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Show SEARCHLIGHTS FOR THE FIREFIGHTERS Contrary to popular belief a flro does not always furnish its own light for the benefit of the fire fighters. Most fires are assailed by the firemen fire-men long before they break out in flames. The most serious fires occur in tho night and aro generally accompanied accom-panied by black smoke which only adds to the darkness. In many cases much valuable material ma-terial has been lo'st at night fires, through lack of sufficient illumination illumina-tion to permit their removal from tho buildings. It not infrequently hap-ponBpens hap-ponBpens that tho electric light wires, or other sources of illumination, are put out of commission, or the supply abut off as a safety measure, and the work of fighting the flro Is seriously handicapped thereby. In several cities the fire departments depart-ments are supplied with one or moro searchlights. There are, however, thousands of places where such equipment equip-ment Ib not available. To meet this condition there has 'beon developed at tho Laboratory of Thomas A. Edison, Edi-son, in co-operation with the General Electric Company, a portable storage battery' searchlight outfit. It consists con-sists of a water-proof 20-in. projector on trunnion mounting. The projector contains a 35 volt 750 watt focus-type Edison Mazda lamp. Tho searchlight is equipped with a focusing device, thus enabling the beam to be concentrated into a narrow nar-row shaft of light for long distance work and smoke penetration, or spread out fan-shaped for close rango operation. With the beam concentrated, concen-trated, its strength is a little over one million candle-power; sufficiently powerful, under ordinary conditions, to "pick up" a man half a mile distant. dis-tant. The searchlight is mounted on two large wheels, from the axles of which Is hung a 150 ampere hour, 35 volt Edison storage battery. There is a convenient switch to turn off and on tho light The projector, battery and carriage are completely self-contained and can be easily and quickly operated operat-ed by one man. The beam may be thrown In any direction, spread out or concentrated at will. It is claimed that tho battery Is particularly appropriate for this equipment, that It may bo left standing stand-ing unused for long periods of time, be roughly handled, given a high rate of overcharge or otherwise abused, without soriouB harm. The battery will operate the lamp continuously for seven hours on one charge. Tho completo outfit Is approximately approximate-ly 5 feet high, 3 feet wide, 3 feet long and weighs about 600 lbs. It is suitable suit-able not only for municipal Tire departments, de-partments, but also for factory fire departments. It Is particularly valuable valu-able to factories, as It can be used for many purposes othor than fighting fires.' Night construction work can bo carried on under its light. It can bo effocUvely used on special -occasions for advertising purposes to 11-lumlnate 11-lumlnate a sign, a flag, or in fact, floodlight the entire face of a building, build-ing, in much the same manner as Is being done by permanent installations installa-tions of flooding projectors. |