May io, 1900] 



NATURE 



43 



adoption of leadless glazes. That leadless glazes of a high 

 brilliancy, covering power and durability, and adapted to all 

 kinds of table, domestic and sanitary ware, to china furniture, 

 to tiles, insulators and electric fittings of the most varied kind, 

 are perfectly practicable, was illustrated by reference to the 

 numerous examples of leadless glazed ware which, thanks to the 

 liberality of a numler of the manufacturers, were exhibited to 

 the audience. Among them were specimens from Mintons, from 

 the Worcester Royal Porcelain Company, Burgess and Leigh, 

 Barker and Read, Bernard Moore, the Crystal Glaze Company, 

 Hawley Brothers, Defries, and others. Telegraph insulators of 

 Doulton's and Buller's make were exhibited hy the Post Office. 



Dr. Thorpe stated that leadless glazed ware was now being 

 supplied to a number of the Government Departments and to 

 certain of the London Clubs. He further stated that the 

 London School Board had resolved to insert a clause in all 

 specifications for new works strictly prohibiting the use of any 

 pottery goods involving lead glaze wherever practicable. 



The fact that the application of leadless glazes has passed 

 beyond the experimental stage is so obvious that the Secretary 

 of State now proposes to relax the Special Rules, issued by the 

 Factory Department, in regard to the pottery industry in the 

 case of factories or processes in which no compounds of lead 

 are used. 



Dr. Thorpe concluded by remarking that every intelligent 

 potter must concede that there is an ample field for investigation 

 by modern methods of attack into problems connected even 

 with the first principles of his art. The craft of the potter 

 largely depends upon the intelligent application of scientific 

 principles. Whether, however, modern science enters into it to 

 the extent that might be desired is perhaps open to question. 



There is probably no industry in the world, certainly none in 

 England, so conservative in its operations as that of the potter. 

 The best of English earthenware still enjoys, no doubt, the 

 pre-eminence which the skill and aptitude of Wedgwood and 

 his immediate followers imparted to it. The great potter was 

 fully abreast of the physical science of his day, and was quick 

 to test or take advantage of any discovery which seemed to 

 promise to be of service to his art. But perhaps it may be 

 doubted whether the spirit of Wedgwood actuates his successors 

 to the extent that might be desired. It is at least certain that 

 the exercise of this spirit, that is, the intelligent application of 

 simple chemical principles, would years ago have obviated, to 

 a large extent at least, this evil of plumbism among the pottery 

 workers. 



APPLICATIONS OF ELECTRICAL SCIENCE} 

 T FEEL very much honoured by having been placed in the 

 position I now occupy, and by having to deliver this opening 

 address to the Dublin Branch of the Institution of Electrical 

 Engineers. I believe that we are one of the first branches that 

 has developed into the meeting stage of our existence, and may 

 congratulate ourselves on having passed through our larval trans- 

 formations safely and rapidly, and on our having been the first to 

 emerge into an imago. 



The action of the parent Institution in founding these local 

 branches is worthy of our grateful commendation. We are left 

 perfectly free to develop our own life untrammelled by any rules 

 except such as we would ourselves have necessarily chosen to 

 govern our actions. We have the great advantage of being a 

 branch of a most distinguished Institution of world-wide reputa- 

 tion, and that without paying any extra subscription. I hope 

 that we will add to the life and work of that Institution, and 

 thereby promote both our own interests and the welfare of man- 

 kind. Papers and discussions here will be taken as delivered to 

 the Institution of Electrical Engineers, and, if of sufficient merit, 

 will be published in its Proceedings, thus securing to us a world- 

 wide publication, while at the same time ensuring that Ireland 

 is credited with the work done. 



The history of electricity in the nineteenth century is far too 

 large a subject for an occasion like the present one, but certain 

 aspects of this history convey valuable lessons for the future and 

 may well engage our attention in this last year of the century, 

 and may help us to lay the foundations for further advance in the 

 next. The aspect of the history of electricity during the nine- 



1 Inaugural address to the Dublin Section of the Institution of Electrical 

 Engineers, delivered by Prof. G. F. Fitzgerald, F.R.S. Abridged from the 

 Journal oi ihe Institution, April. 



NO. 1593. 



April. 

