The Daily bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Hawaii]) 1882-1895, 1886-07-10
ELECTRIC RAILROADS.

the sun is Robert Luce'S Illustrated
pamphlet on Electric Railways"
and the electric transmission of
power, the subject being treated in
plain terms. The keystone of mo-
dern science, the author says, is that
matter and energy are never des-
troyed. Energy changes its form
or its place, but never grows nor
shrinks. As energy is seldom in
the place we want it, we must carry
it from place to place in the form of
coal or otherwise. Students of
dynamical electricity maintain that
energy can be transmitted by cleo
tricity more cheaply than in any
other way known to science.
In 1854 the Danish electrician,
Hjorth, made machine embodying
the principle of the dynamos of to-
day--viz: the principle of the ac-
emulation of currents by their
mutual action on one another. In
this machine an electric magnet is
put in the same circuit with the
coils of the other electro magnet re-
volving before it. There is always
enough magnetism in the coils of
the other when the machine is
started. This induced current in the
second induces still stronger cur
rent in the coils of No. l, and this
new one, added to the little one
already there, induces vet stronger
one in No. 2, and so it goes back
and forth, the strength of the cur
rent produced being limited only by
the capacity for saturation which
the coils possess. In this way of
magnetism is sufficient to originate
torrents of electricity. Such a
generator is called dynamo-elec-
trio machine.
Nobody knows what electricity is
nor why it goes through wire for a
very long distance. Like water, it
flows from point to point, compelled
by some unseen power. In the case
of water the power is called
"gravity;" in electrical motion the
impelling power is called "electro-
motive force.''
By employing different methods
of winding the wire in the armature
coil any desired electromotive force
can be obtained, this fact resting on
certain laws of the action of electri.
cal currents. Hundreds of differ.
emily arranged electro-motors have
been experimental with, but as yet
they have not been of practical value
because they are not economical.
The idea of using electricity gener.
ated by power to produce power
in turn was discovered accidentally
at the great International Exhibition
in Vienna in 1878, where the Gramme
Company had two machines on view
intended for lighting purposes
The of these machines was in mo
ton, and a workman who noticed
that some cables were trailing OF
the ground, thinking they Nbelonget
to the second machine, placed then
in its terminals. To the surprise O
everybody this second machine
which had been standing, began t.
turn of its own accord. Then i
was discovered that the first machin
was working the second. Tn
underlying principle in the trans
mission now is the coupling of tw
or more dynamos. The most seriou
difficulty in the way of transmittin
currents of vast electro-motive fore
will probably be that of insulation
In Bavaria, in 1882, electric powe
was transmitted thirty-five mile
over ordinary telegraph wires. /
, France last year electric transmi'
sion of power was successfully trie
over seventy miles of wire.
In Boston the dynamos of I'll
Massachusetts Electric Power Con
pany, using the Daft system, run b
steam engine, supply electr
, power to about twenty motors
various parts of the city. Anon
,, the possibilities at no distant dat
/ are great central stations, whel
| enormous steam engines will dri,
many electric machines. Wir'
could be laid along every street, an
the electricity tapped into ever
house. The tides, the streams an