IMPROVEMENTS IN ELECTRIC-LIGHT APPARATUS."
Year: 1880

page_text: "
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by William Lloyd Wise at the Office of
the Commissioners of Patents on the 26th May 1880. A communication
from abroad by Jacques Ambroise Mandon, of Paris, in the Republic of
France;
WILLIAM LLOYD WISE, of 7, Whitehall Place, in the City of Westminster.
IMPROVEMENTS IN ELECTRIC-LIGHT APPARATUS." (A communication from abroad
by Jacques Ambroise Mandon, of Paris, in the Republic of France.)
This Invention has for its object improvements in electric light apparatus, and
relates particularly to a novel method whereby two pencils or carbons, each formed
as an arc of a circle, are kept with their upper extremities or poles in proper
relative positions, notwithstanding the consumption, wasting, or wear due to the
action of the electric current producing the light. To this end each carbon or
pencil is carried or supported and balanced by apparatus arranged so that in
proportion as the carbon or pencil is consumed or reduced by the action of the
electric current, the carbon or pencil will automatically move upward in a circular
path about a centre coincident with that of the circle whereof the carbon or pencil
represents an arc. The same kind of supporting and adjusting apparatus is used
for each carbon, therefore a description of the nature of one convenient arrangement
will suffice. The carbon is carried by an adjustable balance lever supported by an
insulated axis. This axis has connected to it another balance lever, to which is
connected by a circularly curved arm a float immersed in an insulated bath of
mercury or other liquid, which is traversed by the current and is contained in a
stationary but adjustable vessel. This vessel is formed as an arc of a circle of
which the balance lever axis is the centre, and is situated on the same side as the
carbon or pencil of a vertical line cutting that axis. The curved arm or stem
carrying the float is so proportioned as to dimensions and weight, and the parts are
so arranged that as the carbon or pencil is consumed and reduced in weight during
the operation of producing light the float will gradually ascend in the bath of
mercury, and the curved arm or stem simultaneously emerge from the liquid in
such-wise that the loss of carbon or pencil will be correctly compensated by a
proportional upward movement thereof."
The axis of the balance levers may with advantage have cone centres. It works
in insulated bearings. The electric current is conducted first to the mercurial or

page_text: other bath (itself insulated at the under part), thence through the float stem,
oscillating axis, and balance levers to the carbons, pencils, or electrodes.
By the means described for maintaining the equilibrium, and owing also to the
mutual attraction of the electrodes when arranged near together as described,
constancy of position of the light is attained, absence of unpleasant noise, such as is
common with apparatus now in use, is obviated by causing the current to pass
first through the mercurial or other bath and thereby preventing vibration. The
two sets of balancing instruments, such as described, for the two carbons or pencils
of a lighting apparatus are fixed opposite one another, 50 that the terminals of the
carbons or pencils shall be maintained at the required distance apart, and in
appropriate relative positions.