PORTRAITS of Morse and Fulton are printed on the reverse of the
new two dollar silver certificate, affording a relief to the dreary
monotony of ex-presidents, generals and statesmen.
A MONSTER electric elevator is to be erected at Allegheny, Pa.
It will be large enough to carry up several wagons at once. The new
elevator will save a trip of a mile and a quarter.
AN EXCURSION TROLLEY car on the Milwaukee Street Railway has
700 incandescent lights. The car is 32 feet over all. The platforms
are 5 foot. The floor of the car is carpeted and a few tables for
refreshments are provided.
AMSTERDAM will have next year an international exhibition of
hotel arrangements and accommodations for travelers. Among the
features of the exhibition will be an "electric restaurant," without
waiters, in which visitors will be served automatically with a
complete dinner on pressing an electric button.
PROF. FLEMING has shown by experiments that with a 2,000 volt
alternating current with a water resistance, that the latter is quite
non-inductive, and that the readings of the amperes may be taken, says
the Electrical World, as a measurement of the voltage, and the product
of the volts and amperes will represent correctly the power consumed.
OUR contemporary, The Engineer, suggests doing away with
windsails on board steamers entirely and substituting electric fans.
In warships the fan ought to be placed where room can be found for it
low down in the ship, far below the water line. An electrically driven
horizontal fan, with its motor, can be got into the thickness of a
deck with its beams, if needs be. This would clearly be better than
depending on a flimsy construction, which would certainly be greatly
damaged, if not entirely shot away, in action. If clear decks are
wanted, the windsail is about as inconvenient as it is ugly, and that
is saying a great deal.
SINCE January 1, last, a new and reduced telephone tariff has
been in force in Switzerland, and from reports to hand it appears to
have worked satisfactorily all round. The former charge per annum for
a telephone, with an annual limit of 800 conversations, was 80 francs
(£3 4s.) The new tariff now in force is 40 francs (£1 12s.) per annum,
plus an additional charge of 5 centimes for each local connection. The
charges for interurban connections, with a time limit of three
minutes, are as follows: Up to a distance of thirty-one miles, 3 d.;
up to sixty-two miles, 5 d.; and above sixty-two miles, 7½ d. The
telephone system throughout Switzerland is owned by the government,
and the service, says the Electrician, is first class in every
respect.
"THERE ARE three ways by which high temperature may be
measured," says the Electrical Engineer, London. "The first uses an
air thermometer of refractory material; the second depends on the
change in the resistance of a platinum wire with change in
temperature; and the third is based on the employment of a thermo
couple of relatively infusible metals. According to Messrs. Holborn
and W. Wein, in a paper published in Wiedemann's Annalen, the air
thermometer method was valueless until recently, as suitable vessels
could not be made. But now these are produced from refractory clays,
and permit of measurements up to 1,500° C. (2,732° F.) The results
are, however, vitiated by the effects of capillarity in the interior
of the vessel. The resistance method has also its disadvantages. At
high temperatures the resistance generally increases, but the
temperature coefficient is irregular. The presence of free hydrogen
also affects the resistance. The third or thermopile method is favored
by the authors, who prefer a circuit of platinum and an alloy of
platinum with ten per cent. of rhodium. Temperatures up to 1,600° C.
(2,912° F.) can be measured by it, and it is remarkably constant under
various conditions."
THE LONDON ELECTRICIAN states that at a special meeting of the
South African Philosophical Society held on August 2, a lecture on the
above subject was delivered by Mr. A.P. Trotter, Government
Electrician and Inspector. Toward the end of the lecture the lecturer
rang up the Capetown Telephone Exchange, and asked if any of the
longer post office telegraph lines were clear. The Port Elizabeth line
was then connected up, and by means of a Wheatstone bridge on the
lecture table, the resistance of the line was measured. The lecturer
then observed that, with the extremely sensitive instrument used in
the Government Electrical Laboratory, it was not necessary to use
ordinary electric batteries for signaling to such a distance as to
Port Elizabeth. He disconnected the battery, and, plunging a steel
knife and silver fork into an orange, sent signals by means of the
feeble current thus generated. He then asked the front row of the
audience to join hands, and, putting them in the circuit, sent signals
through their bodies to Port Elizabeth and back by means of the orange
cell. As a concluding experiment an omelette was made "under some
disadvantages," and the cost of the electrical energy was stated to be
only two cents.
"THE QUESTION of injury to the eyes from the electric light is
being prominently discussed by scientists, oculists, and laymen
throughout the country," says the American Journal of Photography.
"While opinion widely differs as to the ultimate injury likely to
result from the rapidly increasing use of electricity, the consensus
of opinion is that light from uncovered or uncolored globes is working
damage to eyesight of humanity. In a discussion of the subject a
London electric light journal in defending its trade feels called upon
to make some important admissions. It says: 'It is not customary to
look at the sun, and not even the most enthusiastic electrician would
suggest that naked arcs and incandescent filaments were objects to be
gazed at without limit. But naked arc lights are not usually placed so
as to come within the line of sight, and when they do so accidentally,
whatever may result, the injury to the eye is quite perceptible. The
filament of a glow lamp, on the other hand, is most likely to meet the
eye, but a frosted bulb is an extremely simple and common way of
entirely getting over that difficulty. The whole trouble can be easily
remedied by the use of properly frosted or colored glass globes. In
any case, however, the actual permanent injury to the eye by the
glowing filament is no greater than that due to an ordinary gas
flame.'"
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