The sun., 1902-03-09

vellous development Of electric rove
and feats Of engineering that were un.
dreamed Of a short while ago are now mat.
tiers Of everyday practice. There ha:
been revolution in electric power trans
mission.
The electrical engineer now harnesses
natures forces In the wilderness ana carries
them captive TO civilization. Out in Cali
fornia a ower-transmission liLe bring
electric energy into Oakland from noun
tains lS9 miles away.
These shops might be run by the power
Of Niagara. brought nearly 800 miles across
the State, II II was necessary To do
so. Fortunately We have the Adirondacks
nearer by, and We run cranes and trucks
and machines by power We bring down
from the hills.
"Out in India we have just harnessed
waterfall and the mines Of the holar gold
fields are now operated by 1000 horse
power brought across the wllds for hun
dred miles. American pract ice all over
the world has demonstrated the great
economy Of electric power.
For railway like the New York Central,
running many trains a day, believe q &C.
tricity is far better n Otive power tlan
steam. IL means economy of fuel.
The Atlantic type passenger engines
now hauling the Empire state, the Lake
Shore Limited and other fast express trains
across New York State burn from twelve to
fifteen pounds Of coal TO develop a horse
power hour. The railway engine is an
extravagant consumer of coal.
Now in our power plant here we can
produce this same amount of power with one
pound OF coal, that is We get our power at
one-tvelfth the fuel cost Of the New York
Centr6rs engines. Where water power is
available the cost is still less. Az Niagara
power costs but $40 horsepower year.
Our engineers could erect power stations
at convenient points along the line of the
New York Central and feed the power 10
locomotives by third rail, and guarantee
that trains would be run at less eNnense,
with greater safety and at higher .peed
than now. Naturally there would be no
smoke or cinders.
THAT speed would be accelerated there
can be no doubt. The exper ments in
Berlin indicate what is possible in the way
of high-speed electric traction, and those
trials, as you know, were made with trolley
cars.
Il believe that two-hour electric trains
between New York and Albany, and fifteen
hour electric trains between New York
and Chicago will soon be commonplaces.
A ten-hour schedule between New York
and Chicago Is by no means impossible
1T is dangerous to make predictions as
TO the impossible in electricity. Il was
not 70 long ago that a leading English
journal declared that the electric light
would never be anything more than a toy,
and Marconi, three or four years ago,
ridiculed the idea that any one would ever
send message through thin air across the
Atlantic.
with Niagara at one end and the Adiron-
dacks bordering many miles of its tracks
the New York Central could obtain much
cheap power Niagara's possibilities are
immense. just now we aIe designing
for Niagara the largest electric generators
ia the world-urlits Of 10000 horse powel-
and the power station for which they are
ordered will have an ultimate capacity
OF 200 900 horse power.
For our own shops We now get from
one to two thousand horse power from
the Adirondacks but a 10000 horse-powe
station is now building at Spiers Fails on
the Hudson. Six hundred masons are
building n dam 10 feet high and 800 feet
long