There is one very interesting fact that is not generally known, and I certainly was unaware of it before I started, in connection with this particular route across the Atlantic, and that is, that by it the ship passes within only 200 miles of Greenland. The great circle that directs the shortest route from the north of Ireland to the Straits of Belle Isle passes within the cold region, and hence, while you were all sweltering in heat in London, we were compelled to bring out our ulsters and all our warm garments, to enable us to cross with any degree of comfort. The advantage of this particular route is supposed to be the fact that only five days are spent upon the ocean, and the remainder of the voyage is occupied in the calms and comforts of the Gulf and River St. Lawrence. But I am inclined to think that the roughness of the ocean and the coolness of the weather at all seasons are quite sufficient to prevent anybody from repeating our experience.

We arrived at Montreal in time to attend the opening meeting of the British Association; and at Montreal we were received with great hospitality, great attention, and great kindness from all our brethren in Canada, and we held there certainly a very successful and very pleasant gathering. There were 1,773 members of the British Association altogether present, and of that number there were 600 who had crossed the Atlantic; the remainder being made up of Canadians, and by at least 200 Americans, including all the most distinguished professors who adorn the rolls of science in the United States. As is invariably the rule in these British Association meetings, we had not only papers to enlighten us, but entertainments to cheer us; and excursions were arranged in every direction, to enable us to become acquainted with the beauties and peculiarities of the American continent. Some members went to Quebec, some to Ottawa, others to the Lakes, others to Toronto, many went to Niagara; and altogether the arrangements made for our comfort and pleasure were such, that I have not heard one single soul who attended this meeting at Montreal express the slightest regret that he crossed the Atlantic.

The meeting at Montreal certainly cannot be called an electricians' meeting. The gathering of the British Association has often been distinguished by the first appearance of some new instrument or the divulgence of some new scientific secret; but there was nothing of any special interest brought forward on this occasion. The only real novelty or striking fact that I can recall as having taken place was a remarkable discussion that originated by Professor Oliver Lodge, upon the "Seat of the Electromotive Force in a Voltaic Cell."

This was an experiment on the part of the British Association. Discussions, as a rule, have not been the case at our meetings. Papers have been read and papers have been discussed; but on this occasion three or four subjects were named as fit for discussion, and distinguished professors were selected to open the discussion.

On this particular subject, Professor Oliver Lodge opened the discussion, and he did so in an original, an efficient, and in a chirpy kind of manner that took by storm not only the professors who knew him, but those who did not know him; and I am bound to say that I do not think we could possibly better spend an evening during the coming session, or more profitably, than by asking Professor Oliver Lodge to bring the subject before this Society, so as to allow us on this side of the water to discuss the same subject.

Of course the prominent figure at our meetings was Lord Rayleigh; and I do not think that any person could possibly have been present at those meetings of the British Association without feeling an intense personal admiration for this man, and an affection for the way in which he maintained the position of an English gentleman and the credit of an English scientific body, to the astonishment and delight of every one present. Then, again, we had our past President, Sir William Thomson, who was not quite so ubiquitous as usual; he did not dance from section to section as he usually does, but remained as president of his own section, A. I think he only left his section for a day, and that was to attend the electrical day in Section G; but in his own section he brought down those words of wisdom that one always hears from him, and which make one always regret that there is not always present about him a shorthand writer to take down thoughts and ideas that never occur again, and are only heard by those who have the benefit of being present.

The subjects brought forward were not of intense interest. We had a paper by Dr. Traill, describing the Portrush Railway, and there were various other papers; and I can pass over some of the other subjects, because I shall have to deal with them under another head. But while we were in Montreal, a deputation of American professors and members of the American Association came over, and invited a good many of those who were present at Montreal to visit the American Association at Philadelphia. I was one of those who went over to America simply and solely for a holiday, and I am bound to say that I set my face determinedly against going to Philadelphia. I traveled with two charming companions, and we all decided not to go to Philadelphia. But the compact was broken, and we capitulated, and went from the charming climate of Montreal into the most intense heat and into the greatest discomfort that I think poor members of the Telegraph Engineers' Society ever experienced. We entered a heat that was 100 deg. by day and 98 deg. by night; and I do not think there is anybody in this room, unless he has been brought up in the furnace-room of an Atlantic steamer, who can fully appreciate the heat of Philadelphia in these summer months. The discomforts of the climate were, however, amply compensated for by the hospitality and kindness of the inhabitants. We spent, in spite of the heat, a very pleasant time.

Before referring further to the meetings at Philadelphia, I may just mention the other journeys that I took. My holiday having been broken by the rupture of the union to which I have alluded, I had to devote it then to other purposes, and, in addition to Montreal and Philadelphia, I went to New York (to which I shall refer again), from New York to Buffalo, then to Lake Erie and Cleveland, and on to Chicago, where I spent a week or more. From Chicago I went to see the great artery of the West—the Mississippi. I stopped for a day or two at St. Louis. One remarkable fact came to my knowledge, and I dare say it is new to many present, and that is, that the Mississippi, unlike other rivers, runs uphill. It happens, rather curiously, that, owing to the earth being an oblate spheroid, the difference between the source of the Mississippi and the center of the earth is less than that of its mouth and the center of the earth, and you may see how this running up hill is accounted for.

From St. Louis I went to Indianapolis, thence to Pittsburg, where they have struck most extraordinary wells of natural gas. Borings are made in the earth from the crust to a depth of 600 or 700 feet, when large reservoirs of natural gas are "struck." The town is lighted by this gas, and it is also employed for motive power. In Cleveland, also, this natural gas is found, and there is no doubt that it is going to economize the cost of production very much in that part of the country. From Pittsburg I went to Baltimore, where Sir William Thomson was occupied in delivering lectures to the students of the Johns Hopkins University. In all these American towns one very curious feature is that they all have great educational establishments, endowed and formed by private munificence. In Canada there is the McGill University, and in nearly every place one goes to there is a university, like the Johns Hopkins at Baltimore, where Johns Hopkins left 3,500,000 dollars to be devoted entirely to educational purposes; and that university is under the management of one of the most enlightened men in America, Professor Grillman, and he has as his lieutenants Professors Rowland, Mendenhall, and other well-known men, and each professor is in his own line particularly eminent. Sir William Thomson delivered there a really splendid course of lectures. From Baltimore I went through Philadelphia to Boston. I visited Long Branch, and I spent a long time in New York, so that from what I have said you will gather that I spent a good deal of my time in the States. Wherever I went I devoted all my leisure time to inquiry into the telegraphic, telephonic, and electric light arrangements in existence. I visited all the manufactories I could get to, and I did all I possibly could to enable me to return home and afford information, and perhaps amusement, to my fellow-members of this Society.

As an illustration of the intense heat we experienced, I may mention that it was at one time perfectly impossible to make the thermometer budge. The temperature of the blood is about 97 or 98 degrees, and if the temperature of the air be below the temperature of the blood, of course when the hand is applied to the thermometer the mercury rises. In one of our journeys up the Pennsylvania Road we tried to make the thermometer budge as usual, but could not, which proved that the temperature of the air inside the Pullman car in which we traveled was the same as that of the blood.

The American Association is of course based on the British Association. Its mode of administration is a little different. It is divided into sections, as is the British Association, but the sections are not called the same. For instance, in the British Association, Section A is devoted entirely to physics, but in the American Association, Section A is devoted to astronomy and Section B to physics. In the British Association, Section G is devoted to mechanics, but in America Section D is devoted to that subject. But with the exception of just a change in the names of some sections which are familiar as household words to members of the British Association, the proceedings of the American Association do not differ very much from ours. They have, however, one very sensible rule. The length of every paper is indicated upon the programme of the day's proceedings, and the continuation or the stopping of any discussion on that paper is in the hands of the section. For instance, if the President thinks that a man is speaking too long, he has only to say, "Does the meeting wish that this discussion shall be continued, or shall it be stopped?" A majority on the show of hands decides. Such a practice has a very wholesome effect in checking discussion, and I certainly think that some of our societies would do well to adopt a rule of the same character.

The meeting of the American Association, again, was not distinguished by any particular electrical paper, or any new electrical subject. The main subject that was brought before us was the peculiar effect called "Hall's effect," that Professor Hall, now of Harvard College, and then assistant to Professor Rowland, discovered in the powerful field of a magnet when a current was passed through a conductor; and a description of that effect (which he at one time thought was an indication that electricity was something separate from matter) formed the subject of two debates that lasted for nearly the whole of two days. I am bound to say that in that prolonged discussion the members of this Society held their own. I see two very prominent members present who spoke on most of the electrical subjects dealt with—Professor G. Forbes, who knows what he says and says what he knows, and Professor Silvanus Thompson, who held his own under very trying circumstances.