 VOL. 



teenth century to which I desire to direct your attention is an 

 object-lesson of how to apply science to further the well-being of 

 mankind. The history of any applied science might be con- 

 sidered in this aspect, but the history of applied electricity is 

 particularly appropriate for being thus considered, for several 

 reasons. The history is condensed within a few years ; the dis- 

 coveries of science have followed one another with extraordinary 

 rapidity, and within a few years after the discoveries were made 

 j they have been applied to the use of man. It is just a hundred 

 i years since Volta discovered how to make continuous electric 

 currents. Within a few years of that discovery their chemical 

 j actions were discovered and electric lights produced, both arc 

 and incandescent. Twenty years afterwards the magnetic effect 

 of an electric current was discovered by CErsted, its mathe- 

 matical theory evolved by Ampere, and the law of its intensity 

 worked out by Ohm. Some fifteen years afterwards, Faraday 

 discovered how to produce electric currents by magnetism. Im- 

 mediately after the discovery of the principle of the conservation 

 of energy it was applied to electro-magnetism, and the founda- 

 tion of our whole system of electro-magnetic measurement was 

 laid. Faraday's belief in the correlation of electricity and light, 

 following lines suggested by Lord Kelvin, was forged into a con- 

 sistent theory by Clerk Maxwell, and this theory confirmed ex- 

 perimentally by Hertz. Such, in brief, is the scientific history 

 of electro-magnetism during the expiring century, and on this 

 science practically all the applications of electricity depend. 



I may pause for an instant to consider where this theory now 

 lands us. The all- pervading ether has been realised as the 

 means of transmitting light, electricity and magnetism, and we 

 are looking forward to its properties explaining chemical actions 

 and gravitation. We are still looking for a theory of its struc- 

 ture which will give a dynamical explanation of its properties. 

 We know how to express these properties by quantities we call 

 electric and magnetic force, whose laws we know, but whose 

 laws we are, as yet, unable to explain by any structure working 

 on dynamical principles. So far as we know, the properties or 

 electric and magnetic force are explicable upon dynamical prin- 

 ciples ; so far there is no known necessity for seeking for adynami- 

 cal properties in the ether ; so far we may hope to explain 

 electro-magnetism upon the dynamical principles of Newton's 

 laws without invoking any other principles than those of force 

 and inertia, as expounded in these laws. Until, however, a 

 satisfactory theory of the nature of the ether has been actually 

 invented, there will remain some doubt as to the adequacy of 

 these fundamental dynamical laws to explain all its properties. 

 The direction in which it is most probable that an explanation 

 will be found is in the hypothesis that the ether is of the nature 

 of a perfect liquid full of the most energetic motion. We know 

 that a gas consists of separate molecules in intensely energetic 

 irregular motion. I expect that the ether is a perfect liquid in 

 intensely energetic irregular motion : much more rapid than that 

 of any gas : with a rapidity of internal motion comparable with 

 the speed of light : maybe with enough energy in each cubic 

 centimetre to keep hundreds of horse-power going for a year, if 

 only we could get at it. So far as this hypothesis has been 

 worked at there seems nothing impossible about it, but, on the 

 contrary, much possibility in it, and, to my mind, its inherent 

 simplicity confers on it a great probability. 



Be that as it may, we now know that in the electric lighting 

 of our cities, in electric tramways and railways, in electric 

 furnaces and electrolytic vats, and in the other innumerable 

 applications of electricity, we are harnessing the all-pervading 

 ether to the chariot of human progress, and using the thunder- 

 bolt of Jove to advance the material welfare of mankind. 



Having thus shortly considered the progress of electrical 

 science, the history of the applications of electricity may be 

 thus summarised. Shortly after Girsted discovered the magnetic 

 effect of an electric current this discovery was applied to 

 telegraphy, and Faraday's discovery of how to generate electric 

 currents by magnetism was almost immediately applied to the 

 same use. Telegraphy developed rapidly, and many subsequent 

 discoveries were due to the observations made in the practical 

 application of electricity to telegraphy. This has been develop- 

 ing ever since, accumulating knowledge and applying the 

 accumulations to produce more knowledge and more applica- 

 tions, till all this has resulted in the perfection of the multiplex 

 telegraph and the wonders of the telephone and wireless 

 telegraphy. No other department of applied electricity has had 

 such a continuous development, hardly any interval elapsing 

 between discovery and application in its case, while in almost 



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