Colored Belgian insulator

COLORED INSULATORS.

The Belgian Government has recently tried, with considerable success, an experiment calculated to circumvent the malevolence of stone-throwing vagrants who were causing the telegraph department great expense for the replacement of broken insulators on telephone and telegraph lines, which, following the highways for long distnaces, continually suffered in this respect.

At first iron-clad insulators were tried, but another solution had to be looked for as they were too heavy and too expensive, and the expedient of substituting the large white insulators by colored ones of the same dimensions was resorted to. Numerous experiments were made and, finally, an insulator of a grayish brown tint, similar to the color of the poles, was obtained. The coloring was effected by a coating or enamel of silicate over the ordinary insulator, thus the insulating properties were in no way impaired.

[not finished]