The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-07-19

Wireless telegraphy has lately been im- proved to take down messages automatic ally. Heretofore a man had to be in the
 receiving station to take down the mes
 sages as they came along. Now the re-
 ceiving machine Is fixed to give series of sparks which are recorded on a slow moving photograph film.
 Arc lamps for store lighting are being
 superseded by the tungsten cluster The tungsten incandescent lamps, while cheaper than any other electric light. also
 give the nearest substitute for sunlight as all colors can be matched under the clear, white rays. By grouping six or
 eight of these tungsten lamps under
 ceiling diffuser the General Electric
 trio company has produced new lamp for illuminating stores and other places of
 business which is far ahead of all arc
 lights for this purpose.
 It has long been the dream of naval
 men to find a substitute for the glass
 mirrors in searchlights. The heat of the
 arc and the concession of the guns often
 shatters these mirrors. Now new mir TOT Is being made for this purpose by the electrolytic process A thin silver
 film is deposited on the convex side of a
 glass mould. This is put in an electroly-
 JIG maCnlu6 dnu COPpcT dCpooilCd oI tiiS
 silver until it reaches the desired thick
 ness, then the glass is removed leaving the metal mirror.
 Tantalum, the metal used in the new tantalum ncandescent lamps, is so hard that a diamond drill revolving on sheet of the metal for three days barely left a mark Incandescent lamps made from this rare metal gives nearly half as much more light for the same cost as the ordl- nary lamps. saTsEslsIH
 The electric furnace Is twice as hot as Hades" giving a temperature of 72OO degrees Compared to this a bar of red hot iron is cold.
 An enterprising inventor has brought out an electrically bath robe. This garment is heated by a large number of | fine wires woven in the cloth which be- 1 come warm when connected with the | electric light socket. A switch in one 1 of the pockets controls the heat | The Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul l is to install telephones for train dispatch l ing.
 1 The Grand Rapids -Muskegon Power | company has raised the voltage of its l transmission nnes to 125,0OO volts-the l highest in the world.
 Ill northern California a run of cells in the rivers and creeks completely | blocked the turbine water wheels in sev-
 eral power plants. No way was found to get rid of the pests until one of the engineers caused a wire screen to be ! lowered In the water and charged with | several thousand volts. The uead eels
 were hauled away in wagons and buried. 1 On the British battleship Dread | naught, which has created so much dis
 cussion and speculation, the electric
 outfit Is unusually complete. At the l top of the foremast and immediately l r1 al ic | control platform, upon which are placed
 the range finders. for locating the po- sition of an enemy or target at sea. In | the turrets and on this platform is | installed a new automatic system of range finding and gun elevating, by
 means of which the range as read will l be electrically transmitted to each gun
 position. where, by the use of syn
 chronized motors, the elevation of the
 guns will be steadily and continuously changed to correspond with the in
 creasing or decreasing range, as re- 1 corded by the range finder on the plat l form. This meth cd is said to remove
 all possibility of error in the transmits
 sion of information as to the ranges
 and in the manual elevation of the l guns, and leaves to the gun crew
 merely the duty of traversing the guns and thus keeping them fixed on the
 enemy. The lofty fore topmast places
 the fore truck fully 200 feet above the
 water line. A short main mast is car
 ried in the usual position, mainly for
 the support of the antennae of the
 wireless telegraph equipment. l At the recent test of the new tungsten l ircandescent lamps one was burned con-
 tinuously for 3537 hours.
 Capital to the amount of $3S, ,O31 900 is ln-
 vested in electric railways in Michigan.
 The leading trucking companies of New
 York city are using heavy electric trucks 1 instead of horse trucks Not only do these
 trucks carry three times as much as the 1 old ones but they do the work much quicker. The storage batteries hold
 enough power to do 10 hours of hard l service.
 i The Danish inventor Professor Poulson | has succeeded in sending the human voice 2uO miles by wireless.
 l A New York chicken farmer fattens his chicks by electricity. The hen houses are brilliantly illuminated with arc lights and
 at intervals during the night the lights
 are turned on and the misguided fowls,
 thinking it is daylight, fly off the roosts
 and eat. The plan is also said to coax
 an extra egg or two away from the de- luded hens.
 l Electric cranes are now being extensive ly used for dock and harbor work. 1 Two years ago the Chinese government lad sY en of 2.149 miles of telegraph