Page:Man's Machine-Made Millennium.djvu/5

Rh and go coursing on the unobstructed sky-way. We shall soon have our automobiles of the air, and shall then be able to tour the Siberian sky, the Arctic waste, and chase the mirage over arid Saharas as commonly as we now tour an adjacent state.

NEW SOURCES OF ENERGY

There is one stupendous problem which man must soon solve, for upon its solution hangs the very possibility of continued human civilization and progress. We must have a supply of heat and power inexhaustible in quantity and cheap of production. This problem solved, human ascent becomes easy.

Had we an engine which would utilize the energy latent in coal with an economy equal to that with which the sea-gull utilizes the carbon it consumes in its food, we should be able to develop ten times the energy that we now do from the fuel we consume to turn the wheels of industry and trade. But, even were we able to invent such an engine, it would not long suffice to supply our needs, for the great coal-beds could last but a few centuries. At the present rate of coal-consumption all those great stores of carbon that the sun stored up for us in the carboniferous period will be exhausted in a few generations.

Not only this, but we are also burning up our air, as Lord Kelvin has shown us. Every ton of coal consumed renders unfit for breathing twelve tons of air. So that, even if we had coal enough to last us indefinitely, we should not have enough oxygen in the air to burn it up, but should fill the air with carbonic acid gas to suffocation.

Possibly we shall invent some motor which will utilize efficiently the heat of the solar rays. It is estimated that the total amount of energy received by the earth from the sun is equal to that which would be developed by a continuous Niagara seventy-five thousand miles wide—wide enough to encircle the earth three times. But this enormous energy, great as it is, is received upon such a vast area that the great difficulty lies in its concentration. Water-power is an indirect utilization of the heat of the solar rays, but were every stream and fall harnessed to maximum duty, the energy developed would not long be sufficient for man's needs.

The discovery of radiant matter has opened a new vista to our view and possibilities so stupendous that we hardly dare, with our present knowledge, to deem them probable. We have discovered that the internal molecular energy of matter is perfectly inconceivable in amount, and if we ever succeed in harnessing it to human use we shall be able to light, heat, and run the world from the dynamo.

Every molecule of matter is made up of a vast number of small particles known as corpuscles, and these corpuscles are constantly moving about at a velocity of a hundred thousand miles a second—more than half the speed of light. This means that in one pound of ponderable substance there is sufficient energy to hurl a one-pound projectile at a velocity of a hundred thousand miles a second.

GLIMPSES OF THE FUTURE

Every human want has its expression in terms of heat and power, and when heat and power are made cheap enough the earth will be a playground, and every land and every sea will pulse and vibrate under the human finger and the guidance of the human brain. When that day comes all our fields can be fertilized from the air by the formation of nitro compounds directly from atmospheric nitrogen by the electric current, and agriculture will become a pastime. There will be electrically heated hothouses covering thousands of acres, and the country farm, even in the northern clime, will have its summer and its winter crops. Methods will be discovered of stimulating the growth of plants by electrical warmth and light. In gardens so tended there will be currants as large as damsons, damsons the size of apples, apples as large as melons, strawberries as large as oranges, with the texture and flavor of old Kent. In short, fruits of all kinds will be raised, with flavors to suit the most fastidious taste.

Wireless telephony will then embrace the world, and it will be as easy to hold converse with the antipodes as it is to-day for New York to speak with Brooklyn.

The lonely farmhouse will be no more, but the people will group themselves in little cities with metropolitan recreations and amusements. Every little village will have its theater, but the actors will live and play in New York, London, or Paris. The country stage will be a screen, and "Hamlet," played in London, will be transmitted by teleview, telephone, and telharmonium and reproduced upon the stage screen at Chautauqua. The Patti of that time will need to make no farewell tours, for every country stage will tour the world. Last night, a London play; to-night, a Parisian success; and to-morrow