10 REPORT—1890. 
tion in the prosecution of purely scientific inquiries. Most assuredly, both 
these classes of the world’s benefactors may with equal right lay claim to 
rank the name of Siemens among those whom they count most illustrious ! 
In that highly interesting and valuable Address, delivered little more 
than a year before his sudden untimely removal from among us, the 
numerous important subjects discussed by him included not a few which 
he had made peculiarly his own in the wide range embraced by his 
enviable power of combining scientific research with practical work. 
Prominent among these were the applications of electric energy to 
lighting and heating purposes, and to the transmission of power, to the 
subsequent development of which his personal labours very greatly con- 
tributed. 
Siemens referred to the passing of the first Electric Lighting Bill, in the 
year of his Presidency, as being designed to facilitate the establishment of 
electric installations in towns ; but the anxiety of the Government of that 
day to protect the interests of the public through local authorities led to the 
assignment of such power to these over the property of lighting companies, 
that the utilisation of electric lighting was actually delayed for a time by 
those legislative measures. There can now be no doubt, however, that this 
delay has really been in the interests of intending suppliers and of users 
of the electric light, as having afforded time for the further development 
of practical details, connected with generation and distribution, which 
was vital to the attainment of a fair measure of initial success. The sub- 
sequent important modification of legislation on the subject of electric 
lighting, together with the practical realisation of comparatively 
economical methods of distribution, the establishment of fairly equi- 
table arrangements between the public and the lighting companies, 
and the apportionment, so far as the metropolis is concerned, of distinct 
areas of operation to different competing companies, have combined to 
place electric lighting in this country at length upon some approach 
to a really sound footing, and to give the required impetus to its exten- 
sive development. Nine companies either are now, or will very shortly 
be, actually at work supplying, from central stations, districts of London 
comprising almost the entire western and north-western portions of 
the metropolis. As regards other parts of England, there are already 
twenty-seven lighting stations actually at work in different towns, besides 
others in course of establishment, and many more projected. The town 
of Leeds has not failed to give serious attention to the subject of utilising 
the electric light, and, although no general scheme has yet been adopted, 
the electricians who now visit this town will rejoice to see many of its 
public buildings provided with efficient electric illumination. 
While the prediction made by Siemens, eight years ago, that electric 
lighting must take its place with us as a public illuminant, has thus been 
already, in a measure, fulfilled, important progress is being continuously 
made by the practical electrician in developing and perfecting the arrange- 
