The Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1877-1885, 1882-06-11

- E1Bn G1Gnn1m 4
adopt the light, and saw it working there.
1t was satisfactory to him and he returned
resolved to undertake the matter of light
ing this city.
Meantime the spring city elections had
been held and Aid. Phillips had been
elected mayor. Aid. Gabel took the pains
to correspond with Wabash officials and
became satisfied that electricity was the
| lighting agent of the future The new
council was organized in March, 1881, and
Mayor Phillips had the wisdom to appoint
Aldermen Denney, West and Gabel to the
committee on gas and gas posts, which
committee has been later more appropri-
ately named the committee on public
light This committe began work as soon
as they were appointed and were soon
ready to report to the council that Mr.. l..
o. Hill was prepared to give an exhibition
of the Brush light. The committee urged
the council to invite Mr.. Hill to do so, and
the exhibition was made with good effect.
THE LIGHT.
The Chicago Times gives the following
account of the operation of the light in
Aurora:
A trip to the beautiful little city of Au-
c.. B. e. O. r. r., affords the visitor a
striking apectacle of splendor and most
impressive conception of the revolution in
the lighting of cities now in rapid. progress.
It is at Aurora that we have the largest
and most available illustration of the new
theory and the new systematic electric
tower plan-of elevated centers of illum-
nation, which, while it greatly increases
the volume and splendor OF street and
city light causes the illumination to issue
from few fountain points, in stead of an
endless multiplicity of gas jets or
taper flames that serve like the
star light, more for fancy than for use.
The experiment OF lighting
the city OF Aurora by Brush electric tow
Ell" by M. G. Bullock, of this city, general
agent for the northwest, Is one of recent
Inauguration, and in the moral and me-
chanical senses has proven a most brilliant
ccess in economiZing, charging and inn
proving its illumination, and placing the
citizens of the town in state of delighted
enthusiasm over the splendid practical re-
suits Briefly, the features of the new sys-
tenn consist of some six Brush electric tow
ers, stationed on opposite sides of the riv-
er that somewhat evenly divides the city,
and at distance and relative intervals of
a half mile-this Brush electric tower-a
slender, triangular elevation of skeleton
lines formed of strong iron tubing, four
inches at the ground and one inch at the
top and looking like the iron lines of a tri-
angular skeleton monument, tapering from
a wide, secure base to u hight of $50 feet
a graceful, even, ornamental piece
of engineering architecture, looking,
little distance off, like pencil drawing
against the sky. Each tower is crowned
lent to 2, 600 candles or 1875 gas jets each
the cost of the tower, under the Brush
patent, covering all electric lighting of
whatever height above roofs of build |
ings, being 81 900 The united effects of
these great sun lamps, as witnessed by a |
Times correspondent, accompanied by Mr.. |
Hal P. Brown, general electrician of the |
northwestern agency in this city, was in
teresting, novel and impressive to an al |
most indescribable degree, the districts i'm |
mediately adjacent to the towers being |
bathed in floods of splendor far higher |
In soft intensity than the most brilliant
system of street gas jets, while a suburban |
ride of five-eighths of mile be-
yond the outside towers realized
light as clear as full summer
moonlight lying abroad on the |
fields and lonely outskirts of the city. The
people of Aurora are universally jubilant
over the results of the adoption of the new
system, and express the most earnest and
complete satisfaction with the Brush tower
plan in all its bearings and aspects. 1t is
luxurious, economic, health
ful. The first introduction of the electric
light was attended by apprehensions of
ieleterious effect ON eyesight but the ex
1erience of Aurora and all other towns
md cities thus lighted supports the theory
If Prof. Cohn, of Breslan, the highest
modern authority in experimental
electricity, color blindness, and opti-
al diseases, that the new light is BENEFICIAL,
lot harmful, to the organs of vision,
While letters. spots, and colors are perceiv-
bile greater distance by electric lumina-
ion than by either gas or sunlight, the
ensations of red and yellow being increas
d sixty fold. In the point of economy,
he monthly light bills of the Philadelphia
was reduced from 81 184 (gas) to
1854 (Brush electric lighD an experience
with numerous great factor
es and mercantile houses here and else
where, as Studebaker Bros, Marshall, Field
/ Co., Willoughby, Hill s. Co., Union Iron
md Steel company, and others. One cleo
ric tower lamp, fed by soft coal at So a
on, gives 1900 candle light at 81 cents
,er hour-a ratio of % to 80 compared to
corresponding volume of gaslight.