XVI 



THE ELECTRIC LIGHT ' 



^T^HE subject of this evening's discourse was proposed 

 by our late honorary secretary. 8 That word "late" 

 has for me its own connotations. It implies, 

 among other things, the loss of a comrade by whose side 

 I have worked for thirteen years. On the other hand, re- 

 gret is not without its opposite in the feeling with which 

 I have seen him rise by sheer intrinsic merit, moral and 

 intellectual, to the highest official position which it is in 

 the power of English science to bestow. Well, he, whose 

 constant desire and practice were to promote the interests 

 and extend the usefulness of this Institution, thought that 

 at a time when the electric light occupied so much of 

 public attention, a few sound notions regarding it, on the 

 more purely scientific side, might, to use his own pithy 

 expression, be " plan ted" in the public mind. I am here 

 to-night with the view of trying, to the best of my abil- 

 ity, to realize the idea of our friend. 



In the year 1800, Volta announced his immortal dis- 

 covery of the pile. Whetted to eagerness by the previous 

 conflict between him and Gralvani, the scientific men of 

 the age flung themselves with ardor upon the new disco v- 



1 A Discourse delivered at the Royal Institution of Great Britain on Friday, 

 January 17, 1879, and introduced here as the latest Fragment. 



* Mr. William Spottiswoode, late President of the Royal Society. 

 (440) 



