INTENSIFYING FLUORESCENT OR PHOSPHORESCENT ELECTRIC LIGHTING WHEREBY THE SAME IS RENDERED SERVICEABLE FOR ILLUMINATING PURPOSES AND APPARATUS OR MEANS FOR EFFECTING THE SAID INTENSIFICATION
Year: 1882

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Rankin Kennedy at the Office of the
Commissioners of Patents on the 5th June 1882.
"
RANKIN KENNEDY, of Glasgow, in the County of Lanark North Britain,
Electrician, INTENSIFYING FLUORESCENT OR PHOSPHORESCENT ELECTRIC LIGHTING
WHEREBY THE SAME IS RENDERED SERVICEABLE FOR ILLUMINATING PURPOSES
AND APPARATUS OR MEANS FOR EFFECTING THE SAID INTENSIFICATION,"
It is well known that beautiful but faint electric lights can be produced in vacua
by discharging currents of high tension electricity between metallic points within
a vacuum. It is also known that a discharge of negative electricity in high vacua
when made to impinge on the surface of fluorescent or phosphorescent bodies
renders these bodies or rather the surface of these bodies luminous to a small
degree. The currents discharged into the vacuum tubes or bulbs used to show
such lights are generally produced by frictional electric machines driven by hand
or other power, or Holtz electric machines, or Rhumkorff induction coils.
This Invention provides means of intensifying and increasing the lights produced
by discharging high tension charges of electricity in vacua between two or more
inetal or carbon or other conducting bodies these bedies may be pointed wires or
balls or flat discs and are sometimes both partly or altogether coated with various
fluorescent substances, or with phosphorescent substances, such as Sulphuret of
Barium, or Sulphuret of Calcium.-In some cases I use a conducting point of metal
or carbon fixed immediately in front of a disc of thin paper, wood, cork, glass, or
metal, this disc being coated over one or both sides with a thin layer of fluorescent
or phosphorescent snbstance or the flourescent or phosphorescent substance may be
formed into a disc or ball and placed immediately in front of the metallic or
conducting point.
In constructing a fluorescent lamp according to this Invention I take a globe or
bulb of fluorescent glass of any convenient shape such as uranium glass with two
openings (on opposite sides to each other) into one opening I seal a conductor such
as a wire of metal, so that a small portion of it projects within the bulb or globe
and a portion is left outside to form a connecting part-On the point projecting
inside the bulb I sometimes fix a disc or ball of metal or carbon.-This point, disc,

page_text: or ball is called the negative electrode.-Through the other opening in the bulb I
pass another wire with a disc or ball fixed on the end of it, which has been coated
with any fluorescent or phosphorescent substance or the fluorescent or phosphorescent
substance is itself formed into a disc or ball or into any shape convenient and fixed
on the end of the wire which passes into this second opening, this second disc or
ball is passed far enough into the bulb to be within a distance of from of an inch
to an inch of the first point, disc or ball.-The opening is then sealed round the
wire, sufficient of the wire being left out to form a connecting part.
The bulb is finally exhausted to a certain extent sometimes to as near total
exhaustion as can be obtained by the best type of vacuum pump when a small
quantity of phosphorescent or fluorescent vapour or gas is admitted.-Sometimes
the exhaustion is carried to the desired extent and the remaining air left in and
finally the bulb is hermetically sealed.
The lamp is lighted by connecting the wire carrying the fluorescent or phos-
phorescent body to the positive pole of a high tension electric generator the other
wire of the lamp being connected to the negative pole.-If the tension and
quantity of electricity are sufficient, the ball or disc or other shaped body on the
positive wire is enveloped by the negative discharge and its surface becomes
luminous.
To provide the high tension discharges of electricity necessary for the working of
these lamps I have invented an inductorium which when excited by a battery of
galvanic cells, by a dynamo, or by a secondary battery, or any other source of
current electricity or by an armature within itself, and then being driven by power,
generates currents of high tension electricity.
. When this inductorium is made of small size a dynamo machine or other source
of current is not required for exciting it as permanent steel magnets may be used
instead of electro-magnets.
The inductorium consists of one or more fixed magnets and one or more fixed
solenoids, through the centre of the solenoids are passed loosely fitted iron shafts
which can be rotated easily within the solenoids. At each end of the shafts are
fitted projecting masses of iron.-As the shaft revolves these masses of iron pass in
front of the polar extremities of the fixed magnets and in doing so they transmit
magnetism to the rotating iron shaft which passes through the solenoids and this
magnetism generates currents in the wire of the solenoid.
The wire of the solenoids may be iron or copper, the shafts may be of solid
soft iron or cast iron, or may be of tube iron or iron wire built into a rod.
This inductorium having no commutator and no moving or revolving coils of
wire can be perfectly insulated and produces currents of almost any tension
specially suited for fluorescent lamps, and may be used generally for converting low
tension electricity into high tension electricity.