H. W. Johns Mfg. Company exhibited at NY Electrican exhibition

THE 1899 ELECTRICAL EXHIBITION.

The third electrical show opened in Madison Square Garden, New York City, with its usual brilliancy, upon the evening of May 8th, with an attendance of several thousand people. Thanks to the efforts of its officers it contains the first general exhibition of automobiles. To those who can afford pleasure vehicles of this at present rather luxurious type, this feature of the exhibition evidently appeals strongly, if one may judge from the intelligent interest in the questions of cost, life, capabilities, etc., a large part of which is evidently not pure curiosity, but the outcome of a desire to determine, before purchasing, the relative merits of the different makes. The very fact that this is the first automobile exhibition in this country and that all the vehicles are electrical is an indication of the tendency toward the use of that power in preference to all others.

The illumination of the garden was this year put in the hands of Mr. Luther Stieringer and is unusually successful. The lighting is effected entirely by means of frosted incandescent lamps, some outlining the trusses of the roof, as usual, supplemented by 32 hanging clusters of 16 lights each, and other clusters in the galleries.

Outside of the exhibits of manufacturers and dealers, notes of which will be found on the following pages, the features of general interest are the government exhibit, the collection of historical arc lamps, wireless telegraphy, the transmission of sound by means of a radio-phone, the cave of the winds, the Bell theatrophone, the theatre lighting exhibit, the Wehnelt interrupter and the Roentgen ray exhibit in the grotto.

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THE H. W. JOHNS MANUFACTURING COMPANY, New York, shows the new Noark fuse, the invention of Mr. Joseph Sachs. This is an enclosed fuse, using an alloy and enclosing powder carefully chosen to give a chemical absorption of the metal upon vaporization to prevent arcing. A detail of this fuse, which will immediately appeal to all who have used enclosed fuses is an indicating device of the simplest character which shows at any time whether the fuse is burnt out or not. It consists simply of a fine wire of high resistance alloy just outside the enclosing tube of the fuse and connected from one terminal to the other. As soon as the fuse burns out, the current is thrown on this fine wire, which immediately vaporizes, giving by its absence indication that the fuse has been overloaded and has broken the circuit. The action of the fuse is strikingly illustrated in the booth of the H. W. Johns Company by short circuiting 15 ampere open fuses and 26 ampere Noark fuses straight across the Edison mains with 235 volts. The former give the usual report and flash, while the new type gives no visible or audible indication of the sudden strain upon it and the way in which it does its duty.

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