APPLICATIONS OF THE ELECTRIC LIGHT. 255 



solution of the problem. Shall we have merely the poor 

 courage to adopt this beautiful application of science only 

 .after it has been carried into effect by every other nation, 

 .as in the cases of the electric telegraph, railways, &c. ? This 

 would be hard, after having made the first experiments. 



We have hitherto discussed only the light given by the 

 Jablochkoff candles; but this system is not the only one 

 which may be employed for 'public illumination, and it is, 

 perhaps, not even the most economical for the light pro 

 duced. The globes of enamelled glass are, for one thing^ a 

 bad arrangement, as they prevent the utilization of the total 

 light, and the Baccarat frosted glass, which allows 70 per cent, 

 of the light to pass instead of 55, have been tried, as we have 

 seen, 'with much advantage. Again, there is now being tried 

 Paris's new kind of enamelled glass, which absorbs only 35 

 per cent, of the light, and Clemandot's globes, formed 

 of concentric spheres of transparent glass, with a packing of 

 glass between them. This arrangement, when tried at shops 

 -of the Louvre, absorbed, it is said, only 24 per cent, of the 

 light instead of 45. With the Reynier and Wedermann 

 systems applied to the existing lamps, a greater division of 

 the light, and probably a smaller consumption of the carbons, 

 -would be obtained, with equal electric intensity. If the car- 

 bons were placed within the column of the lamp, which could 

 easily be done in the Wedermann arrangement, they would 

 burn a whole night without requiring attention. Again, with 

 new machines it would be possible to reduce in such a degree 

 the expenditure of motive power that the high price of the 

 electric light, which under the present conditions is the 

 strong point of the partizans of gas, may be sufficiently 

 lowered to compete successfully with gas itself. For lighting 

 on the spot, the problem has, as we have seen, been long ago 

 completely solved ; and it is not affirmed that by increasing 

 the section of the conductors, and expending upon them as 

 much as the cost of gas-pipes, public illumination would not 

 .be placed under conditions of economy as favourable as if the 



