Chapter IX: Part 9

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How do Chimes Strike the Hour?

Chimes are ordinarily produced mechanically by the strokes of hammers against a series of bells, tuned agreeably to a given musical scale.

The hammers are lifted by levers acted upon by metallic pins or wooden pegs stuck in a large barrel, which is made to revolve by clockwork, and is so connected with the striking part of the clock mechanism that it is set in motion by it at certain intervals of time, usually every hour or every quarter of an hour.

The chime mechanism is sometimes so constructed that it may be played like a piano, but with the fist instead of the fingers.

NIAGARA ELECTRIC TRANSMISSION LINE

Tower supporting high tension transmission cables of long span crossing of Niagara River between Buffalo and Fort Erie, Canada.]

How is Electricity Brought into a House?

The electric transmission of power is effected by employing the source of power to drive a machine called a dynamo, which generates an electric current.

This current is conveyed by a copper conductor, insulated from the earth, to the distant station, where it passes through a machine called an “electromotor,” one part of which is thereby made to revolve, and imparts its motion to the machinery which is to be driven.

This is the simplest arrangement, and is that which is commonly employed when the original currents are not of such high tension as to be dangerous to life in the case of accidental shocks. There is, however, a great waste of power in employing low-tension currents when the distance is great; hence it is becoming a common practice to employ high-tension currents for transmission through the long conductor which connects the two stations, and to convert these into low-tension currents before they reach the houses or workshops where they are to be used. This is done sometimes by employing the high-tension currents to drive a local dynamo which generates low-tension currents.

The discovery that a Gramme machine is reversible--that is to say, when two Gramme machines are coupled together and one is operated as a generator, the other will act as a motor--was an important step taken in the transmission of power. Numerous efforts, since then, have been made to utilize electricity for the transmission of power over a long range. For this purpose the alternating current seems eminently adapted, as transformers only are needed to raise the line to high transmission voltage and to lower it again for use.

The possibilities offered by electrical transmission of water power for sections of country favored with waterfalls are numerous and have been extensively developed, which should result in making them great industrial centers. In this direction much has been done in utilizing the immense power of the Niagara Falls by electrical transmission, works having been built for this purpose both in New York and Canada, and several hundred thousand horse-power developed. The application of the power of waterfalls to the generation of electricity is rapidly extending, and promises to become a great source of mechanical power in the future.

What was the Origin of Masonic Signs?

Fable and imagination have traced back the origin of freemasonry to the Roman Empire, to the Pharaohs, the Temple of Solomon, the Tower of Babel, and even to the building of Noah’s ark. In reality, it took its rise in the middle ages along with other incorporated crafts.

Skilled masons moved from place to place to assist in building the magnificent sacred structures--cathedrals, abbeys, etc.--which had their origin in these times, and it was essential for them to have some signs by which, on coming to a strange place, they could be recognized as real craftsmen and not impostors.

What is a Dictograph?

The dictograph, to which much publicity is now given, by reason of its use in detective work, is an instrument for magnifying sound. It was invented by K. M. Turner of New York, in 1907.

It consists of a master station in the form of a box less than a foot long and six inches deep, and any number of sub-stations that may be required. Any voice within fifteen feet is taken by the receiving instrument and carried over the wires to any distance within about a thousand miles.

It has now been adopted by a great many business organizations as a convenient means of inter-communication.

The Story of the Wireless Telegraph

Though one or more means of transmitting messages by electricity have been known now for a great many years, the mechanisms by which they are accomplished are understood only by those who take a general interest in physical science, and the few to whom electrical communication is a profession. So far as theory and details of working are concerned, there are a good many people still in the same shadowy frame of mind as the old Aberdeen postmaster, of whom the story is told. When asked to explain the working of a telegraph instrument he said, “Look at that sheep-dog. Suppose we hold his hind-quarters here and stretch him out until his head reaches Glasgow. Then if we tread on his tail here he will bark in Glasgow. As it is not convenient to stretch a dog, we stretch a wire, and that serves the purpose.”

As the name implies, “stretching a wire” is unnecessary in wireless telegraphy, though in order to understand the finer points of theory one needs to stretch the imagination a little. That, however, is not so much, because there is any inherent obscurity or difficulty in the underlying principles, as because the mechanism of all electrical effects is more or less intangible. Electricity and magnetism operate across apparently empty space, and the links which connect cause and effect have to be guessed at.

Three different methods have been made use of in wireless telegraphy, which may be classed as conduction, induction and wave methods. In the first method currents are sent through the earth from an electrode to another at the sending station. In induction, use is made of the property which alternating currents possess of exciting similar currents in neighboring conductors, the aim being to get as intense a current as possible in the secondary circuit. Mr. W. H. Preece, of England, by combining the two, signaled in this way as far as forty miles. The third and the only method which has proved practically available is by the use of electro-magnetic waves.

