ROYAL INSTITUTION.
On the 8th instant, Professor Faraday delivered the last of the series of Friday evening lectures for the present session, and explained to, a large audience Bonelli's important application of electro-magnetism to the Jacquard silkloom. The ordinary process of weaving was described by the lecturer, and attention was directed to the numerous perforated cards employed to regulate the movements of the threads in producing the desired pattern. These cards were dispensed with in the electric loom, sitad the threads were guided by an ingenious arrangement of magnets Which touched every part of the pattern as it passed over a cylinder. The pattern was drawn with black varnish—a non-conductor of electri- tity—on paper covered with tin-foil, and this conducting material, when brought into contact with the electro-magnets, completed the electric 'Circuit, and displaced the threads that were not required for that part of the pattern. Various difficulties had arisen in the management of the magnets, but the apparatus was now under easy and perfect control, and its general employment depended only on the question of its being found more economical than the one at present in use. In concluding the lec- turers for this session, Professor Faraday called attention to the motto of the Institution—Illustrans commode vine—and stated that the object of the lecturers had been to explain, in language suited to intelligent per- sons, some of the many applications of science to the conveniences and necessaries of ordinary life.
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