Proceedings. 93 



Ordinary Meeting, January 23rd, 1894. 



Professor Arthur Schuster, Ph.D., F.R.S., F.R.A.S., 

 President, in the Chair. 



The thanks of the members were voted to the donors of 

 the books upon the table. 



Mr. Henry Wilde, F.R.S., gave an experimental 

 demonstration of the uses to which the Corporation supply 

 of electric light and power may be put in philosophical 

 research, and read the following note : — 



" The installation of a supply of electricity in the rooms 

 of the Society for lighting and other purposes, affords a 

 fitting opportunity for making a few observations on the 

 history of the dynamo-electric machine which I thought 

 might be of some interest to the members. 



"In the early part of the year 1866, I invited the 

 Council of this Society to a private demonstration of the 

 powers of a new generator of electricity, founded on my 

 discovery of the principle, that quantities of magnetism and 

 electricity indefinitely small could induce quantities of these 

 forces indefinitely great. The new generator in which this 

 principle was embodied is now called a dynamo-electric 

 machine, or, as contracted by commercial usage, a ' Dynamo.' 



" Among those who responded to my invitation were 

 Dr. Joule, Dr. Angus Smith, Prof. Clifton, Mr. Baxendell, 

 and Mr. Binney. The luminous and calorific effects pro- 

 duced by the new dynamo-electric machine far surpassed 

 any that had previously been witnessed in this country or 

 abroad, but neither myself nor those present at the demon- 

 stration had any idea that electricity generated by the new 

 method would, within the next twenty-eight years, be 



