icians. But many attended
the Electrical Conference who stand high as electricians, one especially,
who, though perhaps from want of experience he did not shine very
brilliantly as a chairman, certainly stands as one of the ablest
electricians of the day--I mean Professor Rowland. The Conference was held
under Professor Rowland's presidency, and nearly all the well-known
professors of the United States attended. The Conference was established
by the United States Government to take into consideration the results and
conclusions arrived at by the Congress of 1884, held in Paris. The Paris
Congress decided upon adopting certain units of resistance of
electromotive force, of current, and of quantity, and they determined the
particular length of a column of mercury that should represent the ohm--a
column of mercury 106 centimeters long and of one square millimeter in
section. It was necessary that the United States should join this
Conference, so a commission was appointed to consider the whole matter.
All these units were brought before them, as well as the other conclusions
of the Paris Congress, such as the proper mode of recording earth currents
and atmospheric electricity. The Paris units were adopted in face of the
fact that the length determined upon at Paris was not the length that
Professor Rowland himself had found as that which should represent the
ohm. It differed by about 0.2, as near as I can remember; but it was
thought so necessary that uniformity and unanimity should exist all over
the world in the adoption of a proper unit, that all differences were laid
aside, and the Americans agreed to comply with the resolutions of the
Paris Congress.

There were two units that I had the temerity to bring forward, first, at
the British Association, and secondly, before the Electrical Conference.
It will be remembered, that at the meeting of the British Association at
Southampton in 1882, the late Sir W. Siemens proposed that the unit of
power should be the watt, and that the watt, which was derived from the
C.G.S. system of absolute units, should in future, among electricians, be
the unit of power. This was accepted by the British Association at
Montreal, and it was also accepted by the American Electrical Conference
at Philadelphia. But I also, at Montreal, suggested that as the watt was
the unit of power, so we ought to make some multiple of that unit the
higher unit of power, comparable to that which is now represent