The Rutland daily globe. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1873-1877, 1873-06-25
Correspondence OF the World.l
street Lighting in London

THE CONTEST BETWEEN GAS AND THE NEW
ELEcTEIC LIGHT.
LONDON, June 5.-The contest between
our long since well-established system of
gas-lighting and its upstart rival the cleo
trio light has entered ON new and very
interesting phase by reason of the appear
ance on the side of the latter of very
formidable ally. The supremacy of the
other institution 1t is now sought to I'M
dermine by lavish promises on the part of
this last conner (when were new can
ddates for public favor ever sparing in
such promises?) of reduced cost, or rather
of all but total abolition of cost altogether!
Inventors views require discounting at all
times, certainly such of them as are intro
duced to our notice by this not altogether
disinterested patronage of commercial spec
ulation. While giving all due credit, there
fore, to the very beautiful piece of me-
chanism the Collinge Works have just pro-
duced, let us hope we may be allowed to
"doubt" until the fat 0ccompH Is an
nounccd, whether VIC are destined In our
day to see Niagara giving initial charge to
magnets and driving coils whereby every
town in the United States may be lighted
without any further cost than the maintc-
nance of the conducting wires, the wear
and tear of the parent engine at the Falls,
aud the cost of the carbon points actually
consumed Such is the programme. Given
an electro-magnet and force sufficient to
overcome the friction of wheel, and the
limit of this application of electric current,
we are called upon to believe, is simply the
limit of possible insulation When cleo
tricity shall have effected its next great
triumph-taken its rank beside steam
as motive power-it is promised that we
shall see practical realization of the long
cherished drcam-perhaps Che sara sara.
1t will be enough for us just now to look at
the magnificent results that have been
achieved by Messrs. Gramme Il dIvernois,
results which have met with very splendid
and (none the less for being) solid acknow-
ledgment by the Academy of Paris.
The object of the contest just now going
on at Westminster is rather perhaps, too
special to afford any test of their merits for
the general purposes of illumination. That
| object is the selection OF light which shall
intimate by Its appearance on the summit
of the great clock-tower of the houses that
the British Parliament is sitting and note
by its sudden disappearance the moment
at which the labors of the Senate come to
close
The effect of this special condition upon
the electric light during the trial of Thurs
day last, when both lights were directed to
| hp tsnaka that Ia uuurpyiIpd with Innaag
for concentrating the rays-at least In the
nelghborhood of the Tower, was most dam
aging. Viewed from Charing Cross the gas
seemed, from its enormous area, to have
the best of It, the magnetic light glistening
alongside of II much like specially brilliant
star beside the moon. Mr.. Ayrton, who
was the official referee of the contest on
this evening, was TO have posted him.
self at considerable distance for observa'
tion-on Primrose Hill. What the light can
do when Its rays are concentrated either by