THE ELECTRIC ARC 



CHAPTER I. 

 INTRODUCTION. 



WE may well speak of our age as an Age of Artificial 

 Light. Where formerly men were obliged to exist with 

 only pine knots and candles to lighten their paths, we are 

 now not only flooded with light but better and cheaper 

 sources are being continually devised. The illuminating 

 engineer counts that year lost which does not see some 

 marked advance in the art of producing light. Among 

 all the contestants for popular favor there is one source of 

 light which stands as undisputed king. Other lights may 

 answer the need of the worker at the desk, but when one 

 wants light of the most brilliant sort, one turns to the 

 electric arc. 



Definition of Electric Arc. An account of the electric 

 arc might well begin with a statement concerning the time 

 and place when man's eye was first dazzled by this phe- 

 nomenon, but unfortunately we do not know when nor 

 where this occurred. This is not because it took place so 

 far back in the beginning of things, but because the earlier 

 experimenters made no distinction between the arc and 

 the spark. 



They were, however, excusable in confusing these 

 terms, for there is no logical and definite distinction 



