There is a great objection, too, in the humming fizz which accompanies the action of the electricity.

There is a still greater objection when small pieces of hot chalk fall on your bald head, an annoyance which has been lately (1880) entirely removed by placing a receptacle beneath each burner.

You require also to become accustomed to the whiteness of the light before you can altogether forget it.

But with all its faults it confers a great boon upon students, enabling them not only to work three hours longer in the winter-time, but restoring to them the use of foggy and dark days, in which formerly no book-work at all could be pursued.[1] [1] 1887.

The system in use is still "Siemens," but, owing to long experience and improvements, is not now open to the above objections.
Heat alone, without any noxious fumes, is, if continuous, very injurious to books, and, without gas, bindings may be utterly destroyed by desiccation, the leather losing all its natural oils by long exposure to much heat.