The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1878-11-23 00:00:00

(From Tuesday's Standard.)

"A very important application of the electric cur-
rent is now being carried out by Sir William Arm-
strong en his estate, about eighteen miles from New.
The power existing in a volume of
water descending at the outfall of a Northumberland
lake has been utilised by the interposition of a turbine,
by means of which the requisite revolutions are given
to a dynamo-electric machine. The electric current
thus generated is conveyed through a stout copper wire
to the private residence of Sir William at Cragside—a
distance of about a mile and a half. The current is there
conducted through a lamp devised on the Siemens plan,
in which the regularity of the light is maintained
by clockwork, subject to the control of an electro-
magnet, which magnet reflects the strength or weak-
ness of the current, so as to regulate the distance
between the points of the carbon electrodes. It has
been found necessary to provide a second wire to take
the return current, so that the first cost of the light
is somewhat large, but the working expense is very
small. The light is used .-Tir illuminating the picture
gallery at Cragside, and has proved eminently success-
ful, not only in respect to the quantity of light
afforded, but its purity of colour. In addition to this
use of the electric current as a source of light, Sir W.
Armstrong intends to avail himself of the power thus
brought into his house, by applying it to several do-
mestic purposes. This is to be accomplished by means of
an electric machine situated in or near the house, and
receiving the current transmitted from the machine at
the lake outfall. In this way Sir William will be able
to make a more constant use of what may be termed his
electrical 'plant,' and thus may look forward to a
satisfactory result in an economical respect. This
example of the conversion and transmission of power
will be viewed with great interest, the distance of a
mile and a half being sufficient to indicate a much
more extended sphere of action for the electric current
than has hitherto been found practicable.

"The Sun Electric Light Company, who lately ad-
dressed a communication to the Metropolitan Board of
Works, have acquired certain patents, among the more
remarkable of which is one for the manufacture of
flexible carbon, The value of flexibility for a carbon
electrode is obvious. If a strip of carbon can be wound
and unwound like a piece of india-rubber, or with some
fair approximation to that degree of pliancy, facilities
are afforded for stowing away a long length of carbon
in a small space under the electric lamp, thereby pro-
viding for a combustion which shall last a considerable
time. How far this end is attained remains yet to be
seen, and the Company have other patent lamps besides
those in which the flexible carbon is to be employed.
The company have entered into arrangements for a
trial of the electric light at the Crystal Palace. A 12-
horse power steam-engine by Ruston and Proctor will
be provided by the Crystal Palace Company, and a,
shed for its reception has been erected at the main en-
trance to the building, opposite the high level station.
A eramme machine to generate the current will also
be placed at this spot, and the arrival of the machine
from Paris is expected daily. The mac.2ine will be a
small one, and is reckoned to require only 21-horse
power to drive it. If the experiment answers,
it is anticipated that the entire Palace will be
lit up in the same manner. At first there will
be only four lights, each fixed at an elevation of
sixty feet above the main floor of the Palace,
at the angles of the large open space under
the central transept. The current will be trans-
mitted by wires, each about one hundred yards in
length, laid under the floor of the building, and con-
verging into a special apparatus, whence other wires
will proceed to the several lights, each light having
its own pair of wires proceeding from the appa-
ratus. A trial of the light, under the auspices of
the same company, is also about to take place on the
premises of a firm in the City. Arrangements are
likewise pending for lighting-up one of the large rail-
way stations in London, and the Agricultural Hall at
Canterbury,"