THE ELECTRIC LIGHT.

Clutha Leader, Volume V, Issue 235, 10 January 1879, Page 6

THE ELECTRIC LIGHT.

Mr Edison, the inventor of tbe telephone and phonograph, says be has discovered how to make electricity a cheap and practicable substitute for illuminating gas. Many scientific men have worked assiduously in that direction, but with little success. A powerful electric light was tbe result of these experiments, but the problem of its division into many small lights was a puzzler. While on a visit to William Wallace, the electric machine manufacturer, in Ansonia, Connecticut, he was shown the lately perfected dynamoelectric machine for transmitting power : by electricity. When power is applied to this machine it will not only reproduce it, but will turn it into light. Although said by Edison to be more powerful than any other machine of the kind known, it will divide the light of tbe electricity produced into but ten separate lights. These being equal in power t0 .4,000 candles, their impracticability for general purposes is apparent. With the process Mr Edison has just discovered he can produce I,ooo— aye 10,000— from one machine.' Indeed, the number may be said to be infinite. With fifteen or twenty dyna-mo-electric machines be says he can light the entire lower part of New York city, using a 500 horse-power engine. He proposes to utilise the gas burners and chandeliers now in use. Whenever it is desired to light a jet it will only be necessary to touch a little spring near it. No matches are required. " Again, the same wire that brings the light to you," Mr Edison says, " will also bring power nnd heat, With th* power you can run an elevator, a sewing-machine, or any other mechanical contrivance that requires a motor, and by means of heat you may cook your food. To utilise. the heat.it will only be necessary to have, the ovens ior stoves properly arranged for its reception. This can be done at trifling cost. The dynamo-nlectric machine, called a . teleraachon, and which bas already been described, may be run by water or steam power at a distance. When used in a large city tbe machine would of necessity be run by steam power. He has computed the relative cost of the light, power, and beat generated by the electricity transmitted to the teleraachon to be but a fraction of the cost where it is obtained in tbe ordinary way. B j a battery or steam power it is forty-six times cheaper." A football match was played at Sheffield on the. 14th October , under the electric light. About 17,000 persons witnessed the game, and the : experiment was completely successful. Jt is stated that; an ingenious mechanic has discovered a simple method of generating ihe electric current without the machine power required for the Gramme, Siemens. and other methods; and by bis system, after an outlay of about L2O, a house can be lighted at the cost of only a few;, pence per month.' This invention -has met the approval of an influential engineer, "ho is supplying - the means for perfecting it, and it ,i» expected that before long it will be /brought before the public.. :'.-.' ~"i The machine-room of the Times war lighted by RapiefPs electric light during the printing ofthe issue ofthe 13th October. . The inventor claims that br this method an absolutely fixed point of light is secured. He also/ subdivides the current; and obtains a continued steady supply of pure light/ irrespective M the necessary changing ofthe carbon, or the accidental interruption of the, current. The proprietary yof the Times - nave just now constructed a fine rneW steam, engine to. work Mr JRapieff s ;'wi tem^and.-tbe lighting up of the large 1 r machme-roona was.considered- by tjjose who .saw it h tp. show -that ithe objl&y r mentioned ba^been on th6;wholr satis-^ : factoriJy ec^plished, , yj -r