OCTOBER 18, 1889.]

The economic ratio for the steam systems will inrease decidedly with a heavier load, while for the lectric loads it will increase, but more and more lowly as the electrical efficiency of the motors falls ff. Where traffic justifies it, the use of a trailer is deidedly beneficial, evidently. The storage car seems eedlessly heavy, and its economic ratio ought to be aised to 25. The car used in Antwerp would have iven an economic ratio of 29, but it carried 1,200 lbs. ess storage battery than the New York car.

From the inability of a storage battery to stand very eavy discharge rates, the weight of battery per horse>ower hour stored is quite large. From the figures țiven by the Julien Company as to its New York cars he battery has a capacity of 35 H.P. hours, and consequently weighs 108 6 pounds per H.P. hour.

It seems at present impracticable to run a car successfully and furnish the power necessary for the exigencies of the service with less than 3,000-4,000 pounds of battery. Unless the cells are very much ightened intrinsically or made capable of standing a much higher discharge rate than at present, there seems to be little hope of reducing this battery weight to a reasonable figure.

Next, as to the life that can be reasonably expected from the cells. All sorts of figures are given, but the only ones that seem to represent the real experience gained in the practical operation of a road are those recently published from the Brussels road. According to the result of two years' running, the positive plates would have to be renewed every 200 days. The life of the negative plates would be much longer. An American report on another type of battery used in train lighting reported positive plates destroyed within a year, and very similar experience seems to have been derived from nearly all storage batteries-out of the makers' hands. Of course with expert care continually exercised better results can be obtained. This short life makes the expenses of renewal considerable, and but little comfort can be derived from the recent suggestion that the car companies would do well to reconstruct the positive plates from the disintegrated material. From a practical point of view this is about as feasible as rewinding their burnt out armatures and casting new trolley wheels out of the scraps of the old ones. No company of moderate size could profitably undertake this sort of work.

As to actual running expenses, the most complete figures are to be found in the Brussels report. The total expense for motive power, repairs, renewals, &c., was 8 cents per car mile-$4.80 per car day, the run being 60 car miles.

The cost of maintaining the batteries proved to be 2 cents per car mile-$1.65 per car day.

The above cost of motive power was the same as with horses, while cost of plant, royalties and other expenses brought the cost of operating with electricity considerably above that with horses. The cost of motive power, as estimated by the accumulator company was 6 cents per car mile as the outside limit, while their estimate of maintenance of batteries was 14 cents per car mile. The estimates of the Julien Company in New York give motive power at $3.40 per car day of 75 miles. It is to be hoped that the ratio between estimate and fact is more favourable than on the other side of the Atlantic.

By comparison with the systems of direct supply, it is evident that, owing to lower efficiency, the expenses in actual power for the same service will be considerably (50 per cent. or so) larger in the storage system. That much is assured by the lower commercial efficiency and increased weight. Then we have maintenance of batteries and motors, estimated by the Julien Company at $700 per car per year, as against maintenance of lines and motors in the direct supply system. The low figure on this would certainly be far below the above figure, particularly on roads of any size.

The comparison of the storage system with horse traction is not so easy. The Brussels figures are decidedly in favour of horses after two years' thorough trial. The track on that line, however, is not good, and

457

the grades are higher than seem advisable with the storage system, there being one grade of 4 per cent. 1,500 feet long. American figures are not sufficiently definite as to details, and the favourable results have been obtained by an accumulator company's own expert care. All that can fairly be said is that it yet remains to be proved that the storage system can be operated as cheaply as horses. So long as we have to rely on the heavy and rather perishable lead accumulator, proof will be hard to obtain.

It seems to have been demonstrated that the storage system, economy aside, may be made thoroughly reliable in careful hands. The New York cars have an enviable record in this respect.

To sum up: The storage system has certain great merits which especially commend it for city work. It requires only a track; each car is an independent unit, and no accident can cripple the system. The service can be made thoroughly reliable.

