i i r Afiv
I.osie IMstanre Traamlialoit
NSTRUCTIVE facta regarding the
distance electric power can bo
transmitted were given In a paper
road at the last meeting of the
National Electric Light associa-
Won.
The writer described a transmission
plan of B,000 kllswatta, 100 miles In length,
operated at a pressure of 60,000 volts, and
ald: "The spontaneous sparking distance
In air of an effective sinusoidal discharge
of this pressure is about five Inches, at 80.
00 volts seven Inches, at 100,000 volts ten
Inches and at II. 000 volts fifteen Inches.
It has been noted by Stclnmetz that the
sudden opening or closing of a switch in
high tension plants is a frequent'eause of
destructive discharges before which insu
lators and Insulation as It were becomo
temporarily worthless. If this Is the cape
we begin to realize that the limit of high
pressure transmission are being reached.
"The high tension plant .at times devel
ops other unique characteristics," says
Electricity, commenting on the paper. "An
engineer examining a western plant state3
that at night while a mist rlung to the
mountain side he saw emanations from the
wires In the form of luminous discharges
which radiated to a distance of over two
feet from the power lines,
"The transformers are also difficult to
design with reference to pressure r.nd
economy and call for direct experience in
high tension lines. The lightning arresters
If ineffective would be t constant mcnaco
to life and property, and at present it must
be said no nrrestets are built to stand these
enormous pressures. A group are gen
erally connected in series.
"The double or triple petticoat Insulator,
the wooden pole, .the ordinary forms of
lightning arrester, must undergo recon
struction. When pressures of 100,000 volts
and over are to be employed on power
lines, find they must be employed If power
la to be economically transmitted over the
distances In prospect, which exceed 100
miles, we may expect radical changes in
lightning arresters and Insulating meth
ods or admit that the limits of high power
transmission have actually been reached.
Sedy Kleetrle Motor.
Electric locomotives now building differ
radically In their electric features from
nny locomotives hitherto shown. The mo
tors are bl-polar gearless, the magnetic
circuit, the field windings, and the moJor
poles iK-Ing integral with the locomotive
frame and spring-supported. The lamin
ated pole faces are vertically congenital
to the armatures, thus providing for the
Vertical movement of the locomotive frame,
With attached poles, without affecting the
armature air gap. The armature Is as
sembled on a quill which Is pressed solidly
on tho axle. Including the armature, axle
and wheels, the dual weight of the as
sembled rotating parts Is less than on
many steam locomotives and there being
do uncompensated reciprocating parts, ro
tative balance approaches perfection. Tho
Bfw electric locomotive will have four
F lira of motor whettls and two pairs of
ony truck wheels, the length of tho total
wheel base being thirty-seven feet and of
the rigid wheel base thlrtoen feet. Driving
wheels will be forty-four inches In diam
eter and the truck wheels thirty-six Inches,
with the driving axles eight and one-half
Inches. The locomotive will be a double
enrter. obviating tho use of a turntable,
and will be provided with all the usual
accessories of a steam locomotive. The
interior of the cab will also be heated by
lectrlc coils. In performance the engine
Is expected to give better results than any
hitherto placed on rails. With a light train
the locomotive is expected to give speeds
up to seventy-five miles an hour, and with
heavier trains similar speeds can be at
tained by coupling two locomotives to
gether and working them as a single unit.
Its tractive force will be greater than any
passenger locomotive now In existence and
F 71
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IF3
I
It Is believed that In the simplicity and
accessibility of its parts and in tho pro
vision malo in Its design to Insure con
tinuous operation with tho minimum
chances of failure It marks an entirely
new and successful type of electric loco
motives. Trolley Ah Carts.
In handling the ashes of Brooklyn a most
re.markablo system has been established.
This system is tho more interesting Just
at present as It Is an innovation on the
methods formerly employed by the city, and
has been in perfect working order for only
a comparatively phort time. Until last
February tho city authorities removed tho
ashes in rrrooklyn to vacant lots or any
temporary dump that offered. At that time,
however, a contract was entered into with
tho Erooklyn Kapid Transit company to
take care of all the refuse with the excep
tion of the garbage. This was undertaken
through a branch organization operated as
the American Iiailway TrafBo company, and
under the superintendence of Captain A. It.
Piper, formerly deputy police commissioner.
The city collects the aahes at the houses
and delivers tliem In carts to thirteen
collecting stations on tho lino of the street
railway tracks, thus increasing the dally
capacity of tho carts and enabling quicker
and better work to bo done tn the borough.
