The most generally noticed herald of the new epoch was not the telephone, however, but the "electric candle" invented by Jablochkoff in 1876, which soon afterward came into use in Paris. This candle consisted of two parallel sticks of carbon separated by an insulating substance, made of some refractory material, that fuzed as the carbons gradually burned away. The two carbons were connected to an electric circuit that passed from the tip of one carbon to the tip of the other, causing a brilliant electric arc. To prevent one carbon wasting away more rapidly than the other, an alternating current was employed. This great invention is now almost forgotten, because it was soon supplanted by the present arc-light that is better in many ways. Nevertheless, to Jablochkoff must be accorded the distinction of being the first to make electric lighting on a large scale practicable, and to demonstrate the fact. In the same year, an invention of more than doubtful beneficence was made, a machine for continuously making cigarettes; but this was balanced in the same year by the inventions of the steam saw-mill and of Portland cement. In the following year came an invention fully as brilliant as the telephone, though not so useful, the phonograph. It is usually considered as more brilliant; certainly it was more unexpected. The idea of transmitting speech was very old, many men had worked on it, and many were working on it at the time when Bell accomplished it; but the idea of recording speech was almost undreamed of. Up to the present moment, it can hardly be said that the phonograph has had great influence on history; for its main work has been in giving pleasure by the music it has rendered. We can easily imagine the present Machine, without the phonograph, but not without the telephone. And we cannot imagine the present Machine to exist without the gas engine, invented the same year by Dr. Otto, that made possible the use of large units of mechanical power, without the need of boilers or condensers or other external appliances; for the combustion of the fuel was carried on inside the engine itself. This invention has been followed by many others during the forty-five years that have since gone by, in which oil has taken the place of gas. Petrol or gasolene has been the oil (or spirit) most used; but engines of the Deisel type, employing heavy oils, have now come into being in large numbers. It is easy to underestimate the influence of the gas-engine, or oil-engine (usually called the internal combustion engine), as is proved by the fact that most people do so; despite the evidence of its importance on all sides, in the shape of submarine vessels, automobiles and similar vehicles. Its most important single effect has been to make possible the aeroplane, and all the science and art of aviation, and the consequent conquest of the air.