The Most Expensive Product in the World.

Manawatu Herald, 17 April 1897, Page 3

The Most Expensive Product in the World.

As a matter of curiosity, says Consul Morris, of Ghent, November 12, 1896, I forward the following translation of a statement recently published in European newspapers showing the article which, it is olaimed, sells at the highest price in the world :—•• What is the moat expensive product of the world ? inquiries Mr Wilfrid Ponvielle. He answers, It is charcoal thread (fila ment de charbon) which is employed for incandescent lamps. It is, fur the moat part, manufactured at Paris, and comes from the hands of an artist who desires his name to remain unknown in order to better protect the secret of manufacture. It is by the gramme (15£ grains) that this process is sold at wholesale. In reducing its price to the basis of pounds, it is easily found that the filaments for lamps of 20 candies are worth £1,600 per pound, and that for lamps of SO candles they are worth £2,400 per pound. The former have a diameter of twenty thousandths of a millimetre (1 millimetre- 0,0894m.), and the four and one-half thousandths of a millimetre. The filaments for lamps of 8 candles are so light that it would require nearly 1,500,000 of them to weigh a pound. As the length of eaoh of them is 10 centimetres (8,887 m.), their total length would 187 miles.