Its economy is at present doubtful; it costs distinctly more than traction by direct supply and probably more than traction by horses, unless under specially favourable circumstances.

In any electric system, carefully laid track is necessary for success; but in the storage system it is doubly so, and steep grades are peculiarly undesirable. There is nothing more likely to hasten deterioration of batteries than the jolting due to a rough track and the heavy discharge rates necessary on a steep grade. For city work, with good level tracks, it is certainly an ideal method of traction.

In closing, let me say that I feel confident that the time will come when the storage battery will be the general method of traction wherever the overhead wires are objectionable, and specially in large cities. The time is not yet, however, and it is by no means certain that any of the present types of accumulator will share in the ultimate success of the system.

DR. JOULE.

THE death of Dr. James Prescott Joule, which took place at his residence, 12, Wardle Road, Sale, at half-past 10 o'clock last Friday night, will be heard of with the deepest regret by a very wide circle indeed. Probably one of the best obituary notices of the deceased gentleman is that in the Manchester Courier, from which we extract the following:

"Dr. Joule was born in New Bailey Street, Salford, on Christmas Eve, 1818, and in his early years he was a delicate child, and, as a consequence of his feeble physical condition, was not sent to school. The rudiments of learning were imparted to him by his mother's half-sister, and his education was subsequently carried on at his father's house at Broomhill, Pendlebury, by tutors, until he reached the age of 16. His first instruction in physical science was received from Dr. Dalton, who has been deservedly described as one of the most distinguished chemists of any age or country. Very early in his studies he was found at work on the molecular constitution of gases. His father allotted him a room as a laboratory, and his first effort seems to have been the construction of a cylinder electric machine of a very primitive form. The cylinder consisted of an ordinary glass tube, and the prime conductor a poker hung up by silk threads, while his Leyden jar was a bottle half filled with water, and placed in an outer vessel, also containing water. In the construction of this apparatus he had the assistance of his brother, Benjamin, who does not appear to have wandered very wide in the fields of chemistry, but who has earned for himself a lasting fame in connection with the revival of church music, and as the author of many musical and other works. The future Dr. Joule gradually enlarged the apparatus at his command, and soon entered the ranks as an investigator. His first original paper appears to have been published in 1838, when the writer was only 19 years of age, in Sturgeon's

458

'Annals of Electricity' for January of that year. He had constructed an electro-magnetic engine, which he described in his paper, and following up his first experiment in this subject of electro-magnetism, which was at that time a favourite theme among scientific men, he constructed other machines and electromagnets of novel forms, with which he obtained results of great importance. These results showed the impossibility of realising the expectation which appears to have been then entertained that electro-magnetism would eventually supersede steam as an economical source of motive power. In 1840 he discovered the existence and value of the limit to the quantity of magnetisation in soft iron, and applying this principle he succeeded in constructing electro-magnets of a much greater lifting power than any which had been previously obtained, while he studied also the methods of modifying the distribution of force in the magnetic field. To stimulate experimental inquiry in electricity and magnetism, the then editor of Annals of Electricity' had offered a series of prizes, and one of these was awarded to Mr. Joule, with the following words of high commendation :- - Mr. Joule is one of those indefatigable and now well-disciplined experimentalists whose first essays in experimental science these "Annals" have the honour of recording. His enquiries have been directed principally to the department of electro-magnetics, in which he has been particularly successful.' In commencing his investigations into the subject of the distribution of force in the magnetic field, Dr. Joule was met, to use his own words, with the difficulty, if not impossibility, of understanding experiments and comparing them with one another which arises in general from incomplete descriptions of apparatus, and from the arbitrary and vague numbers which are used to characterise electric currents. Such a practice might be tolerated in the infancy of science, but in its present state of advancement greater precision and propriety are imperatively demanded.' He therefore determined to abandon the quantity numbers which he had previously used, and to express his results on the basis of a unit which should be at once scientific and convenient; and, realising the importance of having a system of electric measurement which would make experimental results obtained at different times and under various circumstances comparable among themselves, and also perceiving the advantage of such a system dependent on, or, at any rate, comparable with, the chemical action producing the electric current, he adopted as the unit quantity of electricity the quantity required to decompose nine grains of water, nine being the atomic weight of water according to the chemical nomenclature then in use. He had previously made important improvements in the construction of galvanometers, the results of which he had made public, and he graduated his tangent galvanometer to correspond with the new system of electric measurement. Working on this basis, the numbers used in all his subsequent papers are easily reducible to the modern absolute system of electric measurements, in the construction and general introduction of which he himself played so prominent a part.

