224 * THE ADDRESSES, LECTURES, ETC., OF 



smaller machine as a motor for working the lathes and other tools 

 at his experimental workshop during the daytime, while re- 

 serving the faculty of lighting his principal apartments in the 

 evening. 



This practical illustration of the power of the electrical con- 

 ductor serves to show the possibility of application upon a large 

 scale such as I have ventured to suggest. A true comparison 

 between the cost of the electric current and its rival, gas, cannot 

 be instituted until central motor stations are established in populous 

 districts, where steam may be produced at the cheap rate of 2\ Ibs. of 

 coal per horse-power per hour, and whence radial conductors may 

 supply the neighbourhood within, say, a mile radius, with both 

 light and also with mechanical power for minor industrial pur- 

 poses. The realisation of such a system involves the means of 

 subdividing the electric current to a certain extent, a problem which 

 offers no insuperable difficulties when continuous currents are 

 used instead of the reversing currents which have hitherto been 

 mostly resorted to for street lighting. 



I do not quite follow Captain Bucknill in his argument that my 

 plan of street illumination (by means of comparatively powerful 

 lights placed 100 yards apart at a considerable height under 

 metallic reflectors) involved comparatively long metallic conduc- 

 tors, which must result in loss of effect, for the mere raising of the 

 light does not constitute a material increase in the length of the 

 conductor, whereas -it is well known that working with reversed 

 currents, and the shading of the electric light when placed in the 

 line of ordinary vision by semi-transparent glass globes cut off 

 between 60 and 70 per cent, of the effect. It is, moreover, well 

 known that in order to produce the electric light cheaply it should 

 be effected in as concentrated a form as possible, the reason being 

 that the light increases in the square ratio of the current pro- 

 ducing it. The same reasoning points to the fact that extreme 

 subdivision of the light for domestic purposes must be attended 

 with great loss of effect, which loss is vastly increased if it 

 is attempted to dispense with the electric arc and subdivide the 

 mere glow of a wire of platinum or iridium or of a stick of carbon 

 traversed by the current. 



We have to be careful not to attempt to purchase our practical 

 results at the expense of principles in nature which will soon 



