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.