"In 1840, after experimenting on improvements in voltaic apparatus, he turned his attention to the heat evolved by metallic conductors of electricity, and in the cells of a battery during electrolysis, and by papers which he published in that and the two following years, laid the foundation of a new province in physical science, then totally unknown, but now familiar to all practical electricians, that of electric and chemical thermo-dynamics. With regard to the heat evolved by a metallic conductor carrying an electric current, he established what had previously only been supposed to be the law-namely, that the quantity of heat evolved by it (in a given time) is always proportional to the resistance which it presents, whatever may be the length, thickness, shape, or kind of the metallic conductor 'while he also established the law, hitherto unknown, that the heat evolved is proportional to the square of quantity of electricity passing in a given time. ponding laws were established for the heat

·

[OCTOBER 18. 1889

evolved by the current passing in the electrolytic c and likewise for the heat developed in the cells of t battery itself.

"Having proved the impossibility of applying ma netism to the generation of motive power economical he turned his attention more especially to the transfar mation of chemical energy into heat, and in a commer cation made in 1840 to the Proceedings of the Ro Society' he established relations between heat chemical affinity, which high scientific authorities hav since acknowledged contained the germs of the suber quent vast development of dynamical science as appli to chemical action. In 1841 and 1842 he continued na investigations into this branch of study, and in Januar 1843, was able to announce with certainty that the ma neto-electric machine enables the conversion mechanical power into heat. In the early part of the year most of his spare time would appear to have be devoted to making experiments necessary for the d covery of the laws of the development of heat magneto-electricity, and for the definite determination of the mechanical value of heat.

"At the meeting of the British Association in Ma chester in 1842-the last meeting, it may be remarket by the way, at which his teacher Dalton appeared-Dr. Joule read a paper on the Electric Origin of Her which evoked considerable attention from the saman's present; and in the following year, when the Associa tion met at Cork, he read a second paper on Th Calorific Effects of Magneto-Electricity and the Mechanical Value of Heat,' in which he described series of experiments in magnetic electricity, mad with a view to determine the mechanical value of heat and which had the effect of attracting still deeper attention to the subject. In this year Mr. Joule's father had removed from Pendlebury to Oakfield, Whalle Range, and there built for his son a convenient labora tory, in which his future experiments were carried on under somewhat more favourable conditions than be had previously enjoyed. In a postscript to the paper which he read at Cork Dr. Joule said: I shall lose no time in repeating and extending these experiments. being satisfied that the grand agents of Nature are, ty the Creator's fiat, indestructible, and that whereve mechanical force is expended an exact equivalent of heat is always obtained.' He did continue the exper ments, and being met with the pressing need of acco rate thermometers, he produced, with the assistance Mr. Dance, an instrument maker of this city, the first of really accurate English thermometers. Had he dorno more than this he would have made an importan contribution to the cause of science, and one which would have obtained for him a place on the roll of great scientists. In 1844 he communicated to the Asso ciation a paper on his continued experiments, and again. in 1845, in an important paper on The Mechanica Equivalent of Heat,' he detailed the results gained fro water agitated by a paddle-wheel.

