THOMAS ALVA EDISON.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 4, Issue 1043, 8 April 1882, Page 1 (Supplement)

THOMAS ALVA EDISON.

j (Continued,) ' Only at one other period of our two hours' conversation did Mr. Edison show any warmth, and that was when I spoke of Swan's incandescent lamp being the favorite in England, to which Mr. Edison replied "Wiliy, Mr. Swan ridiculed the idea of incandescent lamps and of electric light burning in a vacuum when I first demonstrated its possibility, and now he has turned round,' and I saw by a paper the other clay in England he now claims that his discover} of tho" incandescent lamp is the result ot twenty years' study on tho subject, Tin fact is he veered round entirely and suddenly after my first vacuum lamp had been patented in England in 187'J, and some months later ho canio out with a lamp, which closely resembles the one of which] had deposited the drawing in London." (] saw Edison's original drawings, and a Swan s patent! incandescent lamp, and they are indeed very much alike—alike as twin brothers, or shall I say, like as parent and child.) "But," continued Mr. Edison, "I can beat Mr. eveu iu England ; can cut him out of the Inarket. His lamps cost him 9s. each, 1 1 am tdld. Directly I heard this I telegraphed to my 'agent to sell ours in London at 3s. Thdy only cost to half that price here." " Hijff many inventions have you patented, Mr,.Edison?"

1 "iJthis country!- have sent in 392 applications! for patents,' About 110 have been granted to mo' for■■improvementsin electric: lighting alone, I have 41 applications made in England; 30 patents granted. In Australia I have 15 patents. I have just sent to: Londoh the- largest dynpmo machine evor made, I It weighs 15 tons, and is to be used for cleitric lights somewhere near the Mansion House, One a little smaller has gone to Paris', I I had 140U lights burning in Paris, GOO in [tUc Grand Opera! Houße,and 800 in the Palais I'lnduatrie." •

" laj it not true that you are now laying down | mains 1 to supply a portion of'the city of Ne\y York—a mile square—with electric light and'electric motive power?"' . . / " Yes, quite true, All arrangements will so6n bb completed, 90 per cent, of the residents in that square milo havG'agreed to take the electric light It-will be supplied to them just the samel a3 gas—by meter. The largo wires are nearly all down--nnder the streetd—the connections : with every house are approaching completion, and the 'electric light \Hll bo supplied in every room, The residents will pay for what they uso and no more,' They can turn off the electricity at the meter if they like, -and they can turn'ifc off and oil in each room and at, each light. The electricity will be generated■•at one central stjition, and supplied direct to the' Consumers 1 through the .underground 'mains. Everythinjfjirecisely thesamo'as gas, except th;(tthe light will bo more brilliaht—really sixteen candle power to each lamp—and that the price will be a little cheaper perhaps.' Wo think, however, ; that if \yo charge the same as gas our electric lights will be preferred.- If not, we can fight the gas companies in regard to price, and can beat them out-, and'Oiit. : There is no doubt about that. I went into it most carefully before I promoted the Etlisoii Eleotrio Illuminating Company,' which'is,doing the work on'tlie square-mile block now. We are to havo'lHO consumers; 14 miles of mains and 10,300 lights-in that ono district, besides which wo have arranged to sell 400-horae power—in motors varying from five-horse power to one-tenth of a horse < power,' This motive power will be supplied same as the lighting and paid for by metor. I anticipate a great consumption of eleotrio motive 'power in small 1 factories,' printing ■ offices, and suoh' places where force is wanted

only Mr a short time per day, and .\vheta it is dosirable -not ■ to allow/' power,, to run'to 'waste,"! m,: i v :,■.

, I may lifere;aay; -in ipaventhesiß tho' Edison Company's offices are j lighted with the electric liglita.splifc up.iatQ.sixteon candle laihiisi, aiid diatribntcd in all kinds'of eande? labi'a.'aridin single, double, and triple lights! and that the. effect is wonderful,;.'.,Tho lights ate perfectly, steady, ..\yjnch .is much more than could be.saidi of; the electric,lights,before the British Association at, their, jubilee meeting at, York. They are tunied,ori and off just the same_as gas, except that no match is required to, light the. carboninsidei,the lamp.' Tjie carbon is simply a split piece of bamboo ;cane, perhaps three inches, long, and bent into something like the shape of a horseshoe. 'lt is on the whole of this surface that

the electric light plays or rests! for, it is a, •'misnomer;to speak of bo quiet a thing as at I>lay.' Many people,', lam. told, mistake the light' for gas,, The! electricity is. generated by a fifteen lioi'se-power steam engine in. tlie cellar ojf the House; but, ,as already stated; Mr, Edison's idea when supplying light on a •grand scale is. to have.a central engine,and dynamo house and send the electricity thence, in all directions, and, into ,a thousand houses. : ........

Gas-engines having been mentioned, Mr, Edison said, ''Yes, I caaljeattliem; 'oveii ■those which use the vapor gas,,which you say' was made before the British Association from a little coal and a lot of steam, at a cost of 3d. or Cd, per 1000 feet. Gas is sold at 2j do}, (10s.) here in New York, and we shall charge nearly an equivalent for. electric lighting at first, but'we can do it for a 'great' deal less, if need be," •

