The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1900-03-26
LARGEST PUMPS IN THE WORLD.
They Are Connected With the Drain
age System of New Orleans.

age System of New Orleans
| A young man with neatly creased
| trousers and pearl pin stuck in his
cravat walked over to the gray mar
BILE switch board in pumping station No.
yesterday afternoon and pulled up a
small lever. a dozen feet away was
steel turret, rising waist high from the
floor, and faint humming sound be-
came audible from Its interior. 1t was
about as much noise ae is made by an
ordinary sewing machine and was the
only surface indication that the largest
centrifugal pump in the world had COM
menced business under the turret top.
Without any fuss or vibration 1T was
sucking water from the old Orleans ca
nal at the rate of $50 cubic feet sec
ond, hoisting it twelve feet into the air
and dlscharging 1t over- ;,he weir at the
other end of the building to find its way
to the lake, few miles beyond.
To the average man the term "250
cubic feet a second is as meaningless
as so much Sanskrit, but an excellent
idea of the magnitude Of the perform
ance is obtained when one knows that
25O cubic feet is equivalent to 1000 gal
Ions, and 1000 gallons represents the
capacity of good sized house cistern.
In other words, the big pump draws
in, lifts and throws out the contents of
large cistern at every beat of ones
watch. In a minute it has disposed of
10000 gallons-quite a good deal of wa
ter
There are three such pumps In station
NO 7, and 1t is estimated that two OF
them, working at capacity, will be able
to take care of any rainfall in this city.
They are much the largest single pumps
In the world, the nearest approach to
them being those at the irrigation
works on the bank of the Nile, which
are considerably smaller. The installa-
ton of the vast machines was complet-
ed week ago last Sunday, and this
week they are doing their first prac-
tical work.
The pumps are vast coils of tube. Ii
something very little might be compar-
ed to something very big, 1t would not
be inapt to say that they resemble the
shell of a snail. Each of them came in
two sections, half of the coil being all
that freight car could carry. The shell,
put together, weighs twenty-five tons,
and measures twenty-one feet from side
to side. The internal diameter Is nine
feet, and inside the tube is series of
great revolving runners, the effect of
which is to draw the water at one end
and discharge it at the other. The shaft
on which the runners revolve weighs
more than sixteen tone.
These enormous coils are placed in
Al
face of the pump-house floor. The pow
err which operates each Of them comes
from an immense motor fastened to the
upper end of the running shaft, and COW
cred by the steel turrets already referr-
ed to. The motors receive their cleo
tricity direct from the general power
house in the shape of a 3000-volt cur
rent coming in over trio of thick
cables and in this connection is an in
teresting and curious detail, easily with
In the grasp of the average layman. The
motors are of what Is known as the
revolving field" type-that Is to say,
the field, or great wheel on which the
are secured turns around while
the armatures remain stationary. Whsn
a pump is started the full alternating.
current DI o,uuU N0ltS 10 llol at OlliC tut IL
ed on. but a 1875 volt direct current is
first used to magazine the field, or, in
homely terms, to warm it up" This
sets UP a revolution. and when sufficient
speed is attained the full current is APP
Piled.
The 125 volts direct are produced by
passing the 5000 svolts alternating
through small device known as a
transformer which effects complete
change in the character and power of
the mysterious fluid The weaker and
modified current irs also used to operate
number of small auxiliary motors and
10 feed the arc and incandescent lamps
oy which the station is lighted.--New
Orleans Times Democrat.