Show FLOODS AnD FIRES Our news columns today are burdened with reports of widespread disasters caused by overlapping waves and tongues of flame It has long been a question as to which of the two was the more destructive but it needs no solution either unrestrained un-restrained is relentless and terrible enough without resorting to comparison com-parison to establish its rapacity And yet united they form one of the grandest and greatest impulses to civilization which modern times have ever felt the two destroying agencies when harnessed and controlled con-trolled by intelligent action send a man amissive or merchandise from ocean to ocean with a rapidity measured by daysand a few days instead of as formerly by long dreary months they have made the dream of sages and scientists in the past of spending one Sunday in London and the next in New York a reality and what they may yet accomplish in the direction ot bringing man into closer communication communi-cation with his fellow man by saving sav-ing time labor and money is for the future to tell Everv atrencv for crood is no less as potent a fact or for evil lit is only a quest > n of application Exclude results irnm the computation and i we are apt to know not where good ends or evil begins The forces by which prairies are inundated or their vegetation burned houses swept the length of a seething torrent tor-rent or consumed by redtongued flames of fire people are swept beyond be-yond the recall of their fellows or reduced to hideous masses of charred flesh and bone are still the best and surest promoters of the welfare of man only the conditions are not properly united We lose on one hand and gain on the other see the magic wand which redeems wastes and leads to empire when uncontrolled destroy and devour The flames which redden the valves of the locomotive and steamship and thus create the motive power by which either is propelled thus giving life to commerce and stimulation to industry in-dustry can also cripple the one and discourage the other It seems as though the antithesis of the civilization phase of thp question were just now holding undisputed sway |