1912] on Electrkity Sv.pply : Past, Present and Future. 



43?. 



time to time. There was also some experimental lighting at Alnwick 

 Castle in December 1S80 and in March ISSl, and, by the kindness of 

 the Duke of Northumberland, one of the early Swan lamps tliat 

 was employed on these occasions is shown. The experiments were 

 abandoned owing to a fusing of the wires having set the Castle 

 on fire. Further, by June 18S1 Lord Kelvin, as we learn from 

 a letter from him to Sir William Preece, had lighted his house in 

 Clasgow, and by the end of that year he had 106 85-volt IG-c.p. 

 lamps in his house, and soon after twelve more in his laboratory, 

 fifty-two in his class-room, and ten in the Senate Room of the Uni- 

 versity. These were supplied by means of a dynamo and gas-engine 

 working in conjunction with a Faure storage battery — probably the 



Pig. 1. 



-Electricity Supply System, peom Lane Fox's Patent 

 Specification of 1878. 



first instance of the use of accunmlators for such a purpose in the 

 country. 



In 1881 was held, in Paris, the first Electrical Exhibition, and 

 from that exhibition electric ligliting, as we now know it, may be said 

 practically to date. Not only was there a large exhibition of the 

 newest and largest plants for generating electricity, together with 

 many and ingenious forms of arc lamps, but there were shown on 

 a large scale, for the first time, the incandescent lamps of Swan, 

 Edison, liane Fox, Maxim, and others, and also, the first example 

 of an electric tramway, laid down experimentally in the Place de 

 la Concorde by Messrs. Siemens. To many, including the present 

 writer, that exhibition proved an inspiration. Sir William Preece 

 became the apostle, or perhaps rather the major prophet, of the 



