TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION G. 879 



the purest of potable waters, and thereby rendering the sailor independent of fresh- 

 water storage. 



With respect to the application by the engineer of electrical science, it is within 

 the present generation that electricity has passed from the state of a somewhat 

 neglected scientific abstraction into practical use : first, by the establishment of the 

 land telegraph, then by the development into the submarine cable, by means of 

 which any one of us visitors here in Canada may be in instant communication with 

 his own country, and may be so without a selfish exclusive occupation of the cable, 

 for once more the application of science has solved that apparently impossible pro- 

 blem of employing a single wire to be at one and the same time the transmitter 

 of multiple electric messages, and messages in opposite directions. Then, thanks to 

 the application of Faraday's great discovery of induced electricity, there has been, 

 during the last quarter of a century, the progressive development of the dynamo- 

 machine, whereby the energy of ordinary motors, such as steam engines, is converted 

 into electrical energy, competent to deposit metals, to (as has already been said) fuse 

 them, to light not only isolated buildings, but extensive areas of towns and 

 cities, and to transmit power to a distance, whether for manufacturing purposes 

 or for the railway or tramcar ; and thus the miracle is performed of converting a 

 waterfall into a source of light, as at Sir William Armstrong's house, or into the 

 origin of power for a railway, as at the Giant's Causeway. To the application of 

 electrical science is due the self-exciting of the dynamos and the construction of 

 secondary batteries, enabling a development of electricity to be continued for many 

 hours. In the United Kingdom, general electric-lighting, that is to say, the light- 

 ing of large sections of a town from a central station, has been stopped by the 

 most unwise, because most unjust, conditions imposed by the Government General 

 Electric Lighting Act of 188:2. A new and meritorious industry, which should 

 have been granted the same privileges as are accorded to other industrial under- 

 takings needing Parliamentary powers, was subjected to this most unjust condition: 

 that at the end of twenty-one years the public authority of the town or place 

 lighted should have the option of buying the undertaking for the then value of the 

 mere materials, and that if the authority did not choose to purchase (for it was not 

 bound to buy), at every subsequent five-year period this option should re-arise ; 

 that is to say, that a new undertaking, which would require years for its o-eneral 

 acceptance (for the public is slow to take up a novelty), was, after the experimental 

 and non-paying stage had been passed, to be practically forthwith taken away for 

 a mere fraction of the capital that had been outlaid if the undertaking paid, but 

 was not to be taken away if it did not pay. Such, in spite of the teaching of 

 Section F, is the condition to which our Government has arrived in respect of 

 economic science. The next electrical matter I have to touch upon, that of the 

 telephone and microphone, with which will for ever be associated the names of 

 Graham-Bell, Edison and Hughes, has, as regards the public use of the telephone, 

 been all but similarly treated in the United Kingdom. It has been declared to be 

 within the telegraphic monopoly given by Parliament to the Post Office nine years 

 before the telephone was invented, and the power to use it depends entirely upon 

 the grace and favour of the Post Office, a grace and favour not always accorded ; 

 and even when accorded, coupled with limitations as to distance, and coupled with 

 a condition of payment of 10 per cent, of the gross receipts by the companies to 

 the Post Office as a royalty ; and all this because Government has become a trader in 

 electrical intelligence, and fears the competition of the telephone with its telegraphs. 



No one in the ship-loving countries of England, Canada, and the United°States 

 can refrain from feeling the warmest interest in all connected with navigation, and 

 we know h<>w frequently, alas! the prosperous voyage across the wide and fathom- 

 less ocean ends in shipwreck and disaster when the wished- for shore is approached, 

 and when the sea is comparatively .shallow. Except for the chance of collision, 

 there is in a staunch ship little danger in the open ocean, but on nearing the shore, 

 not only is the liability to collision increased, but shoals and sunken rocks render 

 navigation perilous, and it is on the excellence of the lighthouses and lightships 

 that (coupled with soundings) the sailor relies. These structures and appliances 

 are confided to the engineer, and to be efficient they require him to be able to 