At the same time that this meeting of the American Association was being held at Philadelphia, where we were treated with marvelous hospitality,—excursions, soirees, dinners, parties, etc., etc.—and as though it were not quite sufficient to bring over humble Britishers from this side of the Atlantic to suffer the intense heat at one meeting of the Association, they held at the same time an Electrical Conference. There was a conference of electricians appointed by the United States Government, that was chiefly distinguished on the part of the American Government by selecting those who were not electricians. But many attended the Electrical Conference who stand high as electricians, one especially, who, though perhaps from want of experience he did not shine very brilliantly as a chairman, certainly stands as one of the ablest electricians of the day—I mean Professor Rowland. The Conference was held under Professor Rowland's presidency, and nearly all the well-known professors of the United States attended. The Conference was established by the United States Government to take into consideration the results and conclusions arrived at by the Congress of 1884, held in Paris. The Paris Congress decided upon adopting certain units of resistance of electromotive force, of current, and of quantity, and they determined the particular length of a column of mercury that should represent the ohm—a column of mercury 106 centimeters long and of one square millimeter in section. It was necessary that the United States should join this Conference, so a commission was appointed to consider the whole matter. All these units were brought before them, as well as the other conclusions of the Paris Congress, such as the proper mode of recording earth currents and atmospheric electricity. The Paris units were adopted in face of the fact that the length determined upon at Paris was not the length that Professor Rowland himself had found as that which should represent the ohm. It differed by about 0.2, as near as I can remember; but it was thought so necessary that uniformity and unanimity should exist all over the world in the adoption of a proper unit, that all differences were laid aside, and the Americans agreed to comply with the resolutions of the Paris Congress.

There were two units that I had the temerity to bring forward, first, at the British Association, and secondly, before the Electrical Conference. It will be remembered, that at the meeting of the British Association at Southampton in 1882, the late Sir W. Siemens proposed that the unit of power should be the watt, and that the watt, which was derived from the C.G.S. system of absolute units, should in future, among electricians, be the unit of power. This was accepted by the British Association at Montreal, and it was also accepted by the American Electrical Conference at Philadelphia. But I also, at Montreal, suggested that as the watt was the unit of power, so we ought to make some multiple of that unit the higher unit of power, comparable to that which is now represented by the well-known term "horsepower." Horsepower, unfortunately, does not form itself directly into the C.G.S. system. The term horsepower is a meaningless quantity; it is not a horsepower at all. It was established by the great Watt, who determined that the average power exerted by a horse was equal to about 22,000 foot pounds raised per minute; but this was thought by him to be too little, so he increased it by 50 per cent., and so arrived at what is the present horsepower, 33,000 foot pounds raised per minute. Foot pounds bear no relation to our C.G.S. system of units, and it is most desirable that we should have some unit of power, somewhere about the horsepower, to enable us to convert at once watts into horsepower. For that purpose I proposed that 1,000 watts, or the kilowatt, should replace what is now called the horsepower, and suggested it for the consideration of engineers. It has been received with a great deal of consideration by those who understand the subject, and a considerable amount of ridicule by those who do not. It is rather a remarkable thing that, as a rule, one will always find ridicule and ignorance running side by side; and it is an almost invariable fact that when a new proposition is brought forward, it is laughed at. I am always very glad to see that, because it always succeeds in drawing attention to the matter. I remember a friend of mine, who had written a book, being in great glee because it was severely criticised by the Athenaeum, a fact which drew public attention to the book, and caused it to make a great stir. So when I proposed that the horsepower should be increased by 33 per cent., and made equivalent to 1,000 watts, I was not at all sorry to find that I had incurred the displeasure of the leader writers in nearly all our scientific papers, and I was quite sure that the attention of those who would not perhaps have thought of it would thereby be drawn to the matter. Some people object to the use of a name, this name "watt." When you have fresh ideas, you must have fresh words to express those ideas. The watt was a new unit, it must be called by some name, otherwise it could scarcely be conveyed to our minds. The foot, the gallon, the yard, were all new names once; and how do we know that they were not derived from some "John Foot," "William Gallon," or "Jack Yard," or some man whose name was connected with the measure when introduced? The poet says:

"Some mute, inglorious Milton here may rest— Some Cromwell, guiltless of his country's blood:"

so in these names some forgotten physicist or mute engineer may be buried. At any rate, we cannot do without names. The ohm, the ampere, the volt, are merely words that express ideas that we all understand; and so does the watt, and so will the 1,000 watts when you come to think over the matter as much as some of us have done.

At this Conference several other subjects were brought up which attracted a good deal of attention. Professor Rowland brought forward a paper on the theory of dynamos that certainly startled a good many of us; and it led to a discussion that is admirably reported in our scientific papers. I think that the discussion evolved by Professor Rowland's paper on the theory of dynamos deserves the study of every electrician; it brought very strongly into prominence one or two English gentlemen who were present. Professor Fitzgerald, of Dublin, spoke with a considerable amount of power, and showed a mastery of the subject that was pleasant not only to his friends, but must have been gratifying to the Americans who heard him. On this particular subject of dynamos it was truly wonderful how the doctors disagreed. Two could not be found who held the same views on the theory and construction of the dynamo, and that shows that we still have a great deal to learn about the dynamo, and that the true principle of construction of it has yet to be brought out.

It is a very curious thing, and I thought about it at the time, that when you consider the dynamos in use, you see how very little has been done to perfect the direct working dynamo in England. Although the principle of the dynamo originated with Faraday, yet all the early machines, Pacinotti, Gramme. Hefner von Alteneck, Shuckert, Brush, Edison, and several others who have improved the direct action machine, have not been found in England. But when we deal with alternate-current machines, then we find the Wilde, Ferranti, and various others; so that the tendency in England has been very much to improve and work upon the alternate-current machines. In other countries it is exactly the reverse; in fact, in America I never saw one single alternate-current machine. When Professor Forbes wanted an alternate-current machine to illustrate a lecture that he gave, it was with the greatest difficulty that one could be found, and, in fact, it was put together specially for him.

The other subjects brought before this Conference were Earth Currents, Atmospheric Electricity, Accumulators or Secondary Batteries, and Telephones. There was an extremely able paper brought forward by Mr. T.D. Lockwood, the electrician of the American Bell Telephone Company, on Telephones, and the disturbances that influence their working. When that paper is published, it will well be worth your careful examination.

Papers were also read on the Transmission of Energy, and there were papers on many other subjects.

So much for the Electrical Conference.

Now, the Americans at the present moment are suffering from a mania which we, happily, have passed through, that is, the mania of exhibitions.

While we were at Philadelphia, there was an exceedingly interesting exhibition held. I do not intend to say much about that exhibition, for the simple reason that Professor G. Forbes has promised, during the forthcoming session, to give us a paper describing what he saw there, and his studies at Philadelphia; and I am quite sure that it will be a paper worthy of him, and of you. But, apart from this exhibition at Philadelphia, I could not go anywhere without finding an exhibition. There was one at Chicago, another at St. Louis, another at Boston; everybody was talking about one at Louisville, where I did not go; and there were rumors of great preparations for the "largest exhibition the world has ever seen," according to their own account, at New Orleans. However, I satisfied myself with seeing the exhibition at Philadelphia, which consisted strictly of American goods, and was not of the international nature general to such exhibitions. But it was a fine exhibition, and one that no other single nation could bring together.

