THE ELECTRIC LIGHT. 445 



the work upon which he was engaged might be, he 

 would instantly turn aside from it to seize and realise 

 the ideas of a scientific man. He had an inventor's 

 power, and an inventor's delight in its exercise. The 

 late Mr. Becker possessed the same power in a very con- 

 siderable degree. On the Continent, Froment, Breguet, 

 Sauerwald, and others might be mentioned as eminent 

 instances of ability of this kind. Such minds resemble 

 a liquid on the point of crystallisation. Stirred by a 

 hint, crystals of constructive thought immediately shoot 

 through them. That Mr. Edison possesses this intui- 

 tive power in no common measure, is proved by what 

 he has already accomplished. He has the penetration 

 to seize the relationship of facts and principles, and 

 the art to reduce them to novel and concrete combina- 

 tions. Hence, though he has thus far accomplished 

 nothing that we can recognise as new in relation to the 

 electric light, an adverse opinion as to his ability to 

 solve the complicated problem on which he is engaged 

 would be unwarranted. 



I will endeavour to illustrate in a simple manner 

 Mr. Edison's alleged mode of electric illumination, tak- 

 ing advantage of what Ohm has taught us regarding 

 the laws of the current, and what Joule has taught us 

 regarding the relation of resistance to the development 

 of light and heat. From one end of a voltaic battery 

 runs a wire, dividing at a certain point into two 

 branches, which reunite in a single wire connected 

 with the other end of the battery. From the positive 

 end of the battery the current passes first through the 

 single wire to the point of junction, where it divides 

 itself between the branches according to a well-known 

 law. If the branches be equally resistant, the current 

 divides itself equally between them. If one branch be 

 less resistant than the other, more than half the current 



