f PROPORTIONING THE CURRENT to
the number of lamps in circuit did not occur to most of these
early investigators as a feasible method of overcoming the supposed
difficulty.

[Footnote 29: M. Fontaine, in his book on Electric Lighting
(1877), showed that with the current of a battery composed
of sixteen elements, one lamp gave an illumination equal to
54 burners; whereas two similar lamps, if introduced in
parallel or multiple arc, gave the light of only 6 1/2
burners in all; three lamps of only 2 burners in all; four
lamps of only 3/4 of one burner, and five lamps of 1/4 of a
burner.]

It would also seem that although the general method of placing
experimental lamps in multiple arc was known at this period, the idea
of "drop" of electrical pressure was imperfectly understood, if, indeed,
realized at all, as a most important item to be considered in attempting
the solution of the problem. As a matter of fact, the investigators
preceding Edison do not seem to have conceived the idea of a "system" at
all; hence it is not surprising to find them far astray from the correct
theory of subdivision of the electric current. It may easily be
believed that the term "subdivision" was a misleading one to these early
experimenters. For a very short time Edison also was thus misled, but
as soon as he perceived that the problem was one involving the
MULTIPLICATION OF CURRENT UNITS, his broad conception of a "system" was
born.

Generally speaking, all conductors of electricity offer more or less
resistance to the passage of current through them and in the technical
terminology of electrical science the word "drop" (when used in
reference to a system of distribution) is used to indicate a fall or
loss of initial electrical pressure arising from the resistance offered
by the copper conductors leading from the source of energy to the lamps.
The result of this resistance is to convert or translate a portion of
the electrical energy into another form--namely, heat, which in the
conductors is USELESS and wasteful and to some extent inevitable in
practice, but is to be avoided and remedied as far as possible.

It is true that in an electric-lighting system there is also a fall or
loss of electrical pressure which occurs in overcoming the much greater
resistance of the filament in an incandescent lamp. In this case there
is also a translation of the energy, but here it accomplishes a USEFUL
purpose,