The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1896-10-02
ELECTRICITY FOR HEATING.
1t May Be Used for Cooking and at
the Same Time Give Light.
r. r. Bowker in Harper's Magazine for


r. r. Bowker in Harper's Magazine for
October.
Electric lighting, heating and cooking
may be illustrated in a very simple way.
If you get poker in a hot fire, the heat
motion of the fire will start the iron par
ticles into heat-motion and make the po-
ker hot At first it remains black, all
though even then 1t gives out heat; pres
entity, in a very hot fire, 1t becomes white
hot, and gives off so much light as well as
heat that you can read by it in the dark;
if it gets still hotter it will melt But if
the poker is a hollow tube and has water
in 1t, the heat will be conducted through
the iron into the water and the water will
boil or, If the hollow iron is connected
with other pipe and water passed through
the heat will be carried off by the water
flowing through without its boiling; and
IL the tube is removed from the fire, in
stead of being white-hot 1t is only warm
Now when electricity flows through a suf-
ficiently large wire, the current Is con-
Quoted away without heating. When it
flows into a wire too small, the current
heats the wire, and unless the heat is car
ried off by radiation, the wire melts. II
white-hot, and we have the electric light
In one case the heating is external, from
the fire without; in the other II is internal
from the current within-and this Is a
chief difference.
Electric heating is the simplest thing in
the world, and when electricity becomes
cheap enough all of us who can get it will
do our cooking and warming by it, II an
overcharge of electricity Is passed through
a wire. the electric force is converted into
heat force, as above stated, and the wire
becomes hot. If no provision is made FOR
carrying off the heat, the wire melts, but
by embedding the wire in an enamel of
such a kind that is expands just about as
the wire does and so does not crack the
electricity Is confined to the wire, but the
heat is carried off through the enamel
II this wire is wound round and round
a tea kettle, or coiled underneath II, pro-
tected by such enamel, the heat is con-
veyed through the kettle to the water and
the water boils, just as II the heat came
TO Il from glowing Goals in a stove II Il
is coiled around an oven, the air within
becomes hot, and roasts or bakes. If K Is
strung across like grdiron, the not
strips will broil; II IL is coiled within a
"nat-iron" that becomes hot enough 20
iron with II II is woven In with ashes.
tos fiber, It makes an electric banker or
bed-warmer. If II is arranged in radiat-
ing plates electric fOot-warmers, or in
large sizes, room warmers. heat US up. 4
spiral OF such wire properly arranged can
be put in any vessel, and will heat water
for shaving or other purposes II a verv
large volume Of current Is sent through
two bits Of metal pressed together, the
electric current passes from one to th,
other, making the Joined metal intensely
hot. so that the two parts weld together
more firmly than q blacksmith can weld
two pieces OF metal by the heat Of his fire
and his hammer. These are but a few OF
the application Of electric heating, which
in the future will become innumerable.