THE COLLAPSE OF THE ELECTRIC LIGHT. 
161 
the Hall was startling — somewhat like powerful moonlight. The 
rendering of colour was very remarkable : both the blue sashes 
in which Mr. Barnby’s sopranos and the red in which bis con- 
traltos severally invest themselves appearing with unusual 
brilliancy ; while, on the other hand, the tints of the faces and 
hands seemed to assume a cadaverous and rather ghastly ap- 
pearance. The general result was not so agreeable as that pro- 
duced by the fine ring of star gaslights, set in action by an 
induction-coil, which usually renders the large Colosseum-like 
interior one of the best and most evenly lighted in the 
metropolis. 
There seems no reason for altering the opinion already ex- 
pressed in a former article, that the electric light, while in- 
valuable for exceptional cases, such as for lighthouses, military 
telegraphy, exploring, or for the masthead lights of large vessels 
in unknown and hostile waters, and even for stage effects and fes- 
tive occasions, is neither so pleasant, so safe, so steady, so simple, 
or so manageable as the better forms of ordinary gas-lighting 
now universally adopted. 
The following extract from the 4 Times ’ of the 22nd instant 
comes most opportunely to corroborate statements made in the 
above article. W. H. S. 
THE ELECTRIC LIGHT IN THE UNITED STATES. 
New York, March 6. 
It is now known that Mr. Edison has failed in his experiments. The most 
that he has ever yet accomplished has been to maintain 400 coiled iron wires* 
in a state of partial incandescence with a 16-horse power steam-engine. The 
object of this experiment was to ascertain the number of coils which could 
be brought to a red heat in any given circuit. It is upon this experiment 
that Mr. Edison based his claim that he could maintain 20,000 lights burning 
from one electrical station with a 600- horse power engine. The conclusion 
was a fallacious one, as Mr. Edison now knows. Platinum must be heated to 
2,700 degrees before it attains the intensity of incandescence which is re- 
quired for illumination, and when the metal is as hot as that it is just on the 
verge of melting. To prevent the lamp from melting, this inventor has used 
a regulator consisting of a bar of metal through which the current flowed, 
which, when the current became too strong, expanded and switched off a part 
of the current, and thus saved the lamp. In practice this regulator has failed 
to perform the service required of it. When the current becomes strong, the 
platinum burner melts in the twinkling of an eye, and the mischief is done 
before the regulator can act. The inventor believed that he could overcome 
this practical difficulty, but he has not succeeded. His lamps have continually 
melted, and he has been unable to keep them from doing so, and the result is 
that there is great discouragement at Menlo Park. There has been another 
difficulty. Fourteen out of Edison’s sixteen applications for a patent at the 
Washington Patent Office have been rejected. This impulsive man took up 
NEW SERIES, VOL. III. — NO. X. M 
