421 



XVI. 



THE ELECTRIC LIGHT* 



THE subject of this evening's discourse was proposed 

 by our late honorary secretary. 2 That word 

 ' late ' has for me its own connotations. It implies, 

 among other things, the loss of a comrade by whose 

 side I have worked for thirteen years. On the other 

 hand, regret is not without its opposite in the feeling 

 with which I have seen him rise by sheer intrinsic 

 merit, moral and intellectual, to the highest official 

 position which it is in the power of English science to 

 bestow. Well, he, whose constant desire and practice 

 were to promote the interests and extend the usefulness 

 of this institution, thought that at a time when the 

 electric light occupied so much of public attention, a 

 few sound notions regarding it, on the more purely 

 scientific side, might, to use his own pithy expression, 

 be 'planted' in the public mind. I am here to-night 

 with the view of trying, to the best of my ability, to 

 realise the idea of our friend. 



In the year 1800, Volta announced his immortal 

 discovery of the pile. Whetted to eagerness by the 

 previous conflict between him and Galvani, the scientific 

 men of the age flung themselves with ardour upon the 

 new discovery, repeating Volta's experiments, and ex- 

 tending them in many ways. The light and heat of 



1 A discourse delivered at the Royal Institution of Great Britain 

 on Friday, January 17, 1879, and introduced here as the latest 

 Fragment. 



2 Mr. William Spottiswoode, now President of the Royal Society 



