^52 



NATURE 



[June 13, 1889 



or pinkish glow. Dr. Howard found some hailstones that were 

 cylindrical in form ; those that I found were approximately round 

 but for the sharp edges of crystalline structure. Mr. B. Davies 

 measured oneand found it to be 3'5 centimetres in diameter. All 

 the large stones that I found showed the same construction ; in every 

 one there was the same frilled appearance of an internal surface : 

 this was also observed by Mr. B. Davies. 



Edward E Robinson. 

 Physical Laboratory, University College, Liverpool. 



THE SUBDIVISION OF THE ELECTRIC 

 LIGHT 



TEN years ago the subdivision of the electric light was 

 the burning question of the day. Again it has been 

 revived, but the present subdivision is a legal and not an 

 electrical problem. 



The public interest in electricity roused by the sensa- 

 tional telegrams about Edison's work in 1878-79, and by 

 the wonders seen at the Paris Electrical Exhibition in 1 88 1 , 

 as well as at the Exhibition at the Crystal Palace in the 

 following year, made people reflect that the electric light- 

 ing of our streets and houses might breed a monster as 

 tyrannical as the water companies ; consequently, paternal 

 legislation passed an ill-considered Bill, the " Electric 

 Lighting Act of 1882," to curb electrical rcpaciousness. 



But had our law-givers paid attention to what was 

 taking place in the City, and had they also possessed some 

 acquaintance with the difficulties connected with the 

 problem of electric distribution, they would have seen 

 that it was on the Stock Exchange that the devouring 

 electric Hydra was rampant, and that the general supply 

 of electricity was in 1882 but a weak puny infant, which 

 would require the most tender care to enable it to reach 

 boyhood. Instead, however, of fostering the babe, the 

 framers of the Act of 1882 showed their absolute ignor- 

 ance of the way in which a new industry grows up, by 

 introducing a clause which specified that at the end 

 of twenty-one years the local authority might take over 

 any installation for electrically lighting a district on paying 

 the simple market value of the land and plant w-ithout 

 giving anything for good-will. In view of the improve- 

 ments in electrical machinery that might be expected to 

 take place in twenty-one years, it might have been anti- 

 cipated that before the end of this period the dynamos and 

 other apparatus might very properly have been replaced 

 twice over, in each case more efficient apparatus being 

 substituted for less perfect; but the local authorities were 

 still to be empowered to step in, to disregard all that had 

 been done in building up a good business, and purchase 

 the whole as a going concern for the mere market value of 

 the land and plant. Hence the progress of electric light- 

 ing in England was strangled at its birth, while vast sums 

 were squandered on the legalized gambling of the Stock 

 Exchange, the public being unmercifully fleeced, and then 

 left without electric lighting or belief in it. 



This instance of paternal legislation was but a repeti- 

 tion of the one-sided Act passed to remedy the extortion 

 that sometimes accompanied the operation of bills of sale. 

 In this case the interests of the borrower were alone pre- 

 sent in the minds of the framers of the Act, and they quite 

 forgot that by making the recovery of debts on bills of 

 sale very difficult they would introduce a new and even 

 greater hardship, by making the borrowing of money on 

 bills of sale frequently impossible. 



This bone of contention, the Electric Lighting Act of 

 1882, was steadily snarled over and growled at, until last 

 year the two Houses of Parliament saw fit to swallow a 

 new Act, which, by extending the period of compulsory 

 purchase to forty-two years, and by recognizing that the 

 development of an electric light installation might repre- 

 sent something much more valuable than the market^ 

 value of the land and plant, has at last made the general 

 distribution of the electric current commercially possible. 



But in the meantime, over a vast area extending from 

 Regent's Park on the north to the Thames on the south, 

 from the Law Courts on the east to Park Lane on the 

 west, some thousands of electric lamps had been dotted, 

 all fed from one central station in the basement under the 

 restaurant of the Grosvenor Gallery in Bond Street. And 

 to avoid the difficulties that would be introduced by the 

 clauses in the 1882 Electric Lighting Act, if the streets 

 were broken up and the wires put underground, the 

 London Electric Supply Corporation, to whom the 

 Grosvenor Gallery installation belongs, erected their 

 cables, some 50 miles in length, over the tops of the 

 houses. Hence, the legislation that was intended to avoid 

 a vested interest being acquired in street conduits has 

 forced the erection on the house-tops of a network of high- 

 pressure mains which have now to be specially legislated 

 for. 



The productive capacity of the Grosvenor Gallery plant 

 having been fully reached, while applications to supply 

 current for thousands of incandescent lamps had to be 

 shelved for want of means of generating the necessary 

 current, the London Electric Supply Association com- 

 menced the erection of a vast station on the banks of the 

 Thames at Deptford for the supply of current for some 

 millions of incandescent lamps ; and it has been mainly 

 due to the application on the part of the company to 

 obtain powers to run their wires along twenty-seven rail- 

 ways and tramways, and through thirty parishes, that the 

 recent inquiry by the Board of Trade, lasting from April 

 3 to May I, has been held to examine into the whole 

 question of the electric lighting of London. The result of 

 this inquiry is contained in a long Report that has just 

 been submitted to the Secretary of the Railway Depart- 

 ment of the Board of Trade by Major Marindin, this 

 Report being agreed to by Major Cardew. 



Eight companies— viz. the Chelsea Electricity Supply 

 Company, the Electrical Power Storage Company, the 

 House to House Electric Light Supply Company, the 

 Kensington and Knightsbridge Electric Lighting Com- 

 pany, the London Electric Supply Corporation, the 

 Metropolitan Electric Supply Company, the Notting Hill 

 Electric Lighting Company, and the Westminster Elec- 

 tric Supply Corporation— applied for thirteen provisional 

 orders and two licenses. A license is a permission 

 granted for seven years, but it is renewable at the end of 

 this period. The Board of Trade, however, can only 

 grant a license when the consent of the local authority 

 has been previously obtained. A provisional order, on 

 the other hand, requires no consent of the local authority 

 of the district, and is granted for a period of forty-two 

 years. After a provisional order has been approved of by 

 the Board cf Trade, it requires to be confirmed by a Bill 

 in Parliament before it can come into force. Neither the 

 license nor the provisional order when granted is exclusive 

 or creates any monopoly. 



The first point considered in Major Marindin's Report 

 is the systems of supply proposed to be used by the 

 various companies applying for powers. They may be 

 divided into a supply by direct current, and a supply by 

 alternate current. The direct supply by means of con- 

 tinuous currents is dealt with under three heads :—(<2) 

 The system adopted by the Chelsea Company— viz. the 

 use of one generating station for a considerable area, sup- 

 plying current to charge several accumulator stations at 

 different points within the area of supply with a pressure of 

 from 1000 to 2COO volts, each station having a duplicate set 

 of accumulators. The supply mains leading from these 

 accumulator stations are intended to carry the current 

 directly into the houses at a pressure of 100 volts, the supply 

 being entirely from the accumulators. This is the system 

 of transformation that was originally suggested by Sir 

 William Thomson at the meeting of the British Associa- 

 tion at York, {b) The system adopted by the Kensington 

 ?nd Knightsbridge Company, which is at the present 



