Omaha daily bee., 1893-09-17
ELECTRICAL NOTES.

The Westinghouse company has perfected
a dynamo which automatically produces Just
the amount of current needed for any num-
Der of lights within the capacity of the
machines.
Some 200 buses of the London General
Omnibus company have been fitted with
accumulators for the purpose of running
electric lights at night. Only one lamp Of
siX-candle power is put under the center of
each bus roof, and the cost of equipping and
running each bus is about Sl2 a year.
The projectors of the $40, 900, 900 interior
canal to be built parallel to the coast Of
California count on the power produced by
the flow of the water from the level of the
higher locks TO the lower to do great things
in the way of furnishing the territory opened
by the canal with electric light ana power.
W.. j. Davidson has just returned to Cleve-
land after building and starting in Siam the
first electric railroad in Asia. The motor
men and conductors are natives who were
trained by Mr.. Davidson. He says that
they are intelligent and they run their cars
very carefully and successfully.
Within n short time the PENNSYLVANIA
railroad from Pittsbnrg to New York will be
equipped with the automatic clectro-pneu-
matte signal system. When this system is
introduced n number of signal overs will be
done away with and the services of the men
who are only employed TO work the signals
will be no longer needed.
From a scientific toy'' the telephone has
become one of the greatest business imple-
ments of the age. The annual report of the
American Bell Telephone company shows
that that corporation rented last year 81
720% telephones, an increase OF over 10000 in
one year. The company has Sl2 exchanges
and IA mileage of wire Of 3O7, 19l, of which
90,2l6 miles are operated under ground.
A telephone that will talk loud enough for
a person in any part of the room TO hear and
understand has been devised by an English
---ta 4 . on ag flnt 80 NaA an. 1saa lt.h Ant 10
can thus talk quite freely with each other,
and as the receivers speak out SO as to be
heard in any part OF Il room, conversation
can be carried on by each person simply
speaking To his transmitter,"
The use of the electric roads to transport
suburban mails is in line with the attempt
in St, Louis TO establish postal trans on
street car lines. 1t is "a good move and may
lead TO much greater results than those that
appear upon the first view. The service
upon the street railways can be made prompt
and efficient in every way. These lines could
be utilized for both the collection and distri-
button of the mails, postal cars being built
especially for that purpose.
The electricians have by no means given
up the search for IA means of propelling
street cars by underground electrical ap-
p~aratus. Mr.. Westinghouse has obtained
patents for a system of operating cars by
means Of currents in bars conveyed under
ground in proper conduits. Instead OF using
the continuous current for the supply OF
electricity. the alternating current will be
used, so that no current will have TO be re-
turned through the rails ana water pipes.
A pair of high tension lines will be laid
along the line and the current VIII be re-
duced TO a safe working pressure by con-
verters and fed into short sections of the
railway conduit, so that, in the first place.
there will be no travelling of the current over
long distances, and secondly, the current,
being of the alternating character, will not
produce the electrolytic action which seems
to be the occasion OF destruction TO iron ana
lead pipes.