December 28, 1888.] 



SCIENCE. 



329 



been much rivalry in electric lighting, and three of the most impor- 

 tant companies — the Edison, the Westinghouse, and the Thom- 

 son-Houston — are at swords' points, and much of the current 

 technical literature consists of discussions as to the merits and de- 

 merits of the various systems. 



But it is in the extension of power-distribution by means of 

 electricity that the year has been most memorable. Large 

 numbers of electric motors have been installed for supplying 

 powers from -^^ to 40 or 50 horse-power, and these are fed from 

 the local lighting companies, and have displaced small steam and 

 gas engines. The uses to which they have been applied are in- 

 numerable, and they are increasing in favor as their economy and 

 efficiency become more apparent. More ambitious installations 

 have been carried out in the Western mining districts ; the most 

 noteworthy being the power plants at Aspen, Col., and on the 

 Feather River ih California, where the Sprague Company has 

 transmitted power (in the last case a distance of nine miles), and 

 at Virginia City, where the Brush Company has just effected an 

 installation. Electric street-railways have more than kept pace 

 with stationary motor-work. The tirst large road equipped was 

 the Richmond road of the Sprague Company, the largest and most 

 difficult installation that had ever been attempted. After numerous 

 disappointments, and after overcoming difficulties that would have 

 disheartened any less energetic and efficient company, the road was 

 successfully opened in March, and has been running without inter- 

 ruption ever since. There is little doubt that to the success of this 

 tramway is due the boom in electric- motor cars, that has given the 

 Sprague and other companies a business even greater than their 

 large capacity. The Sprague Company has finished or is equip- 

 ping thirty street-railways ; the Thomson-Houston Company, as 

 many more ; while the Daft Company has under way or finished a 

 dozen or fifteen. All of these roads have overhead wires to convey 

 the current from the dynamos to the motors. It is probable that 

 the ultimate system of street-car traction will be by storage-bat- 

 teries on the car, supplying current to motors beneath them, geared 

 to the axles. During the year there has been little progress in this 

 system of traction. One or two cars are being run in New York, 

 in Philadelphia, and in some of the Western cities. The progress 

 has hardly, however, been satisfactory. The present type of 

 storage-cell is heavy and inefficient, and rapidly deteriorates ; and 

 the year has not seen the introduction, either here or abroad, of 

 any new type of battery, nor any marked improvement in the old. 

 For exceptionally favorable roads, where there are very light grades, 

 storage-battery cars will cost about the same as horses, or perhaps 

 a little less ; but there are few such in the States. 



No important inventions in industrial electricity have been de- 

 veloped during the year, although several very promising ones have 

 been patented, and are being improved and tested. The Tesla 

 motor for alternating currents is being developed by the Westing- 

 house Company; several plans for continuous-current conversion 

 are being experimented on ; new types of storage-battery have 

 been described, and will possibly prove successful. Nothing im- 

 portant has been done in the telephone line. In telegraphy Profes- 

 sor Gray has developed a writing-telegraph, which will possibly do 

 what is claimed for it, but which seems very complicated. 



There has been much patent litigation, and important decisions 

 have been rendered here and abroad. In an English suit Edison's 

 fundamental patent on carbon filaments for incandescent lamps 

 was badly damaged, although the decision has been appealed from, 

 and it is again being tried. The patents of the Westinghouse 

 Company for the alternating system have been decided against, 

 both in England and this country. The Supreme Court has de- 

 cided that the government has the right to bring suit against the 

 Bell Telephone Company to annul Bell's patent, but this decision 

 is of interest only as establishing the general right of the govern- 

 ment to bring such a suit. A number of important suits are pend- 

 ing on patents for storage-batteries, incandescent lamps, systems 

 of distribution, etc.; and after the holidays a case before the Su- 

 preme Court will decide whether Edison's fundamental patents on 

 electric lighting have expired with the limit of the foreign patents. 