At the collecting stations huge Iron tanks
holding ten, cubic yards of refuse and
weighing ono and cne-half tons, when filled,
according to tho material, are placed in a
subway under roof to the number of twenty
just below the surface of the street. Into
these tanks the city ash carts dump their
loads. On a side track entering the build
ing from the street the flat cars are run
and upon these the tanks are hoisted by an
electric crane. Each car holds four tanks
with a total capacity of about forty cubic
yards, or twenty-six tons. At present sev
enty carloads of' refuse are being carried
out to the flump a dny, but during the
winter season this will be Increased to 100
cars.
Although the refuse has been already
pretty well separated at the houses a still
further separation is made at these collect
ing stations by the man who has secured
the privilege from the railway company to
dispose of the rags and tho junk, lie has a
regiment of ragpickers t each station who
work rapidly and tie the rags in great bun
dles and pack the old bottles nnd scraps of
Iron Into boxes and barrels ready to be
carted away. Some of the rags and tho
paper, however, is even too ioor for the
ragpicker, und this part Df the refuse is
billed by tho employes of the railroad com
pany and loaded on the cars. At the station
at Third avenue nnd Third street a baling
machine has been just put In operation and
is doing such satisfactory work that others
will probably be added to the other sta
tions. At the great fifty-horsepower electricity
crane a gang of men are waiting for the
car. When it comes in at the sidetrack the
long arm of the crane reaches down and
Is fastened to the handle, raising the big
tank Into the air as euslly as a man can
lift a basket of eggs. The next moment tho
tank Is turned upside down and tho ashes
aro dumped on the mighty pile that is
constantly forming.
In the meantime the cablo machine Is .
busy with another car. There the tanks
are raised by the hoisting machinery,
swung across on a cable and dumped into
great pockets In the wall of ashes that
cannot be reached by the crane, which in
time piles up so much debris that It in
terferes with Its own work. And all tho
time workmen are tossing the refuse with
pitchforks Into lower grades, and an army
of ragpickers and Junk men are on hand
hurriedly sorting out the rags and the old
bottles and the old Iron. When tho biyr
TO jpra 1 7-3 TCTTJTl IT
tanks are emptied a queer assortment of
discarded household utensils are revealed.
Full sets of bedsprings, bits of parlor
furnituro, carpets, mattresses, pillows,
cast off clotl'.ing, boots, shoes, gloves, !ove
letters, bills, stovepipe, invitations to
weddings, last yeiir's straw hats every
thing that was once useful or ornamental
Is turned up in full view of the curious.
Hut it Is all fish that comes tit the pick of
the ragpicker, and so over all the stretch
of rubbish and amid the stifling clouds of
ashe.4 tho persevering sons of Italy pick
and dig and Jabber endlessly.
There Is plenty of room among the marsh
lands on the outskirts of Uronklyn for
lilllng In purposes and the Ilrook'yn Rapid
Transit company will have no dllllcuity In
finding dumping places and land owners
who are willing to pay for the work. In
this way Kiker's island has been built up
from tho ashes and refuse of Manhattan.
Something liko sixty-five acres of land
have been mitdn there and t-o.uo of the
holes that have bevn fil'ed in were sixteen
feet deep, the level of the ground being
raised twenty feet. This land Is now val
ued at $10,noo an acre, so that tho work of
the ashman In that particular place has
resulted In an increase of land values of
$(50,000. From present indication the in
crease In the valuo of the made litnd
about iJrighton Roach will be no less great.
Bergen Reach land was formerly worth $i0
to $60 an acre. Now that it Is filled In and
Improved It Is sold from $HO to $M0 a lot,
twenty feet wide and 100 feet deop. I; rook -lyu
Eagle.
"Wlrclefcn 1 clr-pbony Coming.
