The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-05-18
Westinghouse Dream of Many Years Is About to be
 Realized Commercially
SOUTH ALSO OFFERS
 BIG POSSIBILITIES
Erie Canal Will Carry Great Quan- titles of Freight From Lakes to New York and
 Boston
ny HOLLAND.


 New York, May 17.-tSpecial)-An- nouncement was made a few days ago of the contemplated organization of a corporation capitalized at about s3.o0o,- O0o whose purpose 1t is to build and then operate vessels driven by power which will navigate the Erie canal as soon as it is completed. Whether this particular corporation will be organized or not, it is certain that there will be a corporate organization, and perhaps more than one. whose sole purpose will be the navigation of che improved Erie canal by power-driven boats.
 The canal will really terminate at con- venient point upon the Brooklyn water front facing New York harbor. But the perfecting of facilities at that point will be made after the canal proper from Buff falo to Lake Erie to navigable water on the Hudson near Albany has been com pleted. When it is finished the Hudson river will be really part of the canal system, as it was. in fact. when the Erie canal was first open to navigation nearly 90 years ago.
 The understanding is that the power driven vessels which will navigate the canal will utilize electric energy. In fact. the perfected plans, so far as announced, report that the engines will be controlled |sby an operator stationed in the pilot house Yand that it will be necessary to employ only ordinary labor in the engine room proper.
 Should a method of this kind be adopted with commercial practicabiity there will | h Westinghouse and Dr. Coleman Sellers of Philadelphia, one of the great men of science of his time. A years ago. About the time of the first installation of power- producing apparatus was made at the Ni- sgara Falls electric power plant, in the spring of 1892. MT. Westinghouse invited some 10 or 12 men eminent in science and Governor Flower of New York; with other members of the state government. to visit the Niagara electric power plant, so that they might see the magnitude of the work of installation then in progress at that place.
 The company was invited by Frank Hawley of Rochester to spend two or three hours in the suburbs of that city for the further purpose of inspecting an apparatus which he had perfected whereby electric energy could be utilized for towing canal boats MT. Westinghouse was greatly in terested in this proposition. He had been for sometime convinced that ultimately electric energy could be used to com mercial advantage in towing canalboats, and if this were done there would in- evitably follow important commercial and .frade changes not only in New York state, but elsewhere
 The Hawley Experiment
 Mir. Hawley had caused to be built small tug-llSe boat from which a trolley Apparatus extended to a trolley line which ran upon poles parallel to the banks of the canal To this towboat an ordinary canalboat was attached by towlne. The test was extremely interesting to Mr. Westinghouse. The electric energy ob- tained from the trolley line was sufficient to enable the towboat to haul the canal boat at a rate of from five to six miles an hour, or substantially at double the speed which the of animal power for towing made possible. The electric en- ergy was obtained from the Rochester electric light plant.
 Later that day Mir. Westinghouse said that the Hawley experiment did not dem- onstrate the immediate commercial prac- ticabilitv of the utilization of electricity for canalboat towing. It did, however, convince him and Dr. Sellers that the time was not distant when the towpath of the Erie canal would be abandoned and the canalboats would be driven through the canal by electric power. It would be nec- essary Mir Westinghouse said, greatly to Improve the canal, making it If possible an artificial waterway capable of floating barges or boats that would carry 1000 tons. Furthermore, it would be necessary to invent an absolutely new electrical ap- paratus. Both of these conditions Mir Westinghouse was certain would be es- la blished in the course of a few years.
 The state of New York and the men of science seem now fully to have estab- hished these essential conditions. The in- proved canal which will speedily be ready Tor navigation will be capable of floating large barges or barges carrying perhaps 1000 tons of freight and the men of science have perfected electric apparatus some Of tt of kind never dreamed of in 1892, which can. with commercial practicability. be utilized in driving canalboats.
 year or two before MT. Westinghouse Heath he said that what he foresaw in 1892, as within the range of probabilities