The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-10-24
SMOOTH ON RATS.

An Electrical Trap That Got Them
 Noiselessly and With Dispatch.
 ''I had very unusual trouble once, said an electrical construction man, that kept all hands at the station guessing for more than month.
 We had installed an underground cable system in an Ohio town for SUD- plying light by means of two thou sand volt alternating current system, placing our transformers, as rule, on the outside basement walls. Shortly after the plant wasput into operation our station man reported one morning that there appeared to be swinging ground on the line for a short time, so much so, he said, as to send the station ammeter far beyond it's usual load. Well, We made all the usual tests, but could find nothing wrong. and it was several days before we heard anything more from it, when all at once it came back one night and again disappeared within a Sew seconds as before.
 As we had some overhead wire, sent man out to look for guy-wire con- tact. but none was found. Then l sat up for several nights myself watching for it without result. as it did not ap- pear, but the first night I left the sta- | ton it was reported again, and few days later it happened while l was in | the station. but before I could get to | the board to open the switches, and so | find out which circuit it was on, it was gone, and the line once more clear, and | so it went on for two weeks more. | By this time one of the lines began l to show considerable leakage, and l tried to locate the trouble, which work, however, was interrupted by the dyno- mo starting up. That night, however, our regular cronic trouble came on l again, and this time remained on in- | stead of clearing itself, as the others | had done, and quick opening of the switches showed that it was on the l same circuit we had tested during the | day. Well. we kept the circuit going until morning. and then started to find l the trouble. By very careful testing we soon traced it to a certain rather old l factory building. Going inside, we I tested the transformer but that was all right, but there was ground be- l tween the transformer and the street so that we followed the primary cables ! in that direction, which passed through an unused coal and junk room. As soon
 as we entered the place, where, il seems no one else ever thought of go- ing. we were greeted by an odor thai
 was suffocating, and near the pipe en-
 trance leading to the street we found g
 pile of decomposed and decomposine rats.
 we called the janitor, got them ou of doors as quickly as possible. ant
 then the cause of our trouble wa;
 plainly apparent, for every rat wa:
 more or less burned.
 But how? Going back to the cella1
 wefound one hat still lying across oui
 cables, burned to crisp. Looking al the cables again, we found then
 gnawed through in more than a doer different places. Now what had in
 duced those rats to climb up there ano
 gnaw through that lead cable and cleo trOcute themselves?
 "F put this question to a naturalis
 who lived in the city, who explained I by saying probably the rats, being very keen of hearing, had noticed a sllgn
 hum from the alternating current ca
 bles, and imagining that the pipes con
 tained running water, gnawed througf the lead sheathing until they reacnee