15 But of all the inventions that Sparking Dove
would be remembered for, the electric light was his most famous. He was
determined to replace lamps and candles and gas with safe, clean
electric light.
16 For twenty-two seasons he experimented and failed, again and again,
but still he tried. Then he started work on the vacuum bulb.
17 Finally, after seasons of effort, an electric lamp burned in his
laboratory for one-hundred hours, a carbon filament giving it light.
Soon, every city was lit with lamps.
18 When The Festival of The Journey in Northern was celebrated under
electric lights, it was a proud Sparking Dove that received The
Speaker's congratulations. That night, as he slept, Sparking Dove
joined The Lords. But the gift he had left behind for his
people was beyond measure.
19 Strangely, that same night, another man died who had been born only
one season after the other. He had originally been named Bright Fox,
but to the whole world he was Putting Fox.
20 Where Sparking Dove had been fascinated with electricity, HE was
fascinated with explosions. "Steam,'' he thought, "was actually a slow
explosion. The water is heated and expands, becoming steam. The
expanding steam pushes the piston of an engine, making the
engine go. What if you could control an explosion inside a piston? Make
one explosion come after another as the piston reaches the top of its
strike. The explosion would drive the piston down, and drive the
engine."
21 In several of his first experiments he nearly blew himself and his
assistants up because he tried such things as gunpowder and Yellow
Thunder to drive the pistons. These experiments were not too
successful. "I need a fuel,'' he thought, "that burns well, but won't
blow the engine up, and a means of properly mixing it with the