"In 1847 the British Association met at Oxford, and in one of the sections Mr. Joule read a fresh paper 'The Mechanical Equivalent of Heat,' and the follow ing extract from a letter written by Sir Willian Thomson to Mr. J. T. Bottomley describes the meetin of the celebrated physician with the subject of ou sketch at this gathering of scientific men :-'I male Joule's acquaintance at the Oxford meeting, and quickly ripened into a life-long friendship. I heard his paper read in the section, and felt strongly impelle at first to rise and say that it must be wrong, becaus the true mechanical value of heat given, suppose warm water, must, for small differences of temperature. be proportional to the square of its quantity. I knew from Carnot that this must be true (and it is true; onl now I call it "motivity," to avoid clashing with Joule "mechanical value.") But as I listened on and on! saw that (though Carnot had vitally important trath. not to be abandoned) Joule had certainly a great trath and a great discovery and a most important measure ment to bring forward. So, instead of rising with my objection to the meeting, I waited till it was over, and said my say to Joule himself at the end of the meeting.

This made my first introduction to him. After that I ad a long talk over the whole matter at one of the onversaziones of the association, and we became fast riends from thenceforward. However, he did not tell me he was to be married in a week or so; but about a ortnight later I was walking down from Chamounix o commence the tour of Mont Blanc, and whom should meet walking up but Joule, with a long thermometer n his hand, and a carriage with a lady in it not far off. He told me he had been married since we had parted t Oxford, and he was going to try for elevation of emperature in waterfalls. We trysted to meet a few lays later at Martigny, and look at the Cascade de Sallanches, to see if it might answer. We found it too nuch broken into spray. His young wife, as long as he lived, took complete interest in his scientific work, nd both she and he showed me the greatest kindness luring my visits to them in Manchester, for our experiments on the thermal effects of fluid in motion, which we commenced a few years later.' Mr. Joule till further continued his experiments until he had ecured that at which he aimed, and the truth of his heory was assured. In an elaborate paper read before he Royal Society in 1849, and published in the Philosophical Transactions,' we have the results of his experiments thus stated :- The quantity of heat produced by the friction of bodies, whether solid or liquid, s always proportional to the quantity of force expended;' and secondly, The quantity of heat capable of increasing the temperature of a pound of water by 1° Fahr., requires for its evolution the expenditure of a mechanical force required by the fall of 772 lbs. through the space of 1 foot.'

"Prior to the successful issue of Mr. Joule's researches, the true principle of the dynamical theory of heat was not experimentally demonstrated. It is true that the idea upon which he laboured had revealed itself to several minds, and a number of investigators had contributed with more or less success to its elucidation. Among these were Faraday, Grove, and Dulong, but to Mr. Joule unquestionably belongs the honour of first demonstrating the law of mechanical equivalence between work and heat. For this achievement the Royal Medal of the Royal Society was awarded him in the year 1852. It was presented to Mr. Joule by the late Earl Rosse, who referred in high terms of appreciation to the discovery for which it was awarded, as one which united in itself a practical as well as a profound scientific interest. But prejudices are strong, and the world, even the scientific world, was slow to appreciate the value of the discovery Mr. Joule had made. Eight years after he had received the Royal Medal of the Royal Society he was called to occupy a still higher place of honour. Men of science had by this time more fully grasped the benefits accruing from his researches and experiments, and we find him the recipient of the Copley Medal of the Royal Society in 1860. It was presented to him by Sir Edward Sabine (the president), who, in handing it to Mr. Joule, referred to the honour he had previously gained, and said: Both awards refer to the same experiments, and are substantially for the same great step in natural philosophy. You are all aware that a great principle has been added to the sum of human knowledge-one fruitful in consequences in a thousand ways, and which, being accepted among undisputed truth, is now embodied without question alike in the most wideranging speculations and the most matter-of-fact practice. The award of two medals for the same researches is an exceedingly rare proceeding in our society, and rightly so. The Council have on this occasion desired to mark by it in the most emphatic manner their sense of the special and original character and high desert of Mr. Joule's discovery.' It thus appears that Mr. Joule's discovery had now taken its place among the unquestioned truths of science. But he was not to be allowed to enjoy the fulness of his honours undisturbed. There were others who claimed a share in the valuable discovery he had made, and in 1862, in a lecture delivered at the Royal Institution, Dr. Tyndal pressed the claims of Mayer (Jules Robert Mayer, a

