Prospecting for valuable metals by electricity has been recently introduced in Wales with remarkable success. In the Cwnystwyth mines in Cornwall new and valuable deposits of ore and blende were located. These mines have been worked for over fifteen hundred years, and much of this time the search for additional lodes has been going on; yet this electrical device accomplished in a few hours what fifteen centuries of search failed to discover.
By the electric method of prospecting a current of high potential—30,000 volts or more—is employed to energize a piece of ground supposed to contain mineral. The current is taken from the terminals of the generating coil to metal rods or electrodes which are pushed an inch or two into the earth. From these distributers the lines of force spread out in both vertical and horizontal planes and may be made to extend over an area of several miles.
Their presence is detected by means of a delicate telephonic receiver connected with a second pair of metallic rods, which are stuck into the earth in any desired position. When the receiver is silent or gives only faint sounds, it indicates that the lines of force are deflected from their normal course. This reveals the presence of metallic masses in the earth, and, by moving the electrodes about, the position and area of an ore deposit may be determined with considerable accuracy. In new and unknown ground the operator would place his distributing electrodes about 200 yards apart, and remove his receiving instrument to a distance of half a mile or more. If his general knowledge of geological formation led him to believe that the metallic veins, if there were any, would run generally north and south, he would place his electrodes east and west, and if he found the electrical distribution normal he might conclude that the ground contained no mineral.
This remarkable electrical system for detecting the mineral deposits beneath the surface of the earth will doubtless be tested and perfected until man will be able without digging into the earth to ascertain the mineral deposits at any point beneath its surface. It may not always determine if they may be profitably worked, but in many mining regions it will be a blessing, and save much unprofitable work and sad disappointment.
Electrically heated cooking and laundry apparatus is now used in Germany and other countries. And there are farms on large German estates which are run by electricity. The Guednau farm in Eastern Prussia consists of 450 acres, and its dairy handles one thousand gallons of milk daily. It is lighted by electricity, has an electrical churn and feed-cutting machine, water-pumping apparatus, incandescent lamps, threshing and grist mills, saw mill, automatic plough and electrical agricultural machines, all run by charged batteries and a fifty-horse power stationery engine moving two dynamos. Thus farming is made attractive and free from drudgery, and is run like a machine by the electric current. Electricity is used not only to run some farms, but also to hasten and increase the growth of farm products by running wires a few inches beneath the surface to energize the soil.
The Commercial Cable Company announce that their ocean cable connections will be complete with Manila, in the Philippines, by the 4th of July of this year, 1903, and that on that day they will telegraph around the world in forty seconds. What a miracle of wonders! Fifty years ago the speediest communication from point to point was by swift horsemen making fifty miles a day. Now the round earth's antipodes is only forty seconds apart by reason of electric appliances.
So wonderful has been the growth of electrical appliances and utilities that Prof. H. B. Shaw, of the Missouri University, in a recent lecture, said: "In twenty years the electric light industry has developed from nothing to the manufacture of over 100,000 incandescent lamps per day. Ninety-five per cent. of the street railways in this country are electrically operated. Yet this industry was cradled in Kansas City, Mo., only about twenty years ago."
This was when I first had my attention drawn to electricity, for I saw the building of that line on East Fifth street, in that city. That and the lighting of the gas by an electric flash from a human body caused me to investigate electric phenomena and formulate the electric theory of creation.
Prof. Shaw said: "The latest development in long distance power is in California, where ten thousand horse power is transmitted two hundred miles from where it is generated with a loss of only ten per cent. of power in the line. Ten thousand horse power is sufficient to raise a million tons two inches per minute."
What a miracle that such power can pass along a wire no larger than a child's finger, and exert such force two hundred miles from where it is generated! Nothing but the invisible creative cosmic force of the universe could accomplish such a seeming miracle.