Hewitt Mercury-Vapor Lamp.
From quite another side Mr. Peter Cooper Hewitt enters the field of light production, utilizing the glow of a vapor instead of a solid stick. His lamp is a long, slender tube of glass; within each end is sealed a metallic wire; at one end is a little mercury. When a powerful pump has exhausted the tube to a high degree it is sealed, and its wire terminals are placed in an electric circuit. On tilting the tube the mercury flows from end to end, an arc is formed, and the mercury vapor becomes luminous. This vapor remains unconsumed, and the lamp asks no attention whatever. Its rays are greenish, so that where normal colors are desired, it is well to use supplementary lamps of carbon filaments to furnish red rays. For streets, squares, freight-sheds and the like, the Hewitt light is capital just as produced, its rays being widely diffused and casting no heavy shadows. Its high actinic power makes it specially useful to photographers, while in factories, drafting rooms, composing rooms and so on, its color is unobjectionable. Its cost is small, as a candle-power is produced in large tubes with but 0.55 of a watt. A Hewitt lamp of automatic type, recently devised, has a small solenoid or magnet on the suspension bar just above the holder. On closing the circuit the current flows through this solenoid which instantly tilts the tube and starts the light. This lamp is particularly suited to places, such as the lofty ceilings of foundries, where it would be difficult to tilt the tube by hand. Hewitt lamps use either a direct or an alternating current.
In an [earlier chapter] we glanced at reflectors and refractors, newly invented, which give light its most useful paths with as little avoidable loss as possible. These devices, applied to Welsbach burners and the new electric lamps, greatly economize modern illumination in comparison with that of former times.[13]
[13] In February, 1906, the Illuminating Engineering Society was established in New York. Its secretary is A. H. Elliott, 4 Irving Place, New York. The Society publishes its proceedings and discussions.
CHAPTER XIII
PROPERTIES—Continued. STEEL
Its new varieties are virtually new metals, strong, tough, and heat resisting in degrees priceless to the arts . . . Minute admixtures in other alloys are most potent.
From a brief consideration of illuminants let us pass to a rapid survey of a most important group of structural materials, the steels. Here, as always, we shall find how abundant are the harvests reaped in a searching study of properties. Within the past fifty years new steels have been produced in so ample and rich a variety that we have gained what are virtually many new metals of inestimable qualities.