Stewart. — Address. 7 



directly in a primary battery as zinc is, a saving of fuel cf 

 about 75 per cent, would result. With a prize like this in 

 prospect we cannot wonder that for many years a primary 

 carbon battery has been the dream of electrical inventors. 

 But, although thermo cells of several kinds are known, we 

 are practically no nearer the realisation, and I very much fear 

 that we shall never see the boilers of an Atlantic liner 

 replaced by electric batteries, into which a few stokers 

 working in a cool and pleasant atmosphere will shovel 

 one-seventh of the coal now required by steam. The diffi- 

 culties attending the practical application of such batteries 

 would be enormous, and may be clearly conceived by sup- 

 posing zinc to be as plentiful and cheap as coal, and to 

 form the fuel, in fact, as we would like to see carbon. We 

 have only to imagine the number, dimensions, and arrange- 

 ment of cells, each of a pressure of about one volt, which 

 would have to be grouped and arranged in serried masses to 

 give out from 15,000 to 30,000 horse power. No ; I am more 

 than doubtful of the utility, for marine purposes at all events, 

 of the primary carbon battery, even if it does become a fact. 



In electric traction the last decade of the century has 

 furnished probably the greatest revolution ever witnessed in 

 the realm of applied science, although so far as Great Britain 

 and the Continent of Europe are concerned it has only just 

 commenced. There are many reasons for this great success, 

 but I have no intention of entering into them in detail at this 

 time. I hope that before our meeting next year on a similar 

 occasion to the present we shall have a practical illustration 

 of electric traction in our midst. The scale on which it is 

 being installed in America is immense. The New York 

 elevated street railway is now being transformed from a loco- 

 motive to an electric system, and the traffic with which it has 

 to cope may be imagined when the record of two consecutive 

 days' work is looked at. On these days 1,700,000 passengers 

 were carried. During the heaviest rush of traffic 280 trains, 

 or 1,280 cars, were run per hour, and during twenty-four 

 hours 4,820 trains were despatched on the various sections. 

 The electric power on this system, when the installation at 

 present in progress is complete, is stated to be eight units of 

 8,000-horse power, or a total of 61,000-horse power. In 

 London the work of transformation of the metropolitan 

 and metropolitan district railways is in progress, and 

 it will be a welcome change from the smoky dungeon- 

 looking holes they are now to the white walls and clear air 

 they will in a short time present to a vastly increased traffic. 

 While on the question of electric traction it may be men- 

 tioned that a discussion has arisen in all sincerity respecting 

 the possibility of replacing locomotive traction on railways in 



