ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS. 1l 
however, not in Italy, but in Paris. At Florence there were 
huge electrical machines and batteries, and an electrical pendulum, 
which had been oscillating between two dry piles for twelve 
years. Here also I noticed a simple method of purifying mercury 
by distillation at a low heat in vacuo. The Museum of Natural 
History in another part of the city is a noble collection, and the 
wax models, illustrating human and comparative anatomy, are 
probably unequalled in the world. 
The University of Padua I found rich in electrical machines 
and electro-magnetic engines. There isa pair of dry piles, with 
a light pendulum oscillating between them, as at Florence; but 
this one was made in 1830 by Zamboni, and has been going 
almost continuously ever since. It was explained to me that 
when the atmosphere is very dry the motion sometimes stops, but 
a piece of moist paper placed under the glass shade will start it 
again. I saw afterwards, at Verona, the house where Zamboni 
lived, and on a marble tablet attached to the wall he is styled the 
inventor of electric perpetual motion. Later in the year I saw 
at Oxford another of these electric pendulums, that had been 
going forty-two years. 
The University of Padua has now about 900 students and fifty 
professors, far outstripping its more ancient and celebrated neigh- 
bour at Bologna, which has now about 500 students. In its best 
days it is said to have numbered 10,000, though that probably is 
"an exaggeration. 
At Pavia, Turin, and Paris, and afterwards in various parts of 
England, I inspected collections of philosophical apparatus, and 
visited workshops where such apparatus ismade. These factories, 
especially where electrical appliances were turned out, had increased 
considerably in numbers, and the old ones had materially expanded 
since my previous visit to England twelve years ago. I need not, 
however, enter into further details on this subject, beyond stating 
that everywhere I found great activity prevailing in such factories, 
so much so that I had some difficulty in getting my comparatively 
‘small orders attended to. 
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