The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-12-31
|, leads in transmission 81 Power.


bring this total close to $4,000 horse
power
The wires transmitting this energy
stretch in all directions within a radius
of seventy-five miles of Salt Lake. The
longest line is that extending between
the Pioneer plant in the Ogden canyon
to the sub-station in this city, about
tnirty-seven miles, and the shortest
that from the Big Cottonwood canyon,
about twelve miles. The Telluride
plant in the Provo canyon sends out
current across the mountains to Mer-
cur, thirty-four miles distant. at the
extremely high pressure of 10000 volts.
The aggregate length of the transmits
sion lines of all the plants in the state
is in the neighborhood of $50 miles.
Coupling Plants Together.
In a great many respects Utah has
led the allied electrical industries and
the plant in the canyon at Ogden is
considered by electrical experts as one
of the best equipped and most pro-
gressive feats of electrical engineering
the world over. A number of original
experiments have had their initial trial
in this state, and the engineers in
charge of the different plants have
been quick to introduce The latest i'm
provement as soon as their practlca-
bility has been assured.
Last fall one of the most interesting
experiments of an electrical nature that
was ever undertaken was carried TO
successful completion by Engineer Hay
ward of the Union Light q Power
company of this city. Similar expert
ments had been made on a smaller
SCALE but the one contaminated marked
a new era in the coupling together OF
gigantic high tension power plants.
1t was the connecting together of the
two big plants in the Big COTTONWOOD
canyon at the period OF low water 50
as to enable them to furnish collective
ly sufficient current to feed the street
railway lines of this city. It was an
undertaking that could not have been
handled before from the theoretical size
because no results of previous eXper-
iments were at hand to consult.
Since the completion of that test the
Ogden plant has been couple to the
other two, and at present the tnree
plants are hitched together in mullpie
to supply the er-increasiI.~ demand
for electrical power coming from the
consumers in this city and the srneiters
at Sandy.
Industry Revolutionized.
The achievement of these no less
magnificent than marvellous feats OF
engineering has been far reaching IN
its effects Thousands of street arc
lamps shed their effulgent rays on mil
lionaire and beggar alike, the terrors
of night have been dispelled and no one
cares a fiddle whether the morning
stars sing together or seek shelter be-
low the horizon. Coming home from
the club in the wee sma' hours, we are
spared falling over misplaced furni-
ture in the hunt for the elusive match
we literally press the button and the
tumbling waters in the bleak canyon
forty miles away do the rest.
In the laundries the operatives no
longer kill time sitting around waiting
for the sadirons to absorb calories from
the lid-cracked stoves; instead they
have electric irons with a conscientious
resistance coil attached to wire fed
by the far away cataract.
In the shops the fires have been
drawn for eternity; the engines and
boilers have been shipped to the mu-
scum of antiquities The electric mo-
tor is turning the shafts, operating the
planners, drills, milling machines and
lathes, and the output is doubled at
big decrease in the expenses of run
ming. There are no cylinder heads to
blow out and eXtinguish the lives OF
those within striking distance; the
coal bill has been framed and hung on
the walls as a curiosity, and the ash
man has gone TO other spheres of use
fulness.
The balky mule has been shipped to
South Africa to try the patience of
British muleteerS and turn victory into
defeat. The sight of him towing Main
street car is relegated to the memory
of the oldest inhabitant. The broom
stick train of Oliver Wendell Holmes
construction now has the say; fifty
horse power motors turn the wheels,
and the suburbs are no longer situated
half way between Salt Lake and Og-
den. The uncanny fluid is always on
hand, and when the motorman turns
the controller the impatient convey
ance starts forward with a jump that
furnishes everybody with a seat. AT
a thirty-mile an hour clip we are
whisked TO our destinations. to find the
house aglow with sixteen power
lamps, and that autocrat, the cook,
good natured in the prospect of being
made the engineer of an electric stove.
In the high buildings we have cleo
trio elevators that go up and down like
meteorS, and in our offices we have
fan motors that blow our papers out
of the windows and endue us with re-
doubled energies on the most sitting
of summer days. In the newspaper
offices the ravenous printing presses
and linotype machines are fed by the
electric current, the light from the
electric lamps inspires while it illumin-
ates the anxious countenances and ex-
aggerates the burrows of care that are
possessed all too soon by the managers,
editors and reporters. The Office cats
fur is always on end as she radiates
magnetism from the tip of her inquis-
tive nose to the end of her ink-stained
tail.
1t is no figure of speech to say that
the subtle electric fluid is playing the
cat and banjo with the forces of the
devil himself. We find men who are
wont to scott at preachers crowding
the churches to hear thrilling music
from the organs. They will sit the
sermon through its tiresome length to
catch intermittent strains from the
deep-throated pipes, unconscious per-
haps that the bellows are worked by
electric motors and the vibrations en-
anating from the pipes owe their bring
TO the action of the forces of gravity
in a canyon many miles away.
The total amount of electrical horse
power delivered and consumed in Salt