ELECTRIC LIGHTING. 125 



outer crust had consolidated but the inner portion still 

 remained liqaid. Many of these are large enough, and suffi- 

 ciently well-marked, to be visible from a railway carriage 

 passing a cinder heap near the road.* 



CHAPTER XIX. 



A CONTRIBUTION TO THE HISTORY OF ELECTRIC LIGHTING. 



As the subject of lighting by electricity is occupying so 

 much public attention, and the merits of various inventors and 

 inventions are so keenly discussed, the following facts may have 

 some historical interest in connection with it. 



In October, 1845, I was consulted by some American gentle- 

 men concerning the construction of a large voltaic battery for 

 experimenting upon an invention, afterward described and 

 published in the specification of " King's Patent Electric Light" 

 (Letters Patent granted for Scotland, November 26th, 1845 ; 

 enrolled March 25th, 1840 ; English Patent sealed November 

 4th, 1845). 



Mr. King was not the inventor, but he and Mr. Dorr supplied 

 capital, and Mr. Snyder also held a share, which was after- 

 ward transferred to myself. The inventor was Mr. Starr, a 

 young man about twenty-five years of age, and one of the 

 ablest experimental investigators with whom I have ever had 

 the privilege of near acquaintance. 



He had been working for some years on the subject, com- 

 mencing with the ordinary arc between charcoal points. His 

 first efforts were directed to maintaining constancy, and he 

 showed me, in January of 1846, an arrangement by which he 

 succeeded in effecting an automatic renewal of contact by 

 means of an electro-magnet, the armature of which received 

 the electric flow, when the arc was broken, and which thus 

 magnetized brought the carbons together and then allowed 

 them to be withdrawn to their required separation, when the 

 flow returned. This device was almost identical with that 

 subsequently reinvented and patented by Mr. Staite (quite 



* See chapter on ' ' The Origin of Lunar Volcanoes. ' ' 



