Sept. 14, 1888. J 



SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



'99 



of arc lights was now 

 had been by the work 



In the absence of Mr. R. E. Crompton (owing to the sudden 

 death of his eldest brother), Mr. Giseert Kapp read that gentle- 

 man's paper upon Recent Developments in Cowles's Aluminium 

 Process. The paper gave an account of the works erected at 

 Milton, near Stoke-upon-Trent, and the writer stated that recent ex- 

 perience in America, at the works at Stockport, Ohio, showed con- 

 clusively that great economies were to be expected by increasing the 

 size of the furnaces and the strength of the electric currents employed 

 to work them, but no current larger than 3,000 amperes had been 

 used up to the time the Milton Works were planned, where a 

 dynamo giving a current of 5,000 amperes at 60 volts had been 

 erected. 



The discussion dealt principally with the details of the process 

 which had been described by the paper, and Mr. Kapp, in his reply, 

 stated that although he knew the cost of manufacturing aluminium 

 at Milton, he was not at liberty to inform the section upon the 

 point, but he might say it was exceedingly cheap. 



Professor G. Forbes, F.R.S., read a paper upon Electric Lighting 

 in America, drawing attention to the directions in which this in- 

 dustry had been developed in America. In landing in England 

 they were particularly struck everywhere with the dimness of light- 

 ing in the streets. In America they could go to no single town 

 without seeing abundance of arc lighting in the streets. He did not 

 speak simply of the influential towns, such as New York, Philadel- 

 phia, or Boston ; but in many out-of-the-way places in the most dis- 

 tant parts of the States, where gas had never penetrated, there the 

 electric light had fixed its position, and was being used frequently ; 

 and not only the electric light, but other developments in the same 

 way. But the progress made recently with arc lighting was not so 

 striking to the Englishman as before, inasmuch as it was thoroughly 

 established in America at the time of the British Association's visit 

 to Montreal ; but. the progress had been with incandescent lights. 

 The chief progress, he stated, in central station work had been 

 in three directions — (1) arc lighting; (2) incandescent lamps 

 with 3-wire system ; (3) incandescent lamps with converters 

 (G-iIard-Gibbs system). The number 

 about 300,000. The greatest progress 



which Mr. Westinghouse had done in America. In electric 

 lighting we in England had been stopped a great deal by what he 

 might almost call the iniquitous Electric Lighting Act ; and he 

 regretted extremely, in the interests of the public and electric lighting 

 generally, the Act passed this year, which had not yet put electricity 

 on the same footing as gas. Those who had the matter at 

 heart must regret that the Act had been passed, and so 

 delayed the due recognition of the value of electric lighting. But 

 he must say he did not think that the Electric Lighting Act was 

 the only thing that had delayed their progress, because he saw that 

 in electric traction and other developments of electricity the Ameri- 

 cans had gone ahead with great energy indeed ; and he certainly 

 did not put it down to the want of capacity of our inventors. The 

 best dynamo machines were all designed originally in England ; the 

 best arc lamps were in England ; but with inferior machines and 

 lamps in the States, he had noticed that they were deter- 

 mined, so long as the something they had would work well, to 

 make it work well in the meantime, and to take up anything better 

 whenever it might present itself. This go-aheadness was not in the 

 inventor in the States, so much as in the men of capital who were 

 also technically instructed — in fact, it was technical instruction which 

 had developed enterprise in the States. Professor Forbes proceeded 

 to detail some of the leading features of the Westinghouse central 

 stations, and mentioned that there were at present 2f million in- 

 candescent lamps in use in the States. The general view, based 

 upon experience in America, was that there was no danger of a 

 breakdown ever happening in a properly organised station, with 

 proper apparatus correctly laid down. He attributed a great part 

 of the manufacturing success of American electric lighting plant 

 to the fact that they fixed upon the types of machines they were 

 going to make, they stuck to those types alone, laid down machin- 

 ery enabling them to produce those types cheaply, and having 

 thought out the system thoroughly at the beginning, they did not 

 require to make a completely new type of machine for every 

 order that came in. Thus they could manufacture their machinery 

 cheaply, and in such a way that every part of the machine was 

 replaceable. 



Mr. H. Edmunds read the next paper, the subject being A 

 System of Electrical Distribution. The author described the 

 Edmunds system of electrical distribution, as now in actual use by 

 the Cadogan Electricity Supply Company in London. 



