The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1879-05-03 00:00:00

. ELECTRIC LIGHTING.

Professor Tyndall, giving evidence on Friday lad
before the Select Committee appointed to consider the
subject of electric lighting (Dr. Lyon Playfair presid-
ing), gave an interesting history of the progress of the
electric light from the time of the discovery of elec.
tricity by Volta to the present day, illustrating his
subject by numerous experiments with electrical
machines. He pointed out that the Voltaic battery
had been proved to be too expensive a mode of pro-
ducing electricity, as the waste of zinc plates and
chemicals was so great. Oersted, Ampere, and Arago
followed with inventions, and the analogy between
electricity and magnetism was demonstrated. Pro-
fessor Faraday had taken up the subject, and his efforts,
in the main, had led to the great discoveries which
had been made. The Professor had not applied his
I discoveries to the practical purpose of producing elec-
tric hest and light on an economic scale, but, like a
true man of science, he predicted that those results
which were exceedingly feeble in the first instance
would receive their frill development hereafter. There
had been great discoveries made in regulators for elec-
tric lights recently. They had been used for yeses at
the South Foreland Lighthouse, but they were of a
somewhat complicated character. The Jablochkoff
candle was an invention which enabled them to do
away with the regulators. This had been used
on the Thames Embankment and elsewhere, and
was now pretty well known. It censisted of two
pieces of carbon, separated from each other more or
less by an insulating substance, such as plaster of
Path. There was a piece of oarbui at the top of the
candle, but this was destroyed when the current was
turned on, which current travelled up one of the sticks
and down the other. The current was alternating in
the candle, so that the carbons should burn equally. No
doubt the great source of light was the incandescence
of the solid carbons. It could be produced to a
degree of almost solar intensity, They heard through
the newspapers, that this light had a bluish tint, and
that many people objected to it for that reason. With
regard to the amount of light a single Siemens machine
was capable of giving, experiments conducted at the
South Foreland had been made with a medium-sized
machine, and the light given amounted in round num-
bers to 6,000 candles. An enlarged machine was then
constructed, but it had not been brought very much into
operation of late, for tlse reason that its power was so
considerable and that it required such great care to
prevent combustion of the commutator. He did not
think a 10,000-candle machine could be made to give
10 lights of 1,000 candles each. There was nothing in
science or practice to show that they could divide the
current in that way without losing a great deal of
electricity. If the wires were not of equal con-
ducting power there would be a great loss of elec-
tricity. Certain impurities were produced in the
burning of gas, and though those impurities would
be produced in the case of charcoal points, it would
not be so much so as in the case of gas, for the
reason that the oxygen of the air was not essential to
the production of the electric light, which could be
burnt with great splendour in a vacuum. Also the
carbonic gas would be infinitely less in the one cage
than the other; for in one case its presence was an
accident, in the other a necessity. It might be possible
that nitrous acid would be given off by the carbon
points, and whether that would injure books more
than gas was a questions which deserved attention ;
at present they had not sufficient experience of it to
say.
In answer to Lord Lindsay, witness stated that
complaints were made at the Athena-um Club that the
gas would injure the books. In consequence of that
Professor Faraday investigated those complaints, and
the evidence in favour of those complaints was very
feeble. With regard to fluctuations in the electric
light, he must say nothing was more unpleasant to the
eye, but the advance of late years in the direction of
obtaining a steady light was very great.

In reply to Mr. Pul,ston, witness said that although
there were great difficulties in the way of Edison
applying the electric light successfully to domestic
purposes, one was hardly entitled to say he would not
be able to overcome them. In Ireland gas had
been applied to lighthouses with an excellent
result. It would not do to have the electric light
exposed, because to the eye it would be intoler-
able. He had been very much pleased with the
electric light used in The Times office, and believed it
was found better and more convenient than any other
form of light, There was a large source of power in
gas itself which was unused, and which might be ap-
plied for heating purposes more than at present was
the case. So much was that the case that he did not
btlieve that gas would be beaten out of the field by
the electric light.—The Times.

