Progress in Science. The Electrical House.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLV, Issue 12, 21 September 1910, Page 47

Progress in Science. The Electrical House.

By

GEORGE TURNBULL.

LECTRICITY fur a hundred purposes is no longer in its inyo k fancy, and even in respect to its introduction into our homes It may safely be asserted that every day ‘brings new converts to the convenience >bf the light or the telephone. It will hardly be denied, however, that with tregard to its various uses in the home, hpart from its use in supplying light, ■the progress of electricity has in the past ion years been slow, if it has undoubtedly also been sure. For this slow progress nothing is responsible except the unwritten law that every new process claiming to be an advance upon the old has to its way into favour. Gas itself is nearly a hundred years old as an illuminant, but has a much shorter history hs a source of heat, and its almost universal adaptation for cooking in recent £years has proved so acceptable that a •new-comer in the shape of electrical cooking apparatus must be equally good, 'equally cheap, and more convenient, if it is to compete with the rival which has 'already earned its place, so to speak, in the circle of the unquestioned domestic Utilities. The advantages of electricity as a culinary agent consist of the cleanliness which attends its use, the complete control over the amount of heat employed, and the rapid heating of ovens and utensils up to the point necessary for cooking. We give illustrations of some of the utensils shown in a recent exhibition. and these will reveal the manifold uses to which electricity is capable of being put nowadays. The system of working upon which those illustrations are made is known as the Prometheus System, which is so far unlike the wireroil system that the apparatus is free, from self-induction. The resistances are composed of metallic films deposited on insulating bases of thin mica sheets. The •film is enclosed in a metal case, and electrical continuity is established by means of flat metal terminals held in close contact with the two ends of th t ? film. Remembering its progress in other fields, no one will venture to prophesy that the triumphs of electricity in the house will be less complete, less remarkable, less revolutionary, than its triumphs elsewhere. From the hot water for morning cup of tea and the morning shave in one’s dressing room, right on to the warming of one’s bed at night, electricity is ready to play its part in the home all through the day. The mistress comes down to breakfast, and, if she ( houses, by the simple adjustment of the switch in her electrically equipped breakfast-room she can make the coffee herself. Placing the socket upon the egg-boiler, she can have the egg’s boiled to a nicety on the table before her. Or the grill is there, and she can start cooking the breakfast bacon or chop. And so on. The convenience of all this being admitted, there remains the question of cost. Here the companies who supply the electricity have Hie matter in their hands. As regards electric cooking, we have not yet had sufficient experience to warrant our recommending our customers to adopt this method of cooking to replace entirely the old kitchen range, butt as an adjunct we believe that it is now meeting with a considerable amount of success. Such utensils as frying pans, grills, kettles, etc., are proving to be very useful. That is to say, a bouse that uses electric light, for example, which costs, say, Gd. per unit, may be charged only a .penny or three-halfpence per unit for power used in cooking and heating—the charge for lighting remaining, of Course, as before, and the consumption being measured by a separate metre. If We are told that the expense of cooking a steak is a half-penny, and that a fivecourse dinner for thirty-two people has been cooked at an outlay of 1/8, it convoys a slight basis for estimating what the cost of the ‘•electrical kitchen" would be, but much more satisfying would be evidence of actual comparisons out of

the experience of householders who have discarded coal or gas for electricity. Assuming, in the absence of proof to the contrary, that electrical cooking and heating is, at the present stage, still rather expensive there are at least two

classes for whom it is admirably suited. The fir*t is the closs of people who arc tion to the introduction of a new and attractive method of cooking and heating to their houses. The second class consists of the owners of country houses so wealthy that the expense is no objeewhich are sufficiently remote to be beyond the area of gas pipes. A large house of this kind, let us say, employs six servants. The fires and lamps are themselves considerable items in the day’s Work. But let such a house be equipped with electricity for lighting, heating, an I cooking, and the saving in labour is

obvious. So great might this saving be that four servants might suffice instead of six. That is a suppo>ilit ions case, but it will serve to suggest the useful ness of these new applications of electrical energy. A third direction in which their usefulness is likely to be developed is suggested by the popularity of the lux urioiis system of living in Hals in Lend n. »Such a circle, where moneyed bachelors and childless married people avoid many troublesome details in the business of living, is just the place for electricity t > do its utmost for the service of domestic mankind. But withal, the calculating householder will remember that electric ity has not yet fully proved that it can be depended upon in all emergencies. If it is inconvenient in the semi cleet rival house to have the light suddenly go our. when one is reading, it would be doubly

in; on\ ••nieiii in the electrical h •use to have the current fail at the critic.il moment when the dinner is being cookeii. Licit i i ' t y miht be a* sure as death - or at least as sure a* coal or ga*. Wireless Telephony. A recent test of wireless telephony was made to show its value for transmitting music. Several were sung in a transmitter at Bark avenue and Fortieth street, New York, and were

listened to by a group of newspaper men at the Metro|K»litan Tower. At times the singing was very clear, but frequently it was im|»ossil>le to hear any* thing but a confused blur of sound* <§><s><s> To Help the Farmer. 'I he I’.S.A. Weather Bureau has arranged to give daily weather forecasts by telephone to farmers in Texas. At noon each day rural subscribers arc called up. and the weal her forecast is announced to all >imultaneou>ly. Subscribers in towns and cities can obtain the weather forecast at any time of the day after II a.m. by calling up central.

Caloi icnlturc. “ I he Express" of London claims that another word 11111*1 be added to the dictionary of gardening. Thi* is ‘•(aloriciilturc.’’ the name of an entirely new system of horticulture, which ha-» recently been inaugural <l, and bids fair not only to replace the form of intensive (iiltiirv of the French school, but to revolutionise the prv*vnt *\*tcin of fruit and vegetable forcing. Ihe inventor of the new method is a Briton. Dr. F. Alexander Barton, Fellow of the Koval fcocivty.

(1> An Electrical Cooking Range. Suitable for all «<«i>king operations in which only a uentle heat is r>lll ir«*< 1 1: i-. 1 \ <!. .1 in‘o two equal sections, so that it is unnecessary to heat more titan half the total surf.-iir mile** a nnmhvi <.f iite.i-.its ire required to he in use at the same moment. (2) Saucepan, with Elements Assembled. Ch Method of --i n - i it,. Him: Element in a I lot-water lug. Curling Tongs Heater. Green onyx has-, and lop portion of gold lacquered hr.i--. im the I’.ug Boiler. ((>) A Closed Element. Suitable tor hot plates or tla t-but turned utensils. i7i A Bia*- lh-1 W.i.-m . lal.o iw > to three minutes to heat.