Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 70.djvu/144

140 into something better or handsomer, and every year he pulled up nearly all that he had and burned it in great windrows. And foolish people said that he was a wizard and they came from great distances to see him at his work. And there were a few who thought that they understood.

"There was once an old white-haired man who came to an assemblage of scholars, bringing with him two bars of wood connected by bands of iron. Fifty-three years before he had left his home on the bay of Quinté, in Ontario, to show these bars to the world and to give to mankind what it never had before, control over 'The Unconditioned Force of the Universe.' This force through this little machine would 'revolutionize human industry, economize human labor and relieve human want.' 'Gentlemen,' said the old man, 'I gave up the free and easy life of the Canadian forests, I sought my home among the dwellers of cities, I have sacrificed fifty-three years of my life upon the altar of my desire to benefit mankind. In three weeks more my invention will be perfected and through these bars the unconditioned force of the universe will do its works for you and for me. The time has gone by,' he said, 'when the recognition of my principle would have pleased my ambition. I love my race, and I wish to do them good.' Two years more went by, the unconditioned force lacked but a few days—just one more week—of accomplishment, and in that week the old man died in the poorhouse of Monroe County, Indiana, and in the dust and cobwebs in an attic of a neighboring college the model of the machine to be controlled by the unconditioned force of the universe still awaits the touch which for the first time shall make it run; and there were some who called the old man a 'wizard,' and some a 'philosopher,' and because fame has forgotten his name, I speak it here—Robert Havens. And in both these cases, and in all cases, what is our test of truth?

"Not long ago, on the plains of Texas, by order of the government of the United States, tons of gunpowder were exploded. A great noise was made, the smoke arose to the skies, and then all was as before. The purpose of this was to produce rain under conditions in which common sense said rain was impossible. While these conditions remained there was no rain, but the wisdom of the experiment has the official stamp of the United States.

"Not long ago, and I am sure that the good people of Alcade will remember this, some enterprising men had bought the dry bed of a river in southern California. It is filled with winter floods in the rainy season, while in summer it is white with granite sand and barren stones. At best its boulders can only produce a scant growth of chapparal and cactus. Yet when it was announced that a city was to be built on this land, men grew wild at the thought. All night they