On the subject .of. electric,, railways Mr, Ediaou was particularly confident, He said the success of them was assured already. Hjs own at Mcnlo Park had satisfied him of the feasibility of making electric railways pay, and he was now building one three miles long instead of the old one, which was only a quarter of a mile, A few months

hence, perhaps by February next, he hoped to have the motor completed, and. to run it on his own railway to make tests—running cars backward .and forward, weighing tho coal at tho stations, aud calculating bUe wear and tear, the differences of power required on varying gradients, and tho loss of power un-

der certain circumstances. Mr, Edisonadded—"l liko to start oil the basis of

economy, wliicli' must come sooner or later. I have already got an offer from the Pennaylvanian Railroad Company offering, their'lino on which to run my electric motors, and I have an order from the chairman of the Northern' Pacific railroad to commence an electric railway there on a larger'scalo to' open up the vast wheat fields which abound there, 1 These railways will go right and left into these oceans of wheat fields, and aCt as feeders to the main trunk lines. They would-be just tho thing for Australia, whore, as I understand, plenty of wheat is grown, where the distance to market is great, and where; the railway traffic, except iii the wheatisoason, is small,' This is the plan to be adopted on the Northern Pacific—3ft. Gin! gauge, ; irou rails lGlb. to the yard, This will be quite heavy enough, as' the electric engine will not weigh more than 3 tons, instead of 20, 30 or 40 tons, as the locomotive steam-engine often weighs. The train to carry not more than 30 tons of paying freight

euuu uei, ur uu ui piiaaengci uuia. Olio man only will be required with each train, and he can |)o trained all lie needs to know in t\yo hours, Any man who can drive two mules can bo taught in two hours to drive one of these engines.. The skilled , labor will be required at the stations, These ; will be tea miles apart, Here the electric force will be generated, and sent along the lines;tp move the train along, . The speed I have'calculated upon'on the Pacific wheat lines is eight; miles an hour; but in Australia if you:carried passengers the speed could be increased to forty miles an hour with the .same engine and rolling stock, . ' "I havo already run an electric engine at tlie rate of 100 miles an hour. The cost of such linesT-roHing:.stock and,engines and stations complete—will .'be about; 3150 dol, per mile on the pacific; say 3500 dols., or =£7oo per mile in Australia if the country be not hilly, lam certain electric railways, to answer all the purposes.l have named, could be built in Australia for the price stated. The 'stationary engines at the stations will be fifty horse-power ; aud I estimate that for every twenty horse-power used by the motor ■on;,the 'railway' thirty' horse-power will < have to. be put into the stationary engine." ' I mentioned to Mr, Edison that I had had the pleasure of riding.on an electric railway . at Milan in Italy, whilo the National Exhibition was bcjng' held thore a few months ago, - and that'thb inventor' was a Wilhelm Horn • —lB3

of and not' Mi*. Siißmeiiß;',wh6, : by the way,;isnow:iii i No\v ! Ybrk,'^e^ing : whethbrhe •> cannot, induce the■ Elevated. 'Railroad tj >pany to 'use his ele.otrie motor. I -also? re- : j minded him that. Sii: Williafni Armstrong and) ' , other -lead in'g ehgiheera' Attho recotit : British i Asspciation meetings propliesied in Ho uncor- ; taw sounds .the down-fall of the extravagant steam'engine, which has served its'day k aiid must sodn 'give'place' to "gas ■' oi-.' electricity; • ! Mr, Edison's reply're-echoed this :stateriienti and aaid that the vast wheat' areas of Central . Americaiwould be eagerly developed by means : of electric Railways. l:: He did not' of course ' think .that 'Australians would go in' for electric . railways till''tlie success of "tlie system had been assured in America; but when lie heard • of the vast areas in Australia with scarcely anything ontliem but shoepaild a few cattlo,: he, expressed a strong conviction that Australia, like Central Amarica, must 1 look to: ' wards electric railways as a great helper in . tlijj cause of settlement and cereal cultivation... •" " •'' ■>: ■': •■!■!? ■ ' . .On the day following my interview with ■ tho ingenious American I had thegreat pleasuro of jgoing : tln'ongh the Edison iMachine ' Works, j where 200 men are' employed! .an making: dynamo machines, and of heaving that 1200 electric day are turned out of the Edison Lamp Factory, (to which nobody! is admitted, since ah idea of somo importance was stolen), and that at the Edison Tube Factory a mile of electric tubing to be placed underground is being finished every ■ day. I' To show how Mr, Edison is now letting his light shiiie among men l may mention that on. an average he turns'out every week twentylfive electric-dynamo machines, each capable of maintaining sixty lights of sixteen each. In other words, he is every week sheddiug forth move light to the amount of 24,000 candle-power,' which, : unlike candles, isnewovcry morning, and renewed every evening or whenever wanted, In his. lamp factory lie has "a stock of 80,000 lamps on hand, each guaranteed to last 1600 hours, but .'coinmonly. lasting much .longer, . One lamp now in the factory has burned 2500 hours, arid is Still shedding its lustre abroad. In the testing-room—for testing the generating jiower of the dynamo machines beforo .they, are sent out—there, are 1250. of these carbpii| lamps, each of 19-candle-power. On [• one occasion 1050 of these lamps wei'o kept : burning, or alight, by one dynamo machine.

On that occasion I bad no doubt the tcstingrooiri would deserve the hackneyed compliment of " a well-lighted apartment."; In the Ellison works thereis a vast amount of costly and highly interesting machinery. Indeed, it would be difficult to find a more interesting process than that of working up the copper, brass, iron, mica, guttapercha, paper, and other mysterious strips and compounds which;are comprised within the armature and ; commutator and copper "brush" of an electro-dynamo machine. But'space forbids my djvelling on them, Mr, Edison is 'a genius, no'doubt, but lie is one that doesoiot' hesitate to go without sleep' foi' two or even throe days when busy it his laboratory, and who has been kuown not to leave his work for a week at a time, He has deserved success, and lie lias won it; and though he spends money freely he is on the high road to immense wealth, Long may ho live to enjoy it, and to develop, if possible, more discoveries to benefit the human raco,