INTERESTING EXPERIMENT.

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume XIII, Issue 1697, 12 June 1884, Page 2

INTERESTING EXPERIMENT.

Db Lemon, the Superintendent of the New Zealand Telegraphs, may lay olaim to having made probably the most exhaustive and practical experiment regarding the relative advantages of gas and electricity for domestic lighting that has yet been made in the Southern Hemisphere. A year ago Dr Lemon went in for lighting his private house on the Terrace throughout by electricity ; the plant, consisting of a one-horse-power gas engine, a Siemens' dynamo, and Swan's incandescent lamps, costing a little under £200. During the 12 months, 11 lamps of 20- candle power each were kept constantly burning during 1,113 hours. The gas consumed by the gas engine was 5G,633 foet, and the cost, at 8s per thousand, £22 4s. The sum of 7s od was expended on repairs to the machinery, and 12 lamps, costing 5s 6d each, were broken, principally, however, during the first two months, before the apparatus was in complete working order. To produce, the same amount of light, 14 Christiana flat-flume gas burners, each consuming 6ft of gas per hour, would have been required, and these would have consumed 93,492 feet of gas, and the cost at 10s per thousand (the price charged for lighting gas) would have been £40 15s. The experiment seems to have boon conducted with the most rigid care, most elaborate records being kept, and is specially valuable as having been conducted by an impartial scientific authority. No one can visit Dr Lemon's house without being struck with the beauty of the light and the freedom of the atmosphere from the vitiation caused by gas. Dr Lemon has also found a species of New Zealand grass especially suitable, when charred, for use as carbons in the incandescent lamps, and has sent Home specimens to Siemens, the eminent English electrician, with whom he is in constant correspondence.