The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1894-02-16
IN THE ELECTRICAL WORLD.

The Concord reformatory will SOON
be lighted throughout with electricity.
"A new storage battery street rail-
way has been inaugurated in Paris,
running from the Bastile to the SUI
burbs
"A series OF evening classes, with
very moderate rate of tuition, has been
inaugurated in the department of cleo
tricity and electrical engineering of
the Armour institute, Chicago.
"A current of electricity does net
always kill when it appears to do so
1t simply produces an appearance OF
death, from which the subject may in
many cases be restored by artificial
respiration
An enterprise is on foot to connect
New York and Philadelphia by troll
icy line. The Pennsylvania line will
extend to Trenton, and the line pro-
jected to Trenton will be consolidated
with it. Electric power plants are to
be constructed at Elizabeth, Bound
Brook, Trenton, Philadelphia and other
points
Prof S. P. Langley, secretary of
the Smithsonian institution, it is said,
is arranging to have his carriage
lighted by electricity. The current
will be applied by storage battery of
five two-volt cells, designed to slip I'M
der the coachman's box There will be
two side lights of five candle-power
each and one inside of two candle
power. The battery is expected to
run four hours without recharging.
A red-hot wire of platinum has for
many years been used for cutting vari-
Gus organic substances, but it is stated
in the London Chemical News that Mr..
Warren has discovered a new use for
this method, and employs wire heat
ed by an electric current to saw the
hardest kinds of wood At first the
wire would break, but he remedied
this by using steel core platinum,
plated by a solution of olatinic chloride
in ether.
The French technical journal, Lin
dustrie Electrique, of December 10,
1898, reprints in abstract a French
academy paper by Mr.. Andre, mem
tioning briefly his experiments at high
attitudes, made in balloons In his
conclusions he states that in good
weather it is certain that the electric
field does not increase with the height,
bnt that ''the electric field is the same
at the same instant along the same
vertical" He makes this statement
Professionally, and desires to prove it
by subsequent ascension.
"A French engineer has built an
electric locomotive which carries five
hundred horse power stationary steam
engine. This runs a dynamo electric
machine, which generates the current
applied to the electric motors mounted
on driving axles. That is to say. in
stead of using the mechanical energy
directly, it is converted into electrical,
and then into mechanical energy.
There must perforce be some loss in
each conversion, but whether it is
greater than the loss incidental to the
direct use of steam in an ordinary loco
motive, has yet to be proved.-lllus-
trated American.
in a note in the London Electrical
Review of December Is, 1898, atten-
ton is called to observations on Ben
Nevis "a mountain in Scotland), which
confirm Prof Smiths theory that the
potential is below the normal on the
edge of dissolving mist, and above
the normal on the edge of a condensing
mist. When the summit becomes clear,
a strong current comes up the tele-
graph cable, which is grounded at the
foot of the mountain. while, when in
volved in mist, the current is reversed.
During a rain or snow the current in
variably passes down the caole, and on
the cessation of rain or snow there is
generally the opposite effect.
Discussing the street car propulsion
systems of New York city, and the de-
mand for something better than cables
and horses, the Electrical Review,
among other things, says that storage
batteries and electric propulsion would
be an ideal system if theory always
agreed with practice; but though now
for over ten years put through its PAGES
under almost every conceivable shape
and modification, the lead battery has
practically made no Roadway for street
car propulsion in this country, though
some railway companies have given ev-
cry facility and the accumulation COM
panies have spent money with liberal
hand. We hear of recent tests, how
ever, both with modified lead elements
and elements of radically different
metallic constitution, of which it may
be truthfully said there is hope"