ca Section D is devoted to that
subject. But with the exception of just a change in the names of some
sections which are familiar as household words to members of the British
Association, the proceedings of the American Association do not differ
very much from ours. They have, however, one very sensible rule. The
length of every paper is indicated upon the programme of the day's
proceedings, and the continuation or the stopping of any discussion on
that paper is in the hands of the section. For instance, if the President
thinks that a man is speaking too long, he has only to say, "Does the
meeting wish that this discussion shall be continued, or shall it be
stopped?" A majority on the show of hands decides. Such a practice has a
very wholesome effect in checking discussion, and I certainly think that
some of our societies would do well to adopt a rule of the same character.

The meeting of the American Association, again, was not distinguished by
any particular electrical paper, or any new electrical subject. The main
subject that was brought before us was the peculiar effect called "Hall's
effect," that Professor Hall, now of Harvard College, and then assistant
to Professor Rowland, discovered in the powerful field of a magnet when a
current was passed through a conductor; and a description of that effect
(which he at one time thought was an indication that electricity was
something separate from matter) formed the subject of two debates that
lasted for nearly the whole of two days. I am bound to say that in that
prolonged discussion the members of this Society held their own. I see two
very prominent members present who spoke on most of the electrical
subjects dealt with--Professor G. Forbes, who knows what he says and says
what he knows, and Professor Silvanus Thompson, who held his own under
very trying circumstances.

At the same time that this meeting of the American Association was being
held at Philadelphia, where we were treated with marvelous
hospitality,--excursions, soirees, dinners, parties, etc., etc.--and as
though it were not quite sufficient to bring over humble Britishers from
this side of the Atlantic to suffer the intense heat at one meeting of the
Association, they held at the same time an Electrical Conference. There
was a conference of electricians appointed by the United States
Government, that was chiefly distinguished on the part of the American
Government by selecting those who were not electr