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tion of 1878 he was juror in Engineering, and in 1884 was juror 
in Electricity in the Health Exhibition in London. From 1879 
onwards to the time of his death he was Vice-President of the 
R.S.E., and from this Society he had the Keith Prize for the period 
1877-79. This, the Society’s highest distinction, was awarded for 
his paper on “ The Application of Graphic Methods to the Determina- 
tion of the Efficiency of Machinery,” a continuation, full, however, 
of originality, of the subject treated in Reuleaux’s Kinematics of 
Mechanism. In 1882 he took out his first patent for “ Telpherage,” 
a system of electrical carrying of burdens, or at need of passengers. 
The Telpher line is a conductor, which may be either flexible or 
rigid, of electricity supporting an electric motor and train of steps or 
of travelling chairs, which hang below it, and itself supported by 
strong posts. The line is in electrically distinct sections, and the 
train, itself a continuous conductor, and larger than any section, 
bridges over the interval between successive sections as it passes. 
The power is derived from a fixed engine and dynamos placed at 
convenient distance from the line. The “ Telpherage Company,” 
whose first working line was opened at Glynde, four months after 
Jenkin’s death, which took place on the 12th of June 1885, was 
due to Jenkin’s joining forces with Messrs Ayrton & Perry, who 
were, like him, turning their attention to the application of electricity 
to locomotion. His death was due to the unfortunate result of a 
surgical operation, slight in itself. 
Apart from his own most special work, and from the sanitary 
engineering work which has been referred to, and which has had 
wide and good influence, Professor Jenkin took a deep and keen 
interest in Technical Education (he was for many years a Director 
of the Watt Institution) and in science generally. Witness among 
other instances his reviews of the Origin of Species [North British 
Review , June 1867) and of the Atomic Theory, an article supported 
by Munro’s Lucretius ( North British Review , 1868). Both Darwin 
and Munro, in subsequent editions of their works, acknowledged the 
value of Professor Jenkin’s criticism. In the fine arts, and notably 
in dramatic art in its widest sense, his interest was equally keen and 
wide y but by the world at large, outside his own belongings and 
friends, he will be remembered best for his special and admirable 
work in electricity and engineering. 
