ingenious 'curb-key' for sending signals automatically through a long cable; but although tried, it was not adopted. His most important invention was Telpherage, a means of transporting goods and passengers to a distance by electric panniers supported on a wire or conductor, which supplied them with electricity. It was first patented in 1882, and Jenkin spent his last years on this work, expecting great results from it; but ere the first public line was opened for traffic at Glynde, in Sussex, he was dead.
In mechanical engineering his graphical methods of calculating strains in bridges, and determining the efficiency of mechanism, are of much value. The latter, which is based on Reulaux's prior work, procured him the honour of the Keith Gold Medal from the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Another successful work of his was the founding of the Sanitary Protection Association, for the supervision of houses with regard to health.
In his leisure hours Jenkin wrote papers on a wide variety of subjects. To the question, 'Is one man's gain another man's loss?' he answered 'Not in every case.' He attacked Darwin's theory of development, and showed its inadequacy, especially in demanding more time than the physicist could grant for the age of the habitable world. Darwin himself confessed that some of his arguments were convincing; and Munro, the scholar, complimented him for his paper on Lucretius and the Atomic Theory.' In 1878 he constructed a phonograph from the newspaper reports of this new invention, and lectured on it at a bazaar in Edinburgh, then employed it to study the nature of vowel and consonantal sounds. An interesting paper on Rhythm in English Verse,' was also published by him in the Saturday Review for 1883.
He was clever with his pencil, and could seize a