Telegraphs.—When I spoke to you in 1878, my remarks were almost entirely confined to telegraphs, for at that day the telephone was not, as a practical instrument, in existence. I brought from America on that occasion the first telephones that were brought to this country. Then the practical application of electricity was applied to telegraphs, and so telegraphs formed the subject of my theme. But while in 1877 I saw a great deal to learn, and picked up a great many wrinkles, and brought back from America a good many processes, I go back there now in 1884, seven years afterward, and I do not find one single advance made—I comeback with scarcely one single wrinkle; and, in fact, while we in England during those seven years have progressed with giant strides, in America, in telegraph matters, they have stood still. But their material progress has been marvelous. In 1877, the mileage of wire belonging to the Western Union Telegraph Company was 200,000 miles; in 1884, they have 433,726 miles of wire; so that during the seven years their mileage of wire has more than doubled. During the same period their number of messages has increased from 28,000,000 to over 40,000,000; their offices from 11,660 to 13,600; and the capital invested in their concern has increased from $40,000,000 to $80,000,000—in fact, there is no more gigantic telegraph organization in this world that this Western Union Telegraph Company. It is a remarkable undertaking, and I do not suppose there is an administration better managed. But for some reason or other that I cannot account for, their scientific progress has not marched with their material progress, and invention has to a certain extent there ceased. There really was only one telegraphic novelty to be found in the States, and that was an instrument by Delany—a multiplex instrument by which six messages could be sent in one or other direction at the same time. It is an instrument that is dependent upon the principle introduced by Meyer, where time is divided into a certain number of sections, and where synchronous action is maintained between two instruments. This system has been worked out with great perfection in France by Baudot. We had a paper by Colonel Webber on the subject, before the Society, in which the process was fully described. Delany, in the States, has carried the process a little further, by making it applicable to the ordinary Morse sending. On the Meyer and Baudot principle, the ordinary Morse sender has to wait for certain clicks, which indicate at which moment a letter may be sent; but on the Delany plan each of the six clerks can peg away as he chooses—he can send at any rate he likes, and he is not disturbed in any way by having any sound to guide or control his ear. The Delany is a very promising system. It may not work to long distances; but the apparatus is promised to be brought over to this country, to be exhibited at the Inventors' Exhibition next year, and I can safely say that the Post Office will give every possible facility to try the new invention upon its wires.

One gratifying effect of my visit to the telegraph establishments in America was that, while hitherto we have never hesitated in England to adopt any process or invention that was a distinct advance, whether it came from America or anywhere else, they on the other hand have shown a disinclination to adopt anything British; but they have now adopted our Wheatstone automatic system. That system is at work between New Orleans and Chicago, and New York and New Orleans—1,600 miles. It has given them so much satisfaction that they are going to increase it very largely; so that we really have the proud satisfaction of finding a real, true British invention well established on the other side of the Atlantic.

The next branch that I propose to bring to your notice is the question of the telephone.

The telephone has passed through rather an awkward phase in the States. A very determined attempt has been made to upset the Bell patents in that country; and those who visited the Philadelphia Exhibition saw the instruments there exhibited upon which the advocates of the plaintiff relied. It is said that a very ingenious American, named Drawbaugh, had anticipated all the inventors of every part of the telephone system; that he had invented a receiver before Bell; that he had invented the compressed carbon arrangement before Edison; that he had invented the microphone before our friend Professor Hughes; and that, in fact, he had done everything on the face of the earth to establish the claims set forth. Some of his patents were shown, and I not only had to examine his patents, but I had to go through a great many depositions of the evidence given, and I am bound to confess that a more flimsy case I never saw brought before a court of law. I do not know whether I shall be libelous in expressing my opinion (I will refer to our solicitor before the notes are printed), but I should not hesitate to say that I never saw a more evident conspiracy concocted to try and disturb the position of a well-established patent. However, I have heard that the judgment has been given as the public generally supposed it would be given; because as soon as the case was over the shares of the Bell company, which were at 150, jumped up to 190, and now the decision is given I am told that they will probably reach 290.

We cannot form a conception on this side of the Atlantic of the extent to which telephones are used on the other side of the Atlantic. It is said sometimes that the progress of the telephone on this side of the water has been checked very much by the restrictions brought to bear upon the telephone by the Government of this country. But whatever restrictions have been instituted by our Government upon the adoption of the telephone, they are not to be compared with the restrictions that the poor unfortunate telephone companies have to struggle against on the other side of the Atlantic. There is not a town that does not mulct them in taxes for every pole they erect, and for every wire they extend through the streets. There is not a State that does not exact from them a tax; and I was assured, and I know as a fact, that in one particular case there was one company—a flourishing company—that was mulcted is 75 per cent. of its receipts before it could possibly pay a dividend. Here we only ask the telephone companies to pay to the poor, impoverished British Government 10 per cent.; and 10 per cent. by the side of 75 per cent. certainly cuts but a very sorry figure. But the truth is, the reason why the telephone is flourishing in America is that it is an absolute necessity there for the proper transaction of business. Where you exist in a sort of Turkish bath at from 90 deg. to 100 deg., you want to be saved every possible reason for leaving your office to conduct your business; and the telephone comes in as a means whereby you can do so, and can loll back in your arm chair, with your legs up in the air, with a cigar in your mouth, with a punkah waving over your head, and a bottle of iced water by your side. By the telephone, under such circumstances, business transactions can be carried on with comfort to yourself and to him with whom your business is transacted. We have not similar conditions here. We are always glad of an excuse to get out of our offices. In America, too, servants and messengers are the exception, a boy is not to be had, whereas in England we get an errand boy at half a crown a week. That which costs half a crown here costs 12s. to 15s. in America; and, that being so, it is much better to pay the telephone company a sum that will, at less cost, enable your business to be transacted without the engagement of such a boy.

The Americans, again, adopt electrical contrivances for all sorts of domestic purposes. There is not a single house in New York, Chicago, or anywhere else that I went into, that has not in the hall a little instrument [producing one] which, by the turn of a pointer and the pressing of a handle, calls for a messenger, a carriage, a cab, express wagon (that is, the fellow who looks after your luggage), a doctor, policeman, fire-alarm, or anything else as may be arranged for. The little instrument communicates to a central office not far off, and in two minutes the doctor, or messenger, or whatever it may be, presents himself.

For fire-alarms and for all sorts of purposes, domestic telegraphy is part and parcel of the nature of an American, and the result was that when the telephone was brought to him, he adopted it with avidity. On this side of the Atlantic domestic telegraphy is at a minimum, and I do not think any one would have a telephone in his house if he could help it.

When you want a thing, you must pay for it. The Americans want the telephone, and they pay for it. In London people grumble very much at having to pay L20 to the Telephone Company for the use of a telephone. I question very much whether L20 a year is quite enough; at any rate, it is not enough if the American charge is taken as a standard. The charge in New York is of two classes—one for a system called the law system, which is applied almost exclusively for the use of lawyers, which is L44 a year; the other being the charge made to the ordinary public, and which will compare with the service rendered in London, which is charged for at L35 a year, against L20 a year in London. The charge in Chicago is L26 a year; in Boston, Philadelphia, and a great many other places it is L25 a year. At Buffalo a mode of charging by results is adopted; everybody pays for each oral message he sends—every time he uses the telephone he pays either four, five, or six cents, according to the number for which he guarantees. Supposing any one of us wanted a telephone at Buffalo, the company will supply it under a guarantee to pay for a minimum of 500 messages per annum. If 1,000 messages are sent, the charge is less pro rata, being six cents, if I remember rightly, for each message under 500, and five cents up to 1,000 messages, four cents per message over 1,000 messages; and so everybody pays for what work he does. It is payment by results. The people like the arrangement, the company like it because they make it pay, and the system works well. But I am bound to say that, up to the present moment, Buffalo is the only city in the United States where that method has been adopted.

The instruments used in the States are no better—in fact, in many cases they are worse—than the instruments we use on this side of the Atlantic. I have heard telephones in this country speak infinitely better than anything that I have heard on the other side of the Atlantic. But they transact their business in America infinitely better than we do; and there is one great reason for this, which is, that in America the public itself falls into the mode of telephone working with the energy of the telegraph operator. They assist the telephone people in every way they can; they take disturbances with a humility that would be simply startling to English subscribers; and they help the workers of the system in every way they can. The result is, that all goes off with great smoothness and comfort. But the switch apparatus used in the American central offices is infinitely superior to anything that I have ever seen over here, excepting at Liverpool.

A new system has just been brought out, called the "multiple" system, which has been very lately introduced. I saw it at many places, especially at Indianapolis, at Boston, and at New York, where three exchanges were worked by it with a rapidity that perfectly startled me. I took the times of a great many transactions, and found that, from the moment a subscriber called to the moment he was put through, only five seconds elapsed; and I am told at Milwaukee, where unfortunately I could not go, but where there is a friend of ours in charge, Mr. Charles Haskins, who is one of our members, and he says he has brought down the rate of working to such a pitch that they are able to arrange that subscribers shall be put through in four seconds.

You will be surprised to learn that there are 986 exchanges at work in the United States. There are 97,423 circuits; there are nearly 90,000 miles of wire used for telephonic purposes; and the number of instruments that have been manufactured amounts to 517,749. Just compare those figures with our little experience on this side of the Atlantic. I have a return showing the number of subscribers in and about New York, comprising the New Jersey division, the Long Island division, Staten Island, Westchester, and New York City, and the total amounts to 10,600 subscribers who are put into communication with each other in the neighborhood of New York alone; and here in England we can only muster 11,000. There are just as many subscribers probably at this moment in New York and its neighborhood as we have in the whole of the United Kingdom.

