i879-] 
Electric Lighting. 
155 
III. A CONTRIBUTION TO THE HISTORY OF 
ELECTRIC LIGHTING. 
By W. Mattieu Williams, F.C.S., F.R.A.S. 
& S the subject of lighting by electricity is occupying so 
much public attention, and the merits of various 
inventors and inventions are so keenly discussed, the 
following faCts may have some historical interest in con- 
nection with it. 
In October, 1845, I was consulted by some American 
gentlemen concerning the construction of a large voltaic 
battery for experimenting upon an invention, afterwards 
described and published in the specification of “ King’s 
Patent EleCtric Light ” (Letters Patent granted for Scotland, 
November 26, 1845 ; enrolled March 25, 1846). 
Mr. King was not the inventor, but he and Mr. Dorr 
supplied capital, and Mr. Snyder also held a share, which 
was afterwards transferred to myself. The inventor was 
Mr. Starr, a young man about 25 years of age, and one of 
the ablest experimental investigators with whom I have ever 
had the privilege of near acquaintance. 
He had been working for Some years on the subject, com- 
mencing with the ordinary arc between charcoal points. 
His first efforts were directed to maintaining constancy, and 
he showed me, in January of 1846, an arrangement by which 
he succeeded in effecting an automatic renewal of contact 
by means of an eleCtro-magnet, the armature of which 
received the electric flow, when the arc was broken, and 
which thus magnetised brought the carbons together and 
then allowed them to be withdrawn to their required sepa- 
ration, when the flow returned. This device was almost 
identical with that subsequently re-invented and patented 
by Mr. Staite (quite independently I believe), and which, 
with modifications, has since been rather extensively used. 
Although successful so far, he was not satisfied. He 
reasoned out the subject, and concluded that the eleCtric 
spark between metals, the eleCtric arc between the carbons, 
and other luminous eleCtric phenomena are secondary efforts 
due to the heating and illumination of eleCtric carriers ; that 
the eledtric spark of the conductors of ordinary eledtric al 
machines is simply a transfer of incandescent particles of 
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