Juniata Sentinel And Republican

Lighting Lamps by Electricity.-An improved system of lighting street gas-lamps has been brought to the attention of the Society of Arts, London, the inventor proposing to intensify and apply the power of a large battery for this purpose, through the agency of induction coils. Briefly, the plan is to collect the electricity in a battery of extraordinary power, and so send it along to the lamps within the circuit by which a small apparatus attached in an appropriate manner to the lamps is the means of conveying the igniting spark to the gas. The wires are to be fixed at a height of about sixteen feet from the ground. The object is not to supersede gas, nor to use electricity as an illuminator, but merely to establish, by means of the electric current, a convenient automatic method of lighting such lamps-the streets to be divided into circuits, a central battery and apparatus being provided for each. Platinum wire, which has been used as a conductor of electricity, has proved successful in so far as lofty interiors are concerned-the platinum wire, however, along which the electric current is thus conveyed has to be strained to a very high tension; and, when the distance to be travelled, as in the case of street lamps, is great, the necessary tension, as also the perfect insulation of the wires, is impracticable.