The Golden State: Where & How to Live, Secure, Visit, Enjoy and Thrive in California
Turning Night Into Day
The little glass tip which we used to see on electric light bulbs is the remnant of a glass tube through which the air has been exhausted by a pump. When the air is all exhausted a hot flame is applied to the tube, which breaks off. The little end left sticking to the bulb is sealed up. In this way Edison succeeded in producing a lamp which would burn for 800 hours without interruption.
The steamship "Columbia" was the first to use these carbon lamps of 20 candle-power for illumination. And very soon the first consignment of electric light bulbs arrived in Europe, consisting of 1800 lamps.
War Between Gas and Electricity
When electric lamps appeared everyone said that this was the end of gas, not to mention kerosene. You see, electricity doesn't smoke or vitiate the air, and it gives a clear white light. And if the wiring is properly done there is no danger of fire. And most important of all, it is generally cheaper than gas.
The people who stood to lose money by the closing of gas- or kerosene-plants began to try to find some way out, began to think how their lamps could be improved so as to hold their own against electricity.
They began to fight electricity with its own weapon. The carbon filament in the electric lamp burns so brightly because it is raised to an intense heat.
That is, it is all a matter of incandescence.
So the supporters of gas and kerosene devised a little sieve, made of a material which has a very high melting point, to place over the flame. This sieve was heated white hot and then it gave a clear white light. These sieves were called "Welsbach mantles" after their inventor, Auer von Welsbach.
For several years victory was on their side. Gas light was now twice as cheap as it had been before, because the gas-burners now gave much more light than formerly. And one lamp would do the work previously done by two. So the cost of gas was reduced.
But the supporters of electricity weren't asleep all this time. They made up their minds that they must get a still brighter and therefore cheaper light. There was only one way to do this—heat the filament still hotter. For you know the higher the temperature the brighter and whiter the light. Remember our poker!
But there was a little hitch here. If the carbon filament is heated too hot it turns to vapor, "burns out" as we say. Something must be found to take the place of carbon.
So they borrowed something from the gas side. In the new gas burners, the light didn't come from incandescent carbon as in the earlier burners, but from the Welsbach mantle, made of a non-inflammable material with a very high melting point.
