Deseret evening news. [volume] (Great Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1867-1920, 1910-02-11
RARE METAL THAT HAS
REV0lUTI0NIZED ELEC-
TRIO LIGHTING

One October night in the year 1871
while Washington's cannon wore do.
mandIng the surrender of Cornwall,
at Yorktown, German scientIst.
working In his little laboratory to IN.
light from tallow candles, discovered
a new and most unusual metal which
he found impossible to melt In his
crude charcoal furnace. He called
the new metal tungsten, from the
Swedish "tung" (heavy) and ten
(stonc) because the heavy ores haX
como from Sweden. Little did tho old
man know, as he worked away nv
candlelight to give his discovery 10
the world. that his find would sono
day. a hundred and twenty-five years
later, completely revolutionize electric
lighting.
Twenty-Five years ago Thomas
Edison produced the first successful
incandescent electric lamp after other
inventors had worked for nearly fifty
years to perfect the device. The fila
ments for Edisons first lampg were
made OF carbonlzed strips of bamboo
heated white hot In a vacuum globe
by electricity. After 1894 carbonized
cotton cellulose was used for the fila
ments and It seemed as though tho
lamp had surely reached perfection,
The fllaments of incandesccnt elec-
trio lamps were made OF carbon be-
cause no other material could be
found which would withstand the In
tense heat. Every well-known metal
was tried but melted before reaching
the required temperatures. Then the
inventors began to experiment with
the more uncommon metals and again
a German scientist took up the study
OF tungsten.
At first tho great trouble was TO
secure pure tungsten. This difficulty
was overcome with the aid of an elec-
tric furnace. but the product. In the
form of gray, metallic powder. PROV
ed so refractory that 1t could not be
melted into ingots or drawn out into
wire. An experimental fllament was
made by mixing the fine powder with
a paste and squirting the mixture
through a die much the same as a
spider spins its web. This thread
was In turn heated In an electric fur
mace until the powder was fused into
tho form OF fine wire. With the
melting point of tungsten so much
higher than any other known metal
| 1t was possible to heat the filament to
| greater lncandescence. producing more
| and better light with less waste of
current in useless heat.
Then the electrical inventors awoke
to the fact that the very substance
they were seeking, that which Edison
had secured tho world to find, lay
| under their hand all the time, and
tungsten. useless and practically un-
known for over a century, came into
its own and began the wonderful task
of revolutlonizing incandescont cleo
| tric lighting.
The advent of tho new tungsten
lamp was startling to the users OF
electricity for lighting purposes. for
| they saw at once that the new lamps
| would easily give the same light as
| the common incandcscent lamps for
| one third the cost. A home that was
| lighted by electricity for $2.35
| month could be lighted with the new
lamps for seventy-eight cents. Not
only that. but the light from the new
tungsten lamps proved to be pure
white, very nearly akin to actual sun
shine. soft, pleasing and beneficial to
tho eyes, and not OF yellow cast like
the common incandescont lamps,
The new tungsten lamps will re-
place those now in use without spe-
cial fixtures; in fact, any sixteen can
dle-power incandescent lamp can be
replaced with a thirty-two CANDLE
power tungsten which will give twice
the light and save twenty per cent Of
| the cost. The new lamps are the same
| Us the old In size, shape and general
| appearance. the difference being In
the light-giving fllament within the
glass bulb. The General Electric
company has recently developed spe-
cial processes for making tungsten
lamps,