MR. EDISON'S ELECTRIC LAMP.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVI, Issue 5490, 21 June 1879, Page 7

MR. EDISON'S ELECTRIC LAMP.

Mr. Edison's wonderful electric lamp is completed at last—so says a New York correspondent of the Daily News. There is no doubt about it. The correspondent saw it all himself at Menlo Park. Th 9 division of the electric current was perfect. There were a dozen lights, and Edison turned them on or off at pleasure. He could keep one or any number alight at one time, and the division of the light aeemed a moat commonplace matter, after the first six or eight lamps were aglow. The discovery of the new alloy, the fusing point of which is much bii*ger than any known metal, is a fact; and his chief assistants speak of this discovery as the greitest achievement of his life. And this alloy not only cheapens the coat, but increases the illuminating power of the new light. Six lights are now obtained per horsepower, where only four were possible with the pure platinum coil; and it is believed that eleven lights per horse-power will ultimately be obtained. But that will not be possible, until the newgeneratorhasbeen constructed which is to supersede the Gramme machine. There were, it is confessed, many disappointments before this result has been achieved. The lamps are of various kinds. They can be fixed on the . wall or hung from the ceiling. But thero is one pet lamp of the inventor. It contains all the latest improvements, and is, in appearance, a St. Germain student lamp, without the reservoir for the oil. It stands in the middle of a small table, and two fine covered copper wires alone connect it with the main conducting cables from the Gramme machine. Here is found the absolute proof of the successful division of the light, for now that the machine shop and the laboratory are aglow —twelve lamps in the former and two in the latter—the correspondent and his friends sat down to see fiis lamp at work. It was quite successful. The same current which supplied it supplied the dozen lamps all alight in the adjoining mechanics' shop. In a few months, it is s dd, the company will be ready to supply light for domestic use to the pnbiic ; and the price, it is estimated, will :iot exceed 4s. a year for each burner.