ADDRESS. 15 



and concert-rooms, museums, cliurclies, warehouses, show-rooms, print- 

 ing establishments and factoiries, and also the cabins and engine-rooms of 

 passenger steamers. In the cheaper and more powerful form of the arc 

 light, it has proved itself superior to any other illuminant for spreading 

 artificial daylight over the large areas of harbours, railway stations, and 

 the sites of public works. When placed within a holophote the electric 

 lamp has already become a powerful auxiliary in effecting military opera- 

 tions both by sea and land. 



The electric light may be worked by natural sources of power such as 

 waterfalls, the tidal wave, or the wind, and it is conceivable that these 

 may be utilised at considerable distances by means of metallic conductors. 

 Some five years ago I called attention to the vastness of those sources 

 of energy, and the facility oS'ered by electrical conduction in rendering 

 them available for lighting and power-supply, while Sir William Thomson 

 made this important matter the subject of his admirable address to 

 Section A last year at York, and dealt with it in an exhaustive manner. 



The advantages of the electric light and of the distribution of power 

 by electricity have lately been recognised by the British Government, which 

 has just passed a Bill through Parliament to facilitate the establishment 

 of electrical conductors in towns, subject to certain regulating clauses to 

 protect the interests of the public and of local authorities. Assuming the 

 cost of electric light to be practically the same as gas, the preference for 

 one or other will in each application be decided iipon grounds of relative 

 convenience, but I venture to think that gas-lighting will hold its own 

 as the poor man's friend. 



Gaa is an institution of the utmost value to the artisan ; it requires 

 hardly any attention, is supplied upon regulated terms, and gives with 

 what should be a cheerful light a genial warmth, which often saves the 

 lighting of a fire. The time is moreover not far distant, I venture to 

 think, when both rich and poor will largely resort to gas as the most 

 convenient, the cleanest, and the cheapest of heating agents, and when 

 raw coal will be seen only at the colliery or the gasworks. In all 

 cases where the town to be supplied is within say 30 miles of the 

 colliery, the gasworks may with advantage be planted at the mouth, or 

 still better at the bottom of the pit, whereby all haulage of fuel would 

 be avoided, and the gas, in its ascent from the bottom of the collieiy, 

 would acquire an onward pressure sufficient probably to impel it to its 

 destination. The possibility of transporting combustible gas through 

 pipes for such a distance has been proved at Pittsburg, where natural gas 

 from the oil district is used in large quantities for heating purposes. 



The quasi monopoly so long enjoyed by gas companies has had the 

 inevitable effect of checking progress. The gas being supplied by meter, 

 it has been seemingly to the advantage of the companies to give 

 merely the prescribed illuminating power, and to discourage the inven- 

 tion of economical burners, in order that the consumption might reach a 



