and wears constantly on her head a telephone of special shape, embracing her head like a child’s hoop comb, but terminating with an ear-piece at one end that covers one ear. She is too busy to waste time in adjusting an ordinary telephone to her ear, and so wears one of special design all the time. In the twentieth annual report of the American Bell Telephone Company, for the year 1899, the number of telephones in use January 1, 1900, by that company alone, in the United States, was 1,580,101; the miles of wire were 1,016,777, and the daily connections for persons using the telephone were 5,173,803. The gross earnings of the company were $5,760,106.45, and it paid in dividends $3,882,945. The total number of exchange stations of the Bell Company in the principal countries of the world are: United States, 632,946; Germany, 212,121; Great Britain, 112,840; Sweden, 63,685; France, 44,865; Switzerland, 35,536; Russia, 26,865; Austria, 26,664; Norway, 25,376. The United States has nearly 85,000 more than all the others put together. Since the expiration of the Bell patents many smaller companies have sprung up, and the number of telephones in use has more than doubled in the last five years. Long distance telephony is now carried on up to nearly 2,000 miles, and one may to-day lie in bed in New York and listen to a concert in Chicago, and the vocal exchange of business and social intercourse between cities has become so large a feature of modern life as to justify the organization of a great company for this service alone. In the Old Testament, Book of Job, xxxviii. chapter, 35th verse, it is written: “Canst thou send lightnings that they may go and say unto thee--‘Here we are?’” For thousands of years this challenge to Job has been looked upon as a feat whose execution was only within the power of the Almighty; but to-day the inventor--that patient modern Job--has accomplished this seemingly impossible task, for at the end of this Nineteenth Century of the Christian Era, the telephone makes the lightning man’s vocal messenger, tireless, faithful, and true, knowing no prevarication, and swifter than the winged messenger of the gods. CHAPTER IX. ELECTRICITY--MISCELLANEOUS. STORAGE BATTERY--BATTERIES OF PLANTÉ, FAURE AND BRUSH--ELECTRIC WELDING--DIRECT GENERATION OF ELECTRICITY BY COMBUSTION--ELECTRIC BOATS--ELECTRO-PLATING--EDISON’S ELECTRIC PEN--ELECTRICITY IN MEDICINE--ELECTRIC CAUTERY--ELECTRICAL MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS--ELECTRIC BLASTING.