The Lafayette gazette. [volume] (Lafayette, La.) 1893-1921, 1895-05-04
IN THE ELECTRICAL WORLD.

The Swiss Budensrath is urging
the construction of an electric railroad
to the summit of the famous Jungfrau.
1t is proposed to operate the road by
power to be obtained from the Grindel-
, valid glacier, or from the water of the
TUNNEL river.
-Vulcanized rubber used for insulat-
ing electric wires is SO injurious to cop
per that it has been found necessary to
plate the wire with tin, then insulate
it with unvulcanized rubber. and then
cover the whole with vulcanizcd rub
Der. In this way the sulphur in the
latter is prevented from acting upon
the copper.
The attorneys for the Western
Electric Co., of New York, are prepar-
ing the papers in infringement suits
which will be at once instituted
turers and dealers in New York and
vicinity. There are about thirty of
these suits in prepa ra ton and the ball
is to be set a-rolling at once.
The New England Telephone Il
Telegraphic Co. has petitioned for a
Brattleboro (Vt.) Gas Light Co., con-
trolling the electric light plant in Brat
tleboro, to restrain it from SO using it's
wires as to interfere with the opera
tions of the telephone plant. The tel
ephone service has been worthless a t
The contract for the construction
of a telephone system for the interior
department at Washington, d. c., has
been awarded to the Western Tele-
phone Construction Co., OF Chicago, for
SIS, sos. 76, which was the highest bid
received. The bids of the competing
companies were rejected, some because
their instruments were infrngements
on patents of other companies, and
others because their switch boards
would require two operators.
"A case of electricity generated by
q plate of false teeth occurred recently
in England. man feeling a severe
pain in his tongue consulted doctor
and a dentist, neither of whom could
find nything wrong. He then went
to Ian electrician w-ho} found that his
false teeth were fastened to the COM
position plate with two metals: they
were connected by wires to a galvan-
ometer, which, soon the metals
were moistencd by the saliva, showed n
current strong enough to cause ulcer
alton and severe pain. The plate was
covered with an Insulating varnish,
which put an end to the trouble.
Some interesting experiments in
the line of the direct conversion of cal
critic into electrical energy have been
made by DIR. w. Borchers, of Duisbur-,
Germany, and they were described by
him at recent meeting of the Ger
man ElcctrO-Chcmlcal Association.
The first attempts in this line were de-
voted to the production OF an electric
current by the ''combustion'' of carr
bolic oxide gas; but DIR. Borchcrs has
also succeeded i'll obtaining the same
result from treating hydrogen, coal
gas, and even coal dust.
Some young mon still persist in
studying telegraphy on their own pri-
vate account, and for such there are
full outfits, including book of in
struction, at cost of about five dol
lars. The man that thus learns teler-
raphy is a little like the tina
learns French without Il MASTER; his
pronunciation, SO to speak, is peculiar,
and the pronunciation of the skilled
telegrapher has to him an unfamiliar
sound. Nevertheless, practice soon en-
ables him to correct his defects of
sounding and hearing, and there was
little group of farmers in one of the
states of the middle west who set up a
private telegraph line and in that set
Element nearly everybody learned to
send and receive short messages.