"With an initial temperature of 10° C. for both air and water, we find that one kilogram of steam requires 90 + 537 = 627 thermal units, and one kilogram of air 0.24 × 90 = 21.6 thermal units. Some heat is recovered if the feed water is heated and the steam condensed, but the difference is still so great as to altogether exclude steam as a competitor, provided air can be as readily handled. "Having now the means to rapidly heat the air, the outlook for the external-combustion engine is certainly very promising. "The saving of more than half the coal now used by the steam engine will be of tremendous importance to the whole world." To what extent this optimistic prediction will be verified is a problem for the future to decide. VIII THE SMALLEST WORKERS In our studies of the steam engine and gas engine we have been concerned with workers of infinitesimal size. Yet, if we are to believe the reports of the modern investigator, the molecules of steam or of ignited gas are small only in a relative sense, and there is a legion of workers compared with which the molecules are really gigantic in size. These workers are the atoms, and the yet more minute particles of which, according to the most recent theories, they are themselves composed. These smallest conceivable particles, the constituents of the atoms, are called electrons. They are a discovery of the physicists of the most recent generation. According to the newest theories they account for most--perhaps for all--of the inter-molecular and inter-atomic forces; they are indeed the ultimate repositories of those stores of energy which are known to be contained in all matter. The theories are not quite as fully developed as could be wished, but it would appear that these minutest particles, the electrons, are the essential constituents of the familiar yet wonderful carrier of energy which we term electricity. In considering the share of electricity in the world's work, therefore, we shall do well at the outset to put ourselves in touch with recent views as to the nature of this most remarkable of workers. On every side in this modern world we are confronted by this strange agent, electricity. The word stares us in the face on every printed page. The thing itself is manifest in all departments of our every-day life. You go to your business in an electric car; ascend to your office in an electric elevator; utilize electric call-bells; receive and transmit messages about the world and beneath the sea by electric telegraph. Your doctor treats you with an electric battery. Your dentist employs electric drills and electric furnaces. You ride in electric cabs; eat food cooked on electric stoves; and read with the aid of electric light. In a word, the manifestations of electricity are so obvious on every side that there can be no challenge to the phrasing which has christened this the Age of Electricity.