THE LIGHTING OF THE FUTURE.

Evening Star, Issue 10900, 7 April 1899, Page 1

THE LIGHTING OF THE FUTURE.

'if »'"'•''•'•'••*' - >'i • ''- ■' ! l ■'■ ■ ''"' J ■ V w ;;' 4 ;% %jaiJ fewy *f Arts recently F Swinburne lectured new electric temp that has been &V6stej& by J?rbfessor ■Nernsfc-'of the Uhiyertfiy of Ctottingen. ,The vlectnVerj "himself k welMniowri-engineer in Xondon, i» exceedingly enthusiastic about the hew -lamp; he describes it as the. greatest invention in. eleotriofighting fseen for many years, "Up to the present," Ije stated, "cftrr bon; has been the only, satwfiyjtory material for making inoandesceftt lamps, and the only way it can be used is in the form of thin filaments, or wires, which are closed up in little glass "globes from' Which "the air is very care-, fully, excluded. The aj* has to be very thoroughly removed; because' carbon, as everybody knows, burns very easily. Nernst's invention •is to use refractory oxides with.'.which we are so familiar in. the and -to not to]gta,:sttt by electricity. By j.iiat .means: he g*fe» Mm "]Ma «f < oxide which will stand a;considerably higher temperature than carbon, which do not* need to be enclosed in little glass, bulbs, and require rather less than half the electrioal power necessary to produce a given light. The Nernst" lamp bids fair to replace the arc lamp and the large incandescent lamps and sunbeams almost at once. It will also replace the electric incandescent lamp in ordinary 'use very shortly. I should add to my description 1 of Nferhst's invention that, as the material of which it is composed does not conduct electricity, until it is j heated, lamps" are either lighted with a match or with a little eleotftd heating'apparatus whiclf . can be attached to them." . ■ - And what will "be., the effect, of the new ! invention upon the Cheapening of the cost of electric lighting?— Well, it will cheapen it in the first place because- it will make the companies' bills about half of what they have been for a riven amount of lighting; in the second place, because the little rod can be very easily and cheaply replaced, thst its renewal will be only a matter of a very .few pence, even for large lamps; arid, i» : the third place, -because a Nernst lamp can be mad£ to take very much higher pressures than, the .orpynary incandescent. The companies catt .therefore use a cheaper system of distribution. They have at present gone as far as they can by going to .JtQO volts, at which'pressure incandescent lamps are about as bssd as they can be. Do you think that the-cheapening of electric lighting which will i>e effected by this lamp will result in gas being supplanted as ah illuminant?—My own feeling about gas lighting is that it wijl die veryipard. The Welsbach burner, especially the-n'ew form, the Kern burner, has given gas a new lease of life as an illuminant, and the use of it for heating and cooking and the value of its by-products are daily increasing. What is really happening is people Want very much more light than they did before. They now require daylight all through, the night. Apropos to the incandescent burner, the Wekbach people have been successful >n their suit against Brandt Biros., of EJizabeth street, Melbourne, the' Supreme <3ourt of Victoria having decided to enforce the. restrictive conditions under which all Welsbach mantles are issued, and to restrain .the Melbourne fiai from using or selling these mantles, except with burners supplied by the incandescent Gas Light Company. The Court ordered an inquiry as to the number of burners" sold by defendants since the restrictive conditions were imposed, and upon -whioh mantles subject to such conditions had been affixed; defendants to pay 6s for every burner sosupplied with mantles, and to further pay £l4O "towards the plaintiffs' oosts. ■. ■ ■ 4 ....