The weekly miner. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1878-1881, 1880-01-13
EDISON'S LIGHT.
The Wizard in His GlOry-yisftOrs still
ThrOnging the Laboratory.

MEMO PARK, Jan. 1.-Leaning back in a
| chair, with his soft felt hat onthe back of his
head, a white silk handkerchief carelessIy
knotted around his throat instead of collar or
necktie, his vest buttoned here and there, he
is perfectly at ease.
ssI1ow many lights did you say, Bachelor,
We're lit tonight"
'Fifty-three."
Thus it began. There We're half a dozen of
lis, all but the writer veteran Menlo Parkites.
We sat around, Edison leaned backin a chair,
put his feet upon a bench, lit a cigar and chat
ted. BY and by conversation, which seldom
in his presence leaves the circle of mechanics,
came back to the great questi n of gas versus
electricity Of light.
'lt people would only sit down and Think"
said Edison, ..they would not say so much
that's absurd. They talk about the loss in
subdivision of electricity, as if that settled
everything. The trouble with electric light
ing is that it started at the wrong end. If gas
had started at burners that consumed $50
feet per hour you would have heard the same
hubbub about loss by subdivision. The
electric light started out with great lights that
dazzle the eye, and of which the pllotometer
tells you the great intensity, but the same
light power divided into ten lights properly
distributed would give you a double illumina-
ton. You know that light decreases with the
square of the distance. With the loss of
available light by concentration against all
excess Of light in a certain small erea. Thirty
gas jets in one burner will not give half as
much light as thirty separate gas jets properly
distributed over the same space. Then as to
cOst-and that is the great thing to bear in
mind-the single thirty,iet gas burner can be
fed at one and one-half feet of gas per burner;
the thirty jet in thirty separate burners Will
require five feet each. Here you see the loss
&c tln J:t4o,,,,, n y-an, A. f,nt orJ 1En f,at
los feet per hour. But nobody talks of
that now, because gas began at the right
end-the little one. In electricity We began
with great lights, and now, the talk is all about
The loss in small ones. 'See,' they say,
Edison only gets 100 candle power for every
horse power, while we, the voltaic are men,
get 900 candles per horse power Very well,
but we have compensating gains. Who wants
200 candles in his house 1t is no more the
popular wantthan 30O-candles gas jets. Now,
as to the voltaic arc. 1t is generally admitted
with that light that the cost of the carbon
candles is three times the cost of the horse
power. They first of all lose half by their
concentrated lisht-that takes 500 candles off.
They have to pay the price of four horse
power for their r%emainding 500 candles,
which brings their candle-power advantage
down to a tracti0n.'
"Oh, it's all jealousy with lhem,' said some
one in a corner.
''It's want of thought said Edison quietly.
"Did you read Professor Mallett's letter to the
Ueruid,' | asked, sin which he spoke of
platinic chloride for toughening the fila
ment?"
Yes" said Edison; .iL Won't do. The
first effect is to drive off The chlorine and leave
pure platinum, which increases the c0nduc-
tivity that is, 1t gives a lower resistance. In
Il short time the tiiament gives away alto
gether, forming a new compound, the carDuret
Of platinum"
Some people are afraid of your system
giving cut because OF its complexity?"
SIMPLICITY OF ELECTRICITY.
II give my word that electricity is a nun
drcd times simpler than gas. just read a good
work on gas and see for i~ourselt. Electricity
is cheap, simple, and enduring. 1t cannot be
said that one city will have purer, clearer, or
smoker or worse colored electricity than
another. 1t is constant. unvarylng as the
supply is continual. There is no business
that is sQSubiect to criticism as gas making.
The complaints about bad gas are ilnumera-
BILE. Do you know, by the way, that some
stokeIs can get thousands more cubic feet
out of a ton of coal than Others?
because of their great skill?"
Exactly it is brains"
There was a pause for a mOment when
Edison said suddenly:
put brains in the machinery, and you have
solved the question"
There was another pause, and some one
said, soto rOce, and Of course unhheard by
Edison. The more you think of that the
stronger it sounds"
THE RESERVOIR
.'They say / remarked, ''one fatal defect
is that you do not store your electricity, as
the gas men do gas-that you have no reser-
voir."
They don't think about it," replied Edi-
son "What is a reservoir but reserve force ?
What better reserve force can you have than
a modern steam engine ? l shall always have
a reserve of engines, of generators, and thus
a reserve of electricity. Let them not trou.
BILE themselves about that. Forty-five cities
depend at this day upon modern steam en-.
gines, with their reserve cylinders, for theil
water supply. Reservoirs for water are getting
out of date. What an absurdity to talk about
reservoirs of electricity. Your engine is youl
reservoir"
Suppose from any cause all the lights OIL
a circuit 60 out at once ?"
"We don't suppose it,"
But suppose it,"
"Well, suppose they all 60 out. What then:
In a minute or two they would be in agaiI
and no harm done. Not so with gas, which
goes out suddenly from time to time. Ther
there is danger, indeed, with forgotten ga
jets open and flowing. Remember that" 81
the chat went on.
In the summer Mr.. Edison proposes to llav'
small motors, that will be a table ornament
to keep ans waving to cool heated ladies
but as l descended the hill in the clear, colt
air of midnight no fan was necessary.
Sunday has been a quiet day here; no visit
ors. This evening the laboratory is agail
lighted up, and the Wizard in his glory.
Female BARRIERS" said Snodgrass, repeat
ing a paragraph announcement he had jus
read i'm the paper, 81 don't believe in EN-.
q IILr 81 ol xEa askal q 2acausa L roIaau