First Visible Colour of Incandescent Iron

Abstract

HAVING read in your number for March 24 (p. 484) a letter on the above subject, I thought it might prove interesting to try a similar experiment with the carbon filament of an ordinary incandescent lamp. That used was an Edison Swan 16 candlepower 80 volt, and the method employed to heat it was to pass a gradually-increasing current (supplied from accumulators), using a water resistance gradually diminished by the addition of very dilute sulphuric acid in sensibly equal portions. The room in which the experiment was performed was very carefully darkened, and the observers were kept in darkness some minutes before the current was switched on, the dilute acid being added, so that, after visibility had been reached, five additions should bring the lamp to dull redness (by diffused daylight. The number of the experiment being called out, each observer wrote this down, together with his impression of the colour, in the dark, so that the retina was not affected by any extraneous light throughout. Each observer closely inspected the filament till he felt satisfied as to the colour, and then rested his eyes in the dark till the next observation. There were twenty-five observers. The result seems worthy of notice.