In every way this is a wonderful age of invention. Look at the trolley car, shooting along without any one being able to see what makes it move. Look at the wheels whirling and lights flashing and stoves heating from electric power. Steam was the most powerful thing which man knew a century ago. Electricity has taken its place as the most powerful and marvelous thing we know to-day. More wonderful than anything I have said is the power we now have of telegraphing without wires, and of telephoning in the same way. Thus men can now stand on the shore and talk with their friends hundreds of miles away on the broad sea. Such are some of the inventions which have been made in recent times. If you ask for more I might name the steam plow, and the typewriter, and the printing machine, and the bicycle, and the automobile, and the air-ship, and a hundred others. But they are too many for me to say anything about, so I shall have to stop right here. CHAPTER XXVI HOW THE CENTURY ENDED FOR THE UNITED STATES VERY likely many of my young readers live in the city of Philadelphia, which was founded by William Penn more than two hundred years ago on the banks of the broad Delaware River, and where now many more than a million people make their homes. And many of you who do not live there, but who love your country and are proud of its history, are likely to go there some time during your lives, to visit the birthplace of your noble nation. Have you ever thought that the United States, as an independent nation, was born in Philadelphia? In that city stands the stately Independence Hall, in which the Declaration of Independence was made and signed. You may see there the famous old bell, which rang out "Liberty throughout the land!" And you may stand in the room in which our grand Constitution was formed. So Philadelphia should be a place of pilgrimage to all true-hearted Americans, who wish to see where their country was born. It was such a place of pilgrimage in the year 1876. Then from every part of our country, from the North, the South, the West and the East, our people made their way in thousands towards that great city, which was then the proud center of all American thought. A hundred years had passed from the time the famous Declaration was signed, and the Centennial Anniversary which marked the one hundredth year after this great event was being celebrated in the city which may be called the cradle of the American nation. A grand exhibition was held. It was called a "World's Fair," for splendid objects were sent to it from all parts of the world, and our own country sent the best of everything it had to show, from Maine to California. On the broad lawns of Fairmount Park many handsome buildings were erected, all filled with objects of use or beauty, and more than ten million people passed through the gates, glad to see what America and the world had to show.