Sir William Thomson, in a very interesting letter to Thurs.
day's Tinzes, points out that the new discovery made by M. Faure for the storage of electric force, will enable the engines which produce electric force to work when it is not wanted for immediate consumption, as well as when it is so wanted ; so that, for instance, in the electric lighting of a city, you may produce the requisite electrical power by daylight, as well as at night, until the accumulator—the electric cistern, as we may call it— is full. " The Faure accumulator, always kept charged from the engine by the house-supply wire, with a proper automatic stop to check the supply when the accumulation is full, will be always ready at any hour of the day or night to give whatever light is required." In the same way, if this force is used for setting engines in motion, you may by this method of both storing and transferring it, accumulate your force where you will, as well as when you will, and always have an enormous supply ready for use. We might conceivably, for instance, accumulate during periods of wind and hurricane, or for that matter, if proper machinery could but be devised, during every ebbing and flowing tido, enough electric force to turn all the mauufacturiug engines in England, without any use of coal and steam. And were that possible, what might we not gain for the purity and wholesomeness of social life
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