IMPROVED ELECTRIC LIGHTING FOR SHIPS.
Mr J. D. F. Andrews, Woodside Electric Works, Glasgow, has lighted with electricity, after a new fashion, the North German Lloyd S.S. Ems. The system, which includes over three hundred and twenty incandescent lamps and a masthead arc lamp, presents some features of a novel and important character. In the case of the small lights, Swan’s lamps and Siemen’s machines are employed. The wires are all completely hidden, but they are nevertheless arranged in such a way that they can be easily reached when necessary. For these lamps there is provided a new style of holder, which is at once simple and efficient. Each lamp has its own switch, which is entirely of metal; and it is provided with a lead-wire, which fuses in the event of the current being too strong. In the case of every set of about twenty lamps there is another switch, so that the lights can be turned on and off in groups as well as individually; and another lead-wire, so that the leading wires may be protected from too strong a current. The whole system is such as to preclude the possibility of fire. Duplicate machines are fitted up to guard against any breakdown, and either of them can be started or stopped without interfering with the engine which drives them. The masthead arc lamp, of which Mr Andrews is the inventor, is here brought into requisition for the first time. It has about five thousand candle-power concentrated in a single beam of light, that can be moved in any direction forward of the ship. In construction it is extremely simple, consisting merely of a cylinder and piston, the former being an electrical coil of wire. The illuminating power of the lamp is so great that by means of it an object half a mile away can be clearly distinguished by the naked eye on a dark night.