Omaha daily bee., 1899-06-09

some eighty-two miles distant. Thus 5000
horsepower Is made to propel machinery,
movo street cars and illuminate and even
heat buildings in Los Angeles besides fur
nishing illumination and power for several
villages--as Redands, Riverside, Colton
and Ontario-betwecn the mountains and
Los Angeles.
Tue San Joaquin Electric company, which
has recently fnlshed harnessing a stream in
the Slerras and is now transmitting several
thousand horsepower over foothills, across
rivers ranches and vineyards to Fresno and
adjacent towns, has also accomplished won
ders in this field Of science and invention
Power is furnished there as cheaply as two
cents per horsepower per hour. Twenty
soyen miles from Bakersfield a company Of
New Workers. have engineers and gangs Of
laborers at work beginning the construc-
tion of the greatest long distance electrical
power company in the west. 1t is proposed
to utilize the power OF Kern river and to
send the power--probably about 10000
horse -power-to Los Angeles (1l6 miles dis
tanO, Pasadena. Bakersfield and Santa
Monica. Thus one can realize what rapid
progress there has been on the Pacific
coast in the science Of electrical power
Transmission during the last few years.
Activity Further North.
Engineers and workmen are at work har-
Messing mountain streams at five points in
Oregon and three in Washington. The vast
power in the Columbia river Is to be used
four times by electric companies in Portland,
Astoria and Albany. A company, in which
the paid up capital stock is to be 81 800, 900,
Is organizing for utilizing the power in
FIVE streams along the Serras near Stockton
for uses in San Francisco For several
months a corps of engineers has been max
ing plans for the development cf electric
power from the Kaweah river In Tulare
county. The engineers estimate puts 1t the
total expense OF the work at 100000 About
1000 horse power can be obtained and this
may be utilized in Tulare, Porterville and
other San Joaquin valley towns. UP at
Reading, in northern California, under the
shadows Of Mount Shasta, work on the
greatest electrical power plant in America
outside of Niagara is proceeding. New York,
San Francisco and Buffalo capital is back of
the enterprise, which will cost several mil
lions OF dollars. The only element of doubt
in the scheme is the distance that the volt
age may be economically transmitted. for the
little towns in the part of the state where
the electricity is developed cannot use al
the motive power this enterprise proposes
to develop.
a project to harness the waters of the
stream in Maricopa canon, among the Sierras
back of Petaluma, Is going ahead. Engineers
are at work aacertaining what power may
be developed there and the best means of
conveying it from the mountain streams ana
waterfalls to Stockton and possibly San Fran
cisco. Enough work has been done to show
that at least 1000 horse power may be cent
! through the Sacramento valley.
Electricity on the Farm.
| The application of electrical power to farm
| industry is new development in the cleo
| trical field. There must be many farms on
which are water powers, small or large
which could be made to yield electrical en-
ergy which would do a great deal of the or
dinary farm work. An object lesson in this
| field of effort is furnished by an equipmen,
recently provided by the Westinghouse
| company for the farm of G. r. Beardslee
| situated on beth sides of East Canadian
creek near st. louisville, N. Y. There are
| two falls on the farm, one OF sixty feet and
| the other of $50 feet in height. The lower
| fall is to be first used for furnishing power
| for the farm. A power house has been
| erected near by and a horizontal turbine
with a 1S0-kilowatt (270 horse power) gen
orator installed. From this central power
house the electrical current is now trans
mitted by conducting wires to the farm
| house, to the barn, cattle sheds, grain houses
and other places where lighting or power
Is required. At these several points the d.
| rect electrical current Is utilized to drive
motors which operate various machines One
motor of ten horse power operates a hay
| cutting machine another motor Of the sam,
power runs threshing machine and a third
motor operates fourty four-inch circular
Co.
can be used separately or all at one time
The farmhouse is brilliantly lighted and com
fortably heated by electricity, the result ot
a utilization Of waterfalls power. Elec.
trically heated fatlrons are in the laundry
and the kitchen contains cooking stove
also heated by electricity In the dairy de.
partment are milk separators. churns ant
other appliances all having electric motor
| attachments Outside the house several art
lamps turn night into Gay. The use o.
electric lights in the barn and clubhouse:
greatly dimnishes the danger of fire. Be.
sides having all the electric power he want,
for his own purposes Mr.. Beardslee sell.
sixty horse power to two knitting factorie!
and the money received from this sourc,
goes far to defray the running expenses O
the electrical plant, which is said to have
cost only "a moderate amount"-it SHOULD
| ''"' w HiuSh u4O4e iudu S0iUUU.
Wireless TeleGraphy in War.
The Paris papers contain interviews will
DR.. LIE Bon, in which the French sayant
makes the announcement that he hcpes
shortly to apply the principle of the So
called wireless telegraphy, or the Hert,
rays, to an apparatus by which war shin,
may be annlhllated. He says that he ha,
already produced formidable results from {
coil of fifty cent!meters worked by cur
rent OF 11O volts. II, says the doctor, by th,
| means OF proper lenses a way be found Il
project parallel electric radiatlons so tha
they shall not lose their intensity by dis
tance, just as we send afar pencils of lumi
! nous rays, as strong along their whole lin,
| as they are at the source, then an electri
clan sitting at his window could destroy {
whole fleet of ironclads, This destruction
according to the doctor, could be done sim
ply by turning on each OF the warships {
ject of electrical relation. The Jets or ravs
on reaching the electric coils in the vessels
could create an atmosphere OF sparks which
would cause the shell and tcrpcdnes OF
board to explode. With the same reflector
and radiation explosions could be produce
in forts, in artillery parks and even in tn,
metallic cartridges of soldiers. DR.. lie Boz
Is well known authority on physical phe
nomcna and has been led to make the ex
periments II which he refers after the dis
covery Of the properties of electric waves