The grandeur and beauty of the tower is, if possible, heightened by the Great Cataract, in conjunction with which it is almost invariably seen. The falling waters vie with the Mountain Supporter in breadth, and overtop it by the height from which they are hurled; the one firm, stately, and magnificent in its solidity and repose, the other vapoury and grand in its gracefulness and movement; both inconceivably beautiful; the Cataract, a work of all-powerful Providence, whose wise purposes no one can scan in their entirety; the Supporter symbolizing the inspired genius of man, who, with the beneficent purpose of saving innumerable lives from destruction, had, by the sweat of his brow, constructed a work more stable than the solid rock,—work whose head might be said to "reach unto Heaven."
XI.
ELECTRICITY
IN MONTALLUYAH.
"A spark of Heaven power."
In the construction of the Mountain Supporter you will have perceived that we were greatly aided by our extended knowledge of electricity.
Before my reign, although electricity was used for some purposes, the existence of varieties in electricity, and the manifold uses to which their wondrous powers could be applied, were unknown.
Electricity was not then utilised for locomotion either on land or sea, or for raising ponderous bodies to an immense height, or in the various products of manufacture and art, or, in short, for any of the almost innumerable purposes where the various electricities are now employed, either separately or in combination.
This could not well be otherwise; for beyond a contrivance like your Leyden jar, for collecting "air electricity," no means of collecting, still less concentrating, electricity of any kind then existed.
The belief once generally entertained was, that there were but two electricities, or rather two varieties of the same electricity, one repellent and the other attractive, answering in a measure to your terms of positive and negative. Some, indeed, thought that several different kinds existed; but the renowned electricians—truly great men, for they had opened the gates of science—proclaimed that all electricities were in reality one and the same, modified only by accidents.