Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-12-07
Electricity Likely to be the Fuel of
the Future Not Only in Street
Cars but in Homes.
THE WALLS WILL BE RADIATORS
And Perhaps Ceilings Can be Made to Give
Out ali the Light Needed for
Ordinary Purposes.
FURNACES MAY USE TIE CURRENT.
Late Developments in the Scientific World Ths. Are Both
Useful and Interesting.
PREPARED FOR TIE p1srNrcH.l


Now and again one hears of electric heat
Ing IN a vague kind of way that would
hardly lead anybody to suppose practical
results had been obtained. But the fact is
that the electric heating apparatus is al
ready in quite general use, and that several
companies have been formed for its intro
duction. One Of the earlier forms of elec-
trio heaters, which was specially designed
for street car use, is not unlike an ordinary
radiator, and has also been given a shape
resembling that of the familiar metal foot
warmer.
The rapid increase in the number of elec-
trio street cars in our Northern latitudes
has given a stimulus to ingenuity in this
field, and new heater has been brought
out, which for simplicity and for economy
Of space seems hard to excel. 1t consists OF
q narrow strip of ribbon of asbestos, in
closed in sheet iron, about three inches in
width, ,sndone-quarteri inch In thickness. This
strip is placed under the seats, extending
from one end o! the car to the other, and is
protected by a wire screen. A second strip
of the same dimensions is attached to the
first as kind of COMPRISING plate, and the
strips are given a zig-zag form, so as to in
crease the length of radiating surface ex-
posed in q given area. The current being
turned on, the wires, bv means of the re-
Sistance they are purposely made to offer to
the current, become very hot, and this heat
is radiated, therefore, steadily and equally
throughout the car.
A more agreeable means of heating it
would be hard to imagine. No space is
taken up by the stove, nor are any of the
seats rendered unpleasant by proximity to
the heating apparatus. One part OF a car
is just as warm the other, and by means
of various methods of arranging the strips,
the degree of beat can be regulated to a
nicely. There is no need to get the car
ready for the approach of winter, nor to
make any special arrangement whatever,
other than the simple attachment of the
strips under the seats. All that is necessary
when heat is wanted is that either the driver
Of the electric car or the conductor shall
switch or turn on the current through the
heating apparatus, and thus the same
agency which propels the car and lights it
also provides it with warmth.
The question which comes into ones mind
on riding in one of the many electric cars
now equipped in this excellent manner is,
why something of the same kind cannot be
rendered avallah hle ior Office or household
use. The probability is that il soon will be-
In speaking o. electric car heating at a re-
cent street railway meeting at Columbus,
o., one of the members stated that he had a
little heater in his house which the laundress
al any time connected up with one OF the
incandescent lamp sockets, and by means of
which she ironed all day, the iron getting
only so hot and never anv hotter. Cooking
Is very often done in this way also now,-aud
with the general extension OF lighting cir
cults we NAV look tor an enormous number
oi inventions in apparatus for using electric
heat in the family. The change will go
even further than this, for if heat can be
brought into an office or q house through
the agency OF a small wire there is certainly
no need TO convert the cellar of every house
into a miniature coal mine with all the at
tendant nuisance of running n furnace or
open fires and then getting rid of the ashes,
or OF filling it up with natural gas meters
1t is quite within the bounds of possibility
that at no distant day our heat will be
radiated gently for US from the wall paper.
and light supplied to US from luminescent
ceiling.