physician at Heilbron, in Germany) to a share in the honour of the discovery. He pressed these claims in a manner which aroused the objections of scientific men, particularly of Sir William (then Professor) Thomson and Prof. Tait, and a long controversy ensued. Although Dr. Tyndal advanced all he could on behalf of Mayer, he did not fail to recognise the great merits of Joule. In one of his lectures he thus spoke of him 'It is to Mr. Joule, of Manchester, that we are almost wholly indebted for the experimental treatment of this subject. With his mind firmly fixed on a principle, and undismayed by the coolness with which his first labours appear to have been received, he persisted for years in his attempts to prove the invariability of the relation between heat and ordinary mechanical force. The results of his experiments leave no doubt upon the mind that under all circumstances the absolute amount of heat produced by a definite amount of mechanical force is fixed and invariable.' Subsequently Dr. Tyndal, addressing Dr. Joule, said, 'You worked independently of Mayer, and in a totally different way you brought the mechanical theory to the test of experiment, and in this way proved its truth.' "But with all his knowledge he united that reverence for the great wisdom of the Creator, who is present in the minds of all the truly great. In the same lecture he adds: I cannot but be filled with admiration and gratitude for the wonderful provision thus made by the author of nature for the protection of His creatures.'

"The frienship formed between Joule and Thomson in 1847 grew rapidly. A voluminous correspondence was kept up between them, and several important researches were undertaken by the two friends in common. Dr. Joule was also engaged with Dr. Scoresby in an inquiry on the applications of electromagnetism, a subject upon which Dr. Joule, as we have already shown, worked diligently in the earlier stages of his career. Among successful experimentalists in

this branch of science the name of Dr. Joule takes a high place.

"We have already given evidences of Dr. Joule's inventive talent and skill, and as a further instance it may be mentioned that in 1863 he described to the Manchester Philosophical Society a new thermometer which he had constructed, and by which he was able to detect the heat radiated by the moon. When the moonbeam passed gradually across the instrument the index was deflected several degrees, first to the right and then to the left, thus showing that the air in the instrument had been heated a few thousandths of a degree by the influence of the rays.

"Valuable as are Dr. Joule's labours in other departments of inquiry, it is on his researches on the dynamics of heat, and especially on his great experimental contribution to the establishment of the law of the conservation of energy-one of the grandest generalisations of modern times-that his fame will chiefly rest.

"Though the results of his investigations are for all men and for all time, Dr. Joule was himself in no sense a public man. He undertook his studies with the determination of one who worked not for reward of position or fame, but for love of the work itself; and, unlike many of his eminent scientific contemporaries, he has neither written popular treatises nor published any separate works on the subjects of his various inquiries. He did, it is true, in addition to his papers read before various societies of learned men, occasionally deliver lectures in connection with one or other branches of his studies in this city, but these rich scientific treats were of very infrequent occurrence. Though he sought neither honour or reward for himself, honours were showered upon him in profusion, and that which was probably the greatest gratification to him was one in June, 1878, when her Majesty the Queen was pleased, in recognition of his services to the cause of science, to grant him a pension of £200 per annum. It was not for itself that he valued the pension, information of the granting of which was conveyed to him in a letter from the late Earl of Beaconsfield, but as a national recognition of his labours.

"In 1872 he was elected president of the British

Association, which in that year held its meeting at Bradford, but before the meeting his health broke down and he was unable to attend and deliver the customary inaugural address. Since that date he was almost entirely an invalid, quietly pursuing his studies as far as his health permitted at his residence at Sale. His wife died in 1854, after only seven years of married life, leaving behind her a son and a daughter, both of whom are still living. Of Dr. Joule it may be truly said that he has passed away full of years and of honour, and that he has left behind him not only a legacy in the results of his labours, but a noble example to every one who comes after him to do with his might whatsoever his hand findeth to do."

