.S7A 1 U7//./.J.V S/EMENS, F.K.S. 369 



practical future, as a means of transmitting power to a distance, 

 these views were still looked upon as more or less chimerical. A 

 few striking examples of what could be practically effected by the 

 dynamo-electric current, such as the illumination of the Place de 

 1'Opera, Paris, the occasional exhibition of powerful arc lights, and 

 their adoption for military and lighthouse purposes, but especially 

 tin 1 gradual accomplishment of the much desired lamp by incan- 

 descence in vacuum, gave rise to a somewhat sudden reversion of 

 public feeling ; and you may remember the scare at the Stock 

 Exchange, affecting the value of gas shares, which ensued in 1878, 

 when the accomplishment of the sub-division of the electric light 

 by incandescent wire was first announced, somewhat prematurely, 

 through the Atlantic cable. 



From this time forward electric lighting has been attracting 

 more and more public attention, until the brilliant displays at the 

 exhibition of Paris, and at the Crystal Palace last year, served to 

 excite public interest, to an extraordinary degree. New companies 

 for the purpose of introducing electric light and power have been 

 announced almost daily, whose claims to public attention as in- 

 vestments were based in some cases upon only very slight modifi- 

 cations of well-known forms of dynamo-machines, of arc regulators 

 or of incandescent carbon lights, the merits of which rested rather 

 upon anticipations than upon any scientific or practical proof. 

 These arrangements were supposed to be of such superlative merit 

 that gas and other illuminants must soon be matters simply of 

 history, and hence arose great speculative excitement. It should 

 be borne in mind, however, that any great technical advance is 

 necessarily the work of time and serious labour, and that when 

 accomplished, it is generally found that, so far from injuring ex- 

 isting industries, it calls additional ones into existence, to supply 

 new demands, and thus gives rise to an increase in the sum total 

 of our resources. It is, therefore, reasonable to expect that, side 

 by side with the introduction of the new illumiuant, gas lighting 

 will go on improving and extending, although the advantages of 

 electric light for many applications, such as the lighting of public 

 halls and warehouses, of our drawing-rooms and dining-rooms and 

 passenger steamers, our docks and harbours, are so evident, that 

 its advent may be looked upon as a matter of certainty. 



Our Legislature has not been slow in recognising the importance 



VOL. III. B B 



