Hi my name is Tom and this is my first post so please forgive me if I'm in the wrong area for this but I have come across this arc luminous headlight made by General Electric I'm thinking it's early 1900s but that's what this post is about...it's fairly large and pretty heavy I'm not sure if the linens on it was meant to make the light flood or two in crease the brightness?

My questions are what was this headlight used on ?
Is it in the early 1900s?
 I'm not sure if it's railroad related or possibly a nautical type light my other guess was possibly military use ...the truth is I'm really not sure hoping you guys can help!

Thanks in advance
Tom

Maybe this will help. 

Wow a carbon arc-lamp for electtric trolleys or possibly trains. I guess I hadn't seen everything.

I guess this is a cinema studio spotlight:
- the shape and especially the Fresnel lens are typical of this type of projector (see here);
- I don't think there's enough room for an automatic feed regulator (a system that maintains the correct distance between the carbon rods, so that the arc is maintained), so this might be a manual regulator from the bottom – which excludes transportation usages such as trains or trolleys;
- most of trolleys and steam engines used oil lanterns because they were very reliable; I read that carbon arc projectors were tested on trains, but the brilliant white light created a halo under the rain or in some humid conditions, so railroad engineers kept oil projectors.

But the middle pic of tomtom72 showing the label clearly says headlight!

Yes, that's why it's just a guess. Or might "headlight" have been used as a generic term, to mean "projector"? Or is it the product name, hence "luminous" that means nothing except that it sounds like a marketing term (like "headlight")?
We should see the interior to determine whether there was an internal feed mechanism, or not.