The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1879-12-21
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When carefully studied on screen. for the brill
fancy OF the light prevents continued observation
by the naked eye there will be seen hosts of little
Jets Of carbon constantly passing in the form of
arc between the two carbon points. The problem.
then. of utilizing electricity for purposes of illumi
nation presents two avenues of attack-one by way
OF the voltac intense light. and the other by
way of incandescence or milder light
THE voLTAIc LIGHTS.
Considering first the voltaic system we find
that early 1910 it began to attract the attention
OF inventors. Probably its first outside the
laboratory and class room was in the year 1915,
when it was employed at the opera in Paris to pro-
duce the effects Of the rising sun. Its success in
this role of apollo" satisfactory that before
long enterprising managers had extended its field
OF usefulness by of lenses and prisms to the
production of luminous fountains artificial rain
bows and lightning. At this period. however. IA
cilites for obtaining steadiness and uniformity Of
the light were exceeding crude, and some mechani-
cal device keep the carbons at the relative
distance from each other was indispensable. The
first continuance regulator. it was called for
this purpose made in ls45 by Wright. of Lon
don, and consisted of disks of carbon having their
from well known mechanism. The following year
Static and Edwards. in London. patented several
regulators the principle underlying them being the
enclosing of the carbons in small cases, which made
the carbon points meet obliquely. In lS4S Foucaut.
in France and Petrie. in England, made further i'm
provements by which the adjustment of the carbons
made quite reliable Then followed numerous
others. extending to the present time. of more
less perfection. Among them may be mentioned
Archereau's, Iacasagne's Theirs. serrin's. Du-
boscqu's. Farmers. Brush's. Maxims and Fnller's.
THE JABLoCHKoFP CANDLE.
In the year 1876 u departure in the form Of
regulators made by M. Jablochkoff. Russian
engineer. who. instead of placing the carbon rods
vertically to each other. placed them side by side.
with a thin insulating substance between them. In
this form the voltac arc. playing between the
tremities of the carbons. gradually consumed them
downward. like flame consumes q candle. Indeed,
80 analogous was the invention to q candle that it
became known the Jablochkotf candle-a name
1t still bears.
INCANDEsCENCE.
The incandescent method of electric lighting was
first successfully shown by King in 1s45 He placed
rod of carbon in a globe of glass from which the
air had been extracted and passing current of cleo
trcity through the rod to become heated
such degree that could large print aconsid
cradle distance away by the light emitted His abors
however, productive of practical results and
while his theory for producing light regarded
pretty one few so bold to predict that it
would develop into an economical and efficient
method of illumination. The following year Greene
and State filed patent for lamp analogous to that
OF King pointing out that they freed the carbon be-
fore from impurities by treating it with nitro
muriatic acid.
PETRIEs IRIDIUM LIGHT.
In 1S49 Petrie obtained patents for the same pur-
pose, concerning which he wrote rs follows-
"a light may be produced by passing an electric
current through short and thin conductor. which
heats and becomes luminous; but the majority of
substances fuse and burn rapidly However, OBJ
tain good light by using iridium of its
alloys. Iridium may be fused to produce
ngot while 1T is submitted to the heat of the votac
afterward it may be decarbonized and rendered
maleabe. 1t can be cut into small pieces, that
can be fixed upon two insulated metallic supports
which are in connection with the two wires of
battery Then there is produced beautiful light"
LoDYGuINE's LIGHT.
From this time until 1873 electric lighting by in
candescence made but little progress inventors re-
garding the incandescent method much inferior
to that of the votac In the latter year, how
ever interest in the incandescent method u little
revived by an invention of M. Lodyguine who made
lamp that overcame many of the difficulties pre-
viously deemed insurmountable. Concerning this
invention the report to the Imperial Observatory of
Paris said
'.The sole Inconvenience of the use of carbon in
stead of platinum consists in the fact that in the
combustion the carbon combines with the oxygen of
the air and is thus gradually consumed. NJ. Lody-
guine has avoided this Inconvenience by enclosing
the carbon heated to Wilderness by the electric cur
rent in glass vacuum Theoretically sealed, and
from the interior of which the oxygen is expelled by
o most simple process"
But improved this arrangement over
those that had gone before, practice demonstrated
that there still many serious difficulties it did
not meet. Among other things carbons presented
obscure spots indicative of non homogeneity minute
cracks also occurred in tho carbon and rapidly dsin
tegrated the same. The vacuum likewise was very
imperfect. and there was produced within the glass
globe kind of evaporation that tended slowly to de-
stroy the carbon rods This evaporation also lett pull
zed deposit of sublimated carbon the inside
of the glass globe. Within the past few years
various English and American inventors have
many OF these difficulties. but there still
NAMED enough to render incandescent electric light
ing mpracticable.
ELECTRIC GENERATORS.
While inventors were busy both on the votaic
and incandescent methods progress was far from
slow on the means tor producing generating the
electric current. At an early day 1t was evident to
experimentcrs that to produce either the votaic
or incandescence with any degree of economy dii-
ferent method of generating the electricity than that
Afforded By the chemical batteries in use was neces-
sary. An important discovery by Ampere in 1870.
developed almost simultaneously by Oersted and
Arago and later by Faraday to the effect that power
tul currents OF electricity could be produced by the
rotation OF magnets near each other. opened
opportune field for purposes of electric lighting.
Pixn manufacturer OF physical instruments in
Paris. in 1882, was the first practically to apply the
discovery. He constructed a machine consisting
Of electromagnetic and permanent mag
not. with mechanism for revolving one directly
N front OF the other. which revolution induced
strong currents OF electricity that could be car
ried of by wires and made to give light. Tue
invention of Pixi was followed by improvements
by Nandet. Holmes. Ladd, Wilde and Sienens, and
In late years by Gramme, Fuller. Brush, Maxim and
others. The invention of GramIne owned and used
extensively in this country for the volaic sys
tenn by the Fuller Electrical Company. involved
several important new principles that gave n
marked impetus to the system and made pc sible
the production of torrents OF electricity at compare
lively small cost.
EDIsoN's ASSISTANTS.
Before concluding this article it il only proper
that due credit should be given to those whose
untring energy and skilled handicraft made
possible the perfection OF the great invcn-
La lnl,n