5014. (Under International Convention.) "Improvements in switches and in suspenders for overhead conductors in electric railways." C. J. VAN DEPOELE. Dated March 22. 8d. Relates to an improved means for suspending and supporting the current supplying conductor, or conductors, of an electric railway of the type in which the current is taken from an overhead conductor by a contact device travelling with the moving vehicle. The device embodying the principal feature of the invention is called an "arched suspender," and a prominent feature in the improvement resides in the fact that the conductor is by means thereof supported in the same transverse plane as the cross wire, and therefore cannot tilt its immediate support, whatever the desired position of the conductor, a difficulty frequently interfering seriously with the operation of a railway when equipped with downwardly extending supporting devices. 16 claims.

8855. "Improvements in secondary batteries or accumulators." T. HARRIS and H. F. DE BATHE CAMERON. Dated May 28. 6d. Claims-1. In the manufacture of secondary batteries or accumulators, the method of fixing the active material in the apertures or interstices of the plates by screw threading or otherwise corrugating said apertures, substantially as described. 2. In a secondary battery or accumulator, the washers and rods of vulcanite or other suitable non-conducting material, when arranged to secure the elements together, substantially as described. 3. In a secondary battery or accumulator, the washers extending below the bottom of the plate to form legs to support the battery, substantially as described. 4. In a secondary battery or accumulator, the elastic cushion supporting the battery and formed of a sheet of elastic, non-conducting material, provided with the cups or bosses thereon, substantially as described.

9576. "Improvements in and relating to incandescent electric lamps." H. H. LAKE. (Communicated from abroad by S. F. Van Choate, of America.) Dated June 8. 11d. Relates to incandescent electric lamps, and is chiefly designed to improve the construction of the same. 29 claims.

[ОСТОВЕР 18, 1889.

electrolyte, whereby one side of each plate becomes positive and one side negative in the process of charging. 2. The combinati of a box or case, a series of similar battery plates of width le than the interior of the case, insulating strips between the de and lower ends of said plates, thereby forming cells between tà. plates, and an insulating and waterproof cement filling between the sides of the case and the edges of the plates. 3. The bination of a series of battery plates, arranged with insulate divisions between them, said divisions being made moisture tig whereby the spaces between the plates form cells for the electr lyte, and insulating plates interspersed, whereby the battery 1 divided into two or more separate series.

11328. Improved grids or supporting frames of electr accumulators." E. CORRENS. Dated July 15. 6d. Claims1. In electric accumulators for fixing the active material a body composed of two grids placed inversely one over the other, eat having orifices situate irregularly one over the other and narr ing from the inner to the outer side, the active material fl into the orifices of both grids forming a united whole, substantially as described and shown. 2. The production of a body compo of two grids by means of a stamp or die stamping the bottom gat after passing by the upper grid, the grids being turned over bring the shaped grid uppermost, and the second grid to be bapt to the bottom position, substantially as described and shown fr the purpose specified.

11732. Improvements in and relating to electric telegraphs F. ANDERSON. Dated July 23. 1s. 1d. Relates chiefly part cularly to improvements in that class of telegraphs known automatic or stylographic telegraphs, and to this end it consa in an improved form of automatic telegraphic receiver. object of this part of the invention is to produce a record upon a continuous sheet of paper in such a manner that it may be rest as an ordinary paged book or paper is read, so that the record i made by a series of lines which indicate in sequence the characters transmitted, said characters being of the well known Morse ? equivalent type. 22 claims.

CORRESPONDENCE.

Telephone Patents.

With reference to your correspondent's (Mr. H. M Edwards) enquiry in your last issue as to whether be could legally use the telephone instruments now on the market, for your correspondent's information I send you the following details.

The instrument designed by me some six year (during which period it has been manufactured an sold by this company), contains no carbon or other microphone as claimed by Edison, nor permanent mag net or diaphragm capable of inductive action as claimby Bell, the diaphragm being made of a pure anima membrane, in exact conformity with the disclaimer William Morgan Brown (Bell's patent), and your cur respondent need therefore have no fear of legal pro ceedings being taken against him for infringmest should he use our instruments.

