The Times publishes an account of an "electric candle," in-
vented by a Russian ex-officer, M. Paul Jablochkoff, now in Paris. This gentleman uses a " candle " of some compound which is his secret, but into which "kaolin," the clay from which hard china is made, largely enters, and with one battery can produce some fifty lights. They are so powerful that it is neces- sary to soften the light by using opaline burners, and six of them gave, in the Marengo Hall, Paris, a light equal to that from one hundred argand gas-burners. It is believed that the light can be used for theatres and all other large buildings, and farther im- provements are expected, but as yet nothing is said either of its cost or of the amount of trouble involved. The main fact as yet is that M. Jablochkoff has succeeded in dividing the electric light so that one battery would light fifty electric candles placed, say, along the Strand. That is an ominous fact for all gas com- panies to think over.
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