The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1879-12-20 00:00:00

AMERICAN AND CANADIAN FOOD.

Daring the whole of last week there was not a single
head of either live cattle, sheep, or pigs landed at
Liverpool from the United States and Canada, a cir-
cumstance which has not occurred for many months
past. The quantity of fresh beef brought during the
same period, was, however, large, and the arrivals of
mutton, though not up to the previous week, were still
above the average of recent weeks, The following
were the conveying steamers : Baltic, with 776
quarters of beef and 250 carcases of mutton; the
Wyoming, with 1,820 quarters of beef and 550 carcases
of mutton; the Helvetia, with 537 quarters of beef
and 60 carcases of mutton; the Bohemian, with 938
quarters of beef and 100 carcases of mutton; the
Pennsylvania, with 1,182 auarters of beet, 282 carcases
of mutton, and 103 dead pigs; and the British Empire,
with 1,604 quarters of beef and 202 carcases of mutton
—making the total 6,857 quarters of beef, 1,444 car.
cases of mutton, and 103 dead pigs.

ANOTHER STEP IN THE PROGRESS OF
ELECTRIC LIGHTING:
Another step has been made in the progress of
electric light. In London, on Monday night, the
Victoria Station of the Metropolitan District Railway
was brilliantly illuminated by ten electric lights, re-
placing 20 gas lamps which had previously lighted the
station. The important point connected with the ex.
periment is that these electric lights are maintained
by the same engine and apparatus which, stationed at
Charing-cross, subserve the purposes of 40 lights on
the Embankment, and ten on Waterloo-bridge. From
the engine-house the extreme lamp at Victoria is 165
mile distant; and the extreme lamp at Blackfriars,
one mile, the range of frontage thus covered by a
single 20 horse power engine being 2•65 miles.—ln
noticing the above discovery, the Daily News of
Wednesday says :

"We recorded yesterday another striking step in the
progress of public lighting by electricity. The Victoria
Station of the Metropolitan District Railway is not the first
railway station to be lighted by the electric candle ' • but
it is the first in which the electric current hiui been
conveyed from a generator a mile and a half away.
When Mr. Edison proposed, about a year ago' to
light New York by elec,tricity conveyed by wires from
a few centres it was generally thought that the cfm-
veyance of the current in any force to a considerable
distance was impossible. The farther the light is from its
source the more steam power we were assured would be re-
quired to produce it, and it was supposed to be demon-
strated that at halt a mile the power required to produce a
light would be so great as to ensure the failure of the ex-
pertinent economically. But it is now shown that all these
elaborate arguments must have proceeded on some fallacy.
The one steam engine on the Thames Embankment is now
keeping aline of lights along the Embankmeat another across
Waterloo Bridge, and yet another far away at Victoria Station.
The electric current thus goes from the same centre more
than a mile and a half in one direction from the engine,
and about a mile in the other direction. It is found,
moreover, that no increase of power is needful. A year ago
each light was supposed to need one-horse power; now the
whole of these scattered lights, sixty in number, are pro-
duced by an engine of twenty horse power. The economy
of production and the ease of transmission thus demon-
strated mark another immense step in the utilization of the
electric light."