A Singular Discovery.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXII, Issue 7449, 1 October 1895, Page 4

A Singular Discovery.

It has frequently happened that scientific secrets of the greatest value have been discovered by pure accident, in fact, chance has played no unimportant part in the advance of scientific knowledge. A case in point is alleged to have occurred recently in America, where Mr G. L. Roberts, an electrician, made by haphazard what, if all accounts are true, is correctly described as a very remarkable discovery. He was experimenting in his laboratory, and on the table was some sand, over which two wires had fallen across one another. By an accident a bottle containing a certain acid was overturned, and some of the acid ran into the band at the point where the wires crossed. The immediate result was a series of electric sparks. Mr Roberts has now invented a lamp which is charged with sand, into which two wires are run, which connect with an ordinary electric bulb, and a perfect electric current is established, which displays the well-known brilliant light of an electric lamp. The lamp will burn for six hundred hours, when* the sand, can be renewed at a cost of B£d. One gentleman who was discussing the discovery with Mr 'Roberts saw a handful of sand thrown into an ordinary tumbler, two wires inserted into the sand and connected with an ordinary electric burner, which burned brilliantly. The generator is, therefore, the Band, but the method of charging it remains a secret with the discoverer, who has sold some of his rights for.. LIBjOOO. Edison, the famous electrician, has seen the lamp, and remarked at the close of the trial that he thought he knew all there was to be know about electricity, but Mr Roberts had made a discovery which puzzled him greatly. The great man was given some of the sand, but it defied analysis, and under treatment very conveniently lost all traces of the secret discovery. The facts as above stated are given in an American scientific paper, and as they are, to say the least, of a decidedly curious character, further information will be received with interest.

One of the moat remarkable testa of electric lighting yet carried out is the erection of & double row of 100 candle-power lamps on either side of the Gedney Channel, Sandy Hook. High pressure current ia supplied to the lamps by a submarine cable 6£ miles long, and the lamps are mounted on posts 12ft high attached to floating buoys. in this way a narrow channel hitherto impassable after dark has been converted into 'a comparatively brilliant thoroughfare, in which ships can pass in the night as comfortably as omnibuses. Our better halves say they could not keep house without Cbamberlain'sCough Heinedy. I It is used is more loan half the homes in Leeds. Sims Bros., Leeds, lowa. This shows the esteem in which that remedy is held where it has been sold for years and is well known. Mothers have learned that there is nothing so good for colds, croup, and whoop- j ing cough, that it cures these aiiments quickly and permanently, and that it is pleasant and cafe for children to take; For Bale by E. 1). Smith, wholesale and retail agent. — Advt.