THE ELECTRIC LIGHT. 427 



concerned. The light produced is powerful beyond 

 any other that I have yet seen so applied, and in prin- 

 ciple may be accumulated to any degree; its regularity 

 in the lantern is great; its management easy, and its 

 care there may be confided to attentive keepers of the 

 ordinary degree of intellect and knowledge.' Finally, 

 as regards the conduct of Professor Holmes during these 

 memorable experiments, it is only fair to add the fol- 

 lowing remark with which Faraday closes the report 

 submitted to the Elder Brethren of the Trinity House 

 on the 29th of April, 1859: 'I must bear my testi- 

 mony,' he says, ' to the perfect openness, candour, and 

 honour of Professor Holmes. He has answered every 

 question, concealed no weak point, explained every ap- 

 plied principle, given every reason for a change either 

 in this or that direction, during several periods of close 

 questioning, in a manner that was very agreeable to me, 

 whose duty it was to search for real faults or possible 

 objections, in respect both of the present time and the 

 future.' * 



Soon afterwards the Elder Brethren of the Trinity 

 House had the intelligent courage to establish the ma- 

 chines of Holmes permanently at Dungeness, where 

 the magneto-electric light continued to shine for many 

 years. 



The magneto-electric machine of the Alliance Com- 

 pany soon succeeded to that of Holmes, being in vari- 

 ous ways a very marked improvement on the latter. Its 

 currents were stronger and its light was brighter than 

 those of its predecessor. In it, moreover, the com- 

 mutator, the flashing and destruction of which were 

 sources of irregularity and deterioration in the machine 

 of Holmes, was, at the suggestion of M. Masson,f en- 



* Rolmcs's first offer of his machine to the Trinity House 

 bears date February 2, 1857. 



f Du Moncel, ' L'Electricite,' August, 1878, p. 150. 

 57 



