The Chairman in proposing a vote of thanks to Mr. Reckenzaun, said he rejoiced to find that that gentleman had proved, to one man at least, that his views had been mistaken. He found in these days of the practical applications of electricity, that the ideas of most practical men were gradually being proved to be mistaken, and every day new facts were being discovered, which led them to imagine that as yet they were only on the shore of an enormous ocean of knowledge. It was quite impossible to say what these electric launches would lead to. Certain points of great importance had been pointed out; they gave great room and they were always ready. For lifeboat and fire engine purposes, as Captain Shaw pointed out at Vienna, this was of great consequence.
At first they were led to believe that there was great stability, but that idea had been a little shaken, not as to the boat itself, but as to the influence of the motion of the water upon the constancy of the cells. But these boats were only intended for smooth water, and if they could not be adapted for rough water, he feared Admiral Selwyn's suggestion of the application of this principle to lifeboats would fall to the ground; but if secondary batteries were not calculated as yet to stand rough usage, it only required probably some thought on Mr. Reckenzaun's part to make them available even in a gale. Enormous strides were being made with regard to these batteries. No one present had been a greater skeptic with regard to them at first than be himself; but after constant experiments--employing them, as he had done for many months, for telegraphic purposes--he was gradually coming to view them with a much more favorable eye. The same steps which had rendered all scientific notions practicable, had gradually eliminated the faults which originally existed, and they were now becoming good, sound, available instruments. At present, he could only regard this electric launch as a luxury. He had hoped that Mr. Reckenzaun would have been able to say something which would have enabled poor men to look forward to the time when they might enjoy themselves in them on the river; but he was told at Vienna, when he enjoyed two or three trips in this boat on the Danube, that her cost would be about £800, which was a little too much for most people. They wanted something more within their reach, so that at various points on the river they might see small engines constantly at work supplying energy to secondary batteries, and so that they might start on a Friday evening, and go up as far as Oxford, or higher, and come down again on Monday morning. He must congratulate Mr. Reckenzaun on the excellent diagrams he had constructed. The trouble of calculating figures of this sort was very great when making experiments; and the use of diagrams and curves expedited the labor very much. At present they were passing through a stage of electrical depression; robbery had been committed on a large scale; the earnings of the poor had been filched out of their pockets by sanguine company promotors; an enormous amount of money had been lost, and the result had been that confidence was, to a great extent, destroyed; but those who had been wise enough to keep their money in their pockets, and to read the papers read in that room, must have seen that there was a constant steady advance in scientific knowledge of the laws of electricity and in their practical applications, and as soon as some of these rotten, mushroom companies had been wiped out of existence, they might hope that real practical progress would be made, and that the day was not far distant when the public would again acquire confidence in electrical enterprise. They would then enable inventors and practical men to carry out their experiments, and to put electrical matters on a proper footing.
THE FIRST EXPERIMENTS WITH THE ELECTRIC LIGHT.
Electric lighting dates back, as well known; to the celebrated experiment of Sir Humphry Davy, which took place in 1809 or 1810, but the date of which is often given as 1813. There exist however, some indications that experiments on the production of the electric spark between carbons had been performed before the above named date.
Mr. S.P. Thompson has given the following interesting details in regard to this subject: In looking over an old volume of the Journal de Paris, says he, I found under date of the 22d Ventose, year X. (March 12, 1802), the following passage, which evidently refers to an exhibition of the electric arc:
"Citizen Robertson, the inventor of the phantasmagoria (magic lantern), is at present performing some interesting experiments that must doubtless advance our knowledge concerning galvanism. He has just mounted metallic piles to the number of 2,500 zinc plates and as many of rosette copper. We shall forthwith speak of his results, as well as of a new experiment that he performed yesterday with two glowing carbons.
SIR HUMPHRY DAVY'S ELECTRIC LIGHT EXPERIMENTS IN 1813.