On Tuesday Dr. Lyon Playfair presided over
another sitting of the Select Committee appointed to
consider the subject of electric lighting.
Dr. Siemens, in giving evidence on Tuesday before
the Select Committee appointed by the House of Com-
mons to consider the subject of electric lighting, slid
he had interested himself in the application of elec-
trical science ever since the year 1818, and was con.
nected with the firm of Siemens Brothers, who had
constructed extensive apparatus and quantities of wire
for telegraphic communication. In the course of his
evidence Dr. Siemens said that the electric light had
been applies' to lighthouses and also to ships. In one
case where the light was used on board ship in the
Atlantic a serious collision was avoided solely by its
means. The captain, who was standing on the bridge,
saw by means of the electric light a dark mass moving be-
fore him,which he could not have seen with the ordinary ,
lamp. At the same time those on board the other
vessel, which turned out to be an emigrant ship, saw
the. electric light, and therefore the ship, which they
would not have done if the common light had been ,
used. But the captains man ceuvred their ships so
as to escape the impending collision. They actually
came within a yard of each other, however. If it
were allowed he believed the electric light would be
used by all the great Atlantic-going steamers. The
witness further stated that the objection to the light
on board ship was that it might be mistaken for a
lighthouse. The electric light was most suitable
for large public places where a centralized light could
be used. In the case of the Albert Hall gas light-
ing would coat £4 35, 6il per night, and electric
ighting only £1 75. 6d. • and, besides the advantage
in the matter of cost, there would be many sanitary
advantages gained by using electricity, and sound
would be fennel to travel better. The electric lighting
would be much more valuable than gao in warehouses
where colours had to be distinguished, and it would
prove of great service to the photographer. Theluse of
opal globes to obscure the light caused a loss of nearly
half its intensity. Subdivision of the light and other
causes also reduced the light, BO that where an electric
light was placed in the position of a gas lamp, as on
the Victoria Embankment, only about 10 or 12 per
per cent. of the electric light energy could be utilized.
The electric light should be used under conditions
approaching as nearly as possible to those of solar
light, that was to say, from one centre and at a great
height, under reflectors. In the Albert Hall the light
given by electricity reprezented 30,000 candles, con-
sisting of five lights in a centre, giving a light of
6,00 J candles each. The gas that they replaced
represented 42,000 candles. He thought subdivision
of the light in the course of time would become an
absolute necessity, bat it should never be carried
beyond the point dictated by necessity. A town might
be supplied with electric lighting from certain dynamic
centres supplied with steam engines, which during the
day could be used for motive power in working sewing
machines, turning light lathes and so on. He did not
think the telegraph wires would be interfered with by
the extension of the electric light in the manner he
had described. There might be a loss by leakage from
one wire to the other; but that should be provided
against by proper insulation. Even if the elect*
light came to be commonly used, he did not think it
would greatly interfere with the consurept;oz of gas,
which would still have to be used ;or many lighting
purposes, and also for heatng. The electric light had
already found many practical applications, and it
would find more. His firm had already supplied
lighting machines to the value of £5,700 within
to years. He believed the electric light was
still susceptible of very great improvement. At
would, be thought, be safer in theatres and such
places than gas. The carbons ii the lamps at
the Albert Hall would only. burn six hours,
but he thought it possible to give a much larger light
than that. In fac.,t be was now engaged in the con-
struction of a lamp on the principle of Lerins' lamp,
which would, 12e hoped, burn for twenty hours. He
considered that gas could be sold at a much smaller
price than was charged for it at present. It would be
possible to distinguish between an electric light on a
lighthouse and one on board a ship by some such
means as a didereutly coloured glass in the lamp.
Mr. C. W. Cooke, civil and consulting engineer,
member of the Society of Ttlegraph Engineers, and
ot the Physical Society of London, also gave evidence.
He said that there was one class of places in which
electric light could be used in place of gas with
advantage; ia another it could be used rzltii
advantage as supplementary to gas, but thee was
a third class, whire'he thought the elecitnlo light could
not interfere with the use of 44 It would hardly
supersede gas in smali sets, houses and shops.
In Paris it had Lain found that owing to the
subdivision el tile light the cost was two and a half
timea ai much as gas. At the Albert Uall the cost
was not so much because in that case there waszo sub-
division of the light. The causes of fluctuation in the
Light given by electria lamps was defective carbons
and imperfect machinery. In the British Museum,
and no doubt other places of a similar kind in the
country, electric lighting was an advantage, as it was
a question between that kind of lighting or no lighting
at all.

HYDROPHOBIA FROM THE JACKAL.
La2u3 axe? Water gives the following :—" In you
paper of January 18 I see an article, Strange Cases
of Rabies and Hydrophobia.' That hydrophobia can
be conveyed to a human being through other animal
than the dog is surely no longer a matter of spponia-
tion. In my official capacity in India 1iev..4&1 ctiass of
hydrophobia caused by bites of mad fiackals have come
under my notice. Two casqs in particular ale worthy
of remark. In 1873, venen stationed at Parvatipur,
in the district cf Vizagapatam, a mad jackal attacked
two men iteturning to the village at night along the
,igh road. Both were severely bitten in the leg; and
'the jackal then proceeded to the police hospital, where
• he wila killed by a lucky bullet from the gun of the
assistant apothecary in medical charge. The injured
men .were averse to ~,onaing to hospital or being treated
accoi•ding.tnthe ueniii method in such cases, and pro-
, ceedAd t.O.their homes. A fortnight afterwards one
•man died in moat horrible ogony, and a week later his
companion in misfortune developed unmistakable
symptoms of hydrophobia, and died on the third day
from that on which the symptoms presented them-
selves. In both cases a competent medical officer exa::
mined the patient, and declared the oisease to be nil.
doubtedly hydrophobia. Many cases present them-
selves to my memory, but these, as being certified by
medical authority, are reliable, and may prove of some
interest to your readers.—TnEvonieN (Riejahmund)."

At a meeting of Oa Warwickshire miners, held on
Tuo,day, the deputation Who recently met the employers
stated that the latter wanted a 'reduction ot 11 per cent.
The meeting unanimously determined to accept no reduc-
tion, oven U their action Led to the dining el the pita,

EPITOME OF NEWS.