14 
This method of regulating the electric light has now been 
in use in the Royal Navy for more than three years, and 
has proved very satisfactory. 
Simultaneously with the progress of improvements in the 
mechanism for regulating the electric light, experiments 
have been made with the object of dispensing with the 
regulator altogether. The most recent, as well as the most 
successful, of these attempts has been made by M. Jablochkoff, 
a Russian inventor. In the specification of his letters 
patent of 1877, he proposes to place the carbons side by 
side (as had been previously proposed by Werderman in 
1874), and to separate them by an insulating substance to 
be consumed along with the carbon. The inventor states 
that the insulating substance for separating the carbons 
may be kaolin, glass of various kinds, alkaline earths, and 
silicates, which he prefers to apply in the form of powder 
rammed into an asbestos cartridge case containing the 
carbons. A powder which the inventor found serviceable, 
consists of one part lime, four parts sand, and two parts 
talc. These materials are rammed into the cartridge case 
surrounding and separating two parallel sticks of carbon 
placed in the case, at a little distance apart. One of the 
carbons is made thicker than the other to allow for its more 
rapid waste. The lower ends of the carbons are inserted 
into pieces of copper tube or other good conductor, separated 
from one another by asbestos, and the ends of the tubes 
are pinched between two limbs of a screw vice, connected 
respectively to the conducting wires. This combina/tion of 
carbons and insulating materials the inventor terms an 
electric candle, which, when mounted on a stand or candle- 
stick, has the appearance of the Roman candle of pyro- 
technists. The inventor further states that the heat pro- 
duced by the electricity fuses the material between the 
carbons and dissipates it ; and the freedom of the passage 
afforded by the fused material to the electric current per- 
