It was electricity again that occupied the largest space in the
programme of the session.

Apparatus for teaching are assuming greater and greater importance
every day, and the exhibit of Mr. Ducretet included a large number of
the most interesting of these. The house of Breguet exhibited on a
reduced scale the magnificent experiments of Gaston Plante, wherein
320 leaden wire secondary elements charged for quantity with 3 Daniell
elements, and afterward coupled for tension, served to charge a
rheostatic machine formed of 50 condensers coupled for quantity. These
latter, coupled anew for tension, furnished upon being discharged a
spark due to a difference of potential of about 32,000 volts that
presented all the characters of the spark produced by induction coils
on the machines so improperly called "static." Finally, we may cite
the apparatus arranged by Mr. S.P. Thompson for studying the
development of currents in magneto-electric machines. The inventor
studies the influence of the forms of the inductors and armatures of
machines by means of an arrangement that allows him to change the
rings or armatures at will and to take out the induced bobbins in
order to sound every part of the magnetic field. Upon giving the
armature an angular motion limited by two stops, there develops a
certain quantity of electricity that may be measured by causing it to
traverse an appropriate ballistic galvanometer. Messrs. Deprez and
D'Arsonval's galvanometer answers very well for this purpose, and its
aperiodicity, which causes it quickly to return to zero as soon as the
induced current ceases, permits of a large number of readings being
taken within a very short space of time.

Measuring apparatus were represented by a new and very elegant