While we were at Philadelphia, there was an exceedingly interesting exhibition held.  I do not intend to say much about that exhibition, for the simple reason that Professor G. Forbes has promised, during the forthcoming session, to give us a paper describing what he saw there, and his studies at Philadelphia; and I am quite sure that it will be a paper worthy of him, and of you.  But, apart from this exhibition at Philadelphia, I could not go anywhere without finding an exhibition.  There was one at Chicago, another at St. Louis, another at Boston; everybody was talking about one at Louisville, where I did not go; and there were rumors of great preparations for the “largest exhibition the world has ever seen,” according to their own account, at New Orleans.  However, I satisfied myself with seeing the exhibition at Philadelphia, which consisted strictly of American goods, and was not of the international nature general to such exhibitions.  But it was a fine exhibition, and one that no other single nation could bring together.

Telegraphs.—­When I spoke to you in 1878, my remarks were almost entirely confined to telegraphs, for at that day the telephone was not, as a practical instrument, in existence.  I brought from America on that occasion the first telephones that were brought to this country.  Then the practical application of electricity was applied to telegraphs, and so telegraphs formed the subject of my theme.  But while in 1877 I saw a great deal to learn, and picked up a great many wrinkles, and brought back from America a good many processes, I go back there now in 1884, seven years afterward, and I do not find one single advance made—­I comeback with scarcely one single wrinkle; and, in fact, while we in England during those seven years have progressed with giant strides, in America, in telegraph matters, they have stood still.  But their material progress has been marvelous.  In 1877, the mileage of wire belonging to the Western Union Telegraph Company was 200,000 miles; in 1884, they have 433,726 miles of wire; so that during the seven years their mileage of wire has more than doubled.  During the same period their number of messages has increased from 28,000,000 to over 40,000,000; their offices from 11,660 to 13,600; and the capital invested in their concern has increased from $40,000,000 to $80,000,000—­in fact, there is no more gigantic telegraph organization in this world that this Western Union Telegraph Company.  It is a remarkable undertaking, and I do not suppose there is an administration better managed.  But for some reason or other that I cannot account for, their scientific progress has not marched with their material progress, and invention has to a certain extent there ceased.  There really was only one telegraphic novelty to be found in the States, and that was an instrument by Delany—­a multiplex instrument by which six messages could be sent in one or other direction at the same time.  It is