THE ELECTRIC CANDLE. 429 



tern into unlike parts. Thus we have what does not exist in auy other 

 tissue a mechanism of nervous tissue itself, a central nervous mechan- 

 ism of complex structure and complex function, the complexity of 

 which is due not primarily to any mechanical arrangement of its parts, 

 but to the further differentiation of that fundamental quality of irrita- 

 bility and spontaneity which belongs to all irritable tissues and to all 

 native protoplasm. 



In the following pages I propose to consider the facts of physi- 

 ology very much according to the views which have been just sketched 

 out. Tlie fundamental properties of most of the elementary tissues 

 will first be reviewed, and then the various special mechanisms. It 

 will be found convenient to introduce early the account of the vascu- 

 lar mechanism, and of its nervous, coordinating mechanism, while the 

 mechanisms of respiration and alimentation will be best considered 

 in connection with the respiratory and secretory tissues. The descrip- 

 tion of the purely motor mechanisms will be brief, and, save in a few 

 instances, confined to a statement of general principles. The special 

 functions of the central nervous system, including the senses, must of 

 necessity be considered by themselves. The tissues and mechanism 

 of reproduction naturally form the subject of the closing chapter. 







THE ELECTRIC CANDLE.' 



By ALFEED NIAUDET. 



PUBLIC attention has been directed to Jabloshkoff's system of 

 electrical lighting by the use that has been made of it at the 

 Magasins du Louvre, in illuminating a hall recently opened. During 

 the past year this invention was brought under the notice of the pub- 

 lic by a communication addressed to the Paris Academy of Sciences, 

 and by an experiment made before the Physical Society. The readers 

 of La Nature are acquainted with the usual methods of producing 

 electrical light, and we here again explain their general principles, 

 with a view to render more intelligible the comparisons we propose 

 to make. 



Two carbon-points, borne on suitable metallic supports, are ar- 

 ranged in one line, with their tips in contact. An electric current of 

 high intensity is made to pass into them; they may become heated, 

 but they will not give out light unless they be separated by a little 

 distance from each other. On separating them, by the hand or other- 

 wise, the voltaic arc appears and gives out a very strong light. This 

 light persists, provided the carbons are a few millimetres apart ; but, 



' Translated from the French by J. Fitzgerald, A. M. 



