used almost everything that was known at the time, but in order to
give you a full and detailed account of the various modes of
transmission which I have used I should have to give you figures to
bear out certain experiments. I should only be able to do that in a
lecture of at least five hours' duration, so I hope that you will
kindly excuse me on that point.

With regard to the durability of plates, I have taken into
consideration fifteen hours a day. In regard to the application of
electrical brakes, I will say that that was one of the first ideas
that entered my head when I began to use electric motors, and other
people had that idea long before me. I have used an electric brake,
using the motor itself as a brake--that is, as the car runs down a
grade by momentum, it generates a current, but this current cannot be
used for recharging a battery. It is utter nonsense to talk about that
unless we have a steady grade four or five miles long. The advantages
are very small indeed, and the complications which would be introduced
by employing automatic cut-outs, governors, and so on, would
counterbalance anything that might be gained. As regards going up an
incline, of course stopping and starting again has to be done often,
and anybody who at any time works cars by electricity, whether they
have storage batteries or not, has to allow for sufficient motive
power to overcome all the difficulties that any line might present.

One of the great mistakes which some of the pioneers in this direction
made was that they did not put sufficient power upon the cars. You
always ought to put on the cars power capable of exerting perhaps 20
to 40 per cent. more than is necessary in the ordinary street service,
so that in case of the road being snowed up, or in the case of any
other accident which is liable to occur, you ought to have plenty of