EIGHTH SESSION

(After the reading of the Commercial papers and their discussion, President Williams resumed the chair.)

THE PRESIDENT: Before proceeding to executive session, we will have the report of the committee to draft a resolution of thanks to the people in Washington who have contributed so largely to the success of the convention.

Mr. Davis presented the following report:

As the enjoyment and social success of the convention has been so largely contributed to by the many enjoyable and interesting entertainments furnished, the National Electric Light Association, on behalf of its members and guests, wishes to express its most hearty appreciation of the courtesies extended, and hereby publicly to thank all who have contributed to their pleasure, particularly the President of the United States; the ladies of the District of Columbia; Honorable H. B. F. Macfarland, president, and the other members of the Board of Commissioners of the District of Columbia; Colonel C. A. P. Hatfield, United States Army; the Columbia and Chevy Chase Golf Club; Mr. G. T. Dunlap and Mr. D. S. Carll, of the Capital City Traction Company; Mr. F. B. Hubbell and Mr. T. P. Garrett, of the Washington, Arlington and Falls Church Railway Company; General George H. Harries, Mr. H. W. Fuller, Mr. E. S. Marlow, Mr. L. E. Sinclair, and others of our local member company, and generally the members of the entertainment committee. The secretary of the association is requested to convey our thanks, as stated in this resolution.

(The meeting then adjourned to executive session.)

EXECUTIVE SESSION

In the executive session the first business was the report of the committee on rates and costs, Mr. R. S. Hale, chairman, which was discussed at considerable length.

The report of the committee on the president's address was presented and adopted.

On the recommendation of the executive committee, Mr. George Westinghouse and Dr. Arthur E. Kennelly were unanimously elected to honorary membership.

The report of the secretary and treasurer was presented by Secretary Eglin, and was received and ordered filed.

The following officers and members of the executive committee were unanimously elected:

For president, Dudley Farrand, of Newark, N. J.

For first vice-president, Alex Dow, of Detroit.

For second vice-president, W. C. L. Eglin, of Philadelphia. For members of the executive committee, to serve for three conventions: Messrs. Samuel Scovil, of Cleveland; A. J. De Camp, of Philadelphia, and General George H. Harries, of Washington.

Mr. W. W. Freeman, of Brooklyn, was unanimously recommended for the office of secretary and treasurer for the coming

year.

After resolutions of thanks to the retiring officers, to authors of papers and others who contributed to the work of preparation for the convention, the meeting adjourned.

Necrology

JAMES BLAKE CAHOON

The death of Mr. James Blake Cahoon, past-president of the association, occurred at New Rochelle, N. Y., on February 17, 1907. Mr. Cahoon was born at Lyndon, Vt., in 1859, and entered the United States Naval Academy as a cadet-midshipman in 1875, graduating in 1879 number 18 in a class of forty-one. After considerable sea service, Ensign Cahoon was detailed to electrical work at the Newport, R. I., naval station, and while on duty there his sight was so injured while making tests of arc lamps that he was placed on the retired list in 1889 with the rank of ensign. In the same year he became connected with the Thomson-Houston Company, among his first work being the organization of the Lynn offices. Upon the consolidation which gave birth to the General Electric Company, Mr. Cahoon organized the expert department at the Schenectady works, and later became chief engineer of the local companies committee, in which capacity he had at different times supervision of thirty-nine lighting and street railway properties then owned by the General Electric Company.

In 1895 he resigned from that company to become general manager of the Elmira Municipal Improvement Company, which operated the electric light, railway, gas and water plants of that city. In 1899 he left Elmira to accept the position of general manager of the Syracuse Electric Wiring Company, which had just obtained an electric light franchise in that city. In 1900 he was elected president of the National Electric Light Association • at its Chicago meeting.

Mr. Cahoon was one of the earliest to recognize the importance of close accounting in the management of electrical properties and the analysis of data thus gathered with the view to improving economy of operation. On this subject he contributed a number of articles to the technical press and presented several papers before electric light associations. In recent years Mr. Cahoon had been frequently employed by banking houses and other financial interests to make reports on electrical properties.

At the time of his death he was vice-president and consulting engineer of the Eldenbel Construction Company, of New York.

EDOUARD HOSPITALIER

The death of Professor Edouard Hospitalier, honorary member of the association, was announced in Paris, France, in April, 1907. He was widely known in this country, both through his writings and personally. As a delegate to the Chicago International Electrical Congress, and to every similar congress held in Europe the past twenty-five years, he made many American acquaintances and warm friends, often remarking that he found himself more in sympathy with Americans than with any other nationality.

Professor Hospitalier was born in 1852 and was educated at the École des Arts et Métiers at Aix and the École Centrale of Paris, graduating from the latter as mechanical engineer. In 1879 he became editor of La Lumière Electrique; in 1883, editor of L'Electricien, and, in 1891, founded L'Industrie Electrique, of which he was editor until his death. In 1882 he was appointed professor of electrical engineering at the École de Physique et de Chimie Industrielle of Paris, which chair he occupied continuously up to the time of his death. He took an active interest in the Société Internationale des Électriciens, of which he was one of the founders, and at different times he was elected to every office in the society from secretary to president.

Professor Hospitalier was particularly interested in establishing an international system of electrical nomenclature and notation, and it is to him that electrical science and engineering is largely indebted for the uniformity of use throughout the world of standard symbols and nomenclature. He also strongly advocated the adoption of the henry at Chicago in 1893, and of names for magnetic units in Paris in 1900.

He was the author of a number of books. Of these Les Principales Applications de l'Electricité was the first satisfactory treatise on modern electrical applications, and his Formulaire Practique de l'Electricien, first printed in 1883 and revised annually, has always been in many respects the best electrical manual. printed in any language. He was the inventor of the ondograph for recording alternating-current wave-forms, and the manograph

for indicating internal-combustion engines. He was much sought for membership on committees dealing with scientific matters, and on juries of international and other exhibitions. In 1888 he was made an officer of the University of France, and became a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor in 1900. In 1899 he was made commander of the Order of the Crown of Italy.

EUGENE GRIFFIN

General Eugene Griffin died suddenly at his apartments in the Mohawk Club, Schenectady, N. Y., on April 11, from apoplexy. He was born in Ellsworth, Me., on October 13, 1855, and was graduated from West Point in the class of 1875, immediately becoming a second lieutenant in the Engineer Corps of the regular army. In the fourteen years which followed he rose to the rank of captain of the corps. While on Governor's Island in April, 1879, he married Miss Allie Hancock, a niece and adopted daughter of the late General Winfield Scott Hancock. In the following October he resigned his post to engage in electrical business. The outbreak of the Spanish-American war, however, called him again to service in the army, ranking first as colonel in the First Regiment, United States Volunteer Engineers, which he organized and with which he served in Porto Rico during 1898 and 1899. On January 21, 1899, he was made a brigadier-general of volunteers.

Soon after writing the first American governmental report on electric railways, and as the result of his observations while a prominent member of the engineering staff of the District of Columbia, General Griffin became connected with the ThomsonHouston Electric Company, and later with the British ThomsonHouston Company. He became an expert electrical engineer, and may be said to have witnessed and directed the whole electric railway development of the old Thomson-Houston Company and later of the General Electric Company. He also took great and direct interest in electric lighting.

General Griffin was a member of the Union, University, Army and Navy Engineers' clubs, as well as many other social organizations. At the time of his death he was a member of the board of trustees of the Engineers' Club. He was also a full member of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, and