Prof. Perry, after referring to what might have been said of the great things physical science has done for humanity, plunged into his subject. The work to be done was vast, and the workers altogether out of proportion to the task.
The methods of measurement of electricity are not generally understood. Perhaps when electricity is supplied to every house in the city at a certain price per horse power, and is used by private individuals for many different purposes, this ignorance will disappear. Electrical energy is obtained in various ways, but the generators get heated; and one great object of inventors is to obtain from machines as much as possible electrical energy of the energy in the first place supplied to such machine. The lecturer called particular attention to the difference between electricity and electrical energy, and attempted to drive home the fundamental conceptions of electrical science by the analogies derivable from hydraulics. A miller speaks not only of quantity of water, but also of head of water. The statement then of quantity of electricity is insufficient, except we know the electrical property analogous to head of water, and which is termed electrical potential.

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