I am sorry to delay you so long. I have very few more points to bring before you. I spoke only last week so much about the electric light that I have very little to say on that point. High-tension currents are used for electric lighting in America, and all wires are carried overhead along the streets. A more hideous contrivance was probably never invented since the world was created than the system of carrying wires overhead through the magnificent streets and cities in America. They spend thousands upon thousands of pounds in beautifying their cities with very fine buildings, and then they disfigure them all by carrying down the pavements the most villainous-looking telegraph posts that ever were constructed. The practice is carried to such an extent, that down Broadway in New York there are no less than six distinct lines of poles; and through the city of New York there are no less than thirty-two separate and distinct companies carrying all their wires through the streets of the city. How the authorities have stood it so long I cannot make out. They object to underground wires—why, one cannot tell. It is something like taking a horse to the pond—you cannot make him drink. So it is with these telephone companies: the public of America and the Town Councils have been trying to force the telephone and telegraph companies to put their wires underground, but they are the horses that are led to the pool, and they will not drink. It is said that the Town Council of Philadelphia have issued most stringent orders that on the first of January next, men with axes and tools are to start out and cut down every pole in the city. It is all very well to threaten; but my impression is that any member of Town Council or any individual of Philadelphia who attempts to do such a thing will be lynched by the first telephone subscriber he meets.

This practice of running overhead wires has great disadvantages when the wires are used for electric-lighting purposes as well as for ordinary telephone or telegraph purposes. No doubt the high-tension system can be carried out overhead with economy; but where overhead wires carrying these heavy currents exist in the neighborhood of telephone circuits, there is every possible liability to accident; and in my short trip I came across seven distinct cases of offices being destroyed by fire, of test boxes being utterly ruined, of a whole house being gutted, and of various accidents, all clearly traceable to contacts arising from the falling of overhead wires, charged with high-tension current, upon telegraph and telephone wires below. The danger is so great and damage so serious that, at Philadelphia, Mr. Plush, the electrician to the Telephone Company, has devised this exceedingly pretty cut-out. It is a little electro-magnetic cut-out that breaks the telephone circuit whenever a current passes into the circuit equal to or more than an ampere. The arrangement works with great ease. It is applied to every telephone circuit simply, to protect the telephone system from electric light wires, that ought never to be allowed anywhere near a telephone circuit.

Fire-alarms are used in America; but in England, also, the fire systems of Edward Bright, Spagnoletti, and Higgins have been introduced, and in that respect we are in very near the same position as our friends on the other side of the Atlantic. Some members present may remember that, when I described my last visit to America, I mentioned how in Chicago the fire-alarm was worked by an electric method, and I told you a story then that you did not believe, and which I have told over and over again, but nobody has yet believed me, and I began to think that I must have made a mistake somewhere or other. So I meant, when at Chicago this time, to see whether I had been deceived myself. There was very little room for improvement, because, as I told you before, they had very near reached perfection. This is what they did: At the corner of the street where a fire-alarm box is fixed, a handle is pulled down, and the moment that handle is released a current goes to the fire-station; it sounds a gong to call the attention of the men, it unhitches the harness of the horses, the horses run to their allotted positions at the engine, it whips the clothes off every man who is in bed, it opens a trap at the bottom of the bed and the men slide down into their positions on the engine. The whole of that operation takes only six seconds. The perfection to which fire-alarm business has been brought in the States is one of the most interesting applications of electricity there.

Of course during this visit I waited on Mr. Edison. Many of you know that a difference took place between Mr. Edison and myself, and I must confess that I felt a little anxiety as to how I should be received on the other side. It is impossible for any man to receive another with greater kindness and attention than Mr. Edison received me. He took me all over his place and showed me everything, and past differences were not referred to. Mr. Edison is doing an enormous amount of work in steadily plodding away at the electric light business. He has solved the question as far as New York is concerned and as far as central station lighting is concerned; and all we want on this side is to instill more confidence into our capitalists, to try and induce them to unbutton their pockets and give us money to carry out central lighting here.

I met another very distinguished electrician—a man who has hid his light under a bushel—a man whose quiet modesty has kept him very much in the background, but who really has done as much work as any body on that side of the Atlantic, and few have done more on this—and that is Mr. Edward Weston. He is an Englishman who has established himself in New York. He has been working steadily for years at his laboratory, and works and produces plant with all the skill and exactitude that the electrician or mechanic could desire.

Another large factory I went over was that of the Western Electric Company of Chicago, which is the largest manufactory in the States. That company has three large factories. While I was there, the manager, just as a matter of course, handed me over a message which contained an order for 330 arc lamps and for twenty-four dynamo machines. He was very proud of such an order, but he tried to make me believe that it was an every-day occurrence.

There are no less than 90,000 arc lamps burning in the States every day.

The time has passed very rapidly. I have only just one or two more points to allude to. I think I ought not to conclude without referring to the more immediate things affecting travelers generally and electricians in particular. It is astounding to come across the different experiences narrated by different men who have been on the other side of the Atlantic. One charming companion that we had on board the Parisian has been interviewed, and his remarks appeared in the Pall Mall Gazette of Tuesday last, December 9th. There he gave the most pessimist view of life in the United States. He said they were a miserable race—thin, pale faced and haggard, and rushed about as though they were utterly unhappy; and the account our friend gave of what he saw in the United States evidently shows that the heat that did not affect some of us so very much must have produced upon Mr. Capper a most severe bilious attack. Well, his experiences are not mine. Throughout the whole States I received kindnesses and attentions that I can never forget. I had the pleasure of staying in the houses of most charming people. I found that whenever you met an educated American gentleman there was no distinction to be drawn between him and an English gentleman. His ways of living, his modes of thought, his amusements, his entertainments, are the same as ours; there is no difference whatever to be found. In Mr. Capper's case I can readily imagine that he spent most of his time in the halls of hotels, and there you do see those wild fellows rushing about; they convert the hall of the hotel into a mere stock exchange, and look just as uncomfortable as our "stags" who run about Capel Court. You may just as well enter a betting-ring and come away with the impression that the members represent English society, or that that is the most refined manner in which English gentlemen enjoy themselves.

Well, gentlemen, there are just as exceptional peculiarities here as on the other side of the water. The Americans are the most charming people on this earth. When we enter their houses and come to know them, they treat us in a way that cannot be forgotten. I noticed a very great change since I was in America before. Whether it is a greater acquaintance with them or not I cannot say, but there is an absence of that which we can only express by a certain word called "cockiness." It struck me at one time that there was a good deal of cockiness on that side of the Atlantic, that has entirely disappeared. Constant intercourse between the two countries is gradually bringing out a regular unanimity of feeling and the same mode of thought.

But there are some things in which the Americans are a little lax, especially in their history. At one of their exhibitions that I visited, for instance, there was a placard put up—

"The steed called Lightning, say the Fates, Was tamed in the United States. 'Twas Franklin's hand that caught the horse; 'Twas harnessed by Professor Morse."

Now, considering that Franklin made his discovery in 1752, and the United States were not formed till about thirty years afterward, it is rather "transmogrifying" history to say the lightning was tamed in the United States.

Again, where the notice about Professor Morse was put, they say that the instrument was invented by Morse in 1846, while alongside it is shown the very slip which sent the message, dated 1844; so that the slip of the original message sent by Morse was sent by his instrument two years before it was invented.

Again, that favorite old instrument of ours which we are so proud of, the hatchment telegraph of Cooke and Wheatstone, invented in 1837, was labeled "Whetstone and Cook, 1840," so while I am sorry to say they are loose in their history, they are tight in their friendships, and all the visitors receive the warmest possible welcome from them generally, and especially so from every member of our Society belonging to the States.

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THE HOUSE OF A THOUSAND TERRORS, ROTTERDAM.



This building, which is situated at the corner of the Groote Market and the Hang, is one of the oldest houses in Rotterdam, besides being one of the most interesting from a historical point of view. There is a tradition which states that when the city was invaded and pillaged by the Spaniards, who in accordance with their usual custom, proceeded to put the inhabitants to the sword, without regard to age or sex, a large number of the leading citizens took refuge within the building, and having secured and barricaded the entrance, they killed a kid and allowed the blood to flow beneath the door into the street; seeing which the soldiery concluded that those inside had already been massacred, and without troubling to force an entry passed on, leaving them unmolested. Here the unhappy citizens remained for three days without food, by which time the danger had passed away, and they were enabled to effect their escape. It is from this incident that the building takes its name. The house is built in a species of irregular bond with bricks of varying lengths, the strings, labels, copings, etc., being in stone. The upper portion remains in pretty much the same condition as it existed in the 16th century, but is much disfigured by modern paint, which has been laid over the whole of the exterior with no sparing hand. Within the last few years the present shop windows facing the Groote Market have been put up and various slight alterations made to the lower part of the building to suit the requirements of the present occupiers. The drawing has been prepared from detail sketches made on the spot.—W.E. Pinkerton, in Building News.

