Democratic Sentinel, Volume 2, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 September 1878 — EDISON’S LAST MARVEL. [ARTICLE]

EDISON’S LAST MARVEL.

Bending Cheap light. Heat and Power by Electricity—llhnnjaatlag Gas to be Superseded. [From the New York Stan.] Mr. Edison aajp that he discovered how to make electricity a cheap and practicable substitute for illuminating gas. Many scientific men have worked assiduously in that direction, but with little success. A powerful electric light was the result of these experiments, But the problem of its division into many small lights was a puzzle. Gramme, Siemens, Brush, Wallace, and others produced at most ten lights from a single machine, but a single one of them was found to be impracticable for lighting aught save large foundries, mills and workshops. It has been left for Mr. Edison to solve | the difficult problem desired. This, he says, he has done within a few days. His experience with the telephone, however, has taught him to be cautious, and he is exerting himself to protect the new scientific marvel, which, he says, will make. the use of gas for illumination a thing of the past. Mr. Edison, besides his pow’er of origination, has the faculty for developing the ideas and mechanical constructions of others. He visited the Roosevelt pianoforte factory in this city, and, while examining the component parts i of the instruments, made four suggestions so valuable that they have been , patented. While in the mining dis-' trict, of the West, recently, he devised a means of determining the presence of gold below the surface without resorting to costly and laborious boring and blasting. While on a visit to William Wallace, the electrical machine manufacturer, in Ansonia, Ct., he was shown the latelyperfected dynamo-electric machine for transmitting power by electricity. When power is applied to this machine, it will not only reproduce it, but will turn it into light. Although said by Edison to be more powerful than any other machine of the kind known, it will divide the light of the electricity produced into but ten separate lights. These being equal in power of 4,000 candles, their impracticability for general purposes is apparent. Each of these lights is in a substantial metal frame, capable of holding in a horizontal position two carbon plates, each 12 inches long, 24 inches wide and i inch thick. The upper aud lower parts of the frame are insulated from each other, and one of the conducting wires is connected with each carbon. In the center, and above the upper carbon, is an electro magnet in the circuit, with an armature, by means of which the upper carbon is separated from the lower as far as desired. Wires from the source of electricity are placed in the binding posts. The carbons being together, the circuit is closed, the electro magnet acts, raising and lowering the upper carbon enough to give a bright light. The light moves toward the opposite end from which it starts, then changes and goes back, always moving toward the place where the carbons are nearest together. If from any cause the light goes out, the circuit is broken, and the electric magnet ceases to act, instantly the upper magnet falls, the circuit is closed, it relights, and separates the carbon again. Edison, on returning home after his visit to Ansonia, studied and experimented with electric lights. On Friday last his efforts were crowned with success, and the project that has filled the minds of many scientific men for years was developed. “I have it now’!” he said, on Saturday, while vigorously turning the handle of a Ritchie inductive coil in his laboratory at Menlo park, “and, singularly enough, I have obtained it- through an entirely different process than that from which scientific men have ever thought to secure it. They have all been working in the same groove, and, when it is known how I have accomplished my object, everybody will wonder why they have never thought of it, it is so simple. When ten lights have been produced by a single electric machine, it has been i thought to be a great triumph of scientific skill. With the process I have just discovered, I can produce 1,000 — aye, 10,000 —from one machine. Indeed, the number may be said to be infinite. When the brilliancy and cheapness of the light is made known to the public—which will be in a few weeks, or just as soon as I can protect the process—illumination by carburetted hydrogen gas will be discarded. With fifteen or tw-enty of these dynamo- I electric machines recently perfected by Mr. Wallace, I can light the entire lower part of New York city, using a 500-horse-power engine. I purpose to establish one of these light-centers in Nassau street, whence wires can be run up town as far as the Cooper Institute, down to the Battery, and across to both rivers. These wires must be insulated, and laid in the ground in the same manner as gas-pipes. I also propose to utilize the gas-burners and chandeliers now in use. In each house I can place a light meter, whence these wires ■will pass through the house, tapping small metallic contrivances that may be placed over each burner. Then housekeepers may turn off their gas, and send the meters back to the companies whence they came. Whenever it is desired to ; light a jet, it will be only necessary to touch a little spring near it. No matches , are required. “Again, the same wire that brings the ' light to you,” Mr. Edison continued, j “will also bring power and heat. With the power you can run an elevator, a sewing machine, or any other mechanical contrivance that requires a motor, and by means of the heat yoti may cook your food. To utilize the heat it will only be necessary to have the ovens or stoves properly arranged for its reception. This can be done at trifling cost. The dynamo-electric machine, called a telemachon, and which has already been described in the Sun, may be run by water or steam power at a distance. When used in a large city the machine would of necessity be run by steam power. I have computed the relative cost of the light, power and heat generated by the electricity transmitted to the telemachon to be but a fraction of the cost where obtained in the ordinary way. By a battery or steam power it is forty-six times cheaper, and by water power probably 95 per cent, cheaper.” It has been computed that by Edison’s process the same amount of light that is given by 1,000 cubic feet of the carbureted hydrogen gas now used in this city, and for which from $2.50 to $3 is paid, may.be obtained for from 12 to 15 cents. Edison will soon give a public exhibition of his new invention.