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iva voce between a man in Washington and another in Boston. The actual attainment of these results has naturally given rise to the belief that the word "impossible" has disappeared from our vocabulary. To every demonstration that a result cannot be reached the answer is, Did not one Lardner, some sixty years ago, demonstrate that a steamship could not cross the Atlantic? If we say that for every actual discovery there are a thousand visionary projects, we are told that, after all, any given project may be the one out of the thousand. In a certain way these hopeful anticipations are justified. We cannot set any limit either to the discovery of new laws of nature or to the ingenious combination of devices to attain results which now look impossible. The science of to-day suggests a boundless field of possibilities. It demonstrates that the heat which the sun radiates upon the earth in a single day would suffice to drive all the steamships now on the ocean and run all the machinery on the land for a thousand years. The only difficulty is how to concentrate and utilize this wasted energy. From the stand-point of exact science aerial navigation is a very simple matter. We have only to find the proper combination of such elements as weight, power, and mechanical force. Whenever Mr. Maxim can make an engine strong and light enough, and sails large, strong, and light enough, and devise the machinery required to connect the sails and engine, he will fly. Science has nothing but encouraging words for his project, so far as general principles are concerned. Such being the case, I am not going to maintain that we can never make it rain. But I do maintain two propositions. If we are ever going to make it rain, or produce any other result hitherto unattainable, we must employ adequate means. And if any proposed means or agency is already familiar to science, we may be able to decide beforehand whether it is adequate. Let us grant that out of a thousand seemingly visionary projects one is really sound. Must we try the entire thousand to find the one? By no means. The chances are that nine hundred of them will involve no agency that is not already fully understood, and may, therefore, be set aside without even being tried. To this class belongs the project of producing rain by sound. As I write, the daily journals are announcing the brilliant success of experiments in this direction; yet I unhesitatingly maintain that sound cannot m
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