Electric Light in Towns.

Patea Mail, 12 July 1882, Page 4

Electric Light in Towns.

The electric light is used at a new London theatre in the Savoy, and the light is described as soft, pleasing, luminous, and like a superior gas or subdued sunlight. This “ softness ” means that the light is not lurid : does not throw deep shadows, but diffuses evenly by being split up into many small jets. The electric light nsed to glare intensely from one large jet; so intensely that the eye conld see nothing for some minutes after looking at the glare. It had the same blinding effect as sunlight. Now the light is under better control, by the process of subdivision worked out by Edison and others. Mr George Lane Fox, electrical engineer, lecturing at the Royal United Service Institution on the electric light, said districts can be lighted from a central battery, the lighting power to be distributed to shops and dwellings by main and branch wires underground. He said the incandescent lamp just exhibited at the Crystal Palace would supersede the arc light hitherto used ; and that although gas is cheap in London, yet he stated confidently that the electric light could be supplied to dwellings cheaper than gas. Indeed he said the incandescent lamp would cost for light “ far less than gas. Patea Borough Council has resolved to ascertain the cost of plant and cost of working the electric light for town purposes. It will be well to receive no assurances from agents unless guaranteed on the best scientific authority j for while there are many kinds of lamp in use experimentally, and each lamp may have something to recommend it ? yet the Borough Council requires the light in such form ns will be really serviceable as a substitute for gas in streets and dwellings. • The new gas company at Hawera should not go too fast. Its object might be altered to include both gas and electricity; and proper inquiries conld then be made before sinking money in plant which may be quickly superseded.