He pointed to a huge block of granite, which rested on a metal
framework a dozen inches above the floor, and said: "Banish all
nervousness, invert the accumulator, and hold it under the center of
the block, which weighs five of your tons."
I did so, and it slowly rose toward the ceiling.
"Close the aperture slowly, and finally close it entirely."
This I did, and it settled back to its original place.
"There," said Remo, "you have the direct current and its direct
application to machinery and inert bodies. You know enough about
mechanics to understand what that means. The ascent and flight and
movements and descent of the Aerocar; the running of the Medocar and
the sailing of the Merocar, are not such a profound mystery to you as
they were yesterday."
He conducted me into another factory and exhibited a number of
accumulators, each filled with apparently the same granulated
substance, but of different colors and admixture of colors. Remo opened
the apertures of a long line of them upon a wire rack, and they flashed
into brilliant lamps of every hue and color and shade--a light that was
as steady as that of the stars. He closed them one by one, showing the
absolute independence of each.
"Our lamps, with which we beautify the night, are no longer a mystery
to you--that is, not an absolute mystery."
In another factory he exhibited more accumulators with varicolored
materials in the globes. He opened one and directed its power toward an
ingot of metal. It melted like wax. Turning its force upon a fragment
of rock, it was transformed into the ordinary dust of our roadways.
With another he turned a vessel of water into a solid block of ice.
"Our topographical construction, our culinary economy and the absence
of fire are now plainer than they were."
"But how do you achieve all these different results with apparently the
same means?"
"The first device shown you is the primary; the others are subsequent
discoveries. By the primary medium we were able to produce or secure
the electric current in the form of dynamic power, eminently tractable
and harmless with ordinary prudence. New combinations of the medium
gave us all the other results, at intervals, subsequent to the original
discovery. And the field is not exhausted."
Remo explained that the crystalline substance in the upper globe of
the accumulator induced or gathered the electric current, giving it
controllable direction as well as defined volume, while that in the
lower determined its significance or divisional use.
In the minuter accumulators, for the lamps only, did the current
present itself in the form of light, spark or flame. All the colors,
from pure white to deep purple, with their prismatic variations, were
the direct result of their differing chemical combinations in the lower
globe, each of the silk-like wires throwing off countless rays of
unvarying intensity and steadiness, but gave off no electric phenomena
or effects.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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