for the year 1881. xxiii 



electric current, gives a light well adapted for indoor illu- 

 mination. It is intended that the electricity necessary to 

 keep these lamps alight shall be supplied to each house in 

 the same way that gas or water is now, but I fancy this 

 part of the question is not so nearly solved in its economical 

 as in its practical aspect. The advances made in all ques- 

 tions relating to electric lighting during the past year, 

 however, leave but little doubt that what now appear as 

 difficulties will soon be overcome. 



A somewhat important and very interesting subject in 

 electric science has lately attracted public attention — namely, 

 the storage of electricity. It has long been known that 

 certain arrangements of metal surfaces in fluids known as 

 secondary batteries will act as accumulators of dynamic 

 electricity, and M. Gaston Plante, in 1859, constructed large 

 ones of lead, which after long use would store the current 

 of a galvanic battery passed into it for a considerable time. 

 The new impulse given to the secondary battery as an 

 accumulator of current electricity arose from the con- 

 struction of a modified form of Plante s cell by M. Camille 

 Faure, in which, by the use of peroxide of lead on the 

 surface of the metal, the cell at once becomes as effective as 

 Plante's was after long-continued use. One of these cells 

 sent by M. Faure to Sir William Thomson, at Glasgow, 

 retained a powerful charge during transit, and for some time 

 after, and the latter gentleman, in a letter to the Times, 

 gave a glowing account of the amount of energy thus 

 transmitted to him from Paris, and of the possibilities 

 arising out of the fact thus accomplished. Faure's cells 

 have since been constructed and experimented upon every- 

 where, and some very interesting experiments with a 

 battery of them were shown by one of our younger 

 members at our last meeting. This new phase of the 

 secondary battery has attracted attention to its value for 

 many purposes, and more especially for the surgeon, as well 

 as for the class-room and lecture-table ; and it is, I think, 



