The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1910-10-17
Something Of the Discovery Of Elec-
tricity and What it Can Accom-.
plish in Manufacturing
Way.
TRANSMISSION
ABOUT
keokuk is Interested Because Of the
Water Power Project and Fig
ures Show What Radius
Can be Covered.

Occasionally we hear that
electricity is not successfully
transmitted, and some of the
cities and villages within rad
ius of one hundred miles of Keokuk
are in doubt. The Electrical Field
says:
Without doubt the development
OF electrical transmission of power
was the greatest discovery in the
history of manufacturing. The fact
that the millions of horse power of
distant waterfalls could be transmit
ted over mountains and deserts, land
and water, to the industrial centers
to turn the wheels of mills and fac
tories, to light the streets and houses,
to drive the electric cars and do all
the hard work about the cities and
towns was a great boon to the indus.
trial world.
Good shipping facilities make large
industrial centers and these Industrial
points require vast quantities of cheap
and reliable power Only in a few
places was it possible for an industry
to combine good shipping with cheap
water power. But now, when man
has discovered how to bring the dis
tant water power to any desirable
place, industrial centers are spring
ing up all over the country. No long
er is 1t necessary for the south to
ship cotton to the New England wa
ter power cities to be made into
cloth. Southern rivers are being har-
messed and the work Is being done
at home and only the finished product
shipped away.
1t was the invention and the SUBJ
sequent development of the electric
transformer which brought about this
modern miracle. The transformer Is
a device to raise the pressure of
electricity and to force it at very
high voltage, Or pressure, over a slen-
Ger copper wire to great distances
with little, IL any, loss. The gener-
ators, driven by water wheels, pro
duce electricity at about 150O volts
and the transformer increases the
voltage or pressure to as high as
10000 volts for transmission.
Low voltage would require large
transmission line and heavy loss in
current. BY way of explanation, if
the water power itself were to be
transmitted any distance at low pres.
sure 1t would take large canal to
carry the required amount of water;
but If the water could be sent under
high pressure small pipe would
carry a good many hundred horse
power The transformers raise the
voltage and send the electrical cur
rent under high pressure over very
small wire, and so great is this pres
sure that thousands of horse power
can be sent to great distances over
small wires with very little loss.
In the last ten years the transform
er has grown from a few kilowatts
to few thousand kilowatts in output,
and from a few thousand volts to
13S,500 volts. The transformer has
no moving parts. In shape and out
line it looks not unlike large oval
boiler. The interior mechanism con-
slsts of large coils of wire insulated
with oil.
1t was but fifteen years ago when
the first 100000 volt transmission line
in this country was opened in south
ern California, transmitting single
phase current from San Antonio Can
yon to light Pomona and San Bernar-
dino, distant fourteen and twenty
eight miles. There were two banks of
small transformers, raising the pres
sure from 1000 to 10000 volts. In all,
there were forty-six kilowatt trans
formers-the largest Of that day. A
comparison of these insignificant ma
chimes with the six monster transform
ers being constructed by the General
Electric company at Schenectady,
n. Y, for the Great Western Power
company of California fully demon
strates the wonderful advancement OF
high tension transmission
When these worlds largest trans.
formers stood on the test floor ready
for shipment to California, each unit
weighed more than twenty-eight tons
Each transformer occupied floor
space of nine by five feet and stood
seventeen feet high. The coil of each