tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">XVII.

INTRODUCTION.

For the benefit of the readers of Vol. III, who have not read the general Introduction found in Vol. I, a word as to the scope and object of this volume will not be amiss.

It will be plain to any one on seeing the size of the little book that it cannot be an exhaustive treatise on a subject so large as that of Electricity. This volume, like the others, is intended for popular reading, and technical terms are avoided as far as possible, or when used clearly explained. The subject is treated historically, theoretically, and practically.

As the author has lived through the period during which the science of Electricity has had most of its growth, he naturally and necessarily deals somewhat in reminiscence. All he hopes to do is to plant a few seed-thoughts in the minds of his readers that will awaken an interest in the study of natural science; and especially in its most fascinating branch—Electricity.

If Vol. I is at hand, please read the Introduction. It will bring you into closer sympathy with the author and his mode of treatment.

Again, if the reader is especially interested in the theory of Electricity it will help him very much if he first reads Vols. I and II, as a preparation for a better understanding of Vol. III. All the natural sciences are so closely related that it is difficult to get a clear insight into any one of them without at least a general idea of all the others.

NATURE'S MIRACLES.

ELECTRICITY AND MAGNETISM.

CHAPTER I.

THE AUTHOR'S DESIGN.

The writer has spent much of his time for thirty-five years in the study of electricity and in inventing appliances for purposes of transmitting intelligence electrically between distant points, and is perhaps more familiar with the phenomena of electricity than with those of any other branch of physics; yet he finds it still the most difficult of all the natural sciences to explain. To give any satisfactory theory as to its place with and relation to other forms of energy is a