the erection of enormous water-wheels, such as those at
Glasgow and in the Isle of Man, wheels of some eighty feet in
diameter. But now, by means of a small turbine, an excellent effect is
produced from high heads of water. The same effect is obtained from
the water-engines which our president has employed with such great
success. In addition to these motors, we have the gas-engine, which,
within the last few years only, has become a really useful working and
economical machine. With respect to horse-power motors, we have not
only the old horse engines, but we have a new application, as it seems
to me, of the work of the horse as a motor. I allude to those cases
where the horse drawing a reaping or thrashing machine, not only pulls
it forward as he might pull a cart, but causes its machinery to
revolve, so as to perform the desired kind of work. This species of
horse-engine, though known, was but little used in 1831. With respect
to hot-air engines there have been many attempts to improve them, and
some hot-air engines are working, and are working with considerable
success; but the amount of power they develop in relation to their
size is small, and I am inclined to doubt whether it can be much
increased.

TRANSMISSION OF POWER.

I now come to the subject of the transmission of power. I do not mean
transmission in the ordinary sense by means of shafting, gearing, or
belting, but I mean transmission over long distances. In 1831, we had
for this purpose flat rods, as they were called, rods transmitting
power from pumping engines for a considerable distance to the pits
where the pumps were placed, and we had also the pneumatic, the
exhaustion system--the invention of John Hague, a Yorkshire-man, my
old master, to whom I was apprenticed--which mode of transmission was
then used to a very considerable extent. The recollection of it, I
find, however, has nearly died out, and I am glad to have this
opportunity of reviving it. But in 1881, we have, for the transmission
of power, first of all, quick moving ropes, and there is not, so far
as I know a better instance of this system than that at Schaffhausen.
Any one who has ever, in recent years, gone a mile or two above the
falls at Schaffhausen, must have seen there--in a house, on the bank
of the Rhine, opposite to that on which the town is situated--large
turbines driven by the river, which is slightly dammed up for the
purpose. These work quick-going ropes, carried on pu