Fort Worth weekly gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-11-20


IL has been noticed that our rains of
the past week have come from the north.
The moisture giving rise to them was not
taken up by the atmosphere in that d.
rectlon, but from the southern seas. The
phenomenon is due to a double current
of air-an upper current moving north
ward and An under current moving to-
wards the south. The upper current,
passing above the low rain clouds, is
heavily charged with moisture. 1t is the
warmer current of the two. At some
point north OF us it comes into contact
with colder current which reduces Its
temperature and at once carries it down
TO the earth in obedience to well known
laws. The stronger earth current turns
it southwark and the lower temperature
so coudences il as to render It incapable
of holding the large amount of moisture
it was able to bear along before con-
tracted by the cold. This moisture,
squeezed from the sponge as 1t were,
falls upon us as rain, presenting the ap-
pearanee of rain coming from the north.
In the times OF Grains from the north
in Texas, such as have characterized the
past week our atmosphere is moving like
an eddy in q river. Far above us it rolls
nortbward to a turning point, where it
sweeps downward and reverses it's move
ment along the surface towards the
tropics. At some southern point. hav-
ing been war red to it's former tempera-
ture, and having taken up new supply
of moisture, 1t will find another turning
place, rise to its original position and
sweep back above the clouds, thus reu-
dering the eddy figure complete.
1t is estimated that the amount of
capital, in round numbers, now en-
ployed in electric lighting by the whole
worl amounts to Sl20, 900 200, and it
was only eleven years ago, you remember,
when the light was first perfected. From
the few lamps burned by Edison at
Menlo Park IN 1879 there has grown into
present use ct least 125, 200 arc lights
and l 200 COG incandescent lights. The
writer of these notes well remembers the
first electric light ever seen by an Amer
lean public. 1t was at a lecture room in
New York city in 1853. The lecturer
had wire working TO an old fashioned
primary battery, and to the wire was
attached q very thin plate of platinum.
By cutting off and turning on the cur
rent he produced what he called ian
electric lightning bug The current
turned on heated up the platinum gradu-
ally to about the glow of q lightning
bug, and when turned OF the platinum
cooled down in about the same space of
time necessary to heat it. thus giving it,
in the darkened room, much the ap-
pearance of lightning bug. sure
enough. Nothing in the lecture seemed
to indicate that the lecturer philosophy
had so much as dreamed OF the wonderful
lighting power Of his mysterious agent
that was so soon to develop from that
very Insignificant beginning.
-.
Speaking of platinum leads US to think
of the great advancement in price of
that article resulting from the develop
ment of modern electric lighting. Ex-
anime an incandesceD' lamp. You see q
short strip OF wire at',.hed to the copper
conductor just at the top of the globe.
That is platinum. 1t connects the car
BOMBED loop and is enc of the absolutely
indispensable features of the lamp, be-
cause it expands at the same tempera-
ture and In the same proportion as the
glass globe. Hosts of experiments have
bsen made with view to finding sub
stitute for platinum, but no successful
substitute has yet been discovered.
without q platinum wire the globe iuva-
riably breaks. Every incaudescent lamp
must have some platinum, and as q con-
sequence the metal, naturally scarce,
has come to be extremely valuable. The
price of platinum has so advanced until
it is now worth on the market almost us
much as gold, weight for weight. 1t j.
now quoted at $40 per ounce, which is
only few cents below the gold QUOTA
ton.
The platinum now in use by electric
lighters is pr duct of an aImos. mac
cessible region Of the Ural mountains.
Its name, according to the encyclopedias,
comes from the Spaniarus. AS early as
the sixteenth century it appears to have
been noticed that gold ore III the Spanish
mines of Darien included grains of a
white metal endowed with the qualities