On the whole, the year has been one of solid advance and im- 

 provement, but with no startling development nor revolutionary 

 discovery-. 



THE SCIENTIFIC WORK OF THE JOHN'S HOPKINS 

 UNIVERSITY. 



In considering the scientific work at the university. President Gil- 

 man laid emphasis, in his recent annual report, on those parts of the 

 work which are of widest interest, especially on the investigations 

 and publications which have been encouraged, and the opportuni- 

 ties afforded for the education of advanced students. The trus- 

 tees and the faculty of such an institution need frequently to recur 

 to general principles, ask themselves what they have undertaken 

 to do, and carefully weigh the results of their labors. Accordingly 

 a brief restatement of some of the considerations by which they 

 have been influenced introduces the record of the year. Far more 

 important than the formal lectures and recitations of a university 

 are the intellectual influences which it affords, — the attractions of 

 its libraries and laboratories ; the spirit which animates the pro- 

 fessors ; the conditions upon which degrees, fellowships, and other 

 academic honors are bestowed ; the connection existing between 

 the studies of the place and the studies that are in progress in 

 other seats of learning; and the prospects which are open 10 young 

 men of character and scholarship at the end of their courses. The 

 university which imparts to a large number of students good 

 impulses, disciplines them with thorough training, encourages them 

 with judicious counsel, and upholds before them lofty ideals, be- 

 comes an agency of great power in the advancement of the general 

 welfare. It annually sends to every part of the land, into all the 

 professions, into professorships, masterships, and other leaderships,, 

 those who are likely to be centres of light and influence in their 

 various states. 



The opening of this university occurred in 1876, at a time wherj 

 many careful writers were engaged in the study of the progress of 

 the United States during the first hundred years of national life. 

 Important articles then published, on the state of the arts and sci- 

 ences in America, and on the condition of American education, 

 were carefully considered by those who were engaged in planning 

 the new institutions in Baltimore. Among such papers there was 

 one entitled ' Abstract Science in America,' by Professor New- 

 comb, which indicated " the points of view from which our claims 

 to be an intellectual nation look very slender indeed." The writer 

 acknowledged the excellent quality of the work which was done by 

 the leaders of American science, while he lamented the want of 

 encouragement to engage in such labors. He declared that "we 

 are deficient in the number of men actively devoted to scientific 

 research of the higher types, in public recognition of the labors of 

 those who are so engaged, in the machinery for making the public 

 acquainted with their labors and their wants, and in the preliminary 

 means for publishing their researches." He continued to say. — 



" Each of these deficiencies is to a certain extent both cause and 

 an effect of the others. The want of public recognition and ap- 

 preciation is due partly to a want of system and organization, 

 partly to the paucity of scientific publications. The paucity of re- 

 search is largely due to the want of adequate reward in public 

 estimation and recognition ; while the paucity of scientific publica- 

 tions is due to the want of an adequate number of supporters. The 

 supply of any one of these deficiencies would, to a certain extent, 

 remedy all the others ; and, until one or more are so remedied, it 

 is hopeless to expect any great improvement. In other intellectual 

 nations, science has a fostering mother, — in Germany the univer- 

 sities, in France the government, in England the scientific societies ; 

 and, if science could find one here, it would speedily flourish. The 

 only one it can look to here is the educated public ; and, if that 

 public would find some way of expressing in a public and oflicial 

 manner its generous appreciation of the labors of .-Xmerican investi- 

 gators, we should have the best entering wedge for supplying all 

 the wants of our science. 



" The other way in which help could be most effectively given at 

 small expense is by the support of two or three first-class journals 

 of exact science. We say exact science, because this is the depart- 

 ment which is worst supplied in this respect. Taking mathematics 

 at one extreme, and medicine at the other, we can pretty accurately 

 gauge the exactness of each science by the dilTiculty its cultivators 

 find in supporting journals devoted to it. It may seem like re- 

 ducing our thesis to the ridiculous to say that our wants in this 



