xxiv President's Address 



on the Contagiousness of Tubercle, published in 1880, who 

 says : — " We must look forward to the day when the c tubercle 

 corpuscule' shall have been discovered in the form of a 

 minute organism." 



The immense strides made in the applications of electricity 

 to lighting and other economic purposes during the past year 

 is a subject worthy of note and for congratulation. Not so 

 very long ago I stated that I believed the time when 

 electricity would supersede gas for internal illumination was 

 far distant. I must now recant — the time is here. Elec- 

 tricity has replaced gas in several interiors in Melbourne, 

 and, so far as can yet be seen, with great success. At the 

 Opera House it is pronounced by all a great success and 

 decided improvement ; it produces less heat and less head- 

 ache. Several public places in Melbourne are lit by electricity, 

 and many establishments are about to adopt it. It has been 

 applied to the illumination of the extensive workings of 

 the Ellenborough Mine at Sandhurst. The Harbour Trust 

 Commissioners have adopted it with great success for carry- 

 ing on their dredging operations at night, and the trustees 

 of the Public Library have decided to light up the library 

 and reading-room with the incandescent electric lamps. 

 This last instance is one in which the new mode of lighting 

 is peculiarly well adapted, inasmuch as the reading-room in 

 the summer months gets intolerably heated with the gas, and 

 the products of combustion slowly but surely destroy the 

 bindings of the books. It is the small amount of heat 

 developed, and above all the entire absence of the deleterious 

 products of the combustion of gas, that constitutes its great 

 recommendation. I doubt if electric light by the incandes- 

 cent lamp method will be as cheap as gas ; still the advant- 

 ages referred to are, I think, worth a larger difference than 

 will probably exist. The arc light, of course, is far the most 

 economical, but it is only well adapted for out-of-door light- 

 ing or for very large interiors. 



The future of electricity as an illuminant, a transferer of 

 mechanical power, or as an agent in metallurgical operations 



