January 16, 1885.] 



SCIENCE 



45 



sum of money for the purpose of testing the 

 truth of the so-called spiritualism. 



Since September, the Boston committee has 

 held numerous meetings, and discussed the 

 pros and cons of the formation of a psychical 

 society, and finally brought forward a consti- 

 tution under which some eighty gentlemen from 

 different parts of the country have organized 

 themselves. A notice of this meeting was 

 given in No. 100 of Science; and in this 

 week's issue we give an account of the com- 

 pletion of the details of organization. It will 

 be seen in this account that the society pro- 

 poses immediately to begin investigations on 

 thought-transference. It is very necessary 

 that this work should be in the hands of trusty 

 investigators, and that they should have 

 ample opportunity and means for carrying on 

 their work. To some extent, they ma} T find 

 parties in private life who possess the alleged 

 powers, but it may be necessary for them to 

 call upon professionals ; and, at any rate, it 

 would be well if they were able to hire the 

 professionals, and subject them to such exper- 

 iments as would test their capacities. If there 

 is a large proportion of fraud, one of the best 

 works of the society would be to detect it, and 

 publish it to the world ; but this it cannot do, 

 unless supplied freely with the necessar} 7 funds. 



RECENT ADVANCES IN ELECTRICAL 

 SCIENCE. 



Electrical science has not made great strides 

 during the year 1884 ; but in the direction of 

 practical applications it is feeling the powerful 

 aid of business ability and capital. The U. S. 

 patent office is crowded with applications for 

 patents on various electrical appliances. The 

 scientific investigator must soon make a strug- 

 gle for the free use of many old and familiar 

 electrical appliances which he has known from 

 boyhood, unless he, too, enters the field as an ap- 

 plicant for patents. The tendency of the times 

 is certainly in the direction of obtaining patents 

 in order to prove priority, even in the direction 

 of pure science. We leave it to the moralist 

 to decide the difference between a copyright 

 for a literary man and a patent for a scientific 

 man. 



The problem of electric lighting is gradually 



3 r ielding to the efforts of the great army of in- 

 ventors. The Edison company has plants in 

 almost all countries. The incandescent system 

 has made its way on steamboats and steam- 

 ships. The great Eall-River line of steam- 

 boats took the initiative in lighting the steamer 

 Pilgrim, and has now extended the system 

 to the other principal boats of the line. It 

 is said, that, although the cost of lighting by 

 incandescence is double that of gas, the 

 better quality of light and the greater safety 

 from fire counterbalance the increased cost. 

 Experiments have been made by the Weston 

 electric-light company during the } r ear, upon 

 long-filament incandescent lamps, which prom- 

 ise to give lamps approaching the candle- 

 power of many arc-lights with a far pleasanter 

 and steadier light. 



Among the methods of electric lighting by 

 incandescence, which have received renewed 

 advocacy during the year, is the battery sys- 

 tem. Trouve's modification of the bichromate- 

 of-potash battery consists in employing a very 

 large proportion of sulphuric acid with bichro- 

 mate of potash. An experience of three 

 months with this battery will lead its most en- 

 thusiastic advocate to long for a cheaper 

 source of electricity. 



The problem of electric lighting is to find a 

 cheaper motor than the steam-engine to drive 

 the otynamo- electric engine, or to discover a 

 more direct process of obtaining electricity 

 from heat. No advance has been made this 

 year in the generation of electricity by thermo- 

 electricity. The meetings of the British associa- 

 tion at Montreal, and the American association 

 in Philadelphia, did not result in the produc- 

 tion of many important papers on electricity ; 

 yet there is no doubt that many persons had 

 their ideas clarified and their thoughts stimu- 

 lated by these meetings. Perhaps the coming- 

 year will bear evidence of this. The electrical 

 exposition in Philadelphia showed the great 

 activity in the fields of electric lighting, and 

 was chiefly interesting as an exhibition of 

 various types of dynamo-machines. 



The members of the electrical congress, also 

 held in Philadelphia at the time of the elec- 

 trical exposition, were inclined to dissent from 

 the resolutions of the late Paris congress in 

 regard to the adoption of a hundred and six 

 centimetres of mercury, a millimetre in section, 

 at the temperature of 0° C, as the legal ohm ; 

 since the work of Professor Rowland, it was 

 believed, would give a closer value. Professor 

 Rowland has not yet published ; but it is be- 

 lieved that results have been obtained which 

 will lead to a revision of the decision of the 



