782 EEPORT— 1888. 



AVe have not yet .acquired that mental confidence in the accuracy of the laws 

 that guide our procedure in protecting; buUding-s from the effects of atmospheric 

 electrical discharges which characterises most of the practical applications of elec- 

 tricity. Some of our cherished principles have only very recently received a rough 

 shaking from the lips of Professor Oliver Lodge, F.R.S., who, however, has sup- 

 ported his brilliant experiments by rather fanciful speculation, and whose revolu- 

 tionary conclusions are scarcely the logical deduction irom his novel premises. The 

 whole subject is going to be thoroughly discussed at this meeting. 



We are now obtaining much valuable information about the nature of lightning 

 from photography. We learn that it does not, as a rule, take that zigzag course 

 conventionally used to represent a flash on canvas. Its course is much more erratic 

 and sinuous, its construction more complicated, and pictures have been obtained of 

 dark flashes whose raison d'etre has not yet been satisfactorily accounted for. The 

 network of telegraph wires aU over the country is peculiarly subject to the effects 

 of atmospheric electricity, but we have completely mastered the vagaries of 

 lightning discharges in our apparatus and cables. Accidents are now very few 

 and far between. 



The art of transmitting intelligence to a distance beyond the reach of the ear 

 and the eye, by the instantaneous effects of electricity, had been the dream of the 

 philosopher for nearly a century, when in 18.37 it was rendered a practical success 

 by the commercial and fiir-sighted energy of Cooke, and the scientific knowledge 

 and inventive genius of Wheatstone. The metallic arc of Galvani (1790) and 

 the developments of Volta (1796) had been so far improved that currents could be 

 generated of any strength, the law of Ohm (1828) had shown how they could be 

 transmitted to any distances, the deflection of the magnetic needle by Oersted in 

 1819, and the formation of an electro-magnet by Ampere and Sturgeon, and the 

 attraction of its armature had indicated how those currents could be rendered 

 visible as well as audible. 



Cooke and Wheatstone in 1837 utilised the deflection of the needle to the right 

 and the left to form an alphabet. 3Iorse used the attraction of the armature of an 

 electro-magnet to raise a metal style to impress or emboss moving paper with 

 visible dots and dashes. Steinheil imprinted dots in ink on the different sides of 

 a line on paper, and also struck two bells of different sound to affect the ear. 

 Breguet reproduced in miniature the actual movements of the semaphore then so 

 much in use in France ; while others rendered practical the favourite idea of 

 moving an indicator around a dial, on which the alphabet and the numerals were 

 printed, and causing it to dwell against the symbol to be read — the A, B, C instru- 

 ment of Wheatstone in England, and of Siemens in Germany. Wheatstone 

 conceived the notion of printing the actual letters of the alphabet in bold Roman 

 type on paper — a plan which was made a perfect success by Hughes in 1854. 



At the present moment the needle system of Cooke and Wheatstone, as well as 

 the A, B, C dial telegraph, are very largely used in England on our railways and 

 in our smaller post offices. The Morse recorder and the Hughes type-printer are 

 universally used on the Continent ; while in America the dot and dash alphabet of 

 Morse is impressed on the consciousness through the ear by the sound of the 

 moving armature striking against the stops that limit its motion. In our larger 

 and busier offices the Morse sounder and the bell system, as perfected by Bright, 

 are largely used, while the press of this country is supplied with news which is 

 recorded on paper by ink dots and dashes at a speed that is almost fabulous. 



Sir AYilliam Thomson's mirror — the most delicate form of the needle system — 

 where the vibratory motions of an imponderable ray of light convey words to the 

 reader, and his recorder, where the wavy motion of a line of ink spirted on paper 

 by the frictionless repulsion of electricity performs the same function, are exclu- 

 sively employed on our long submarine cables. 



Bakewell in 1848 showed how it was possible to reproduce facsimiles of hand- 

 writing and of drawing at a distance, and in 1879 E. A. Cowper reproduced one's 

 own handwriting, the moving pen at one station so controlling the currents flow- 

 ing on the line wire that they caused a similar pen to make similar motions at the 

 other distant station. Neither of these plans, the former beautifully developed by 



