WHITE MAGIC

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 77, 20 August 1914, Page 8

WHITE MAGIC

WHAT ELECTRICITY IS DOING TO-DAY. To grasp the wonders of modern electricity is not an easy matter. ' Our minds are thrilled when we read how the genius of Marconi enables the famous "5.0.5." wireless signal to be flashed hundreds of miles over the ocean to 'bring liners to rescue of wrecked and burning vessels. But do we ever stop to think of the manner in which the mighty genie, "White Magic,"' as electricity has been called, which .men like Edison, Marconi, Bell and Stcinmetz have adapted in a thousand and one different ways to present-day needs, is revolutionising home and industrial life? Does the average man ever realise 'that the vary newspapers in which he • reu'da the [ thrilling accounts of the j burning of' the. Volturao and the wreck of the Titanic are made of wood-pulp and printed by electricity in quite ax marvellous a way as that' by which messages are sent over the seas? People arc apt to talk of electricity as if it is in its infancy, but, as a matter of fact, it is a lusty giant, with a marvellous past already behind it and a still greatoi future before. The machinery of our mills and factories is operated by electricity; it drives our trains, boats and lifts, regu'lates our clocks from Greenwich, prints our books and magazines, lights our parks, street's and bui'dings, and carries our messages by telephone, telegraph and wireless to the ends of the earth. ELECTRICAL FARMS. Up-to-date fanners nowadays consider electric power plant indispensable to their equipment, not only for .the purpose of driving their ma'chinery in the. fields, but also to assist in the growth of their crops; for the electrification of the soil is now regarded as one of the. best means of fertilisation ever discovered. Perhaps the most striking illustrations of the uses of electricity as applied to farming are those provided bv the manner m which "White Magic" is he.in." used in Western Canada. Some, of the big farms there are quite a revelation in the way of up-to-date equipment. Buildings and barns arc lighted bv incandescent lamps, motors drive all the machinery, ranging from threshers to irrigation pumps, to churns and cream separators, and even the cows are milked by a clean and sanitary e'.cctricallvoperated apparatus.

IX THE HOifE. -Among the most remarkable developments of modern electricity are those connected with domestic work. We are quite accustomed to having electric 'light at our disposal by the turning of a switch, but most of us do not realise that the same wires that bring us light are quite capable of delivering power ample for all household needs. Cooking, washing and ironing can all be done, and is 'being done in many homes to-day, bv electricity. Small motors can now be obtained to operate sewing machines, vacuum cleaners, ice-cream freezers, collee-roills. clothes and dish washers, and waterheaters. A lady sitting in her draw-ing-room, warmed 'by an'electric heater, can touch ;\ .switch and boil a kettle of water on the tea-tray without moving from her seat. Another switch causes the electric piano to play, while the servant in the kitchen cooks the dinner in an electric cooking stove. Or one can go to a restaurant—there arc several in London, and lunch off food all cooked by electricity. Indeed, the dav is not far distant when the housewife will go to the nearest stores and purchase an electric, motor for 'her requirements just as she would a saucepan or a kettle. Again, the amateur workman can run his lathe for woodwork or metal work and other small machinery «t home wilh,'oiit {rouble or 7>hysJcal exertion by electricity. Children, too, now have their toys worked by electricity. The fountains in the large -parks are worked by the same power! while electric fans are now quite common in home and workshop. And there is a fortune awaiting the man who can invent a battery which will enable a motor-car to 1 run for an unlimited distance. At. the present time electric motor.cars can only be used for short distances. Of course, this is a great drawback to the popularity of the electric motor. Edison a. short time ago claimed to have invented a long-distance batterv. but up to the present little has been heard of it. Experts prophesy, however, that the time will come, sooner or later, when

the steam engine Will be scrapped and electric mu'uit-A will take the place of' the ordinary engine, even on transAtlantic i:;u'r.s. This will not come about, how. ver, until a'batter/ has been invented i-.ijiaule of 'being charged to an unl/inJH.d extent. Then the problem of car, train and Hhip will bo solved.