UGHi COMMEMORATES EDISON

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 18, 22 January 1938, Page 25

UGHi COMMEMORATES EDISON

The giant..,electric light bulb fourteen feet*high,;fvfhich.will glow as a land.,beaconipriAtop-^.r-the £25,000 EdisorfMemorlal Tower:it Menlo Park, New-Jersey;- U.SrA.v has be€n completed by ■ thej/^Cprning' Glass Works, New York, , says;iv, ; the • '(Christian Science Monitor:"1:-?. rV' • .'."' .

The 150ft beacon will commemorate thel'inyention of the incandescent electric light by. Thomas Alva Edison, who in 1879 sent a rough sketch of his idea to Corning, asking that a bulb of glass of ■definite dimensions be blown. This original glass bulb, - enclosing Edison's carbon- filament, became the world's first practical electric light. Coming's contribution to the memorial commemorating the event is likewise notable, since- the • 14ft ■■b.uib.: is the first: globular cast job-in-the history of.the.glass industry.: v When finally set up • the ;giant bulb will be into a gleaming.'tower at night casting its rays for miles' about the. surrounding Jersey countryside. -The ih3ide of the bulb ■will be'"fitted with 960 incandescent electric lights, with a 24m reflector to ■' fce utilised as an aeroplane beacon.

The ste«l.framework" of-.the tower,

which is to be enclosed in concrete and limestone, was nrs.t erected in 1929 on the exact site of the work bench at which Thomas : Edison...laboured .over his first incandescent light-bulb just a half-century beiqre. : - A 'model bulb enclosed in a glass case was installed in a base of the tower, and was- linked with current from . four independent, sources' so that its light would, never be extinguished. When a bolt "of lightning struck" the" tower "last August; a mass of tangled steel and scaffolding fell to the ground. The glass case enr closing the bulb was shattered and buried in debris, but the" bulb itself was left unbroken and the light was found still burning. To guard against any future electrical storms the present structure has been fitted'with stainless steel lightning'arresters, and. has been tested against wind velocities up to 230 miles an hour. ... ..'..' The memorial is the gift of Mr; William Slocum Barstow, president of the Thomas Alva Edison Foundation; -who provided for the erection of the concrete shaft on behalf of.', the Edison Pioneers, an organisation composed of past and present Edison Company employees.