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ON THE ORIGIN AND STRUCTURE OF COAL.

The origin of coal, that combustible which is distributed over the earth in all latitudes, from the frozen regions of Greenland to Zambesi in the tropics, utilized by the Chinese from the remotest antiquity for the baking of pottery and porcelain, employed by the Greeks for working iron, and now the indispensable element of the largest as well of the smallest industries, is far from being sufficiently clear. The most varied hypotheses have been offered to explain its formation. To cite them all would not be an easy thing to do, and so we shall recall but three: (1) It has been considered as the result of eruptions of bitumen coming from the depths, and covering and penetrating masses of leaves, branches, bark, wood, roots, etc., of trees that had accumulated in shallow water, and whose most delicate relief and finest impressions have been preserved by this species of tar solidified by cooling. (2) It has also been considered as the result of the more or less complete decomposition of plants under the influence of heat and dampness, which has led them to pass successively through the following principal stages: peat, lignite, bituminous coal, anthracite. (3) Finally, while admitting that the decomposition of plants can cause organic matter to assume these different states, other scientists think that it is not necessary for such matter to have been peat and lignite in order to become coal, and that at the carboniferous epoch plants were capable of passing directly to the state of coal if the conditions were favorable; and, in the same way, in the secondary and tertiary epochs the alteration of vegetable tissues generally led to lignite, while now they give rise to peat. In other words, the nature of the combustible formed at every great epoch depended upon general climatic conditions and local chemical action. Anthracite and bituminous coal would have belonged especially to primary times, lignites to secondary and tertiary times, and peat to our own epoch, without the peat ever being able to become lignites or the latter coal.

As for the accumulation of large masses of the combustible in certain regions and its entire absence in others belonging to the same formation, that is attributed, now to the presence of immense forests growing upon a low, damp soil, exposed to alternate rising and sinking, and whose debris kept on accumulating during the periods of upheaval, under the influence of a powerful vegetation, and now to the transportation of plants of all sorts, that had been uprooted in the riparian forests by torrents and rivers, to lakes of wide extent or to estuaries. Not being able to enter in this place into the details of the various hypotheses, or to thoroughly discuss them, we shall be content to make known a few facts that have been recently observed, and that will throw a little light upon certain still obscure points regarding the formation of coal.

(1) According to the first theory, if the impressions which we often find in coal (such as the leaves of Cordaites, bark of Sigillarias and Lepidodendrons, wood of Cordaites, Calamodendrons, etc.) are but simple and superficial mouldings, executed by a peculiar bitumen, formerly fluid, now solidified, and resembling in its properties no other bitumen known, we ought not to find in the interior any trace of preservation or any evidence of structure. Now, upon making preparations that are sufficiently thin to be transparent, from coal apparently formed of impressions of the leaves of Cordaites, we succeed in distinguishing (in a section perpendicular to the limb) the cuticle and the first row of epidermic cells, the vascular bundles that correspond to the veins and the bands of hypodermic libers; but the loose, thin-walled cells of the mesophyllum are not seen, because they have been crushed by pressure, and their walls touch each other. The portions of coal that contain impressions of the bark of Sigillaria and Lepidodendron allow the elongated, suberose tissue characteristic of such bark to be still more clearly seen.

Were we to admit that the bitumen was sufficiently fluid to penetrate all parts of the vegetable debris, as silica and carbonates of lime and iron have done in so many cases, we should meet with one great difficulty. In fact, the number of fragments of coal isolated in schists and sandstone is very large, and without any communication with veins of coal or of bitumen that could have penetrated the vegetable. We cannot, then, for an instant admit such a hypothesis. Neither can we admit that the penetration of the plants by bitumen was effected at a certain distance, and that they have been transported, after the operation, to the places where we now find them, since it is not rare to find at Commentry trunks of Calamodendrons, Anthropitus, and ferns which are still provided with roots from 15 to 30 feet in length, and the carbonized wood of which surrounds a pith that has been replaced by a stony mould. The fragile ligneous cylinder would certainly have been broken during such transportation.

The carbonized specimens were never fluid or pasty, since there are some that have left their impressions with the finest details in the schists and sandstones, but none of the latter that has left its traces upon the coal. The surface of the isolated specimens is well defined, and their separation from the gangue (which has never been penetrated) is of the easiest character.

The facts just pointed out are entirely contrary to the theory of the formation of coal by way of eruption of bitumen.

(2) The place occupied by peats, lignites, and bituminous and anthracite coal in sedimentary grounds, and the organic structure that we find less and less distinct in measure as we pass from one of these combustibles to one more ancient, have given rise to the theory mentioned above, viz., that vegetable matter having, under the prolonged action of heat and moisture, experienced a greater and greater alteration, passed successively through the different states whose composition is indicated in the following table:

H. C. O. N. Coke. Ashes. Density. Peat 5.63 57.03 29.67 2.09 —— 5.58 —— Lignite 5.59 70.49 17.2 1.73 49.1 4.99 1.2 Bitumin. coal 5.14 87.45 4 1.63 68 1.78 1.29 Anthracite 3.3 92.5 2.53 —— 89.5 1.58 1.3

Aside from the fact that anthracite is not met with solely in the lower coal measures, but is found in the middle and upper ones, and that bituminous coal itself is met with quite abundantly in the secondary formations, and even in tertiary ones, it seems to result from recent observations that if vegetable matter, when once converted into lignites, coal, etc., be preserved against the action of air and mineral waters by sufficient thick and impermeable strata of earth, preserves the chemical composition that it possessed before burial. The coal measures of Commentry, as well as certain others, such as those of Bezenet, Swansea, etc., contain quite a large quantity of coal gravel in sandstone or argillaceous rocks. These fragments sometimes exhibit a fracture analogous to that of ordinary coal, with sharp angles that show that they have not been rolled; and the sandstone has taken their exact details, which are found in hollow form in the gangue. In other cases these fragments exhibit the aspect of genuine shingle or rolled pebbles. These pebbles of coal have not been misshapen under the pressure of the surrounding sandstone, nor have they shrunk since their burial and the solidification of the gangue, for their surface is in contact with the internal surface of their matrix. Everything leads to the belief that they were extracted from pre-existing coal deposits that already possessed a definite hardness and bulk, at the same time as were the gravels and sand in which they are imprisoned. It became of interest, then, to ascertain the age to which the formation of these fragments might be referred, they being evidently more ancient than those considered above, which, as we have seen, could not have been transported in this state on account of their dimensions and the fragility of made coal. Thanks to the kindness of Mr. Fayol, we have been enabled to make such researches upon numerous specimens that were still inclosed in their sandstone gangue and that had been collected in the coal strata of Commentry. In some of their physical properties they differ from the more recent isolated fragments and from the ordinary coal of this deposit. They are less compact, their density is less, and a thin film of water deposited upon their surface is promptly absorbed, thus indicating a certain amount of porosity. Their fracture is dull and they are striped with shining coal, and can be more easily sliced with a razor.

From a fresh fracture, we find by the lens, or microscope, that some of them are formed of ordinary coal, that is, composed of plates of variable thickness, brilliant and dull, with or without traces of organization, and others of divers bits of wood whose structure is preserved. When reduced to thin, transparent plates, these latter show us the organization of the wood of Arthropitus, Cordaites, and Calamodendron, and of the petioles of Aulacopteris, that is to say, of the ligneous and arborescent plants that we most usually meet with in the coal measures of Commentry in the state of impression or of coal.

In a certain number of specimens the diminution in volume of the tracheae is less than that that we have observed in the same organs of corresponding genera. The quantity of oxygen and hydrogen that they contain is greater, and seems to bring them near the lignites.

We cannot attribute these differences to the nature of the plants converted into coal, since we have just seen that they are the same in the one case as in the other. Neither does time count for anything here, since, according to accepted ideas, the burial having been longer, the carbonization ought to have been more perfect, while the contrary is the case.

If we admit (1) that vegetable remains alter more and more through maceration in ordinary water and in certain mineral waters; (2) that, beginning with their burial in sufficiently thick strata of clay and sand, their chemical composition scarcely varies any further; and (3) that these are important changes only as regards their physical properties, due to loss of water and compression, we succeed quite easily in learning what has occurred.

