On Recent Improvements in Electric Lighting. 53 



I made a sketch of the pattern traced in it ; the radial lines 

 branching out from the foot of the iron column, were about 

 a quarter of an inch thick where they emerged from" the 

 column, and extended from four to five feet, diminishing to 

 the finest points, and having ramifications and offshoots like 

 the roots or branches of a tree. They appeared to be analo- 

 gous to the marks sometimes found on the bodies of persons 

 struck by lightning, and roughly described as resembling trees. 

 These traces were not ridges, such as might have been produced 

 by the seismic effects of a shock, but furrows cleanly cut 

 in the sand, and leaving bare the basement floor below ; had 

 the floor not been sanded there would, of course, have been 

 no record left. I noticed that the traces or furrows were 

 much longer and more marked on one side than on the other, 

 owing, perhaps, to non-homogeneity in the transmitting 

 column. 



Art. VIII. — On Recent Improvements in Electric 



Lighting. 



By R E. Joseph. 



[Read September 9th, 1880.] 



I propose this evening to bring under the notice of the 

 Royal Society a brief description of some of the recent im- 

 provements that have taken place during the last few years 

 in the employment of electricity as a means of illumination, 

 and, in doing so, I may state that the description of the 

 various machines, and some of the results obtained with 

 them, have been acquired by reference to Engineer, Engineer- 

 ing, the Telegraph, and other journals, together with a few 

 notes I have received from home, and a little experience in 

 the way of experiments occasionally conducted here. I have 

 divided my paper into three parts ; the first treating of the 

 generators of the current, the second of the apparatus or 

 lamps used in connection with the same, and the third 

 describing some of the several systems in use. 



