The Calhoun chronicle. [volume] (Grantsville, W. Va.) 1883-1984, 1899-06-06
NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS.
THE STORED ELECTRICITY IN NEW
YORK EQUALS 10000 HORSES.

II conld Tow Twenty-Five OF the Largest
observation-disclosures Physical Force
Ever Generated and Controlled by
Man-Moyss the street Cars.
The greatest physical force ever
generated and controlled by man Is
now harnessed in New York City. II
will he even greater within the next
few months. No one can predict what
1t will be in year or two hence.
Enough electricity is stored in the
power-houses in the city to equal the
strength of 40, 900 horses.
1t is greater than the combined
power of all the LOCOMOTIVES engines
which arrive and depart daily. 1t is
strong enough to haul ! 800. 600 people
IN ordinary surface cars all Mt once.
1t eau move 80, 600 tons or tow
twenty-five big battleships.
The force that is able TO do all these
things is absolutely invisible. No
one knows what it is. Science can
only tell how 1t is made and what it
can DO.
There aye in New York, o. shortly
will be, power stations which can
generate an amount of electricity equal
TO 40, 600 horsepower. The biggest
plant is that owned by the Third
Avenue Railroad Company on the
Harlem River. Ninth avenue and
2lGth and 2lSth streets. Its equip
ment alone will cost 81. 900. 900.
Enter when it Is running, and YOU
will see great furnaces burning tons
OF coal every hour.
You will see engines with great
driving wheels whirlel by the tireless
throb of the piston rods--for what?
Only to make one bundle of wires re-
volye many thousand times per
minute within another bundle of wires
and produce nothing that Won can
see, but which, carried over tiny
wires as many miles as You choose,
distribute to all parts of the city a
force almost equal to that of the great
engines themselves.
While methods are similar in all the
great power plants--at least in re-
gard to general principles-the Third
avenue line is the most recent. the
biggest and most perfect
The building is 800 feet long and
go feet wide. The main walls are
100 feet high. There are four chin
neys, each towering 200 feet.
There are two sections to this great
building-one where coal is burned
to make steam, and one where the
steam Is utilized TO make electricity.
Just outside OF the building. on the
bOiler-house side, slip runs in from
the Harlem River, where coal boats
run alongside the dock and their
cargoes are emptied by coal handling
apparatus which conveys the coal into
the boiler-house, elevates and dis
tributes it into n large bin holding
about 5000 tons, from which it
glides down to feed the fires. passing
through automatic coal-weighing ma
chimes, thus leaving its weight on
record.
When the coal hes passed the auto
matte weighing machines it runs into
the hopper5 Of mechanical stokers.
which not only gradually feed it into
the fires without the opening of
doors, but SO grade the feed as to
meet the requirements for steam.
The ashes and clinkers are propelled
down an incline to n device by which
they are dumped into hopper bottom
ash-pans, from which they are led by
vertical chutes to the basement. There
they are taken up by the ash-handling
machinery and conveyed to an ash-bin
on the dock, whence they slide into
the empty coal boats to be carried
away. Human labor never enters into
the work at any stage.
All the boilers, if placed end to
end, would extend 1000 feet. They
generate steam to operate the sixteen
engines, which have a nominal horse
power of $1,000 aud a maximum of
1000
The electric generators have each a
capacity OF 5000 kilowatts, which can
be increased to 1900 when required.
Electrical measurements cannot be
readily compared to other standards.
There are, in fact. no equivalents.
The terms most familiar to newspaper
readers are volt, ampere and watt.
The first represents pressure, the
second volume and the third power.
Suppose n river to be a flow of cleo.
tricity, the pressure Of the current
would represent voltage, the volume
/ Of water amperes and the total power.
watts.
The nearest equivalent Of horse
power in electricity is TAG watts. A
generator capable of producing I5OC
kilowatts, therefore 1850, 900 wattsl.
IL equal to about GOOO horsepower.
The Third avenues sixteen generators.
ut highest tension can produce about
$500 horsepower, or n loss of only
five per cent In the transmission OF
power.
Along one side will run a switch.
board I'm n gallery, the level Of which
Is above the machinery, and the length
OF which is more than two hundred
feet. Here will centre all Of TN,
numerous conductors by which tn,
current is conveyed throughout TIN,
city and far up into Westchestei
County. Electrical Age
An English Road Under water.
s curious land subsistence took plac,
MI NOrtlyich Eug1rr1 No-.cr,I,r,. r.