Professor Silvanus Thompson informs us that an electric boat was constructed by Mr. G. E. Dering, in the year 1856, at Messrs. Searle's yard, on the River Thames; it was worked by a motor in which rotation was effected by magnets arranged within coils, like galvanometer needles, and acted on successively by currents from a battery. From a recent number of the _Annales de l'Electricite_, we learn that Count de Moulins experimented on the lake in the Bois de Boulogne, in the year 1866, with an iron flat-bottomed boat, carrying twelve persons. Twenty Bunsen cells furnished the current to a motor on Froment's principle turning a pair of paddle wheels. In all these reports there is a lack of data. We are interested to know what power the motors developed, the time and speed, as well as dimensions and weights. Until Trouve's trip on the Seine, in 1881, and the launch of the Electricity on the Thames, in 1882, very little was known concerning the history of electric navigation. M. Trouve originally employed Plante's secondary battery, but afterward reverted to a bichromate battery of his own invention. In all the primary batteries hitherto applied with advantage, zinc has been used as the acting material. Where much power is required, the consumption of zinc amounts to a formidable item; it costs, in quantity, about 3d. per pound, and in a well arranged battery a definite quantity of zinc is transformed. The final effect of this transformation manifests itself in electrical energy, amounting to about 746 watts, or one electrical horse power for every two pounds of this metal consumed per hour. The cost of the exciting fluid varies, however, considerably; it may be a solution of salts, or it may be dilute acid. Considering the zinc by itself, the expense for five electrical or four mechanical horse power through an efficient motor, in a small launch, would be 2s. 6d. per hour. Many persons would willingly sacrifice 2s. 6d per hour for the convenience, but a great item connected with the employment of zinc batteries is in the exciting fluid, and the trouble of preparing the zinc plates frequently. The process of cleaning, amalgamating and refilling is so tedious, that the use of primary batteries for locomotive purposes is extremely limited. To recharge a Bunsen, Grove, or bichromate battery, capable of giving six or seven hours' work at the rate of five electrical horse power, would involve a good day's work for one man; no doubt he would consider himself entitled to a full day's wages, with the best appliances to assist him in the operation. Several improved primary batteries have recently been brought out, which promise economical results. If the residual compound of zinc can be utilized, and sold at a good price, then the cost of such motive power may be reduced in proportion to the value of those by-products.