Electrical Novelties

ADDITIONAL FEATURES OF INTEREST AT THE EXHIBITION.

Mr. Edison's Fluoroscope — The Long-Distance Telephone.

Among the exhibits at the Electric Exposition in the Grand Central Palace, Forty-third Street and Lexington Avenue, the transmission of electrical energy is, of course, illustrated in every direction, and not seldom in a curious manner. For example, some of the exhibitors, who came in late and were unable to secure engine power for their lighting-machines, have got their more fortunate brethren to furnish current from their generating dynamos and motors, which, in turn, run lighting-machines again, and thus the electric current is juggled in a way that only an electrician can appreciate and enjoy. Unquestionably the centre of attraction in power transmission at the exposition is the little model of Niagara operated from the falls plant. The last long transmission of this kind was in Germany, when current was sent from Lauffen on the Neckar to Frankfort-on-the-Main, a distance of 110 miles, with an efficiency of about 75 per cent. In that case very high potentials were used. In this present instance, the Western Union Company, while generously loaning two of its wires from Niagara, stipulated that only ordinary telegraph potentials should be used, as the line ran through many offices, and underground, and through the big headquarters at No. 195 Broadway. But even with these serious limitations, it is fascinating to see the little Tesla two-phase motor whirling away every night and driving the gang of turbines in the mill, and to realize that the energy is coming from the original of the exhibit over 465 miles of ordinary iron and copper circuit. If one were to figure out the cost of the line to deliver this small amount of energy, the result, of course, would be absurd, but as the wires are already doing required telegraph service, it is as though a railroad baggage-car were asked to take on an extra trunk.

The long-distance telephone lines of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company are also delivering the roar of the falls to a set of receivers around the model from a transmitter placed near the foot of the American falls, where special precautions had to be taken to protect it from the spray. It is only justice to mention that this ingenious exhibit was wholly the conception of T. C. Martin, chairman of the loan and exhibit committee, who secured from the telegraph and telephone companies and the Niagara Power Company the use of their respective systems for the purpose.

From the inception, Mr. Edison, whose fertile and untiring intellect has left no province of electricity without the mark of his genius, has been greatly interested in the exhibition, and has sent many valuable pieces of apparatus to it; but nothing from him is of greater interest than the exhibit he is making of the Röntgen X-ray and its study by means of his fluoroscope, which was shown successfully for the first time last night. At first it was intended to equip a few sets of small apparatus, but the interest shown by the public since the show opened has been so great that Mr. Edison, with characteristic swiftness, changed all his plans, and has devised apparatus which enables a large number of people to witness the experiments at one time. Luther Stieringer, in collaboration with Mr. Edison on this matter, has carried out some very ingenious arrangements. As can readily be imagined, the exhibition hall is a scene of dazzling brilliance, but this is the last thing desirable when one wants to go to study X-rays. With this fact in mind, Mr. Edison has made out a series of graduated dark chambers draped in funereal black, and lit by dim red lamps, in which the batches of spectators moving forward to the fluoroscope-room have their eyes brought into the best adjustment to the conditions under which the X-ray effects are most sharply visible. The scheme is in its way necromantic, but it is simply due to the desire to exclude any vagrant light from the exterior, so that when the luminescent glow of the Crookes' tube has reached a point at which the X-ray is most active, the eye is focused to catch the fine shades which, as though layer by layer, open up a man's anatomy and show his ribs under his vest and his heart under his ribs. Mr. Edison has been very anxious that Prof. Röntgen should get all credit possible in this matter, but his own fluoroscope has already proved of value in surgery and dentistry, and he has himself been generous of time and trouble in putting the exhibit in good working order, so that the public can judge for itself as to what may be expected of this furthest reach of electricity into the outlying darkness of nature.

Of special features the exposition has literally an embarrassment of riches, almost every evening offering a new experiment or new test of the resources of electricity. One of the most interesting things to come off is the sending of a message around the world by Chauncey M. Depew. Arrangements are also being made for a telegraphers' fast sending and receiving tournament, as well as for a cable chess tournament, involving many novel elements. Charles Delmonico has lent one of his chefs for an electrical cooking night. On Sunday evenings organists of repute have promised to perform on the electric organ in one of the exhibits. D. Macfarian Moore has undertaken to give every night an exhibition of his apparatus with which he proposes to light the houses of the future by means of vacuum tubes glowing in phosphorescent nothingness. There are many curiosities and freaks in the exposition which are attracting attention all the time, but the solid things of the show are, despite of them, the most interesting to all.