sics in Columbia University, New York, and Walter G. Clark, also of New York, and the Phoenix Laboratory at Columbia University was the scene of the achieve

ment.

For seven years, by day and by night, these two men, still in their youthful manhood, have labored over their experiments endeavoring to produce a higher degree of effective electric light at a lower cost to the consumer. After weeks and months spent at the work they made the discovery that a combination of elements, of which silicon was an important factor, when made into the form of a filament of about the size and shape of the Edison carbonized palm fiber in the lamps with which the public is familiar, gave a light that was much more efficient than the Edison at a far less cost. The filament was made by introducing into a chamber the several materials in the form of vapors and depositing them upon a carbon filament as a base. When the new filament is thus made it is removed from the chamber where it has had its birth and anchored in an ordinary glass bulb. The light generated by this filament has been shown to be as high as eighty-two · candle power, with a voltage of ninety, while an Edison lamp attached to the same current gave but sixteen candle power.

The light of the new lamp, also, is exactly that of diffused sunlight and has

COPYRIGHT, 100F, BY FREDERIC COLBURN CLARKE

COPYRIGHT, 1907 BY FREDERIC COLBURN CLARKE

MR. CLARKE TESTING A FILAMENT.

none of the common characteristics of the ordinary incandescent light. It shows, under the spectrum, all the rays of the sun, while the Edison is a distinct yellow.

Using this fact as a basis, the discoverers named their new light "Helion," after the Greek helios, meaning sun.

The efficiency of the ordinary incandescent lamp being about five watts per candle power, a watt being 1-746th of an electrical horse power, experimentation by Professor Parker and Mr. Clark has enabled them greatly to improve this and

they are now confident that they will soon be able to make a 20-watt lamp give a 20-candlepower light. This will be all that can be expected, for what the consuming public wants is more light at less cost and what the manufacturer wants is to get more light for the energy he expends in producing current to generate the lights. At present the best that can be done with the Edison lamp is to produce a light where only 5 per cent of the power enters into illumination, the remainder being lost in

degree where a carbon filament would be perfectly black or merely a dull red and with the increase of the temperature there is an increase of both brilliancy and efficiency, the lamp giving off a dazzling white light.

During the course of the experiments many discouraging setbacks were met by the two men. case Professor Parker left a test tube for exactly forty seconds to answer the telephone, but in that seemingly trifling space of time was ruined the work of days and he had to

In addition to the Helion lamp enclosed in a bulb similar to that of the Edison, the inventors have added one that burns effectively without such enclosure. The filament is imbedded in fused quartz and glows uninterruptedly amid the heaviest of commotions. It has been tried aboard several of the United States warships during target practice with the heaviest guns and has been unaffected by the terrific concussions, which shattered all the Edison lamps in their immediate neighborhood.

In appearance the Helion lamp is similar to the incandescent lamps now in use, except when burning, when, instead of a yellow glow it gives out a white light. The filament is apparently impervious to ordinary heat, for when a current sufficient to fuse the copper leading-in wires has been introduced the filament showed not the slightest indication of fusing and when accidentally broken by force it welds itself when the ends are again brought into contact.

In a series of demonstrations at Columbia University recently, at which the writer was present, a Helion lamp was attached to the same wire that lighted an Edison of 16 candle power. Placed side by side on the table, when the Edison lamp was turned off the diminution of light was not noticeable to the unaided eye, but when the Helion was turned off and the Edison left burning the table could scarcely be seen. The test showed a power of eighty candles for the Helion to sixteen for the Edison, with a voltage of about ninety. Ordinarily, the Helion will emit threeand one-half times as much light as the Edison, of an improved efficiency by reason of its spectrum color, as against the yellow of the Edison.

Flashlight photographs of the Helion and Edison taken side by side show distinctly the heated Helion filament while the coil in the Edison is hardly visible. In one of the photographs shown, Mr. Clark is working beneath the glow of a Helion lamp while on the table beside him is an ordinary gas flame. In the light of the new lamp the gas flame is not distinguishable except for its shape and the tip from which it burns.

In a recent conversation with the writer, both Professor Parker and Mr. Clark said that they were by no means content to rest where they are at present but that they will go on until they have.

assured themselves by exact scientific tests that they can go no farther in their search for efficiency. If they can now produce a dazzling white light, showing a spectrum exactly like that of the sun and giving off that light in a proportion of three, four or five to one, as compared with the Edison and at an expenditure of energy of one watt per candle power, they believe that they can go still farther than this and thus decrease the cost to the consumer. Every watt saved, at no loss of efficiency in light, means a lessening of the cost, a goal toward which electrical inventors have been for years striving.

The present rate of manufacture, there being only two men in all the world who can make the Helion filament, Professor Parker and Mr. Clark, is not greater than a dozen lamps daily. A company has been organized, however, and preparations are being made to begin the manufacture of the filament at the starting point of a thousand or two daily. As improvements may be discovered by the inventors, this output will be increased and the public will have at its disposal the best electric light, or, for that matter, the best light of any kind that has ever been discovered at a cost below old makeshifts.