[Illustration: CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL OF POPULAR LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART Fifth Series ESTABLISHED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, 1832 CONDUCTED BY R. CHAMBERS (SECUNDUS) NO. 40.—VOL. I. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 4, 1884. PRICE 1½_d._] THE FUTURE OF ELECTRICITY AND GAS. More than eighty years ago, Davy first produced and exhibited the arc-light to an admiring and dazzled audience at the Royal Institution; and forty years later, at the same place, Faraday, by means of his memorable experiments in electro-dynamics, laid down the laws on which the modern dynamo-electric machine is founded. Though known at the beginning of the century, the electric light remained little more than a scientific curiosity until within the last ten years, during which period the dynamo-electric machine has been brought to its present perfection, and electric lighting on a large and economical scale thus rendered possible. The first practical incandescent lamps were produced only seven years ago, though the idea of lighting by incandescence dates back some forty years or more; but all attempts to manufacture an efficient lamp were rendered futile by the impossibility of obtaining a perfect vacuum. The year 1881 will long be remembered as that in which electric lighting by incandescence was first shown to be possible and practicable. The future history of the world will doubtless be founded more or less on the history of scientific progress. No branch of science at present rivals in interest that of electricity, and at no time in the history of the world has any branch of science made so great or so rapid progress as electrical science during the past five years.