-14 POPULAR LECTL^RKS AND ADDRESSES. 



system of definite measurement into the working 

 of the electric telegraph are due not solely per- 

 haps not even in chief to the application of 

 Gauss's system, but to the introduction of very 

 accurate and definite standards of resistance and 

 means of reproducing those standards should the 

 originals be lost. The benefit of putting the 

 practical standards into relation with the science 

 of Gauss and Weber has been set forth in the 

 successive reports of the Committee of the British 

 'ciation on electric measurement, and is well 

 known, I believe, to most of the members of the 

 Society of Telegraph Engineers. 



But what I wish to say now is that theoretical 

 science has gained great reflected benefit from the 

 introduction of accurate measurement of resistance 

 into practical telegraph)-. 



I' <>r many years measurements were performed 

 in the office of the telegraphic factory, and at the 

 station-house of the telegraphic wire, the means of 

 doing which, perhaps I might even say the 

 principles on which those measurements were con- 

 ducted, being still unknown throughout the scien- 



