Presidential Address. — Section C 349 



present railwaxs. it is inereh a question of providing the motor 

 carriages. A train that can equally well take a thousand passengers 

 as fifty seems just to meet the problem of dealing with congeste 1 

 traffic at certain times of the day, and a limited number of [)assenger.s 

 for the rest of the day. For Tubes and Metropolitan Railways where 

 the traffic is so great throughout the whole of the day that it requires 

 a train, sav. everv three minutes all dav long to accommodate it. 

 electrical working is the cheapest, but it is quite probable that where 

 a less frequent service during most of the day will meet the wants 

 of the public, and there is merely a congestion at certain times, the 

 aiUomol)ile may prove the most economical. In a new country 

 electricitv is readily adopted. It is forttuiate for us, perhaps, that 

 electricity has advanced as it has. and reached the stage of standard- 

 ization in dvnamos. transformers, and cables. l)efore we were ready 

 to lake advantage of it to anv extent. In electric lighting some 

 ec<jnomv ma\ result from the '"Cooper Hewitt" lamp, which gives 

 an efficiency of al)out three candles per watt, but this light at pre- 

 sent is of too ghastly a colour to l)e popular. If you look at your 

 neighbour by it. vou .see onlv dingy, yellow, and dirty purjile in the 

 complexion. It is a long glass vacuum tube about 5 feet long and an 

 inch in diameter, with a bulb of mercury in the bottom. The electric 

 current passing through gives out this light bv the radiation of the 

 merctirv vajjotir. Xo doul)t some method of impro\ing ihe colour 

 of this light will be found. Acetylene will under certain conditions 

 be fotmd to be cheaper than electric light, and it is claimed for 

 Kiisons new j^ietroleum incadescent lamj) that streets can be 

 lighted bv it at one-fourth the price of electric light. The electric 

 furnace is tiseful for melting glass, and jiossiblv .silica for optical and 

 laboratorv purposes. In the electric furnace the temperature is 

 limiteil only by the volatilization of the electrodes, that is to say, 

 temijeratures. and con.sequently chemical actions are possible in the 

 electric furnace which cannot otherwise Ije attained. Here, too, we 

 are only on the threshold, so to speak. M. Harmet. Manager of the 

 St. Etienne Iron and Steel Works, has designed an electri<' furnace 

 for producing fniis.hed steel from raw iron ore. This furnace con- 

 sists, first, of a calcinator. in which the oxides or other matters 

 charged in the raw are dried, roasted, and calcined ; secondly, a 

 reducer, in which is effected the reduction of the oxides : and thirdlv, 

 the regulator where the metal which comes liquid from the reducer 

 is finished. M. Harmet claims to make a saving of i6s. 8d. per ton 

 b\ his ]irocess. 



In various parts of South Africa there are great possibilities of 

 utilizing the water-power of falls, notably at the Victoria Falls on the 

 Zambesi, one of the sights of the world which has not been visited 

 bv more than 200 white peojile since the world began. The supply 

 of water-power throughfmt the world is almo.st ahvavs greater than the 

 demand. At Niagara I believe only 1 10.000 h.p. are utilized out of 

 4^ millions available. At Victoria Falls, with perhaps double the 

 horse-power of Niagara, it mav be a long time before we use ar. 

 much. The advantages of water-power are its cheapness and its 