Guglielmo Marconi, an Italian, after long experiment, patented in 1897 a method entirely independent of wires, the electric waves being sent, presumably, through the ether, by the aid of a transmitting apparatus, and being detected by a coherer, a glass tube filled with metallic filings, into the end of which the terminals of a relay circuit enter. The wave falls on conducting material and, the spark gap being replaced by a coherer, the metallic filings magnetically cling together, closing the relay circuit, so that a signal is made. On breaking the current, a slight tap on the coherer or other means breaks the cohesion of the filings and the relay circuit is broken. In this way a rapid succession of signals can be sent.

In 1899 Marconi conducted in England an exhaustive series of successful experiments, sending messages across the English Channel from the South Foreland to the French coast near Boulogne, and extending his results until much longer distances were covered. The process of development was continued until, to the world’s astonishment, signals were sent across the Atlantic and, finally, commercial messages were transmitted over this distance.

Marconi’s system is based on the property supposed to be exerted by the vibrations or waves of electric currents passing through a wire of setting up similar vibrations in the ether of space. These waves extend in every direction from the point of departure, and by ingenious and very delicate receiving instruments their presence in space is indicated and they are taken up in sufficient strength to repeat their pulsations and in this way reproduce the signals sent from the transmitter. One difficulty hitherto has been that a message may be received by hundreds of receiving instruments in all directions, thus preventing secrecy. Many efforts have been made to overcome this defect, but as yet with only partial success.

The distance to which messages can be sent has so far depended largely on the height to which the wires extend above the earth’s surface, lofty poles being erected at the stations. The height of these has been gradually increased until the Eiffel Tower at Paris has been utilized as a sending station. The strength of the electric waves has been similarly increased to add to their space-penetrating capacity. The record of wireless telegraphy has been in this way improved until now it has come into daily competition with other means of news sending. Methods of tuning the instruments have been adopted which limit the influence of the currents to properly tuned receivers and in this way some degree of secrecy is attained.

Though the honor of inventing the art of wireless telegraphy is generally ascribed to Marconi, this is to give him more credit than he deserves. The principles involved were discovered by others and the utmost done by him was to invent a practical method of applying them. There are other systems of wireless telegraphy of later invention than that of Marconi, through a different application of the same principles.

Messages have been sent to enormous distances, far surpassing the width of the Atlantic, as from Nova Scotia and Ireland to Argentina, a distance of 5,600 miles. Under exceptional conditions a distance of 6,500 miles has been attained, but the daily effective range of the best equipped stations is little over 3,000 miles. For overland messages the limit of distance is about 1,000 miles.

There are a number of kinds of interference which arise from electrical disturbances in the earth’s atmosphere. A flash of lightning is liable to give rise to a wave of enormous power which will set half the aerials on the earth vibrating in spite of the differences of pitch to which they are tuned. Thunderstorms are at their worst in the summer in temperate latitudes, but they occur to some extent all the year round, and those in the tropics are of extreme violence. As a consequence it is frequently almost impossible to decipher earthly messages owing to the imperious signals from the clouds. Of the various methods adopted for choking off the “atmospherics,” as the disturbances are called, one is to use receiving circuits which respond only to a narrow range of oscillations very different from those produced by a lightning flash. The employment of a high-pitched musical note in the telephone is also an advantage because its extreme regularity distinguishes it from the marked irregularity of the stray waves.

On the palatial passenger steamers that plow the Atlantic the Marconi apparatus enables the travelers to keep in touch with their friends, to transact important business on either side of the water, and to secure a continuity of life which was formerly divided by a sea voyage. All the larger vessels now publish a daily paper on board, the news in which has been supplied by the same agencies who feed the newspaper on land. Information is flashed to meet or overtake the vessel and caught up by her aerial, as she pursues her way at twenty-five or thirty miles an hour.

In the case of cargo vessels, the owners are able to get into touch with them at any point of their voyage. They can advise the captain where to call for coal or cargo, while he on his part can get into communication with the authorities or his firm’s agents at the port of call, and have every necessary or desirable preparation made for his arrival. Should an accident happen, he can call assistance, inform the owners or relieve anxiety and suspense. At no time is he isolated from the world. The fortitude, courage and daring of those “who go down to the sea in ships” has never been called into question, but it has if anything been emphasized by the receipt of messages from an operator at his post, to whom the bonds of duty were as bonds of steel, and who calmly operated the key until the waves entered his cabin and brought him honorable release.

The latest type of super-dreadnaught for the United States Navy, with a displacement of 27,500 tons and engines of 28,000 horse-power.

