The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-09-14

per cent. into electrical energy, and only
about 80 per cent. of the 90 per cent of the
II per cent. of the original 20 is finally de-
livered to the customer. And of this the
arc or incandescent lamp converts only
some 5 or per cent. into light There
must be waste all along the line. but if at
one stage a greater percentage of energy
can be handed on to the next stage you
will of course get more illumination for the
same quantity of coal. There is but one
way to gain this economy-namely. TO
study every step of the process. to investi-
gate every bit of machinery, in short, to
test constantly every bit of mechanism in
volved from the beginning of the operation
to the end. There is no modern scheme of
electrical transportation. heating or illum-
mating into which this testing does not en-
ter, and the fact, indeed, is equally true of
the countless processes by which electricity
enters into the making of various manu-
featured products; even, for example, in
the bleaching of your cottons or the tan
ming of your shoe leather.
ILLUSTRATED LECTURES.
Quite as interesting in many ways as
the power room is the great lecture room
of the new building An amphitheater seat
adjoining power room and main laboratory
by a system of double tracks. already spo-
ken of, which run like narrow-guage rail-
road across the lecture platform Instead
of trains running upon these tracks there
will be moving tables for the arrangement
of apparatus used in illustrating the lee
lures. The tables. seven or eight in num-
Der, in order that the apparatus of several
lectures may be in process of preparation
while that of a single one is being exhibited,
are 10 by Is feet in dimensions and give am
pie space for practically any modern sys-
tenn of light or power transmission to be
set UP in miniature. In one of the regular
institute lectures the subject of transmits
sion of power is illustrated by reproduc-
ton Of the system employed in lighting five
neighboring cities from a central power
house. The illustration reduces everything
to scale, in which the students may watch
the dynamo of the central station gener-
ating the current and sending it along to
the different cities. Such an object lesson
is necessarily complicated, requiring the
services of three men during several hours
to set up and five men three-quarters of an
hour to take to pieces. AS conducted in the
past the process has naturally somewhat
interfered with other lectures. In the new
hall, however, the illustration, miniature
telegraph poles and ALL can be prepared
outside the hall, moved in by machinery
when it is needed, and out again after the
lecture is over without at all interrupting
the lectures that precede and follow.
STANDARDIZING ROOM.
What will probably interest most persons
more than the power room of the lecture
room, however, is the standardizing room.
Here one gets to the bed rock of electrical
engineering-the precision of instruments
and the method of measuring them. The
United States, curiously enough in view of
all we have done in electrical science, has
no final authority on electrical standards
although the Bureau of Weights and Meas
ures has recently established at Washing
ton a number of standards of electrical
measurement that partly answer the re-
quirements. But we have as yet no bu-
reau for standardizing electrical apparatus
that can compare with that of the German
Reichsanstalt-"the top stone," as ii has
been called, "of Germanys scientific''-al-
though the need of such bureau is gen.
orally admitted; not only on the commercial
side of electrical engineering, but particu-
larly in the important original work that
is being done in our American universities
In planning a standardizing room whose
accuracy of work shall equal that OF the
Reichsanstalt, the Institute of Technology
is indirectly supplying such a bureau. not
only for its students. but for general ref
erence. 1t is fairly obvious. for example,
that the Brooklyn navy yard will not as
occurred not long ago, be compelled to send
to Germany for the collaboration" of a
| number of incandescent electric lamps to
be used in the American navy-one among
many examples of the international i'm
| portance OF the great German laboratory.
The exterior simplicity of this latest addi-
ton to the greater American laboratories
of America has already been noted. 1t
rests upon permanent foundations. yet is so
simply constructed that IL could be torn
down and rebuilt without mourning any Sc
rious waste Of money. The expenditure has
gone just where the institute authorities
believe II will do the most good: not into
| massive masonry. but into electrs-l equip