In fact, when, as a consequence of the aforesaid alteration, the vegetable matter had taken the chemical composition that we find in the less advanced coal of the pebbles, it was in the first place covered with sand and protected against further destruction, and it gradually acquired the physical properties that we now find in it. At the period that channels were formed, the coal was torn from the beds in fragments, and these latter were rolled about for a time, sometimes being broken, and then covered anew, and this too at the same time as were the plants less advanced in composition that we meet with at the same level. These latter, being like them protected against ulterior alteration, we now find less advanced in carbonization (notwithstanding their more ancient origin) than the other vegetable fragments that were converted into coal after them, but that were more thoroughly altered at the time of burial.

There are yet a few other important deductions to be made from the foregoing facts: (1) the same coal basin may, at the same level, contain fragments of coal of very different ages; (2) its contour may have been much modified owing to the ravines made by the water which transported the ancient parts into the lowest regions of the basin; and (3) finally, since the most recent sandstones and schists of the same basin may contain coal which is more ancient, but which is formed from the same species of plants that we find at this more recent level, we must admit that the conversion of the vegetable tissues into coal was relatively rapid, and far from requiring an enormous length of time, as we are generally led to believe.

If, then, lignites have not become soft coal, and if the latter has not become anthracite, it is not that time was wanting, but climatic conditions and environment. Most analyses of specimens of coal have been made up to the present with fragments so selected as to give a mean composition of the mass; it is rare that trouble has been taken to select bits of wood, bark, etc., of the same plant, determined in advance by means of thin and transparent sections in order to assure the chemist of the sole origin and of the absolute purity of the coal submitted to analysis. This void has been partially fitted, and we give in the following table the results published by Mr. Carnot of analyses made of different portions of plants previously determined by us:

Carbon Hydrogen Oxygen Nitrogen 1. Calamodendron (5 specimens) 82.95 4.78 11.89 0.48 2. Cordaites (4 specimens) 82.94 4.88 11.84 0.44 3. Lepidodendron (3 specimens) 83.28 4.88 11.45 0.39 4. Psaronius (4 specimens) 81.64 4.80 13.11 0.44 ——v——/ 5. Ptychopteris (1 specimen) 80.62 4.85 14.53 6. Megaphyton (1 specimen) 83.37 4.40 12.23

As seen from this table, the elementary composition of the various specimens is nearly the same, notwithstanding that the selection was made from among plants that are widely separated in the botanical scale, or from among very different parts of plants. In fact, with Numbers 1 and 2 the analysis was made solely of the wood, and with No. 3 only of the prosenchymatous and suberose parts of the bark. Here we remark a slight increase in carbon, as should be the case. With No. 4 the analysis was of the roots and the parenchymatous tissue that descends along the stem, and with No. 6 of the bark and small roots. One will remark here again a slight increase in the proportion of carbon, as was to be foreseen. The elementary composition found nearly corresponds with that of the coal taken from the large Commentry deposit.

Carbon. Hydrogen. Oxygen and Nitrogen. Regnault 82.92 5.39 11.78 Mr Carnot 83.21 5.57 11.22

Although the chemical composition is nearly the same, the manner in which the different species or fragments of vegetables behave under distillation is quite different.

In fact, according to Mr. Carnot, the plants already cited furnish the following results on distillation:

Volatile Fixed Coke. matters. residue. Calamodendron 35.5 64.7 Well agglomerated. Cordaites 42.1 57.8 Quite porous. Lepidodendron 34.7 55.3 Well agglomerated. Psaronius 29.4 60.5 Slightly porous. Ptychopteris 39.4 60.5 Megaphyton 35.5 64.5 Well agglomerated. Coal of the Great Bed 40.5 59.5 Slightly porous.

These differences in the proportions of volatile substances, of fixed residua, and of density in the coke obtained seem to be in harmony with the primitive organic nature of the carbonized tissues. We know, in fact, that the wood of the Calamodendrons is composed of alternately radiating bands formed of ligneous and thick walled prosenchymatous tissue, while the wood of Cordaites, which is less dense, recalls that of certain coniferae of the present day (Araucariae).

We have remarked above that the portions of Lepidodendron analyzed belonged to that part of the bark that was considerably thickened and lignefied. So too the portion of the Megaphyton that was submitted to distillation was the external part of the hard bark, formed of hypodermic fibers and traversed by small roots. The Psaronius, on the contrary, was represented by a mixture of roots and of parenchymatous tissue in which they descend along the trunk.

It results from these remarks that we may admit that those parts of the vegetable that are ordinarily hard, compact, and profoundly lignefied furnish a compact coke and relatively less volatile matter, while the tissues that are usually not much lignefied, or are parenchymatous, give a bubbly, porous coke and a larger quantity of gas. The influence of the varied mode of grouping of the elements in the primitive tissues is again found, then, even after carbonization, and is shown by the notable differences in the quantities and physical properties of the products of distillation.

The elementary chemical composition, which is perceptibly the same in the specimens isolated in the sandstones and in those taken from the great deposit, demonstrates that the difference in composition of the environment serving as gangue did not have a great influence upon the definitive state of the coal, a conclusion that we had already reached upon examining the structure and properties of the coal pebbles.

We may get an idea of the nearly similar composition of the coal produced by very different plants or parts thereof, in remarking that as the cells, fibers, and vessels are formed of cellulose, and some of them isomeric, the difference in composition is especially connected with the contents of the cells, canals, etc., such as protoplasm, oils, resins, gums, sugars, and various acids, various incrustations, etc. After the prolonged action of water that was more or less mineralized and of multiple organisms, matters that were soluble, or that were rendered so by maceration, were removed, and the organic skeletons of the different plants were brought to a nearly similar centesimal composition representing the carbonized derivatives of the cellulose and its isomers. The vegetable debris thus transformed, but still resistant and elastic, were the ones that were petrified in the mineral waters or covered with sand and clay. Under the influence of gradual pressure, and of a desiccation brought about by it, and by a rising of the ground, the walls of the organic elements came into contact, and the physical properties that we now see gradually made their appearance.

The waters derived from a prolonged steeping of vegetables, and charged with all the soluble principles extracted therefrom, have, after their sojourn in a proper medium, deposited the carbonized residua that have themselves become soluble, and have there formed masses of combustibles of a different composition from that resulting from the skeletons of plants, such as cannel coal, pitch coal, boghead, etc.

A thin section of a piece of Commentry cannel coal shows that this substance consists of a yellowish-brown amorphous mass holding here and there in suspension very different plant organs, such as fragments of Cordaites, leaves, ferns, microspores, macrospores, pollen grains, rootlets, etc., exactly as would have done a gelatinous mass that upon coagulating in a liquid had carried along with it all the solid bodies that had accidentally fallen into it and that were in suspension.

It is evident (as we have demonstrated) that other cannel coals may show different plant organs, or even contain none at all, their presence appearing to be accidental. The composition itself of cannel coal must be, in our theory, connected with the chemical nature of the materials from whence it is derived, and that were first dissolved and then became insoluble through carbonization. Several preparations made from Australian (New South Wales), Autun, etc., boghead have shown us merely a yellowish-brown amorphous mass holding in suspension lens-shaped or radiating floccose masses which it is scarcely possible to refer to any known vegetable organism.

Among the theories that we have cited in the beginning, the one that best agrees with the facts that we have pointed out is the third, which would admit, then, two things in the formation of coal. The first would include the different chemical reactions which cannot yet be determined, but which would have brought the vegetable matter now to the state of soft coal (with its different varieties), and now to the state of anthracite. The second would comprehend the preservation, through burial, of the organic matter in the stage of carbonization that it had reached, and as the result of compression and gradual desiccation, the development of the physical properties that we now find in the different carbonized substances.

We annex to this article a number of figures made from preparations of various coals. These preparations were obtained by making the fragments sufficiently thin without the aid of any chemical reagent, so as to avoid the reproach that things were made to appear that the coal did not contain. This slow and delicate method is not capable of revealing all the organisms That the carbonaceous substance contains, but, per contra, one is riot absolutely sure of the pre-existence of everything that resembles organs or fragments of such that he distinguishes therein by means of the microscope.

Our researches, as we have above stated, have been confined to different cannel coals, anthracite, boghead, and coal plants isolated either in coal pebbles, or in schists and sandstones.



Figs. 1 and 2 (magnified two hundred times) represent two sections, made in rectangular planes, of fragments of Lancashire cannel coal. In a certain measure, they remind one of Figs. 4 and 5, Pl 11, of Witham's "Internal Structure of Fossil Vegetables," and which were drawn from specimens of cannel coal derived likewise from Lancashire, but which are not so highly magnified. There is an interesting fact to note in this coincidence, and that is that this structure, which is so difficult to explain in its details, is not accidental, but a consequence of the nature of the materials that served to produce the coal of this region. In the midst of a mass of blackish debris, a, organic and inorganic, and immersed in an amorphous and transparent gangue, we find a few recognizable fragments, such as thick-walled macrospores, b, of various sizes, bits of flattened petioles, c, pollen grains, d, debris of bark, etc. In Fig. 2 all these different remains are cut either obliquely or longitudinally, and are not very recognizable. It is not rare to meet with a sort of vacuity, e, filled with clearer matter of resinoid aspect, without organization.



