The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-05-08
THE ELECTRIC MOTOR
Storage Battery That May Revo-
lutionize Street Railways.
THE WORK OF NICOLA TESLA.
a Young Montenegrinl Astonishes the
world - He Transmits Electricity
Through Stone Walls or Fog.

NEW DIRK, May Especial Correspond
ence. Those who are engaged in develop
ing electricity commercially and the en-
tnuslastic young scientists who are aiding
these capitalists have been greatly inter-
ested and impressed within the last ten
days with an invention which seems likely
to revolutionize the storage battery. This
invention has been the topic in electrical
circles, and while the capitalists and the
scientists are not ready to accept it, it is
their opinion that an experimental and
actual test will be likely to reveal that it
Is all its inventors are disposed to claim
for it.
Some years ago in that great training
school for electricians, the Edison works
at schenectady, two young men, Waddell
and Ernst, who were employees of the COM
pany, spent all of their spare time, and fire.
quentiy a good many hours when. per-
maps, from point of view of
health it would have been wiser to have
been in bed, in electrical research. AS
they were both bright, studious and of in
ventlve capacity, such discipline as they
gave themselves could hardly fail to have
practical results. They invented motor
which, when capitalists saw it and had
thoroughly tested it, gained their favor,
but these young men having also some
thing of worldly wisdom, and knowing
something of the experiences of other in
ventors, decided to control the patent
themselves, for they had saved their
money and had a few thousand dollars
apiece. A young friend of theirs, Har-
ward student named Macbeth, who
had become greatly fascinated with
nd yhn hnG
some capital, joined these young men and
they went to Bridgeport, Conn, and
erected factories for the manufacture of
J. j. Carly, e. Fl. Johnson. ex-Congress-
man Wise. who is an authority now upon
electricity in its relations to the statutes,
and who had no personal interest what
ever in this motor, spoke in the highest
terms of it.
The young scientists having that bust
ness well under way continued investiga-
tions and experiments which they had be-
gun in Schenectady and which they
thought might solve the problem Of the
storage battery. few days ago COM
pany of capitalists and electricians went
to Bridgeport on invitation, thoroughly
to test a storage battery which had been
They returned to New York, telling some
what remarkable stories of their ex-
periences, and while by no means posi-
lively indorsing this battery because they
feel that nothing but prolonged CONNER
cial test will show that it is all that is
claimed for it, yet they do say that they
will be more surprised ii it fails than if it
succeeds.
Storage batteries have been made hereto
fore which did their work satisfactorily,
but which involved expense and were
commercially therefore of little avail. On
one of the street railways in New York
city street cars were fitted with storage
batteries. which furnished perfectly salts
factory power, and it was thought for
while might supplant horse power used
on that line. After year, however. the
cars were withdrawn, and while it was
said that this was due to litigation in
which the company owning the storage
battery was concerned, capitalists were of
the opinion that financial reasons had even
more to do with the withdrawal. In other
words, it was said that it was impossible
to run street car with any storage bat
terry then existing profitably unless more
than cents, which is the universal horse
car fare. is charged.
The difficulty with the storage batteries,
as explained to the writer by Mr. J. J.
Carly, who is an inhuntial member of the
Society of American Engineers, has been
first, its great weight; second. its liability
to destruction. The storage batteries used
heretofore have been supplied with lead
plates, which are very heavy. When
charged these plates become also very
delicate. For instance. if a careless
man driving street car furnished with a
storage battery turned on too great cur