ADDRESS. No: 
_ealeulated upon data arrived at by Dr. John Hopkinson and by himself, 
amounted at the outside to 88 per cent. of the total energy. Subsea 
~ eareful researches by the Brothers Hopkinson have demonstrated that 
the actual loss is now far less than it was computed at in 1885; as 
much as 87 per cent. of the total energy transmitted being realisable 
at a distance, provided there be no loss in the connecting leads used. 
The Paris Electric Exhibition of 1881 already afforded interesting 
illustrations of the performance of a variety of work by power electrically 
transmitted, including a short line of railway constructed by the firm of 
Siemens, which was a further development of the successful result already 
attained in Berlin by Werner Siemens in the same direction, and was, in 
its turn, surpassed by the considerably longer line worked by Messrs. 
Siemens at the Vienna Exhibition two years later. Various short lines 
which have since then been established by the firm of Siemens are well 
known, and one of the latest public acts in the valuable life of William 
Siemens was to assist at the opening of the electric tramway at Portrush, 
in the installation of which he took an active part, and where the idea, so 
firmly rooted in his mind from the date of his visit to the Falls of N lagara 
in 1876, of utilising water-power for electrical transmission—a result first 
achieved on a small scale by Lord Armstrong—was more practically 
ealised than had yet been thecase. Since that time Ireland has witnessed 
a further application of electricity to traction purposes, and of water-power 
to the provision of the required energy, in the working of the Bessbrook 
and Newry tramway, while London at length possesses an electric railway, 
three miles in length, to be very shortly opened, which will connect the 
City with one of the southern suburbs through a tram subway, and, 
although including many sharp curves and steep gradients, will be capable 
of conveying one hundred passengers at a time, at speeds varying from 
thirteen to twenty-four miles per hour. During the past year a regular 
service of tramcars has been successfully worked, through the agency of 
secondary batteries, upon part of one of the large tramways of North 
London, with results which bid fair to lead to further extensions of this 
system of working in the metropolis. The application of electricity to 
action purposes has, however, received far more important develop- 
ment in the United States; at the commencement of this year there were 
n operation in different States 200 electrical tramroads, chiefly worked 
pon the Thomson-Houston and the Sprague systems, and having a col- 
ective length of 1,641 miles, with 2,346 motor-cars travelling thereon. 
further extensions are being rapidly made; thus, one company alone has 
9 additional roads, of a collective length of 385 miles, under construc- 
ion, to be worked through the agency of storage-batteries. 
The idea cherished = Siemens, and enlarged upon by him in more 
han one interesting address, of utilising the power of Niagara, appears 
bout to be realised, at any rate in part; a large tract of land has been 
ecently acquired, by a powerful American Association, about a mile dis- 
