A Treatise on Industrial Photometry, with special application to Electric Lighting

Abstract

IT is remarkable, considering the importance of artificial methods of illumination, that there is so little literature dealing with the subject of light measurement treated from an industrial point of view. The introduction of electric lighting, and still more recently the success of the incandescent gas system, have aroused in the public a demand for more powerful methods of illumination than formerly were found to satisfy. But the problems involved in the economical arrangement of artificial light sources are very little understood. The scientific aspect of the subject has, indeed, hardly advanced at all during the last few years. Electrical engineers have made great efforts to increase by one or two per cent, the efficiency of dynamos intended for electric lighting purposes; but the study of arrangements of lamps and reflectors, to produce the best effect, has been almost ignored, with the result in many cases of losing quite half the usefulness of the light. There are in fact many problems involved in the economical distribution of lights, the importance of which is little recognised, and the solution hardly yet discovered. They are not to be found in text-books, and are only alluded to in isolated papers scattered about in the technical journals. The present work is a valuable compilation of facts and experiments obtained from the best technical authorities; and is the only book we know of in which this information can be obtained. The matter has not been hastily put together, since the book is a development of a long series of articles published by the author in La Lumière Électrique in 1887, and now enlarged and brought up to date.

A Treatise on Industrial Photometry, with special application to Electric Lighting.

By A. Palaz Translated from the French by G. W. Patterson and M. R. Patterson. Pp. x + 322. (London: Sampson Low and Co., Ltd.)