This book is an attempt briefly to recite the chief uses
of fire, electricity, and photography, bringing the narrative
of discovery and invention to the close of 1899. In covering
so much ground it has been necessary to choose from
a vast array of facts such of them as are fairly representative,
laying stress upon those whose proven importance or
high promise gives them most prominence in the public
mind. Passing to the laws which underlie invention and
discovery, this book endeavours to answer the question,
Why has the nineteenth century added more to science
than all preceding time? It will be found that the latest
achievements of man illuminate his path of progress in
remarkable fashion, and enable us to discern the promise
of the wireless telegraph in the first blaze kindled by a
savage, to understand how photography in natural colours
has succeeded to the first rude contours drawn by the hand
of man.