216 ELEC'lRIC LIGHTING. 



Automatic lighter of Reynier's E-lectric Lamps. 



To avoid the inconveniences which may result from the 

 extinction of an electric lamp an extinction which may 

 involve that of all the rest of the lamps in the same circuit 

 Reynier arranges an automatic system of permutator, the 

 effect of which is to light other duplicate lamps placed in 

 the neighbourhood. This system consists of a kind of 

 electro-magnet relay which sends the current of one circuit 

 into another, when the armature of this relay, being no 

 longer attracted, touches its limiting stop. If for this pur- 

 pose two duplicate lamps are used, as Reynier proposes, 

 these lamps are introduced into two derivations of equal 

 resistance arranged between the two conductors of the 

 generator, and the relays which are to act in these lamps 

 are interposed in the circuit of the first lamp : the contacts 

 of these relays are also arranged so as to establish the com- 

 munication of the derivations with the circuit at the separation 

 of each relay. When the first lamp is lit, the electro-mag- 

 nets of the relays being active, the communications of the 

 derivations with the circuit are severed, and the lamp works 

 alone ; but if the latter should be extinguished, either by 

 the consumption of the carbons or by accident, the current 

 is immediately sent into the derivations ; but as there is 

 .then but one relay which is active, there is only one of the 

 duplicate lamps at work, and it is only when this one is in 

 its turn extinguished that the third is lighted. 



This system may readily be arranged to suit the various 

 ways in which the luminous central arc is connected with the 

 principal circuit. 



zirconium, calcium, magnesium, or of some other metal i.e., an oxide not 

 altered by a high temperature. The effect of this covering is designated by 

 Edison by the name of pyro-insulat>on, and in order to cover the wire it 

 suffices to dip it into a solution of one of these oxides, then into an acid, 

 and to pass the spiral through the flame so as to evaporate the aqueous 

 portions and leave only the oxide on the wire. (See the Telegraphic Journal 

 of i5th July, 1879.) 



