The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1896-02-10
X RAYS RULE EDISON.
The Wizard and His stan Work
Night and Day with the Queer Light.

Night ana Day win the queer L1E mt.
From the New York World.
Thomas A. Edison, his laboratory and
his assistants and employees at Lewellyn
Park, near Orange, are these days devoted
exclusively to fathoming the mysteries of
Prof. Roentgen's x rays. The famous
inventor himself works from morning I'M
til morning. working at nothing and think
ing of nothing but the new form of light
"a peculiar thing is" said he yester-
day, "the interest the men about the lab
oratory take in the matter. Workmen
who could go home If they chose stay
here all night to watch the experiments
My immediate assistants are as deeply in
terested as 1 am"
This devotion of the inventor is char
secure his attention, and to this con-
stancy as much as to his inventive ge-
MUS is ascribed his remarkable success
Much of his work thus far has been to-
ward determining the amount of vacuum
necessary in a glass tube to secure the in
visible rays, and to make himself indie
pendent of the foreign manufacturers of
Crooke's tubes. He has established fact
of much Importance to other experiment.
ers, namely, that the highest vacuum is
not necessary.
est possible vacuum we're produced the
| light would be so weak as to give results
only after hours of exposure. Mr.. Edison
made well-defined ShadowgraphS yester-
day with an average exposure of eight
minutes. The tubes were on the pump
only eight minutes, and not near the posi-
BILE vacuum was produced.
II find" said the inventor, that after
have secured a certain vacuum all the
exhaust beyond that means the use of
more electrical power to produce the light.
1t is mistake to suppose that the high
est possible vacuum is necessary to a
production of the rays. The application
of great power means the burning out and
destruction of the tubes by fusing."
AS to the tubes, Mr. Edison secured all
his results yesterday by using an ordinary
incandescent-light globe, within which
disks, representing the positive, or anode,
and negative, or cathode, poles. The pos
tive electTNode or disk, one-quarter of an
inch in diameter, was suspended from
the tiny wire carrying the alternating
current close to the top or mouth of the
bulb. The cathode electrode, half an inch
in diameter, was firmly fixed in the center
of the bulb in a position as If it were
meant for reflector.
Mr.. Edison explains that when the
proper fiuoreScence is obtained within the
tube the mysterious light is generated
there by the action of the electric fluid
in disturbing the molecules of the ether
or of the rarefied air. The function of
the cathode disk is not to make the light,
but to propel the light particles with ter
rife force against the glass of their priS-
on The object to be photographed and
the sensitive plate to receive the shadow
are directly facing the little disk, and the
accepted theory is that the light waves
strike the glass with such force that
some of them penetrate the glass and go
on and on through the opaque substances
placed in their way until they reach the
sensitive plate, imrrinting thereon the
shadow of whatever object has been met
not susceptible to the peculiar rays.
That the cathode electrode does not of
itself produce light is evidenced by the
experiments of Prof. Pupin, of Columbia
University, who secured Shadowgraphs or,
as they are by courtesy called, photo
graphs, by using tube in which there
were no electrodes. The exposure requir-
ed, however. to make a picture with this
simple, exhausted glass tube was of sew
eral hours, showing that the cathode disk
is an important agent in frightening the
power and action of the rays.
Mr.. Edison now proposes to make the in
teresting experiment of determining Just
how far the cathode disk will throw the
light He likens the expulsion of the rays
to a bombardment, the rays representing
millions of tiny shot, thrown upon the
opaque objects until they are penetrated
vacuum tube twenty-five feet in length.
The disk will be at one end, and at the
other the shadowgraph will be sought. If
the whole tube becomes huorescent the
experiment will be successful, demonstrate
ing the wonderful efficiency of the ca
thode in connection with the light.
In the language of one of the many cleo
trical experts now at Mr.. Edison's elbow,
scientific America is sweating blood in
an effort to make or buy tubes thought
to be necessary for exploiting the new dis
covery." The price Of an ordinary
Crooke's tube is about 500, and there are
few, If any, in the local market. The eff
forts in most of the laboratories to proper
~ exhaust tubes have not been signally
successful, and most of those in stock
when the fever reached this side have
been broken in experimental work. AS a
consequence most Of the investigators
are eagerly awaiting consignment of
Crooke's tubes, now on the ocean.
Wizard Edison is, however, indepen-
dent of the depleted market. He has a
glass blowing department in his laborato-
ry and his glass-blower makes tubes of
ali shapes and sizes. He has a pumping
room in which there are dozens of
pumps, and every other appliance and ia
cility for exhausting the air in the tubes
He can turn out dozens of properly ex-
hausted tubes every fifteen minutes, and
yesterday gave away a number of tubes
to scientific visitors.
In using the incandescent light bulbs
the inventor explains that they are blown
to q thickness only of one sixty-fourth
Of an inch, very much thinner than the
tube of commerce, Offering consequently
aess resistance to the exit of the rays.
When a bulb Is placed on the pump for