Show NEARING THE FINISH the rapidity with which mankind are approaching what we can but regard as the limit of human capacity becomes somewhat astonishing when we pause long enough to give it consideration Ide ration it has often been shown aud ud to even a i ordinary intellect can be plainly demonstrated that we can correctly measure dessure the gunthe planets and distances in space apace to an extent utterly inconceivable can define with accuracy the component parts of all the glowing objects which join with us uis in a grand triumphal march about the center of our system and notwithstanding his repellant brilliancy have not only circumscribed cross sectioned and become quite familiar with his bis internal trot troubles ioles manifested in dark and whirling caverns but have weigh ed him in the balances and made some gome of his bis constituent elements a matter of every day information here we end what produces his light and heat and add upon what does he be teed to maintain it Is it the result of combustion and if so what kind and whence obtainable tai Is it phosphorescence electricity tri city reflection or what any one of these has as a condition precedent a cause a circumstance or combination thereof and of these we are as ignorant as were the advocates of the ptolemaic theory which made the earth a fixture resting upon a turtle and this in turn upon a serpent in other words we have about if not quite reached the limit in the matter of familiarity with the god of d day so also must we be nearing the ultimate yamate bound of human discovery in all channels of mechanism science anti and skill were there no limit we would be infinite instead of finite beings le ings that is instead of our capacity foe fot acquiring information being bounded by a certain hor horizon iZOD there would be no bounds but like the blue vault that hovers about us it would have no circumscription whatever and be a bottomless sea being merely human we can go so far and no farther some can go much further than others in certain directions but nothing is ever invented when we can invent we can oreate create and either cr creation eatton or destruction is beyond our mortal capacity we can discover some principle that we knew not of before but it existed before or the ats covery could not have been made and we can change the form or matter whereby it seems beema to have undergone destruction but such la Is not and cannot be the case cage it la Is related of an inventor Invent orl that it was found necessary to summarily cut off his bis career by consigning him to the sea because he be had demonstrated his bis ability to consume water with fire this principle is no longer occult or even caviale to the general scientist there are numbers of scientific men everywhere who can CAB perform the feat lee ice can be made to burn not quite so readily as aa tinder but still be made to disappear through the action of flame engendered within itself and when some people read of such things they are disposed to pronounce them marvels or the working of are the application of natural producing perfectly natural results but as before claimed it to la now only a question of how much further the circumscribed intellect of man can lead him into the realm of the bidden ind and the unknown edison to ia pronounced a wizard because that is a convenient word to apply to a man who is very apt and quite successful in doing things which others cannot do or ha hai i previously never thought of his mind is a peculiar one his faculty of proceeding from cause to effect and the reverse be tog a wonderful gift with this and and a certain faculty of oal cal construction and adaptability his so no called inventive genius to is not only a means of convenience and aid to his bis race but is so on prolific as to keep us on the alert for the next surprise his developments in the domain of science have naturally enough set others ta V thinking and thus in some oases cases a dormant faculty has been brought out that otherwise might have been u unused throughout a lifetime we now BOW have an account of an invention on the Edison Edis onlan tan plan by C V boughton of buffalo N Y it is called a telephoto and a public exhibition of it was given at that place on the ath instant atles it lea contri contrivance vatice by which ships at sea can converse with each other officers can direct their troops and people can hold communication at great distances over plains or bodies of water it consists of a system of wires and an electrical apparatus operated in a manner similar to that of the typewriter it has electric lights worked by the keyboard and contained in a shaft abaft twenty seven feet long this can be betoken betaken taken to pieces and placed in a compact compass the great number of lights is required to regulate the spaces between t e letters ana their relative proportions the flashes ex habited correspond with the characters of the morse telegraphic alpha et at the dots being represented by two and the dashes by twelve lamps the experiment was pronounced a success the signals being plainly seen ten miles away one of these machines will be exhibited at the worlds world 8 fair but it is possible that ita lt qualities as a wonder worker my m y pale in the presence of something of the kind still more won darful by that time the great show does not open till next may and the interim is a vast span measured by the rapidity with which we are at present bounding along the highway of time |