Elias B. Dunn, the weather observer at New York, has been studying atmospheric electricity for two years, says the Boston Transcript. The sergeant, as they used to call him; the farmer, as they call him now, said the other day that he will live to see the day when electricity collected from the atmosphere and stored by some means which an Edison or a Tesla will have to devise, will revolutionize the world. The prophet expects that cities will be lighted and heated by atmospheric electricity; that every train and car will be run lighted and heated by it; that coal will become a curiosity, that steam heating will be a granny talk to the children of the next generation; that the telegraph and telephone companies will lose their monopolies; that war will become a farce because a touch of electricity will make the British Grenadiers or the German Uhlans or the Scotch Highlanders sit down on the cold ground powerless. Even the dreams of communication with the inhabitants of Mars will become realities, and a man will be able to strike up electricity as he does a parlor match. There will be no more trolley strikes, because there will be no more trolleys. Mankind will tap the atmosphere for almost any convenience except food and clothing, and even the clothing will be woven and the food cooked by atmospheric electricity; street cleaning will be as easy as the magician’s “Presto! change!” and everybody will live comparatively happier ever after. Mr. Dunn is sure that his ideas are practical and probable. The atmosphere is his constant study, and, having introduced general humidity to the public as the principal element in uncomfortable days, he has determined that the potent element for good in the air we breathe shall no longer be wasted. Why, he said, the whole atmosphere is soaked with electricity.
Elias B. Dunn is better known as the man who didn’t forecast the Great White Hurricane, a snowstorm of epic proportions that wiped out New York in 1888.
There’s no information on the web about Mr Dunn showing us that humidity is why we’re uncomfortable in the summer. I’m left wondering where that fact came from.
Some of these predictions have already happened, but not because we are now able to “tap the atmosphere for almost any convenience.” Sometimes the future is the way you’d thought it would be — just not the way you thought you’d get there.