The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-06-16
EDlSON'S LATEST
WIZARD HAS INVENTED A WON
 DERFUL STORAGE BATTERY.
It will Do Away With Trolleys,
 Locomotives and Horses.
Garrett P. serviss in New York Jour-

nal:
 There seems to ke every reason to believe that Mir. Edison,s recent iu-
 vention of most novel electric storage battery will have revolutionary results upon local traffic of all kinds. He has made discovery as well as an inven- ton. One of the elements of his new cell Is a substance for which even a correct chemical formula has not yet certainly
 been contrfved. 1t is a superoxlde of nickeh found by him in the process of Els experiments. It forms the positive pole, while the negative pole consists of Iron. The entire combination is, therefore. nickel-iron cell, and just as. in different manner, the conrbi- nation of nickel and steel revolution ized war ships. so this combination of the qualities of nickel and Iron in m electric cell bids fair to overturn ex- istfng conditions in some of the most important branches of land traffic. No More Trolleys. No more trolleys. with their disfigur- ing and dangerous wires; no more coss- ly subways; no more wandering earth currents. devouring water pipes and gas pipes; no more puffing steam auto- ] wagons; no more noisy gas engines whirring through the streets, but cleo trtcally driven cabs. busses, street ears. elevated cars. tunnel cars, trucks and wagons of every kind. taking the place of all other forms, and finally driving both horses and locomotives from the field-such Is the brilliant promise held forth by the new inven- tion.
 How can such enormous results be predicted from the invention of so ap- parently simple a thing as a cell? Be- cause that invention furnishes the key to the solution of the greatest practic- al problem in electric storage traction, When cars and vehicles driven by stor- age batteries were first introduced everybody supposed that their advance would be very rapid, and that the whole problem of automobilism was solved.
 But in a little while it was seen that there were apparently insuperable difficulties in the way of the general application of the storage battery prln- cipie. The batteries were not efficient enough. they deteriorated too rapidly, they had to be renewed too frequently. and the cost of renewal both in time and money was too great, and, most of all. they were excessively heavy, so heavy that the weight which they added to the vehicles to which they were attached became in many cases practically prohibition against their use.
 So steam automobiles, gasoline auto mobiles and experiments with com pressed air, and other forms of motive power rapidly came to the front.
 Inventors Labored Years.
 Every effort was made to remedy the difficulty. and for years and years in- ventors have labored over the problem of improving the storage cell of lead, originally invented by Planti in 1860. and which has heretofore been the form employed. Improvements were made. but at last a point was reached beyond which it seemed impossible to go. The fatal excess of weight re- mained after every attempt to reduce it without seriously detracting from the efficiency of the battery.
 Then Mir. Edison attacked the prob- lem, and. as Dr. Kennedy explained at the meeting of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers the other day, set before himself the following five points of excellence which the new bat tery cell he was to invent must possess:
 l. Absence of deterioration by work.
 2. Large storage capacity per unit of masss 1. G.. comparatively slight weight.
 3. Capabifity of being rapidly charg- ed and discharged.
 {. Capability of withstanding care less treatment.
 s. Inexpensiveness.
 All of these advantages he says-and the facts as they have thus far appear | ed seem to justify him-the new cell possesses. { Let Us consider a comparison be- l tween the Edison battery and the old | lead-cell type. Of the latter we are | told that If it's stored energy, avail | able at terminals. were all expended | in gravitational work"-that is to say | in lifting-"the battery could raise it's | own weight through a vertical distance | of two or three miles,"
 Now. compare that with what the | new battery can do. Under the same | conditions as in the other case the | Edison battery gives its terminals suffi- | cient energy to lift its own weight to | a vertical height of about seven miles. |
 Another way of putting the compari- | son is to say that the old form of bat | tery weighs from 124 to 1S6 pounds per | horse power hour at the terminals, | while the new battery weighs only 53 pounds.
 Great Gain of Energy.
 This gain of energy relative to weight | is the main element of success in the | new invention. It is believed that it | alone will be sufficient to remove all the difficulties heretofore encountered | in the application of storage batteries to traction of all sorts. This gain has \ been obtained by discarding lead and substituting iron and nickel. The per oxide of nickel takes the place of the peroxide of lead employed in the sec ondary cell of the old form of battery, and iron takes the place of the spongy lead heretofore used for the negative element.
 The plates of the new batteries. as made for automobiles, are formed of | sheets of steel 24-10O0th of an inch in 1 thickness. with rectangular holes. that are likened to window panes, stamped out of them. In these holes are fixed | thin fiat boxes a tride thicker than the steel plates. perforated with holes to admit the electrolyte. and containing the active clements which consisted of briQuettes of a finely divided com pound of iron for the negative pole compound of nickel for the positive pole. Both briquettes contaia graph ite, which assists their cono Sctivlty. The assembled plats constituting a battery, are placed in an exterior cell of sheet steel containing a potash so- lution.
 Of this only enough to fulfill me chanIcal requirements is needed. and in practice it is expected that the weight of the solution will only be