If arc lighting is to be the light on our streets and the incandescent electric light for our stores and dwellings, shall we have to draw our fires from under our gas benches and stop making gas? This, to the writer, would be an absurd deduction, for the very reason that in nature's laboratory all these elements are placed, and gas would not be one of them if there were not some important part for it to play in the supplying of man's wants. It is for us to take the things we find in nature's laboratory and select the fittest articles for each special use; and it is reasonable to suppose that it will be only the fittest that will finally be a success. The arc light, so far as the writer has ascertained, has asserted pretty generally throughout the country its supremacy on our streets, and this in spite of all opposition from gas companies--showing conclusively that it has gained its position by the force of demand for the fittest. Incandescent electric light is just as surely finding its position and field of usefulness, and in its turn will assert its supremacy, and why? Because it has the qualifications called for in the public specifications. Some will assert that it is too expensive to come into general use, and also that it is not as reliable as gas. The first is no argument against it, for was not coal gas sold at exorbitant prices in its early days? It certainly is capable of being cheapened in the future, as gas has been, and this is one reason why gas companies should enter the business, as it is in their power to cheapen it. As far as unreliability is concerned, it certainly looks the most serious objection; but don't be alarmed on that score, for duplicate machinery or storage batteries will eventually overcome this bugbear, and while discussing this subject don't let us forget that the breaking of a main, the filling up of a drip, a flood or explosion, or even Jack Frost, has often caused our customers to think that even gas is not very reliable. I cannot understand what prompts gas companies as a rule to prejudice against electric lighting, unless it be they imagine the outcome to be idle gas mains and cold benches. This I think is all wrong. The largest unoccupied field to-day is the fuel gas field, and who should step in and supply this demand? Could any one do it as well as the present gas companies? We have our mains and services already laid; we have our holders, meters, and trained labor, most of us have also the necessary land to spare on which to erect the generators. Next to the fuel gas field I think I can see another field nearly as extensive, and that is the coal oil field. Please imagine the following picture, which is representative of the writer's belief of what a gas company will be in the near future; in fact so near in the future that before our next convention rolls around it will be a reality.