X MOTIVE POWER

A GLIMPSE over the History of the Past shows that the Motive Power, the mechanical energy, which Man uses at different ages for doing his work, is always a powerful determining factor of advancing Civilization.

The Motive Power so far used by Man has been either muscular or purely mechanical. The Muscular Power manifests itself when men or animals perform work; the Mechanical, when the steam and gasoline engines, the water wheel, the windmill and the electric current do work.

42But nowhere seems there to be a creation of power or energy, only a transformation, and its original source practically all comes from the Sun, as we see it in the growth of plants, evaporation of moisture, the flow of rivers, the movements of animals, the atmospheric breezes, etc.

The Muscular Power of Man or Beast comes from the food they eat, and the solar energy coming from the Sun causes the plant to grow. In like manner, does the steam engine derive its power from the fuel—wood, coal and crude oil—which it uses to heat the water into steam, and this heat is merely liberated past sunbeams that came to the earth millions of ages ago. The same is also true of the gasoline engine. So with the water wheel and the windmill. The Sun evaporates the water into clouds, and later it again falls as rain or snow which feeds the running rivers and drives the water wheel. Again, the Sun heats the air unequally in different localities which causes a breeze, and this wind drives the windmill. All this is only transmutation of one kind of Power into other kinds, with the Sun as its ultimate source.

The Dynamo is a machine which generates Electricity which may be used for heating, lighting, welding, cooking, running automobiles, factories, trains, trucks, ships, tractors, lawn mowers, airplanes, etc.

43But the Dynamo merely converts or transforms the energy or power of the engine or water wheel into the rotating Dynamo which generates the electric current from the surrounding air.

We may thus see that we are everywhere surrounded by millions of electric Horse Power which we have already discovered to generate at any spot on Earth by rapidly rotating a Dynamo, but to make the Dynamo rotate still requires costly fuel or scarce water power.

But by looking over the progress of the Past, we have every reason to believe that some genius will, in the not distant future, stumble on to a method of generating Electric Current in abundance for almost nothing with some Chemico-Electric Generator automatically operated by the endless stream of solar energy which is continually pouring from the Sun to the Earth, day and night, winter and summer.

We want to make our Chemico-Electric Generator work automatically in some such way as the green leaf of the growing plant or towering tree make use of the solar energy in organizing and building their tiny or huge bodies out of the soil, water and air with which they are surrounded.

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