THE PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 
23 
notably into use for domestic lighting. In the year 1825 gas 
lighting was still such a rarity that as a child I used to participate 
in the pleasure of the little crowd of street urchins that followed 
the heels of the dapper ladder-carrying lamplighter from lamp-post 
to lamp-post, and proclaimed their delight with vociferous utter- 
ances on the flashing out of the light. Even then whale-oil-lighted 
lamps were interspersed through the remote streets of the town. 
Well, now we see a noble establishment of Gas Works at Coxside 
that will compare well with any in the kingdom, paying a hand- 
some revenue to the contributors of the capital invested, and 
earning the well-merited reputation of supplying the cheapest gas 
in the kingdom, probably in the world. 
And what has that to do with us 1 
I recollect again and again listening with great pleasure in this 
hall, and in the Mechanics' Institute, to the very lucid scientific 
lectures most admirably experimentally illustrated by one of our 
old members, Mr. Jesse Adams, who was the first manager of the 
first Coal-Gas Works for many years in operation at Millbay, on 
the site of the present foundry in Phoenix Street, south of Union 
Street. At that time gas was regarded not only with admiration, 
but also with wonder, fear, and trembling. High authorities, even 
Sir Humphry Davy himself, had pronounced strongly against 
the dangers and absurdities of the daily use of gas, just as ener- 
getically as the introduction of electrical lighting is to-day contra- 
vened, and so there was the necessity for the advocacy which was 
so ably and efficiently maintained by him. 
We have now ready enough access to the adjoining county of 
Cornwall, so easy that we seldom bestow a thought on the noble 
Tamar river separating the two counties, when we gently slip over 
it in our comfortable railway carriages upborne by the Brunei 
Eailway Bridge. Perchance in passing we may look down on the 
floating bit of bridge conveying horses, carriages, and foot-passengers, 
from the waterside of Saltash to the Devonshire shore, and then 
recollect that it is but a copy of the finer bridge still doing useful 
work at Torpoint, which was originally devised by another of our 
old members, Mr. Eendel, under whose superintendence it was 
constructed, as were also similar bridges at Gosport, Hitchen, and 
other places throughout the country. Our literary members have 
often discoursed to us most delightfully respecting old Devonshire 
Worthies ; have told us of the doings of some of the men whose 
