This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1888 Excerpt: ...across farms and cranberry fields were obtained; trenches were dug, and a duct of solid iron laid--from its pylorus at Lardentown reaching over a stretch of seventeen miles to its vent under the boilers of the ' Etna Mills' at Pittsburg. The experiment succeeded perfectly; the vapor, in spite of the rubs and resistances met from the twists and turns in the conductor, darting through at the rate of a mile to the minute, and with no appreciable diminution to its volume. This was in the Autumn of 1875--twelve years and more ago; but the fires first lighted then are burning still, and the throat that lent the breath to kindle them into life, still blows to keep them living, with a force as vigorous as ever. No clearer proof of the fitness for use of Natural Gas---so, now, after this first real taming and training of it to service, the strange air got to be called--could be offered; and yet the force of it was not felt.--Nor, until the appointed time should bring the appointed man--him, the Belthazar--Fire King--last of the Royal Three--for the work, was it to be; but that was at hand. When, in 1856, George Westinghouse, Jr., a lad ten years old, was taken over from Central Bridge, Schoharie County, his birth-place, to v Schenectady, N. Y., and put under training at the high-school there, he was, like other well-behaved boys, regular in his attendance, mindful of his lessons, and as ready to intelligently respond when put to question in the task-room as were any, the promptest, besides among his class-mates. But the regulation hours at the high-school were not his exclusive ones out of the day's dozen devoted to learning. In fact it might be said of him that his off-hours were the hours when he was chiefly on, and that he really was most at school when not at sc...