Omaha daily bee., 1896-02-22

! this sort of visual telegraph, and that
| it may be made to talk in almost any Ian
guage spoken by man. 1t is also service
able fer cipher writing according to any pre-
I arranged code. The monogram frame is
| five feet high by three and one-half feet wide
and is equipped with 16-candle power lamps.
| Signals flashed from this frame are visible
to the naked eye for distances Of from one
to three miles, depending on the weather.
With a glass the signals may be easily read
| up to ten miles. Some frames are made
much larger and can be seen further.
EDISoN'S PHOTOGRAPHIC FEAT.
| Thomas A. Edison made discovery dur
ing last week which he thinks is second in
Importance cny to the discovery of Prof.
Roentgen himself. The Wizard Of Menlo
Park" obtained with Crookes tube Of his
| own manufacture light which penetrates
steel That, SO far as is known has not
been accomplished before. The steel pene-
| trated was one-eghth of an inch thick, and
| the light, which was what Mr. Edison de-
| scribed "a pure blue forescence," pene-
| trated to such an extent to leave the neg
| ative upon which the photograph was made
| perfectly black. Just how this more perfect
| force works, Mr.. Edison does not know yet.
The fact is. he encountered series of phe-
| nomena in his experiments, and he and his
men are busy running down things which
| they discovered.
| Edison, in relating it, said he did not
| know just what degree of vacuum it was
| measure it.
| The vacuum produced eliminated the cath
| ode rays, of which SO much has been said,
| altogether. That was the result they were
| after Mr.. Edison said, because the cathode
| rays are not to be relied upon.
| During the course Of his experiments Edi-
| son found that one Of the Photographic
plates was darkened all over its surface.
That was something he could not understand
| at the time. Not only did the light penetrate
the substance which 1t was desired to photo
graph. but 1t passed through everything else
as WE'LL
I'VE thought at first" he said, that in
some way the light from outside had pene-
trated to the plate. and we tried IL again.
taking care that no light got in from the
outside. The result was the same. We tried
| third time, with the same vacuum and the
| same current. and the result was as before.
Now, do not understand that. 1t is some-
thing new. and we are going to run 1t down" ;"
That was one OF the phenomena referred
to above. The light pierced the one-eighth
inch thickness of steel so readily that Edi-
son ordered his men to make more tubes
Then he put pieces of steel one-fourth of an
inch thick up before a plate to be photo
graphed. He will try that as soon as the
tubes are ready. t,,,
what We have been trying to do" he
said. sis simply to supply few Crookes
tubes. There is sort Of famine in Crookss
tubes just now, and they have been so high
In price that they conld not be used freely"
light in an incandescent bulb. 1t 1iffgrs
from the ordinary arc.i Hight in that the points
of the arc are widely separated The arc of
light is thus compelled to travel through
the vacuum. and 1t whirls all about the in
terror Of the globe. s7i
TO PREVENT ELECTROLYSIS.
The city of Richmond, Va, the first to
adopt electric traction, is the first also to
enact municipal legislation aiming TO pre-
vent electrolySis Of gas and water pipes,
says Electricity. At a recent meeting OF the
city council an ordinance was passed for
this purpose.
The ordinance provides that the rails of
street railways in that city shall either be
electrically welded. or II separate to be
bonded at each joint with copper bonds Of
appropriate Cross section. The connection
OF these bonds to the rails must be made in
accordance with the following specifications:
The holes through the rails shall be care
fully drilled and the copper wire made to
carefully fit the hole; thread shall be put
in the end OF the wire and copper nut, or
copper washer with iron nut, shall be
used, and the surface OF the rail so smoothed
or dressed that when the nut is made tight
there shall be thorough contact with the
rail. The contact Of the wire with the rail
to be made on bright surfaces. and the end Of
the copper wire TO be enlarged so as 70 have
not less than ten times the area of the