In Fig. 3, which represents a section made from Commentry cannel coal, the number of recognizable organs in the midst of the mass of debris is much larger. Thus, at a we see a macrospore, at b a fragment of the coat of a macrospore, at c another macrospore having a silicified nucleus, such as has been found in no other case, at d we have a transverse section of a vascular bundle, at e a longitudinal section of a rootlet traversed by another one, at f we have a transverse section of another rootlet, at g an almost entire portion of the vascular bundle of a root, and at h we see large pollen grains recalling those that we meet with in the silicified seeds from Saint Etienne.

Cannel coal, then, shows that it is formed of a sort of dark brown gangue of resinoid aspect (when a thin section of it is examined) holding in suspension indeterminable black organic and inorganic debris, which are arranged in layers, and in the midst of which (according to the locality and the fragment studied) is found a varying number of easily recognized vegetable organs.



It is very rare that anthracite offers any discernible trace of organization. Preparations made from fragments of Sable and Lamore coal could not be made sufficiently thin to be transparent; the mass remained very opaque, and the clearest parts exhibited merely amorphous, irregular granulations. Still, fragments of anthracite from Pennsylvania furnished, amid a dominant mass of dark, yellow-brown, structureless substance, a few organized vegetable debris, such as a fragment of a vascular bundle with radiating elements (Fig. 4, a), a macrospore, b, and a few pollen grains or microspores, c.



From what precedes it seems to result, then, that anthracite is in a much less appreciable state of preservation than cannel coal, and that it is only rarely, and according to locality, that we can discover vegetable organs in it. Soft coal comes nearer to amorphous carbon. Boghead appears to be of an entirely different character (Fig. 5, magnified X300). It is easily reduced to a thin transparent plate, and shows itself to be formed of a multitude of very small lenses, differing in size and shape, and much more transparent than the bands that separate them. In the interior of these lenses we distinguish very fine lines radiating from the center and afterward branching several times. The ramifications are lost in the periphery amid fine granulations that resemble spores. We might say that we here had to do with numerous mycelia moulded in a slightly colored resin. Preparations made from New South Wales and Autun boghead presented the same aspect.

If boghead was derived from the carbonization of parts that were soluble, or that became so through maceration, and were made insoluble at a given moment by carbonization, we can understand the very peculiar aspect that this combustible presents when it is seen under the microscope.

The following figures were made in order to show the details of anatomical structure that are still visible in coal, and to permit of estimating the shrinkage that the organic substance has undergone in becoming converted into coal.

It is not rare in coal mines to find fragments of wood, of which a portion has been preserved by carbonates of iron and lime, and another portion converted into coal. This being the case, it was considered of interest to ascertain whether the carbonized portion had preserved a structure that was still recognizable, and, in such an event, to compare this structure with that of the portion of the specimen that was preserved in all its details by mineralization.



Fig. 6 shows a transverse section of a specimen of Arthropitus Gallica found under such conditions. The region marked c is carbonized; the organic elements of the wood-cells, tracheae, etc., have undergone but little change in shape. Moreover, no change at all exists in the internal parts of another specimen (Fig. 8), where we easily distinguish by their form and dimensions the ligneous cells, aa, and the elements, bb, of the wood itself.



In the region, b, of Fig. 6, the ligneous elements have undergone an evident change of form, and the walls have been broken. This region, already filled by petrifying salts, but not completely hardened, has not been able to resist, as the region, a, an external pressure, and has become more or less misshapened. As for the not yet mineralized external portion, c, it has completely given way under the pressure, the walls of the different organic elements have come into contact, the calcareous or other salts have been expressed, and this region exhibits the aspect of ordinary coal, while at the same time preserving a little more hardness on account of the small quantity of mineral salts that has remained in them despite the compression.

From the standpoint of carbonization there seems to us but little difference between the organic elements that occupy the region, a, and those that occupy b. If the former had not been filled with hardened petrifying matter, they would have been compressed and flattened like those of region c, and would have given a compact and brilliant coal, having very likely before petrifaction reached the same degree of carbonization as the latter. The layer of coal in contact with the carbonized or silicified part of the specimens is due, then, to a compression of the organic elements already chemically carbonized, but in which the mineral matter was not yet hardened and was able to escape.



If this be so, we ought to find the remains of organic structure in this region c. In fact, on referring to Fig. 7, which represents a tangential, longitudinal section of the same specimen, we perceive at ab a ligneous duct and some unchanged tracheae situated in the carbonized region, and then at c the same elements, though flattened, in which, however, we still clearly distinguish the bands of the tracheae; at d is found a trachea whose contents were already solidified, and which has not been flattened; then, near the surface, in the region, e, the pressure having been greater, it is no longer possible to recognize traces of organization in a tangential section. In a large number of cases, the fact that the coal does not seem to be organized must be due to the too great compression that the carbonized cells and vessels have undergone when yet soft and elastic, at the time this slow but continuous pressure was being exerted.

It also became of interest to find out whether, through the very fact of carbonization, the dimensions of the organic elements had perceptibly varied—a sort of research that presents certain difficulties. At present we have no living plant that is comparable, even remotely, with those that grew during the coal epoch. Moreover, the organic elements have absolutely nothing constant in their dimensions.

Still, if we limit ourselves to a comparison of the same carbonized wood, preserved on the one hand by petrifaction, and on the other hand non-mineralized, we find a very perceptible diminution in bulk. The elements have contracted in length, breadth, and thickness, but principally in the direction of the compression that they have undergone in the purely carbonized specimens.

In the vicinity of the carbonized portions, those of the tracheae that have not done so have perceptibly preserved their primitive length, which has, so to speak, been maintained by their neighbors, but their other dimensions have become much smaller—a quarter in thickness and half in length.



If the two fragments of the same wood are, one of them silicified and the other simply carbonized and preserved in sandstone, the diminution in volume will have occurred in all directions in the latter of the two.



Figs. 9 and 11, which represent a portion of the fibrous region of Calamodendron wood, may give an idea of the shrinkage that has taken place therein. In Figs. 11 and 12, which show a few tracheae and medullary rays of the ligneous bands of the same plant, we observe the same phenomenon. We might cite a large number of analogous examples, but shall be content to give the following: Figs. 13 and 15 represent radial and tangential sections of the bark of Syringodendron pes-caprae. This is the first time that one has had before his eyes the anatomical structure of the bark of a Syringodendron, a plant which has not yet been found in a petrified state. It is coal, then, with its structure preserved, that allows of a verification of the theory advanced by several scientists that the often bulky trunks of Syringodendron are bases of Sigillariae.



If we refer to Fig. 13, which represents a radial vertical section running through the center of one of the scars that permitted the specimen to be determined, we shall observe, in fact, a tissue formed of rectangular cells, longer than wide, arranged in horizontal series, and very analogous in their aspect to those that we have described in the suberose region of the bark of Sigillariae. Fig. 15 shows in tangential section the fibrous aspect of this tissue, which has been rendered denser through compression. Fig. 14 shows it restored. In Fig. 13, the external part of the bark is occupied by a thick layer of cellular tissue that exists over the entire surface of the trunk, but particularly thick near the scars, exactly as in the barks of the Sigillariae that we have formerly described. Finally, at b, we recognize the undoubted traces of a vascular bundle running to the leaves. If the bundle appears to be larger than that of the Sigillariae, this is due to the flattening that the trunk has undergone, the effect of this having been to spread the bundle out in a vertical plane, although its greatest width in the first place was in a horizontal one.



In anatomical structure, the barks of the Syringodendrons are, then, analogous to those of the Sigillariae. If, now, we compare the dimensions of the tissues of these barks with the same silicified tissues of the barks of Sigillariae, we shall find that there was likewise a diminution in the dimensions, but yet a less pronounced one than in the woods that we have previously spoken of. The corky nature of this region of the bark was likely richer in carbonizable elements than the wood properly so called, and had, in consequence, to undergo much less shrinkage.—Dr. B. Renault (of Paris Museum) in Le Genie Civil.



DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES.—Fig. 1, Lancashire cannel coal; longitudinal section, X200. Fig. 2, Lancashire cannel coal; transverse section, X200. Fig. 3. Commentry cannel coal, X200. Fig. 4, Pennsylvania anthracite, X200. Fig. 5, Boghead from New South Wales, X500. Fig. 6, Arthropitus gallica, St. Etienne; transverse section, X200. Fig. 7, same; tangential longitudinal section. Fig. 8, same; transverse section through the carbonized part. Fig. 9. Calamodendron, Commentry; prosenchymatous portion of the wood carbonized, X200. Fig. 10, same; fragment of the vascular portion of the wood carbonized. Fig. 11, same, from Autun; prosenchymatous portion of the wood silicified, X200. Fig. 12, same, Autun; vascular portion of the wood silicified. Fig. 13, Syringodendron pes-caprae; from Saarbruck; radial vertical section, X200. Fig. 14, Suberose cells restored. Fig. 15. Syringodendron pes-caprae; tangential vertical section in the corky part of the bark, X200.

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ICE BOAT RACES ON THE MUEGGELSEE, NEAR BERLIN.

The interest in sports of different kinds is increasing considerably in the capital of the German Empire. Oarsmen and sailors show their ability in grand regattas; roller-skating rinks are very, popular; numerous bicycle clubs arrange grand tournaments; and training, starting, trotting, swimming, turning, fencing, walking, and running are practiced everywhere. As this winter has been quite severe in Germany, first class courses have been made for ice boats. Ice boat, races are well known in the United States, but are quite novel in Germany; at least, in the neighborhood of Berlin, as they have been known only on the coast of the Baltic Sea.



These vessels are quite simple in construction, the base consisting of an equilateral triangle made of beams and provided at the corners with runners. The two front runners are fixed, but the one at the apex of the triangle is pivoted, and serves as a rudder. The mast is on the front cross beam, and between the front cross beam and the side beams sufficient space is left for the helmsman.

The annexed cut, taken from the Illustrirte Zeitung, shows a race of the above described ice boats on the Mueggelsee (Mueggel Lake), near Berlin. It will be seen from the clumsy construction of the boats that the Germans have not yet learned the art of building these vehicles.

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LABOR AND WAGES IN AMERICA.

[Footnote: A paper recently read before the Society of Arts, London.]

By D. PIDGEON.

The United States of America are, collectively, of such vast extent, and, singly, so individualized in character, that to speak of their labor conditions as a whole would be as impossible, in an hour's address, as to describe their physical geography or geology in a similar space of time. I shall, therefore, confine what I have to say this evening on the subject of labor and wages in America to a consideration of the industrial condition of certain Eastern States, which, being essentially manufacturing districts, offer the best instances for comparison with the labor conditions of our own country. That this field is of adequate extent and of typical character may be inferred from the fact that the three States composing it, viz.. New York, Massachusetts, and Connecticut, contain together nearly one-half of the whole manufacturing population of America, while Connecticut and Massachusetts are the very cradle of American manufacture, and the home of the typical Yankee artisan. In addition, the State of Massachusetts is distinguished by possessing a Bureau of Statistics of Labor, whose sole business is to ventilate industrial questions, and to collect such facts as will afford the statesman a sound basis for industrial legislation. We shall find ourselves, in the sequel, indebted for spine of our chief conclusions to this excellent public institution.

If we ask ourselves, at the outset of the inquiry, "Who and what are the operatives of manufacturing America?" the answer involves a distinction which cannot be too strongly insisted upon, or too carefully kept in mind. These people consist, first, of native-born, and, secondly, of alien workers. The United States census, reckoning every child born in the country as an American, even if both his parents be foreigners, I would make it appear that only six and a half millions out of its fifty millions are of alien birth, but, for our purpose, these figures are misleading. There is a vast difference, in many important respects, between "Americans" derived from a stock long settled in the States and "Americans" with two or even with one alien parent. In the former case, the hereditary sense of social equality, the teaching of the common school, and the influence of democratic institutions, produce a certain type of character which I distinguish by the epithet "American" because it is of truly national origin. In the latter case, the so-called "American" may really be a German, an Irishman, an Englishman, or a Swede, but the qualities which I would distinguish by the word "American" have not yet been developed in him, although they will probably be exhibited by his later descendants.

Setting the census figures aside, therefore, we find, from the Registration Reports of Massachusetts, that fifty-four out of every hundred persons who die within the limits of this State are of foreign parentage. Now bearing in mind that Massachusetts is essentially a Yankee State, where comparatively few European emigrants settle, it seems probable that, going back several generations, the numbers, even of Massachusetts men, who may be truly called "Americans" would dwindle considerably. These men, however, the children of equality, of the common school, and of democratic institutions, may be considered as leaven, leavening the lump of European emigration, and shaping, so far as they can, the character of the American; people that is yet to be.

Native American labor is best described by reference to a recent past, when it filled all the factories of the United States, and challenged, by its high tone, the admiration of Europe. At the beginning of this century, public opinion in America was most unfriendly to the establishment of manufactories, so great were the complaints of these made in Europe as seats of vice and disease. Thus, when Humphreysville, the first industrial village in America, was built, in 1804, by the Hon. David Humphreys, who wished to see the colony independent of the mother country for her supplies of manufactured goods, parents refused to place their children in his factories until legislation had first made the mill-owner responsible both for the education and morality of his operatives. Similarly, when the cotton mills of Lowell, and the silk mills of Hartford, began to rise, between 1832 and 1840, the American people held the capitalist responsible for the moral, mental, and physical health of the people whom he employed, with the result that all England wondered at the stories of factory operatives, and their so-called "refinements," which were given to this country by writers like Harriett Martineau and Charles Dickens.

Lowell, between the years 1832 and 1850, was, perhaps, the most remarkable manufacturing town in the world. Help, in the new cotton mills, was in great demand, and what were then thought very high wages were freely offered, so that, in spite of the national prejudice against factory labor, operatives began to flow from many quarters into the mills. These people were, for the most part, the daughters of farmers, storekeepers, and mechanics; of Puritan antecedents, and religious training. In the mill they were treated kindly, and, although their hours were long, they were not overworked. A feeling of real, but respectful, equality existed between them and their employers, and the best hands were often guests at the houses of the mill owners or ministers of religion. They lived in great boarding-houses, kept by women selected for their high character, and it is of these industrial families, and of their refined life, that observers like Dickens, Lyell, and Miss Martineau spoke with enthusiasm. The last writer has made us acquainted, in her "Mind among the Spindles," with the height to which intellectual life once rose in Lowell mills, before the wave of Irish emigration, following on the potato famine, swept native American labor away from the spindles. The morality of the early mill-girls, again, was practically stainless, and, strict as the rules of conduct were in the factories, these were really dead letters, so high was the standard of behavior set and sustained by the mill-hands themselves.

Such was the character of native American labor, less than forty years ago, and such, almost, it still remains in those, now few, centers of industry where it has been little diluted with a foreign element. Nowhere is this so conspicuously the case as in Massachusetts and Connecticut, and especially in the western valleys of the former State, where important mill-streams, such as the Housatonic, the Naugatuck, and the Farmington, are lined with mills still largely manned by native Americans.

Aside from wages, which will be separately considered, the housing, education, sobriety, and pauperism of any given industrial community form together the best possible test of its social condition. In regard to the housing of labor, there is no more important fact to be discovered than the proportion of an operative population who possess in fee simple the houses in which they dwell. This proportion among the wage-earners of Massachusetts is remarkably high, one working man in every four being the proprietor of the house in which he lives. Of the remaining three-fourths, 45 per cent. rent their houses, and 30 per cent. are boarders. With regard to inhabitancy, the average number of persons living in one house in Massachusetts is rather more than six, while the average number of the Massachusetts family is four and three quarter persons. Hence, lodgers being excepted, almost every operative family in this State lives under its own roof, while one fourth of all such roofs are owned by the heads of families dwelling therein.

I leave, for a moment, the agreeable task of describing one of these homes of native American labor, and pass on to the question of education, whose universality among native Americans is perhaps most vividly illustrated by the following facts. Of 1,200 persons born in Massachusetts, whether of native or foreign parents, only one is unable to read or write, while four Germans and Scotch, six English, twenty French Canadians, twenty-eight Irish, and thirty-four Italians, out of every 100 emigrants of these nationalities respectively are illiterate. The total number of public, elementary, and high schools in the United States is 225,800, or about one school for every 200 of the entire population, and one for, say, every fifty of the 10,000,000 pupils who attended school during the census year of 1880. Finally, referring once more to Massachusetts, there are nearly 2,000 free libraries in this single State, or one to every 800 inhabitants, and these, together, own 3,500,000 volumes, and circulate 8,000,000 of volumes annually.