The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1878-10-19 00:00:00

ELECTRIC LIGHTING.

The following is an extract from a letter written by
Mr. C. William Siemens to The Times :
. . . Although I am strongly of opinion that electricity
will gradually replace gas in many of its most important
applications as being both cheaper ana more brilliant, I still
hold the opinion, quoted by Mr. Northover in his letter to
you of yesterday, that its application will be limited, at
least during our generation, to such larger purposes as the
lighting of our coasts, to naval and military signalling, to
harbours, quays, warehouses, and public buildings, includ-
ing perhaps picture galleries and drawing-rooms, where the
objections to gas are already felt to the extent of banishing
that means of lighting to the passages, offices, and bed-
rooms. I am, however, of opinion that a revolution even
to the extent indicated must be the work of time, and that
while gas will undoubtedly in due course be supplanted by
its more brilliant rival for the purposes just indicated, the
consumption of gas will be maintained by the increasing
area of application resulting from increase of towns, and
by additional applications for cooking and for heating pur-
poses, for which gas will supplant the use of solid fuel, and
thus confer a new benefit upon mankind by doing away with
the nuisance of smoke and ashes. If gas companies only
rightly understood their interests, they would themselves
take up electric lighting for those purposes for which it has
the decided preference, and at the same time promote the
application of gas for heating, in doing which they would
clearly increase their business as lighting companies, while
benefiting the public by providing them with the very best
sources of heat and light.

"A Shareholder" writes to The Thrtes :—"Sir—The direc-
tors of the gas companies are no doubt fully alive to the
danger of competition from the electric light, but it would
be a great consolation to the shareholders if they knew that
steps were being taken by the companies collectively to
endeavour by expniments to cheapen the production and
improve the quality and light of gas. I should also recom-
mend that the consumers of gas be informed which are the
best burners to use, and I think it would be a good plan if
the companies were to supply them at cost price.
"Gas, cheapened, improved in lighting power, and puri-
fied, need not tear competition from the eleztric light for
private houses. Although in theatres the heating power of
gas is objectionable, to the public generally it is of Im-
port...nee 111 effecting a considerable saving of fuel."

The Standard (Monday) publishes the following :

Sir,—llaving read your article of today, containing so
many interesting calculations as to the relative cost of the
various systems of electric lighting and of gas, I beg to con-
tribute seme additional facts relative to the light exhibited
in Regent-street by the London Stereoscopic Company.
So powerful a light was used simply because, having the
machinery for the production of -light equal to 4,000 sperm
candles for photngraehic portraiture, it was utilised pro.
tern. for the illumination of the shop. It will be replaced by
a light equivalent to 1,200 sperm candles, at the cost of
about fourpence per hour, and there will be then consider-
able excess beyond the requirements of the case. At the
cost mentioned above there will still be ample margin for
any possible deductions, and yet a large balance in favour
of lighting by the method adopted by the Stereoscopic
Company.
few words, any number of electric
each equal to 1,200 sperm candles,
at the cost of to
urpence per hour per light.-1 am, Sir, yours
.
IS October 11. ON, the London Stereoscopic and
lo
stateca n t
b heec
lights produced, in a
f h o t ogr
faithfully,ai hTilic Company,°s a
Regent-Street,

TM Times of Wednesday publishes a letter from Mr.

S. Alfred Tarley, from which we make the following
extract:—

. . . lam old enough to remember when the promised
universal introduction of railways in this country produced
a similar scare among those interested in the value of horse-
flesh; but what is our experience? Why, although rail-
ways do by far the greater amount of the carrying trade
of the country, horseflesh has Increased of late years in
value, probably, in a greater ratio than that of railway
traffic.

What has been accomplished demonstrates to my mind
that electricity will at no distant date be very largely used
for the purposes of illumination, and in special cases will
also, no doubt, be employed as a source of motive power. I
believe, however, the demand for gas will increase at the
same time, and that engines worked with coal gas will be
employed for producing electricity when it is wanted in com-
paratively moderate quantities.
The electric light is capable of subdivision and is sub-
divided at the present time. As an electrician, I confess I
do not see any royal road by which Mr. Edison can sub-
divide it. Mr. Edison is however, known to be a very
original man, and may have struck out into an altogether
new path which will lead to great advances in the sub-
division of light. Should this prove to be the case,
although he will not have made any advance in the econo-
mical production of light, his discovery may lead to its
more economical utilization. Mr. Edison, it may be safely
prophesied, will find there are many difficulties to be over-
come before reducing his ideas to pnctice, and the proba-
bility is that the indefinite subdivision which he promises to
effect will be obtained to some extent at the cost of the
economical production of the light. . . •

The Standard of Tuesday has an article on the
Electric Light, from which we take the following
extract :

" The extent to which the introduction of the electric
light in a generally practicable form is likely to affect the
capital of the gas companies is a matter of intekest beyond
the limits of those who hold shares and stock in those com-
panies But the share capital in many cases bears
a high premium, and perhaps there is a fair approximation
to the truth in a calculation already made, that the total
amount of capital invested in gas undertaking throughout
the United Kingdom is as much as £100,000,000. Some por-
tion of this consists of loans, and therefore represents a debt.
The loans raised by the London gas companies at the end
of last year amounted to £1,671,186, the stock and share
capital being £10,174,663. The loan capital may be con.
tattered safe; but any large depreciation of the share capital
would be a serious matter. Supposing the dividends of the
gas companies to approach extinction, the loss to the spend-
ing power of toe community wiuld be widely felt, and if it
were possible for the gas interest to be destroyed the dibap-
pearance of millions of capital would be a national misfor-
tune. Neither is the question limited to the British Isles.
Tile whole civilised world makes use of gas for illuminating
purposes, and the total Elllll embarked in the manufacture
and supply of this article in various parts of the globe must
be immense. That all these riches should now be trembling
in the balance, awaiting the result of certain investigations
conducted in an American laboratory, is a state of things
which has seldom if ever presented itself before. But the peril
is evidently exaggerated, and it may be reasonably affirmed
that gas undertakings rest on too assured a basis to be thus
suddenly overthrown. Such a catastrophe would, indeed,
be unique. Great and important changes will follow any
general introduction of the electric light; but these changes
may chiefly consist in a largely increased ute of artificial
illumination, in which a place will be found for gas as well
as electricity. One result will certainly be that of the
cheapening of gas, perhaps accompanied by an improvement
in its quality. The world will thus be better for the change
in every respect, and nobody need be much the worse for it.