October 15th, 1889.

Electric Telephone Company. ERNEST J. GILLETT.

Electric Traction.

Mr. A. J. Jarman has taken my question in a different light altogether from that intended. He is not justified in assuming that I have not read carefully the specif cations concerned. As a matter of fact, I have made a special study of the various tramway systems now before the public. I would remind your correspondeL: that the mere fact of obtaining an English patent des not prove that the subject is new, or of any earthly us whatever. It was hardly necessary for Mr. Jarman to state that he would advise his syndicate to proceed against anyone infringing their rights, but that is answer to the question I put to him. A fair question demands a fair answer. I cannot but suppose he is a quainted with the systems I have mentioned, and ! again submit that there is no difference in placing two motors side by side, or at opposite ends of the car. William Houghton.

Norwich, Norfolk.

[This discussion, out of which nothing can possibly come, had better end with Mr. Houghton's letter.EDS. ELEC. REV.]

DANGEROUS ELECTRICAL CURRENTS.

WHATEVER may have been the motive which inspired Mr. Harold P. Brown to preach his now historical crusade against the dangers of high tension currents, there can be no gainsaying the facts which he has managed to string together in support of his arguments. While he, in America, has done his utmost, either from pure philanthrophy or the love of gain, to bring home to the public a possible danger, Mr. Preece has endeavoured to show us here that risk to life from high tension currents has been much exaggerated; at least, so it has been reported, but we fear that reporting is rapidly becoming a lost art. It is not enough in these days to take down the precise words uttered by a popular lecturer; we must wait until he sees his words in print, and the chances are then that he immediately writes to the Press to the effect that he had been entirely misrepresented, and that what he really did say was something of quite a different nature. whatever it was which Mr. Preece intended to convey to his hearers, nobody would suggest that his mind was swayed by anything but a benevolent desire to serve and enlighten his fellow men. But this is mere digression. What we wish to bring forcibly before the notice of our readers is the unpleasant fact that the list of deaths from electric lighting, though still incomplete, numbers over 91 in the past few years; yet it must be borne in mind that not one street in a hundred, or one building in a thousand, is at present lighted by electricity, and that more than half the work now done is by continuous currents at low pressure, which cannot well prove fatal. Mr. Brown is right in asserting that it will not do to rely upon the presumption that electric light or power people must sufficiently guard the public welfare in order to protect their own business. Nor should we accept as an infallible guide the opinion of the expert who so often believes that he must necessarily fall in with the views of the corporation which engages him, for we have more than once in recent years

known gentlemen of high standing give quite opposite reports upon the same matter.

But to return to our object. We doubt whether there is a man in this country engaged in electric lighting who would have credited the statement, if unsupported by hard facts, that the partial list of deaths from shocks amounted to anything like so high a figure as that given. Yet, startling as it is, Mr. Brown asserts that it contains less than one-half the total number of fatal accidents from this cause, for it comprises only the details which he was able to obtain during the past year. He furthermore states that continuous currents were extensively used for the first five years of electric lighting without killing any one, and then, in less than two-thirds of this period, there were done to death nearly 30 persons by the alternating current. It would take up too much of our space to give the particulars of each individual case which Mr. Brown has been at so much pains to compile, so we give only a resumé as below:

...

24

3

91

Total number of deaths in above list Of the 64 killed by arc light currents at least 50 could have been saved by the proper insulation and apparatus. No apparatus could have saved the 27 killed by the alternating current.

Now we do not pretend to say that there exists in this country the chances for fatal accidents which are so frequent in the States, because the modus operandi involved in electric lighting differs so entirely in the two cases. But we do wish it to be understood that we have in our midst a lurking danger which has been pooh-poohed in some quarters, but which, nevertheless, we cannot afford to treat in a careless and indifferent

B