In my search for old bids I found an old book on the net.

It's from 1893 and in Swedish, but it's over 800 pages long and goes into the details of light bulb and arc light design. It makes references to what seems to be every electrical researcher in the world.

Even electricians get their time in the spotlight. Page 502 "The famous electrician Brush has for his house in Cleveland built[...]"

It also contains an historical perspective with a description of the London gas lights.

This could make for reading for ages....

Some of the goodies is that it lists England (Swedes makes no distinction between England and Britain) as using 110V. When the Englishmen installed arc lights, these were typically designed for 45 to 47V and wired in pairs: 45 + 45V = 90V. The 20V difference was dumped with resistors.

For Sweden, it is unspecific, but the calculations are based around 95-96V which indicate that a 95V system was used.
http://runeberg.org/grdahlel/0507.html

Here is an ampacity table for cables, originally taken from "Manuel pratique de Eléctricien. Paris 1892, p. 237."
http://runeberg.org/grdahlel/0492.html

It wrongly assumes a linear relationship between conductor cross sectional area and ampacity. 1.0 mm2 is listed as 10A max if it is a single uninsulated wire in free air.

For cotton and rubber cables it recommends 4A/mm2 and 2.5A/mm2 respectively.

It also notes that the commonly used sizes for wiring lights in buildings are 1.0 mm and 1.5 mm dia., meaning between 0.8 and 1.8 mm2.

The cables were placed on walls in the wooden channels depicted here:
http://runeberg.org/grdahlel/0495.html

It goes on to mention the revolutionary new approach: Conduit!

It had been introduced by "Interior conduit and insulation company" in New York and now sold in Europe by "S. Bergmann & C:o" in Berlin. These were made of paper impregnated with a molten insulating compound. This made them water resistant and gave smooth surfaces.

The size ranged from 7 to 48 mm and 3 m (10 ft?) long.

Schematic here:
http://runeberg.org/grdahlel/0496.html

Puuuhhhh.... There is just so much to write, but I'm tired. Sorry folks!

[This message has been edited by C-H (edited 01-17-2006).]