The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1897-08-23
TUBE AND A CATHODE
RAY.
ALL ENERGY INTO LIGHT.
A NEWLY INVENTED DE-
VICE.
A VIENNA SCIENTISTS DISCOVERY.
BY the Efforts of One Man an En-
tire City May BE Easily
Illuminated.

WASHINGTON, d. c., Aug. 22.-It is
thought by some that the present
methods of lighting are to be suppressed
ed. not by improved incandescent or
arc lamps, nor by glow tubes like those
of Tesla and Moore, nor even by Edi-
sons lamps in which the Roentgen rays
are caused to fall upon a phosphores-
cent substance and cause it to gloW-aI-
though this last comes nearer to the
coming system than any of the others
but that the light Of the future" is
practically a Crookes tube containing
phosphorescent material, which is made
to give out light by allowing the ca
thode rays to fall directly upon it, A
lamp Of this sort has been nearly per
fected by Puluj, of Vienna, one of the
earliest eXperimenters with the cathode
rays and other phenomena of exhaust
ed tubes, and some remarkable things
are claimed for It,
Fifteen years ago Puluj invented a
so-called phosphOrescent lamp. 1t ex-
cited little comment at the time and
it was thought to be but an imitation
of the tubes of Geissler or Crookes. But
in the light of modern ether discov-
cries it has taken on Importance. 1t
generates not only intense Roentgen
rays, but it also transforms nearly all
of the electric current into light. 1t
emitS an intense greenish-white light
in sufficient quantity to illuminate a
small room. Prof Ebert has made
measurements which show that a sim
gle horse power of electric energy
would be sufficient to operate $4,000
Puluj lamps.
Prof. Lodge, who is at the head of the
department of experimental physics in
Universal college, Liverpool, says that
if mechanical energy can be converted
into light alone, one man turning the
crank of suitable machine could gen.
crate light enough for a whole city.
Puluj claims now that his lamp fulf1lls
this condition, and he is working hard
to bring it down to a practical basis.
LIGHT WITHOUT HEAT.
To produce light without heat is to
perfect a system in which all of the
producing energy will be turned into
light. AS our electric light system now
exists only from l. to per cent of the
energy is expended in light. The rest
is this immense waste of energy which
makes it necessary for us to employ
steam engines, dynamOs and expense
creating apparatus of all kinds to pro-
duce what is after all a mere residuum
of illumination.
Puluj's lamp is not operated by dyna-
mos or storage batteries. 1t is lighted
by means of an induction coil or a
glass plate electric machine. The static
electricity thus produced is the very
same in every respect as lightning. The
lamp of Puluj can be operated even
though only one terminal of the induc-
ton coil Ghe negative pole for instanca)
is connected to it. The lamp itself is
shaped very much the same as an or
binary Edison incandescent lamp, ex-
cept that the wires leading into the
lamp do not extend up the neck from
a socket. They extend directly through
the side of the bulb. They are made of
aluminium. The negative pole of the
cathode ends in a small relationship
ed disk. Hanging from the point or
apex of the lamp globe is a small,
square sheet of mica The piece of
mica faces the reflector disk or mega
tive pole and is painted with sulphide
of calcium, an extremely phosphOrescant
substance When the negative pole of
the lamp is connected with an induc-
ton coil the current is, as it were, con-
centrated by the little disk in the lamp
and a stream of radiant electricity
flows from it to the sheet of mica,
which Immediately glows with an in
tensely brilliant phosphorescent light.
This is Puluj's lamp as it exists to-
day. But it is not, in it's present stage,
available for lighting purposes. Puluj
is experimenting with view to arriv-
ing at a solution of this problem. He
is carrying on a series of Investigations
to the end of producing a chemical
lighting system; not the production of
light through the consumption of chem
icals, but, as far as can be learned,
the development of ETHEREAL light vi
bratons by chemical means.