Gas shares have fallen nearly ten per cent, this week,
under the influence of fresh information as to Mr. Edison's experi- ments with the electric light. The Philadelphia correspondent of the Times has visited the inventor at Menlo Park, and has examined his inventions. In a telegram published on Monday he decides in their favour, declaring that Mr. Edison has invented a lamp, costing a shilling, which gives a "mellow," clear light, equal to that of sixteen candles, at one-fortieth of the price of gas. The electrodes are made of carbonised card- board, the light burns in a'vacunm, and the current, transmitted along a wire as small as number thirty-six is generated by a small seven horse-power engine, each horse-power feeding eight lamps. The correspondent saw sixty lamps burning, for seven hours, two of which "have been burning continuously for ten days, without injury to the baked-cardboard horseshoe, in the little glass globe which furnishes the light." The light can be regulated at will, and consumption measured by a meter. "Mr. Edison's system also furnishes electric power for small industries, such as running sewing machines," a detail about which we should like to have heard more. It may prove one day at least as important as the electric light.
Previous page
