THE ELECTRIC LIGHT IN PARIS.

Globe, Volume IX, Issue 1247, 6 March 1878, Page 3

THE ELECTRIC LIGHT IN PARIS.

A correspondent sends the following fco the "Home News" concerning the Electric Light, as now in use in Paris : —" Somewhere about the point where the Boulevard Montmartre merges into tlie Boulevard des Itiiliens, there is a narrow street to the right as you come from the Porte St. Denis. It was at the end of this street, a long way down, that I came to the open space in front of the Grand Opera. There I see Daylight imprisoned in six large globes, each about the size of a man's head. It is the electric light! Pure, intense, and yet so soft, that you can look at it without the slightest pain to the eye. It is white, but with just that tinge of blue which you can see in bright new silver. As you stand in the Place de l'Opera, you can see some hundreds of gaslights. In the presence of this electric light they look like pieces of very dirty yellow material, each sticking in its place, its illuminating power ending with the lines that form its shape. The place is so full of light that you may read small print two hundred yards away from its source. When I reeover from my first amazement, I retrace my steps to seek for the narrow street down which my eyes bad looked and seen, but not pereeived, this light. Here it is, a long way down this Btreet, but my curiosity is fairly aroused, and T hasten towards it. It is the office of the Figaro where one of these globes is diffusing daylight and totally extinguishing the illuminating power of all the gus within sight, i see a welldressed intelligent-looking Parisian standing hy, who takes no notice of it ; he is evidently so accustomed to it that it attracts him not. I ask him about, it, and he tells me that they have also L'Eolaire ElcrtHqtie at the M'ig'ixhi dn Louvre. Good! I am staying at the Hotel 4q Ltrurrci, I bjipl&jj thera at ouco, and I am

coon on friendly terms with Monsieur lo Direeteur, who is quite pl-ased with the interest I take in this tiling. ' Would I wish to go down to the <-ngii e-'oom and see the machinery at work !' ' With pleasure, if you will have the goodness to permit me.' Dowo in the engine-room I discover that what little of the French Lnguage 1 know is of no use to me. One may know enough to supply all the ordinary wants of the traveller, but when it comes to machinery and scientific technicalities lam utterly lost. I must look for mjself, and pretend to understand him. The machinery is very simple, hut in order to gain some idea of it, you must go back to your early recoil.d ions of the electric battery—a glass eylinder, with a piece of silk lying over it. You used lo turn the cylinder, aud the friction of the g] i*3 upon the silk produced the eledrio sparks. That is exactly, as fains I could sec, the simple first principle of this wonderful achievement, with the addition of steam power to turn the cylinder, round which a number of powerful magnets are pl-tced to convey the electric current thus generated, through wires to the large white globes of very thiok glass, in which is the magnesium and some other substance, the secret of winch is known only to the inventor. ' What is the expense of this light ?' ' Nothing, or nearly so, compared with gas, after the first outlay for machinery.' 'Then why is it not more extensively us* d ? Why is not the whole city, and other cities, illuminated with it?' ' \\\ ! there's the rub ; the gas companies are a mighty power (I my self have shaves in one), but the power of this grand discovery is greater, and as surt as we live will this light be universally adopted.' I have visited the factory and the bureau of the Syndicate of L'Eclaire Klectrique Proce le Jablochkoff, in Avenue de Yilliers, on the outskirts of Paris, and I find from inquiries there that they have an agent in London. Is he asleep ? or are the forces of vested interests too great for him to cope with ? Time will show. But there is the great fact, it is accomplished ; we can have daylight at night if we will."