Los Angeles herald., 1910-03-24

ANANtboillS lllt mechanism which
permits him to turn on the switch.
When the paid-for supply Is exhausted.
a warning flicker announces the an
proach of darkness and the machine
thus virtually demands your money
or your lite.' Slot machines for the
sale of illuminants are not great sue
ccsses from the standpoint of the SELL
err, because they incline TO teach
economy to the consumer. The major
ity of people never take time to look
at the ordinary meter and MANY of
them have never learned to read one
anyway. but when the money is called
for constantly the householder Is found
to be more careful i'm seeing that
7 "holes are not burned in the DAYLIGHT"
or current otherwise wasted AS the
sellers of gas and electricity are in
terested in having good sized bills
they do not rush to adopt the eco
nomical slot-meters.
In figuring out what a cents worth
of electricity will do, the statistician
has found that 1t will drive a twelve
inch fan for ninety minutes, heat a
siX-pound smoothing iron for fifteen
minutes, make four cups of coffee in
an electrical pcrcolatOr, cook a good
sized steak, heat a luminous radiator
eight minutes. bring to boil two
quarts of water, drive a dentists drill
four hours and run a pianola one
hour.
one OF the big manufacturers OF cleo
trical machinery is making some tur-
bine- driven electrical units of 14.00O-
kilowatt capacity. To appreciate what
power these great engines will generate
one must have IT expressed in COM
prehensible terms What is technically
known as the fifth stage element is a
big wheel twelve feet eight inches I'm
diameter which, when going at full
speed, rotates at the rate of $50 reVo-
lutions n minute. If 1t were running
on a railroad track it would travel $50
miles minute, or from New York to
san Francisco in nine and a half hours.
The rotating mechanism weighs ninety
tons, yet so perfectly is it mounted that
it can be turned with one finger. One
of these units would light 100000 six
teen-candle power electric lights,
enough to illuminate 500 miles of hall
way ten feet wide or supply an arc
light for every $50 feet between New
York and Chicago
a new thing in electricity is an cleo
trically-heated garment a sort of bath
robe having 1000 feet of wire woven
between the lining and the outer cloth.
1t is so constructed that il is perfectly
pliabe and the wire adds an additional
weight of only twenty ounces to it, a
110-Volt current, either alternating or
hlAtNNt DIONQNtS EIthual warming. con-
tact may be established with the cleo
trio light system Of any ordinary house.
Not long ago an enterprisng the
atrical man staged what he called an
electrical ballet There were dozens of
chorus girls wearing costumes which
could be lighted with myriads OF tiny
electric bulbs. The dresses were wired
and the little bulbs hidden away. Con-
tact was made by their escorts holding
the wires in their hands and pressing
them against a metal plate at the back
Of the girls waists The result Is said
to have afforded a beautiful and unique
spectacle, and by a well-organized sys-
TEN of handling the wires it completely
mystities the audience as to the source
of the electricity
While discussing the electric elevator
problem speaker before the electrical
engineering society Of Columbia uni
Nersity stated that the 5000 passenger
elevators on Manhattan Island carry
more than 100000 passengers a day.
Roughly speaking, this is twice as
many people as are carried by all the
elevated, underground and surface cars
of the city. If each person rides only
fifty feet the aggregate distance trav-
eled in this way would be nearly 90 900
miles day. The Engineering society
of New York recently kept an account
building. 1t found that under condi-
tions existing there. which are said to
approximate the average, it costs about
one cent round trip to carry passen-
gers. At this rate the burough Of Man
haitian alone spends 900 a day In
free elevator rides
In an address delivered in Winnipeg
n few days ago Professor j. j. Thomp-
son estimated that under a high sun
and clear sky the power generated bY
the sun amounts to about 1000 horse
power per acre. He figures that when
the natural resources of America give
out, its people will have mastered the
problem of using solar energy, and that
the worlds business centers may then
be moved to regions like the desert of
Sahara, where sunshine can be stored
lay in and day out throughout the
year. 1t will then be distributed by big
electrical transmission lines to less IA
5orable spots for use in industrial &C
-ivity.