The Electric Light is the brightest meteor that has flashed across the horizon of promise during the present century. When first exhibited as a means of illumination, about twelve years ago, the splendour of the rays emitted, and the delusive representations of the small cost required to produce such a brilliant light, led the public to believe that the career of gas-lighting was drawing to a close, and that night would be turned into day by this wonderful demonstration of electrical power. The light produced by charcoal points, subjected to the action of a powerful voltaic battery, was, however, no novelty at that time; for as far back as 1810, Sir Humphry Davy was accustomed to exhibit that development of electrical force at the Royal Institution, and it formed a standard experiment in most chemical lectures. But it seems not to have been thought applicable in those days to the purposes of illumination; and when Mr. Staite brought it into notice, and exhibited its effects on the tops of some public buildings, it was considered one of the most wonderful inventions of the age. Mr. Staite's patent, taken out in 1847, though commonly supposed to be for the Electric Light generally, was limited in its clauses to the construction of a voltaic battery and apparatus, adapted for maintaining constancy, and for giving steadiness to the light. The merely temporary continuance of the _voltaic arc_, as it was formerly called, seemed indeed to preclude the possibility of its adoption as a means of illumination; it was therefore a great point gained to give stability and constancy to the light. The difficulty of accomplishing this will be perceived when it is known that the charcoal points, between which the action takes place, are constantly undergoing change, the particles of carbon being transferred from one to the other. There is no actual combustion of the charcoal, in the ordinary meaning of the term; the action is principally confined to the transfer of the charcoal connected with the positive pole, to that connected with the negative pole of the voltaic battery, a hollow being formed in one, and a pyramidical accumulation of particles in the other. This action was beautifully shown by Professor Faraday at the Royal Institution last year, by projecting the image of the charcoal points on to a screen, by means of the Electric Light itself. The image, magnified by the lenses of the electric lamp, could thus be distinctly seen without being too brilliant to dazzle the eyes. The particles of carbon, heated to whiteness, were perceived to be in active motion, and the piling up of the pyramid in one, and the hollow produced in the other, were continually varying the distances between them, and thus tending to cause unsteadiness in the light.