A new system of wireless telephony Is
being experimented with by G. J. de Ouil-k-n
Garcia, a Spanish engineer, and his
on. It w:is tho Eon who noticed that in
tho te'.ephono of the Tommasi coherer
located at the receiving stations, there was
a sound difference, accorilng to the air
gap in the interrupter of the Rhumltorff
apparatus. This suggested the Idea thU a
similar appartus would be susceptible of
transmitting the human voice to a dis
tance without tho agency of the wire. The
arrangement used in the subsequent ex
periments is simple. At the transmitting
stations Is a Khumkorff coll giving a spark
1 3-16 inches in length, as well ns the nec
essary oscillation, a small atenna and a
grounded conductor. Hetwoen tho induc
tion coll and a' small battery of Orenet
ce'Js Is a special microphone, acting as
transmitter and Interrupter. The auto
matic interrupter of the inducting coil is
stopped and tho condenser Is used for en
hancing the oscillator spsrk. At the re
ceiving station is a Tomasl coherer con
nected to the receiving atenna and the
grounded conductors. In a telephone re
ceiver the noise produced by the Hertrlin
waves on traversing the coherer is plainly
heard. On applying the mouth to the mic
rophone and singing or speaking every
eound vibration was attended by an inter
ruption in tho passage of the electric cur
rent through the primary circuit of the
Induction coils, Uie number of sparks at
the oscillator thus being varied. The un
derlying principle shows, therefore, some
analogy with the mechanism of an ordi
nary telephone. The weak point appears
to be the difficulty of getting a microphone
of sufficient vigor. While with Uurcia'a
condenser the present appartua transmits
singing tones with satisfaction, it loaves
much to be desired in its transmission of
ordinury speech.
New Kind tf Microphone.
A new kind of microphone was recently
described by the inventor, M. Tariel, be
fore tho French Physical society. Tho
novel feature of the Instrument is tho spe
cial way of preparing the carbon grains
and other bimtlar bodies. After taking
carbon plates only 0.15 to 0.2 millimeter In
thickness, having a perfectly plane and pol
ished surface, and breaking thcin by hand
1D1- 1
Into small plee-es, the fragments ore passed
through a sieve, tho meshes of which can
bo traversed only by partleles of less than
one millimetre. This powder Is Introduced
Into a microphone, arranged as follows:
A movable electrode, constituted by a car
bon plat of the pa mo thickness as the
particles. Is connected with one of the
ternilnnls of the telephone line, while tha
other electrode Is formed of a carb-in block
In tho neighborhood of which the particles
are placed; this electrode Is arranged on a
thin carbon plate, to which tho other wire
of the line Is connected. The distance sep
arating tho electrode Is Just 1-10 milli
metre, the whole being solidly fixed In nil
ebonite box. The following merits are
claimed fur this new device: On account
of the gTPnt number of contacts between
the plane nnd light particles used, the ap
paratus is highly sensitive. The vibrating
surface is diminished ns compared with
other types of microphone, and there are
no Insulating bodle-s retarding tho vibra
tions between the two electrodes, such as
felt, wool, etc. There are further no polar
ization phtnomena, and the apparatus will
not glvo rite to the production of electrlo
. arcs. It will finally be possible to con
struct microphones of smaller weight,
smaller dimensions, and nt the same time
of a sensitiveness at least Identical with
that of other type of apparatus. When
connecting with this microphone a small
receiver, the terminal of which Is Intro
duced Into the hearing circuit, a complete
mlcrotelephonlc apparatus of the minimal
weight of twenty-seven grammes is ob
tained, which can be held to the ear by
means of a spring.
Water Potm- anil Klrrtrlrlty,
Ban Francisco can do Its power work
choaper with trunmnitted electricity from
the waterfalls and melting g'aelers of It
mountain range's than it could do with coal
If it were depositod without cost at the
factory and furnace doors. A few years
ago the price delivered In San Francisco
was 15 cvnts for one horsepower an hour,
but It has since been reduced to one-seventh-
of that sum and is still going
down. Lord Kelvin's dictum that the wat
er fails of a country could be turned into
power to do all Us heavy work is thus Il
lustrated and verified on tho shores of the
Pacltlc, ns it probably will be before long
beyond Its waters, In Japan and the
Oriental countries. The generation which
sees all the east lit up with electricity pro
duced by Its own hill nnd mountain cas
cades will witness a display of fireworks
to surpass anything ever told about In re
gard to Orients 1 pyrotechnics. That is
what things are coming to over there, and
considering the progress In that and other
ways which Japan has been making In the
last generation, It need not long be dr
Jayed. New York Tribune.
Tabloid Philosophy
An overworked conscience Is opt to lose
Its voice.
It Isn't nlwnys tho naughty child that
comes to naught.
In tho railroad business everything de
pends on tho training.
It takes a lot of imagination to write a
successful love letter.
If love Is blind, courting may Just as well
bo done In the dark.
It la an effort for some people to loolc
pleasant, even when they face a camera.
A premature explosion of dynamite often
demonstrates that you can't keep the work
Ins man down.
When It comes to a question of fees mar
riage Is more profitable to the divorce law
yer than to tho minister.
"I've had enough of this monkejr busi
ness." remarked tho Italian, as he sold his
hand-organ outfit and Invested In a street
piano. Philadelphia Record.
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