"But Mr. Edison threatens to invade other interests
besides those which relate to the production of light. He
is to send a supply of heat along ins wires as well as light.
This menaces the coal interest. But for the present
nothing of this kind is likely to go beyond the area of
domestic consumption. We shall not be getting up steam
by electricity, except it be a teakettle. As for motive
power, which is alsu to be transmitted along the Edison
wires, there has long been felt a want of some motor
more handy and generally applicable than steam. The
gas engine has been devised, and so far the gas
companies have hoped to find a friend. At present
the gas engine is in some degrees guilty of turning
the tables on the gas companies, by giving motion to the
machines which furnish the electric light. Calculations
on the cost of producing the electric light by means of a gas
engine have already appeared in these columns, followed by
a letter from Mr. Harrison of the Loudon Stereoscopic
Company, stating that the light recently displayed in Regent.
street, estimated as equal to 4,000 candles, will be replaced
by one of 1,200 candles, costing 4d. per hour, and still giving
a large excess of light. This will supersede the ten argand gas
burners previously used for lighting up the shop front, the
consumption of which may be taken at five cubic feet each
per hour, or any feet collectively. At 3s. 6d. per thousand,
the cost of this gas would be a trifle more than 2d. per
hour, or hail that of the electric light. But the lighting
power of the ten argand burners would only be equal to
160 candles, whereas the electric light is equal to 1,200.
If it is necessary to use an opaline globe to modify the
effect of the electric arc, the latter may lose 60 per cent.
of its intensity, thereby bringing down the light to 480
candles. At halt the price of its rival gas will thus give
one-third the light. It ground glass be used instead
of the opaline globe, the electric light will only
be brought down to 840 candles, to compete with
which there must be a consumption of gas costing eleven-
pence, whereas the cost of the electric light is fourpence.
With the opaline globe for the electric light the cost of an
equivalent of gas is rather more than sixpence, or half as
much again as the electric light. Thus, if the electric light
could be produced in moderate quantities, with equal
economy as on the larger scale, it would be from 37 to 64
per cent, cheaper than gas at 3s. 61 per 1,000 cubic feet,
according as the electric light was shaded with opaline or
ground glass. In absolute strength the electric light would
be 75 per cent. cheaper than gas. On a former occasion we
had as our basis the light of 4,000 candles, costing seven-
pence by the electric method. In one instance the electric
light was cheaper than gas to the extent of 79 per cent, in
absolute asretigth, 71 per cent. as covered with ground
glass, and 50 per cent. as shaded with opaline. These
ratios become respectively 75, 64, and 37 per cent, when we
have to deal with the electric light of 1,200 candles in abso-
lute strength, costing 4d. per hour. As the latter result is
leas favourable than the former, we may infer that the re-
duced light is not produced so economically as the larger.
On the largest scale we have 571 candles per hour for a
penny, and on the smaller 300 candles for that sum.
Sixteen-candle gas, at 3s. 6d. per 1,000 feet, yields the light
of only 76 candles per hour for a poiny. Thus even on the
smaller scale the electric light would be four times cheaper
than gas, were it not for the loss of lighting power conse-
quent on the use of partially transparent globes. Of course
the whole subject is as yet in a transition state, but it io
evident that it has reached a most interesting crisis with
every probability of important practical results."

The Nark Lane Express says --" The electric light is the
topic of the day, and is one of the most valuable big
gooseberries' that the daily papers have lately had with
which to regale their readers during the dull season. For
my own part, I like the dull season, when people have time
to think quietly upon some of the most important, though
not the most prominent, problems of life, instead of being
absorbed in excited party warfare or speculations as to
foreign complications. If Mr. Edison has not exaggerated the
success of his adaptation of the electric light to domestic
purposes his invention will be more valuable to us than the
island of Cyprus. It will not be employed to light up farm
premises just at first In such matters farmers are always
prudently content to let their commercial friends show them
the way. Some day, however, we may have whole farms lit
up by powerful electric lights, quite supera.nnuatingithe poor
old Harvest Moon. By that time machinery—worked by
electricity, perhaps—will have been so far perfected that
there will be no difficulty in getting any amount of work
done, and harvesting may go on all night in our brilliantly
lighted fields."

FOOTBALL BY ELECTRIC LIGHT.
The intense interest aroused by the application of the
electric light to novel uses was strikingly apparent on
Monday night in Sheffield, when nearly 30,000 people
gathered at Brammal-lane Grounds to witness a football
match played under that light. The mateh, which was
played by two teams belonging to the Sheffield Football
Association, commenced ,at half-past seven o'clock. The
electric light was thrown from four lamps, thirty feet from
the ground, and the rays, which were of great brilliancy,
lighted nearly the whole of the ground, the players being
seen almost as clearly as at noonday. The brilliancy of the
light, however, dazzled the players and sometimes caused
strange blunders. The illuminating power was equal to 8,000
standard candles.