ELECTRICITY ON BOARD THE WAIHORA.

Patea Mail, Volume VIII, Issue 1035, 16 May 1883, Page 2

ELECTRICITY ON BOARD THE WAIHORA.

The Union Company’s new steamer Waihora is said to be the most elegantly fitted boat that has yet come to New Zealand. The electric light is quite a feature and the following description from a Southern journal will be read with interest; —She is fittted with the Edison incandescent electric lamps, 160 in number, distributed in every part of the ship. The electricity is supplied by the working of a pair of Brotherwood engines of 25 horse-power, steam for which is taken from the main boilers when at sea, or from a donkey when in port. The Edison lamp is warranted to last for 1000 hours, and it has the advantage over the Swann that each lamp can be switched off at will. At 500 revolutions per minute the 160 lamps each give a light equal to 16 candle-power. Connected with each lamp is a. fusing block, which acts as a safeguard against fire. When too strong a current of the electric fluid is on (a state of affairs at once made known by the ringing of a bell or “ tell-tale near the engine) no. riskdO-tlie Jamuxan-eusue, asthesef using othCßs are ntted with a'Service ot lead winch at once melts, and the particular lamp at which this occurs drops out. The emergency is one of rare occurrence, but the safeguard is so provided as to be equal to the occasion, A feature about the lamps also is that by putting in a plug attached to each, and attaching a wire, they can be lifted down and used for searching for anything of value a passenger may lose or drop in his cabin in the same way that a common “ tallow dip ” could be moved about. As the service to every lamp is a separate and distinct branch off the main circuit, it is said that when any one of the lamps goes wrong it in no way affects the rest.