THE ELECTRIC LIGHT 463 



Using tlie magnets of the Alliance Company, by a skilful 

 disposition of his bobbias, M. de Meritens produces with 

 eight magnets a light equal to that produced by forty 

 magnets in the Alliance machines. While the space 

 occupied is only one- fifth, the cost is little more than 

 one-fourth of the latter. In the De Meritens machine 

 the commutator is abolished. The internal heat is hardly 

 sensible, and the absorption of power, in relation to the 

 effects produced, is small. With his larger machines M. 

 de Meritens maintains a considerable number of lights 

 in the same circuit.* 



In relation to this subject, inventors fall into two 



classes, the contrivers of regulators and the constructors 

 of machines. M. Eapieff has hitherto belonged to inven- 

 tors of the first class, but I have reason to know that he 

 is engaged on a machine which, when complete, will place 

 him in the other class also. Instead of two single carbon 

 rods, M. Eapieff employs two pairs of rods, each pair 

 forming a V. The light is produced at the common junc- 

 tion of the four carbons. The device for regulating the 

 light is of the simplest character. At the bottom of the 

 stand which supjDorts the carbons are two small electro- 

 magnets. One of them, when the current passes, draws 

 the carbons together, and in so doing throws itself out of 

 circuit, leaving the control of the light to the other. The 

 carbons are caused to approach each other by a descend- 

 ing weight, which acts in conjunction with the electro- 

 magnet. 



' The small machine transforms one and a quarter horse-power into heat and 

 light, yielding about 1,900 candles; the large machine transforms five horse- 

 power, yielding about 9,000 candles. 



