electric illumination exceeds more than 20 per cent. of the total
artificial illumination for which the citizens pay. If this be the
state of affairs in connection with the use of electricity for
illuminating purposes, and if you will bear in mind the many other
purposes to which electricity can be adapted throughout a city and
supplied to customers in small quantities, you may get some faint
conception of the possible consumption of electrical energy in the not
far distant future. Methods of producing it may change, but these
methods cannot possibly go into use unless their adoption is justified
by saving in the cost of production--a saving which must be sufficient
to show a profit above the interest and depreciation on the new plant
employed. It is within the realms of possibility that the present form
of generating station may be entirely dispensed with. It has already
been demonstrated experimentally that electrical energy may be
produced direct from the coal itself without the intervention of the
boiler, engine and dynamo machine. Whether this can be done
commercially remains to be proved. Whatever changes may take place in
generating methods, I should, were I not engaged in a business which
affords so many remarkable surprises, be inclined to question the
possibility of any further material change in the distributing system.
Improvements in the translating devices, such as lamps, may add
enormously to the capacity of the distributing system per unit of
light; but it does seem to me that the system itself, as originally
conceived, is to a large extent a permanency. Should any great
improvements take place in the medium employed for turning electrical
energy into light, the possible effect on cost, and consequently
selling price, would be enormous.

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