South Foreland Lighthouse

The arc-lamp of Duboscq.

F. Nollet, in France, was the first man who thinked to an electric generator moved by a steam engine for a great production of electic energy.
This electricity could be used to separate oxygen and hydrogen by water electrolysis.
Hydrogen and oxygen would be used to burn a block of lime with an oxyhydrogen flame to generate Drummond light for a lighthouse.
The Drummond light is white, very strong, it was used for magic laterns before the electricity.
Nollet was studying a new type of generator when he dead. In his place was called the englishman Frederick Hale Holmes who built his generator with good results, notwithstanding the french company has failed.
Holmes has gone back in England and obtained some patents for new generators.
Holmes understood that the electric batteries couldn't to have practise applications and he wished to build a strong generator to stoke a carbon-arc lamp directly.
Was formed a partnership with Michael Faraday as consulent. Holmes built a new generator with 36 magnets. To change the alternating current in direct current was used a commutator. The generator was cumbersome and heavy (2 tons).
The generator was runned by a steam engine at 600 revolutions per minute and his electric power was 1,5 KWatt.
This generator was used to stoke a Duboscq's carbon-arc-lamp in South Foreland lighthouse. Michael Faraday was enthusiast.