Two great tunnels at the present time are being constructed in the United States, one of these which is piercing the backbone of the Rockies is on the Atlantic and Pacific railway. It begins near Georgetown, will pass under Gray's peak and come out near Decatur, Colorado, in all a length of twelve miles. The other American undertaking is a tunnel under the famous Pike's Peak in Colorado which when completed will be twenty miles long. It can clearly be seen that in the way of tunnel engineering Uncle Sam is not a whit behind his European competitors. CHAPTER X ELECTRICITY IN THE HOUSEHOLD Electrically Equipped Houses--Cooking by Electricity--Comforts and Conveniences. Science has now pressed the invisible wizard of electricity into doing almost every household duty from cleaning the windows to cooking the dinner. There are many houses now so thoroughly equipped with electricity from top to bottom that one servant is able to do what formerly required the service of several, and in some houses servants seem to be needed hardly at all, the mistresses doing their own cooking, ironing, and washing by means of electricity. In respect to taking advantage of electricity to perform the duties of the household our friends in Europe were ahead of us, though America is pre-eminently the land of electricity--the natal home of the science. We are waking up, however, to the domestic utility of this agent and throughout the country at present there are numbers of homes in which electricity is employed to perform almost every task automatically from feeding the baby to the crimping of my lady's hair in her scented boudoir. There is now no longer any use for chimneys on electrically equipped houses, for the fires have been eliminated and all heat and light drawn from the electric street mains. A description of one of these houses is most interesting as showing what really can be accomplished by this wonderful source of power.