WILLIAM .S/AM/A.V.s, l-.R.S. 247 



said that light was nothing but heat of the intensest kind. In 

 order to have the greater number of light rays over heat rays 

 emanating from a centre, it was necessary that the temperature- 

 should be raised to the utmost attainable point ; even in the 

 electric arc, then burning in the lamp before them, probably nine- 

 tenths of the rays emanating from that centre were not luminous, 

 but heat rays, otherwise, even with the lamp so far removed, they 

 would not be able to bear the light. Although he believed that 

 divided lights would IKS very largely used, and with great effect, 

 whore centralised light was not applicable, yet it might well be 

 argued from a priori reasoning that a central light must be always 

 more economical than a divided light. With regard to his own 

 experiments, mentioned by Mr. Preece, he had carried them on 

 since last year for the purpose of promoting the growth of plants 

 by the electric arc, with the object, not so much of ripening straw- 

 berries and cucumbers sooner than his neighbours, but of ascertain- 

 ing to what extent it was possible to produce rays capable of acting 

 in substitution for solar rays, and also to what extent plants could 

 be accustomed to bear this agency without intermission. He hoped 

 to be able to lay further results before the scientific societies before 

 long. One point of interest was the fact that the steam-engine he 

 employed to produce the electric light at night, afterwards yielded, 

 through condensation of the waste steam, the heat for the green- 

 houses, so that the electric light did not add materially to his coal 

 consumption. Having to keep a fire under the boiler day and 

 night, he thought it a good opportunity for utilising the steam 

 power during the daytime, and he had done so by means of lead- 

 ing wires from the dynamo machine, to another similar machine 

 at the farmstead working a chaff-cutter, to another for working a 

 pumping engine nearly half a mile distant, and to a saw-bench in 

 another direction ; so that while doing its work near the green- 

 houses, the engine was also cutting chaff and wood in one direc- 

 tion, and pumping water in another, and he hoped yet to make it 

 available for ploughing the land also. Those facts showed that 

 this mode of energy was extremely pliable, and could with great 

 ease be made available at a distance. It is also important to 

 remark that no other electrician was employed to keep the appa- 

 ratus in order than the head gardener, without certainly any 

 special training for this work. 



