CHAPTER I. The Four great qualities of Electricity which make its modern uses possible.--The universal wire.--Conductors and non conductors.--Electricity an exception in the ordinary Laws of Nature.--A dual nature: "Positive" and "Negative."--All modern uses come under the law of Induction.--Some of the laws of this induction.--Magnets and Magnetism.--Relationship between the two.--Magnetic "poles."--Practical explanation of the action of induction.--The Induction Coil.--Dynamic and Static Electricity.--The Electric Telegraph.--First attempts.--Morse, and his beginnings.--The first Telegraph Line.--Vail, and the invention of the dot-and-dash alphabet.--The old instruments and the new.--The final simplicity of the telegraph. CHAPTER II. The Ocean Cable.--Differences between land lines and cables.--The story of the first cable.--Field and his final success.--The Telephone.--Early attempts.--Description of Bell's invention.--The Telautograph.--Early attempts and the idea upon which they were based.--Description of Gray's invention.--How a Telautograph may be made mechanically. CHAPTER III. The Electric Light.--Causes of heat and light in the conductor of a current.--The first Electric Light.--The Arc Light, and how constructed.--The Incandescent.--The Dynamo.--Date of the invention.--Successive steps.--Faraday the discoverer of its principle.--Pixü's machine.--Pacinatti.--Wilde.--Siemens' and Wheatstone.--The Motor.--How the Dynamo and Motor came to be coupled.--Review of first attempts.--Kidder's battery.--Page's machine.--Electric Railroads.--Electrolysis.--General facts.--Electrical Measurements.--"Death Current."--Instruments of Measurement.--Electricity as an Industry.--Medical Electricity.--Incomplete possibilities.--What the "Storage Battery" is. CHAPTER IV. Electrical Invention in the United States.--Review of the careers of Franklin, Morse, Field, Edison and others.--Some of the surprising applications of Electricity.--The Range-Finder.--Cooking and heating by Electricity. THE STORY OF STEAM That which was utterly unknown to the most splendid civilizations of the past is in our time the chief power of civilization, daily engaged in making that history of a new era that is yet to be written in words. It has been demonstrated long since that men's lives are to be influenced not by theory, or belief, or argument and reason, so much as by that course of daily life which is not attempted to be governed by argument and reason, but by great physical facts like steam, electricity and machinery in their present applications.