The Portland daily press., 1892-09-17

| scope anu general pau, GHougu tHe Uc-
| tails were concealed from their eyes
Many an electrician has made fortune
out of suggestions gathered during a
visit to Menlo Park.
''Now all this is changed. Edison is
in the hands of shrewd business men
| who guard him and all his works as if
| he were the great Kohinoor diamond.
They are perfectly right in doing so, for
Edison has little idea of business; small
conception of his own commercial value.
To him money is desirable only because
it is something that can be spent in I'M
raveling more of natures mysteries, in
devising new blessings for mankind.
The business men who have surrounded
| Edison say he has done enough for the
| world, and it is time he were doing
! something for Edison. They say, and
truly, that there does not live upon the
| face of the globe today another man who
has done as much for his race as he.
"Unless am greatly mistaken, Edi-
son is now engaged upon an invention
which will commercially be the greatest
of all his works. | don't presume to
| know much about it, because, as have
said, the inventor is now carefully guard
ed and few hints of his operations reach
outside ears. But a few facts have &C
cidentally come to my knowledge which
convince me that Edison is constructing
has in fact constructed and is now
perfecting-a machine which will pro-
duce electrical power at one-half or one
quarter its present COST If he shall sue
coed in doing that, imagine the COM
mercial revolution which will follow"
s'Then he must have discovered just
what electricity is?" .si
81 doubt that. doubt if we shall
ever know any more accurately than
we know at this time what electricity is.
Of. course we know all its properties,
principles and phenomena, but we can't
analyze the thing itself. I'll tell you
what Edison says about this-and if any
one in the world knows what electricity
is he does-Edison says the universe is
full of terrestrial and solar magnetism,
and that dynamo is simply machine
which pumps out this magnetism so
that it runs in a stream along given
line, just as one may pump water out of
the ocean and set a stream to running
from it. I have myself heard Edison
say this number of times in response
to the question so often put at him,
Mr.. Edison, what is electricity anyway
''Now, this is what think Edison is
working on. He is building machine.
which is nothing but steam engine, to
pump magnetism out of the universe
without any intermediate dynamo and
in immense quantities in proportion to
the power employed. In other words,
instead of a complex and somewhat
costly pump, which produces a rivulet
of terrestrial magnetism running along
wire, he proposes to open up a sort, of
electric artesian well. How, l don't
know-that is Edison's we'll guarded Sc
cret-but should not be surprised if to-
morrow, next week or next year the
Wizard were to throw into the lap of
man plaything which would make him
almost omnipotent, which would give
him command of forces as yet almost
undreamed of, and revolutionize indus
try, mechanics and transportation as
completely as did the steam engine
itself, only much more rapidly"
"Do you believe the economical trans
mission of electrical power over long
distances practicable?"
Eyes. We are learning more about
that every day. For instance, in the
electric lighting business we have dis
covered that the heavier the wires the
less loss of power. All wiring done
nowadays properly done-is with heavy
wires. Builders Of blocks or houses who
save money by having cheap wires put
in their structures make a great mis-
take. The heavy wire saves power for
all time to come and pays for itself hun
dreds of times over. Have you noticed
that the arc lights are burning much
steadier than they did few years ago?
They do not wink and sputter as they did.
but burn steadily hour after hour That
is the result Of heavier wiring. The cur
rent is SO strong that when belt slips
on the dynamo, or anything else occurs
to interfere for an instant with the flow
of electricity, the small wire is without
any reserve force, the current is broken
and the light fickers or goes out. A
heavy wire contains a steadier and
stronger supply, enough to tide over the
temporary failure at the source, and the
lamps burn perfectly and constantly.
By the use of heavier conductors the
cost of producing electricity for mean
descent lights has been brought down
to about one-half cent per hour, as
against fve-eighths, and arc lights can
now be kept going for little more than
two cents an hour against 21s with
lighter wires. a
Gin the opinion of most electrical ex-
perts the question of economical trans
mission of power is largely one of con-
ductor heavy enough for the work. We
believe the day is coming when the en-
ergies of Niagara will run factories and
locomotives hundreds of miles distant;
when all the great waterfalls in the
land will be similarly used. believe
moreover that in a few years mining,
farming and other operations in the far
west will be carried on largely by means
of energy taken from windmills and
electrically stored, so that a farmer may
plow or reap miles from his homestead
l.. L.. H.,