NOTE THE WIRELESS EQUIPMENT AT THE TOP]

Relief has been brought in this way to vessels in distress and many lives saved. An important example is that of the sinking of the Titanic in 1912. By means of wireless messages from ship to ship the width of the Pacific has been practically covered, as ships en route from America to Australia or Asia can be kept in touch with Honolulu through almost the entire journey. A law in the United States now requires that all ocean passage-steamers carrying fifty or more passengers on routes of 200 miles or over must be equipped with efficient wireless apparatus and operators. The distance reached must be at least 100 miles. The Canadian law provides that every sea-going and coasting passenger ship of over 400 tons gross, registered in Canada, and every sea-going and coasting freight ship of over 1,200 tons gross, shall be equipped with a wireless apparatus. Wireless messages have been successfully sent from aeroplanes, balloons and submarine vessels, and the naval vessels of all nations are kept in easy communication by this method. Wireless press messages between America and Europe are also matters of daily performances.

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What is Forestry Work?

A Division of Forestry was organized in the Department of Agriculture, some years ago, and the most earnest efforts are being made to prevent any needless waste of our timber lands.

The usefulness of forests to man lies: (1) In furnishing him with timber for building, manufacturing, fuel, etc., and with various other useful products of trees. (2) In their influence on climate. (3) In their influence on water-flow, by keeping the ground more moist, making the outflow more regular, checking the rapid melting of snow, and keeping the hillsides from being denuded of their soil, thus setting up streams and covering cultivated valley lands. The necessity of a proper preservation of the forests seems highly evident, but the nations have been slow in waking up to this fact. Several of the countries of Europe have been largely stripped of their woodlands by indiscreet cutting in the poorest countries, and only recently have the nations been roused to the necessity of their conservation. This is now being carefully attended to in several countries, especially Germany. In China broad mountain regions have been stripped of their trees, with the result that this soil has been swept away by the rains, leaving the rocks bare, while broad reaches of formerly fertile lowlands have been made sterile by the material spread over them by the rains that swept the mountain slopes.

In the United States the broad original forests have been very largely cut away, and those remaining have of late years been so largely reduced by indiscriminate cutting and the ravages of carelessly kindled fires that great alarm is felt as to the future of the lumber supply. Within recent years vigorous efforts have been made to overcome this growing evil. The American Forestry Association, founded in 1882, its purpose being the conservative use of our forest resources, has now over 5,000 members, residents of every state, and of Canada and foreign countries. The first State Forest Commission was organized by New York in 1885 and has now a very large forest reserve set aside in the Adirondacks. Pennsylvania has also large forest reserves in its mountain districts, and many other states have taken similar action. The art of forestry is also being taught in the schools, and a large body of skilled foresters are now in the service of the states and the general government. In the new and active movement for the conservation of national resources the preservation of the public forests ranks high, and to aid in this purpose the government has withdrawn as national forest areas a vast amount of the public lands, amounting at the present time to 192,931,197 acres, an area about equal to that of Texas and Ohio combined. These woodlands are under the charge of the National Forest Service and cared for by about 3,000 men, of whom 250 are professional foresters. The trees in these forests are cut with careful discrimination, and new trees are planted to take their place, there being forest nurseries containing about 20,000,000 plants and capable of supplying 18,000,000 a year. New York has 1,600,000 acres in its forest reserve, Pennsylvania over 920,000, and the reserves of the other states amount to a very considerable area.

How did the Fashion of Wearing Cravats Commence?

Cravats get their name from the French “cravate,” meaning a croat, because this piece of dress was adopted in the eleventh century from the Croats who entered the French service. Towards the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century the cravat attained an incredible degree of extravagance, but common sense at last brought in the simpler style of neckties that has since prevailed.

How does the Gas Meter Measure Your Gas?

The quantity of gas used by each consumer is measured by an instrument called a meter, of which there are two classes--the wet and the dry.

The wet meter is composed of an outer box about three-fifths filled with water. Within this is a revolving four-chambered drum, each chamber being capable of containing a definite quantity of gas, which is admitted through a pipe in the center of the meter, and, owing to the arrangement of the partitions of the chambers, causes the drum to maintain a constant revolution. This sets in motion a train of wheels carrying the hands over the dials which mark the quantity of gas consumed.

The dry meter consists of two or three chambers, each divided by a flexible partition or diaphragm, by the motion of which the capacity on one side is diminished while that on the other is increased. By means of slide valves, like those of a steam engine, worked by the movement of the diaphragms, the gas to be measured passes alternately in and out of each space. The contractions and expansions set in motion the clockwork which marks the rate of consumption. The diaphragms in all the chambers are so connected that they move in concert.

What is a Game Preserve?

