Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 February 1892 — ELECTRIC SPARKS. [ARTICLE]

ELECTRIC SPARKS.

It is stated on excellent authority that over one-fourth of the street railroads naw operated in the United States use electricity for motive power. Tubes made of paper soaked in a hot bath of bituminous matter, hard, strong and tough, are used for house wiring for electric lighting, with continuous insulating material through which the wires, are drawn. Sir William Siemen’s method of applying electric light to grow flowers and fruit by night or on cloudy days has been employed with good success on board a West Indian steamer to keep alive exotic vines and other plants. The Westchester Electric Railroad company proposes to build an electric surface railway through the town of Pelham to the entrance of the New York Athletic club grounds, and connecting with the New York, New Haven and Hartford railroad. It has been calculated that the electromotive force of a bolt of lightning is about 8,600,000 volts, the current about 14,000,000 amperes, and the time to be about 1-80,000 part of a second. In Such a bolt there is an energy of 2,450,000 volts or 3,284,182 horse power. According to the law recently enacted to regulate electric lighting in lowa, no gas works or electric light plants shall be established by any city or town until a majority of the legal voters thereof, at a general or special election, shall decide in favor of the improvement. The first prize given by the municipality of Paris for electrical meters comes to this country. The prize has been divided, part of it going to a European contestant, but Professor Elihu Thomson, of Lynn, is named first, and his meter is a much less costly and elaborate piece of mechanism than the other.