A NEW LIGHT.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLII, Issue 7380, 5 February 1902, Page 4

A NEW LIGHT.

TO MAKE ELECTBICITY

CHEAPER THAN GAS.

The New Crawford -Voelker electric glow lamp, whose advent was recently announced, excites the deepest interest in electrical circles. In the Electrical Review, Mr F. Z. Maguire gives a full description of the new lamp, which is expected to make electric light cheaper than gas.

Hundreds of thousands of pounds have been spent on the endeavor to ..improve the ordinary electric glow lamp, which, however, remains in much the same position as when it left the hands of the inventors, and produces a great deal of heat, which is not wanted, instead of light, which is what the consumer pays for.

In the new glow lamp it is c'aimed that less energy is converted into heat and more into light. Colonel H. 0. h. Holden , F.R.S., the superintendent of the Royal Arsenal at Woolwich, reports that the saving in the amount of energy consumed for a given quantity of light is from 40 to 50 per cent.

The newly-perfected lamp possesses the further advantage, acoording to the Electrical Review, of not blackening and falling off in efficiency as do the' glow lamps at present in use. After burning for 6000 hours ths globe of a lamp whioh was examined was practically clear.

The only differences between the new lamp and the old are that the filament, instead of being pure carbon, is a new compound of carbon with titanium, one of the rare earths which have been used so successfully in incandescent gas lighting, and that at one end the globe is bifurcated. This latter improvement prevents a further waste of energy whioh takes place between the electrodes of tha present lamps. Otherwise the Crawford- Voelker lamp is precisely similar to the existing form of glow lamp, and is jubt as "convenient in use.

Another advantage claimed is that lamps of equal and even higher efficiency can be manufactured for use on 200 volt and higher .circuits. This will recommend the new lamp to the electric lighting companies, as its ueg will enable them to supply more than double the number of consumers with their existing mains. At present lamps for more than 200 volts are very unsatisfactory, but improved lamps of 500 volts have been successfully manufactured.

A reduction of f com 40 to 50 per cent, in the coat to the consumer will enormously increase the use of electric light, and it is hoped that all the promised advantages of the new lamp will bo realised in practice. If they are it will represent the greatest advance in the industry which has been made for the past ten years.