The first of these is a portable apparatus designed for lighting gas burners, and is based upon the calorific properties of the electric spark produced by the induction bobbin.  Its internal arrangement is such as to permit of its being used with a pile of very limited power and dimensions.  The apparatus has the form of a rod of a length that may be varied at will, according to the height of the burner to be lighted, and which terminates at its lower part in an ebonite handle about 4 centimeters in width by 20 in length (Fig. 1).  This handle is divided into two parts, which are shown isolatedly in Fig. 2, and contains the pile and bobbin.  The arrangement of the pile, A, is kept secret, and all that we can say of it is that zinc and chloride of silver are employed as a depolarizer.  It is hermetically closed, and carries at one of its extremities a disk, B, and a brass ring, C, attached to its poles and designed to establish a communication between the pile and bobbin when the two parts of the apparatus are screwed together.  To this end, two elastic pieces, D and E, fit against B and C and establish a contact.  It is asserted that the pile is capable of being used 25,000 times before it is necessary to recharge it.  H is an ebonite tube that incloses and protects the induction bobbin, K, whose induced wire communicates on the one hand with the brass tube, L, and on the other with an insulated central conductor, M, which terminates at a point very near the extremity of the brass tube.  The currents induced in this wire produce a series of sparks between the tube, L, and the rod, M, which light the gas when the extremity of the apparatus is placed in proximity with the burner.

[Illustration:  Fig. 2.  MECHANISM OR THE INDUCTION SPARK GAS LIGHTER.]

The ingenious and new part of the system lies in the mode of exciting the induced currents.  When the extremity of the tube, L, is brought near the gas burner that is to be lighted, it is only necessary to shove the botton, F, from left to right in order to produce a limited number of sparks sufficient to effect the lighting.  The motion of the button has not for effect, as might be believed, the closing of the circuit of the pile upon the inducting circuit of the bobbin.  In fact in its normal position, the vibrator is distant from its contact, and the closing of the circuit would produce no action.  The motion of F produces a mechanical motion of the spring of the vibrator, which latter acts for a few instants and produces a certain number of contacts that give rise to an equal number of sparks.  Owing to this arrangement, the expenditure of electric energy required by each lighting is limited; and, an another hand, the vibrator, which would be incapable of operating if it had to be set in motion by the direct current from the pile, can be actuated mechanically.  As the motion of the vibrator is derived from the hand of the operator, and not from the pile, it will be comprehended that the latter can, everything being equal, produce a larger number of lightings than an ordinary bobbin and vibrator.