of electricity natural forces which have heretofore run to waste are being turned to the service of mankind. The American River has already been made to furnish motor power by which Sacramento. Cal., is lighted,and by which its street cars and factories are run, and new projects are in progress all over the State.