Francis R. Upton, 1880

The electric Apotheosis

“The sunlight poured upon the rank vegetation of the carboniferous forests, was gathered and stored up, and has been waiting through the ages to be converted again into light.
The latent force accumulated during the primeval days, and garnered up in the coal beds, is converted, after passing in the steam-engine through the phases of chemical, molecular and mechanical force, into electricity, which only waits the touch of the inventor’s genius to flash out into a million domestic suns to illuminate a myriad homes.”