By this system groups of cells are placed in variou5 portions of 

 the district to be lighted, each group being divided into a given 

 number of sections. If the group be divided into four sections it 

 is arranged that three of these sections shall be sufficient to supply 

 the local demand, while the fourth is being charged by a line from 



the central station. At given intervals the section which has been 

 charged is removed from the main charging circuit, and switched 

 into the local one, through which it discharges itself, its place in 

 the charging circuit being taken by one of the other three, which, 

 in its turn, is removed, and replaced by the next, and so on. Thus 

 each section is kept charged, the charge never being allowed to fall 

 below a certain point. Thus the great desideratum is achieved, 

 viz., constant supply, quite independent of any accident on the line 

 or at the central station. These changes are brought about auto- 

 matically, by an instrument called a " distributor,'' consisting of a 

 revolving shaft carrying cams, which in their rotation cause levers 

 to rise and fall, and thus make and break the necessary contacts at 

 the proper intervals. A polarised switch is attached, to prevent the 

 current from entering the cells in the wrong direction, and also a 

 voltage regulator, which keeps the batteries out of the charging 

 main when they are fully charged, and connects them to it when 

 they become exhausted, while a simple form of meter registers the 

 amount of current consumed from day to day. 



Mr. W. Bayley Marshall read a paper written by Mr. W. 

 Lowrie, upon The Measurement of Electricity in a House-to-house 

 Supply. The paper described a method designed by the author and his 

 colleagues for the purpose of measuring alternate currents as used 

 for house-to-house distribution, with the converter system. As 

 was well known, with such a system it was possible to get a cuirent 

 first in one direction, then in the opposite direction, and any chemi- 

 cal effect of the one current was destroyed in the reverse action. 

 Messrs. Lowrie, Hall, and Kolle proposed to insert in the main an 

 accumulator having sn electric motive force of 2 volts. This 

 electric motive-force during one-half alternation aided the ordinary 

 current, during the other half opposed it. Thus, if the original 

 electric motive-force was 100 volts, this became, when aided, 10 ! 

 volts ; when opposed, 98 volts. If, then, there were a deficiency 

 in the circuit deposition would at one time take place, due to 

 the electric motive force 102 volts, and during the reverse action 

 only 9S volts, leaving the action of 4 volts over one-half the time — 

 that is, of 2 volts over the whole time ; and that gave the means of 

 exact measurement as required. 



The three papers were taken together for the purposes of dis- 

 cussion, and the Chairman sa : d the system of measurement as 

 described by Mr. Lowrie was actually in use at the present time, 

 but it had been kept very quiet. He was rather afraid that it was 

 difficult to derive information from the paper, but it appeared to him 

 that there was the basis of a system which gave some accuracy of 

 measurement and was novel. 



Sir William Thomson, who was indistinctly heard at the 

 reporters' table, alluded to the great cost of accumulation which 

 must be taken into consideration. If the 50 volt lamps had stronger 

 durability that would be an important matter, but it would not be 

 sufficient to determine them if the whole cost of renewing 100 volt 

 lamps was small. In all other respects the 100 volt lamps were the 

 more convenient. 



Mr. Sellon, Mr. S. Walker, Major-General Webber, and Mr. 

 Kapp continued the discussion. 



Professor Forbes agreed with Sir William Thomson's remarks 

 respecting the accumulators ; they were working extremely well, 

 but unfortunately they were still too costly. 



In proposing a vote of thanks to the authors, the Chairman 

 said he desired to protest against the idea that the inaction in this 

 country was solely due to the Electric Lighting Act of 18S2. That 

 Act was in no sense or shape an interference with the action of cor- 

 porations. Some fifty or sixty corporations obtained Provisional 

 Orders under the Act of 1882, but never carried out the provisions 

 of those orders. The fact was that the system of electric lighting 

 had not even yet become sufficiently advanced for corporations 

 to justify themselves in investing the money of the ratepayers in 

 electric lighting. It was impossible not to be impressed with the 

 wonderful activity of the Americans, but he considered that in this 

 country it was best to work slowly and with certainty, as was being 

 done at the present time. In a year or two they would be able to 

 learn all that was necessary in England, and they would go ahead and 

 establish a system infinitely better than anything now existing. He 

 should make it his duty to recommend to the Institute of Electrical 

 Engineers to appoint a strong committee, to take into consideration 

 the relative advantages of the 100 volt and 50 volt lamps, but he 

 was himself favourable to the 100 volt. 



Mr. R. Percy Sellon read a paper upon Electric Light Applied 

 to Night Navigation upon the Suez Canal. The author said that 

 the largely increased traffic since 1878 gave rise to inconveniences 

 and resulted in frequent delays. Hence shipowners put pressure 

 upon the Canal Company to afford facilities to cope with the increased 

 traffic. In 1885 the average time occupied in passing through the 

 Canal (eighty-seven geographical miles long) amounted to from forty 

 to forty-five hours. 



