Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 20.djvu/700

680 supposed to have done so, and he sends three beats upon the bell, which lowers my semaphore arm and tells me "Line clear," and that the apparatus is in working order. On such a system the traffic of a railway can be conducted day by day, and hour by hour, with safety to the public, and with satisfaction and certainty to the railway interest. One other illustration that I must give you, of the application of electricity, especially as my store of energy is not yet exhausted, is the telephone. One of the most beautiful things at the Paris Exhibition was the transmission of music, by means of the telephone, from the Opera-House to the Exhibition Building. At the Opera-House several microphones were fixed upon the stage, and at the Exhibition Building telephones were fixed in rooms into which visitors could go, and, by applying the telephones to their ears, could listen to the overture of the orchestra, or the singing or talking of the performers, as also the hum of the ballet-girls behind the stage. The effect was something startling. I remember one night seeing a Frenchman put the telephones to his ears, and the moment he heard the sounds he threw down the instruments, and rushed out of the room, saying, "C'est terrible, c'est terrible!" The Christmas holidays have prevented my having similar arrangements for this lecture, and the best thing I could get ready is a telephone circuit between this hall and a neighboring room. I will call up and ask my assistant to play something on a cornet. [The cornet was heard playing quite distinctly.] That is an instance of what I wished to illustrate to you at the commencement; we have a bugler, full of energy, who blows into his bugle, the energy of which takes the form of sound; the sound-waves, or vibrations, strike the top of the telephone-case, and set a microphone in vibration, which causes currents of electricity to pass along the wire from the instrument at the other end to the one before you. In the receiving instrument the currents sent by the microphone take the form of electro-magnetism, and reproduce the vibration of the microphone upon a disk in front of the electro-magnet, and so we get reproduced in the same form the energy set in motion at the other end, after having passed through various stages. The motion of the cornet is transferred, first, into the motion of the disk, then into the electrical form of energy, then into that of electro-magnetism, then back again into motion, and, finally, to your ears; and you will easily understand from this that electric currents are merely one form of energy. I intend to pursue this subject next time, and show you how electricity is produced in other ways, and how it breaks up chemical compounds into their separate parts; how electro-plating and silvering are done; and, finally, I will show how it produces the beautiful Edison electric light we now have in this room. The elegant chandelier now illuminating this room was made especially for exhibition at this lecture, and was prepared by Messrs. B. Verity and Sons, of King Street, Covent Garden.