572 Notices of Books* [August 
Journal of the Society of Telegraph Engineers . Vol. viii. 
No. 27. 
The last number of this Journal contains reports of the meeting 
of the Society held on the 12th and 26th of March and the i4t] 
of May respectively. The more important articles are those 01 
“ The Means of preventing Induction upon Lateral Wires,” 
Prof. Hughes, which has an important bearing on the praCtica 
employment of the telephone ; on “ South African Telegraphs,” b; 
J. Sivewright, M. A., giving an interesting account of the peculia 
local difficulties which the telegraphic engineershavetoputupwitl 
in these wild regions, their great enemies beingthe bullock waggons 
which knock down their posts and their drivers who make “cor 
taCt” with their immensely long whips. The bulk of the numbe 
is, however, occupied by a very valuable and complete paper b 
the Honorary Secretary, Colonel Frank Bolton, extending ove 
nearly seventy pages. The excitement caused by the recer 
more or less successful application of the eledtric light to th 
purposes of every-day life has raised up a swarm of would-b 
inventors, who put forth as new inventions of questionable valu 
which had long since been comfortably interred in the vaults c 
Her Majesty’s Patent-Office; these have been resuscitated an 
re-patented, only to be once more left to their fate. One of th 
first things a reasonable inventor would do (and there are such 
would be to enquire whether his invention was original or nol 
In this enquiry he would be met by a formidable obstacle in th 
fadt that the last Abridgments of Specifications relating to Elec 
tricity do not go beyond 1866, and that even the very Specifics 
tions themselves are always months behind-hand. So late 
indeed, as May 14th of the present year it was impossible t 
ascertain clearly the details of any patent on eledtric lightin 
later than those of last year. Our inventors consequently woul 
be obliged to search through the whole of the eledtric patent 
from 1866 to the present time, a task the formidableness c 
which can only be known to those who have gone through i 
Col. Bolton has therefore endeavoured to supply the unaccoun' 
able shortcomings of the Patent-Office officials, as far, at an 
rate, as the eledtric light is concerned, by publishing in a class 
fied list a series of copious abstradls of the Specifications of a 
the Patents in any way relating to the eledtric light which hav 
been taken out since 1841, as well as short descriptions of a 
the discoveries connected with it which have been made sine 
Faraday first procured a spark from a revolving magnet, th 
whole being brought down to the present time. Col. Bolto 
divides his subjedt into two parts : — I. Dynamic and Magnetc 
Eledtric Machines. II. Lamps, each part being again divide 
into sedtions, devoted to a particular type of machine c 
amp. Most of the sedtions are preceded by a short account ( 
the peculiar charadteristics of each type of machine or lamp. 