Game preserves have only been introduced comparatively recently in the United States, for the hunting grounds have been freely open to the hunter, but they have been common in Britain and other countries of Europe for centuries.

Their purpose here is the preservation and increase of wild animals instead of their destruction.

Deer parks have long been kept in this country, but the first systematic attempt to foster wild game was made about 1860 by Judge J. D. Caton in a park of Ottawa, Ill.

Chief among those that followed on a large scale is the great game park of Austin Corbin, near Newport, N. H., an enclosure of 36,000 acres, in which a wire fence eight feet high encloses an oblong tract twelve by five miles, through which passes a mountain range 3,000 feet high. American game of all kinds are kept here, from buffalo, elk, and moose to the smaller and more timid varieties, and there has been a rapid increase.

Dr. J. Seward Webb has a 9,000-acre preserve in the Adirondacks, and various other large parks have been established elsewhere, in which our fast-disappearing game animals are augmenting in numbers and game birds of foreign origin have been introduced.

The Story of the Building of a Silo[17]

What is a Silo?

A silo is a place or receptacle for storing green feed to preserve it for future feeding on the farm. In this way green fodder, such as corn and similar crops, are preserved in a green state to be fed in the winter or next summer during an extremely dry season. The silo has the same relation to cattle feed as the glass fruit jar that mother uses has to the food she preserves in it.

The First Silo.

Silos have been used since very early times in one form or the other, and probably the first we have ever heard of are traceable back in ancient history to the Syrians, who had pits in the ground for the storage of animal feed. These pits have been used in various parts of the Old World ever since and have also been used in the United States. The pit does not give the best results.

In order to overcome these defects we soon began to see silos erected above ground. Cement, brick, tile and wood were used as building material, with various results. The industry developed rapidly and soon demonstrated what was necessary to keep the silage pure, sweet, clean and succulent. Science and research have helped, until now we can produce silos that will keep this green fodder in a sweet and succulent state until the owner is ready to use it.

What is Put in the Silo?

The principal silage crop is corn, but in different parts of the country there are other crops which can be used to great advantage as substitutes for corn. Among these are kaffir corn, sorghum, alfalfa, clover, millet, cowpeas, soy-beans, sugar beets, oats and even weeds and thistles. All of these make good silage when properly harvested and stored. Any green fodder can be mixed with the above to make quantity and secure good results. The main point to be remembered is that the crops to be put away in the silo must contain a certain percentage of sugar and starch in every combination.

Elements of Success or Failure.

There are several things to be remembered by farmers when putting fodder into the silo, if they want to have perfect silage to take out. One of the main things is to see that the silage is cut to proper lengths, which would be about half-inch or one-inch pieces. It should also be well packed, especially next to the wall of the silo. It should have a certain amount of moisture, which it naturally would have if put in at maturity. Good silage is a result of proper cutting, proper packing and a correct amount of moisture, because when the silage is stored it begins to ferment. Heat is generated in the process of fermentation. If the heat is lost through the silo wall, the fermentation is not correct. If the silage is not packed properly and tightly, especially next to the wall, it does not settle in a compact mass and air is admitted that spoils the silage; or if the silo wall is porous this is apt to occur. All these things must be guarded against or a great loss to the owner is probable.

The Story of the Advance of Electricity[18]

It is often remarked that the history of electrical development is the history of modern industrial development. This is true, except that the terms should be reversed. Electric lighting was not invented to equip skyscrapers and the huge apartment buildings of today. In point of fact, the invention of these structures was possible only because electric light already existed. Electric motive power was not devised to supply the great manufacturing establishments of the present. On the contrary, such institutions were erected precisely because such a thing as the electric motor was available. The history of modern industry is thus seen emphatically to be the history of electricity.

The First Commercial Central Station.

The first central station for the commercial distribution of electricity was set going on the 4th of September, 1882, by Thomas Edison himself, at 257 Pearl Street, New York City. Newspapers of the following day had much to say. Wonder was expressed over the “blazing horseshoe that glowed within a pear-shaped globe.” Another told of “the dim flicker of gas supplanted by a steady glare, bright and mellow.” A third observed, “As soon as it is dark enough to need artificial light, you turn the thumb-screw and the light is there; no nauseous smell, no flicker, no glare.”

Among the five or six buildings supplied with the new lighting were the _Herald_ offices and the Drexel Building, at the time one of New York City’s show places. The illumination of the latter was held to be a truly momentous achievement owing to its great size. The equipment, in other words, reached the grand total of 106 lamps. In comparison, it is interesting to mention the lighting equipment of the new Municipal Building, in New York City, numbering something over 15,000 lamps.

The Old Pearl Street Plant.

This primitive central station in Pearl Street was a converted warehouse of brick construction, four stories high, and it was separated in two parts by a fire wall. One of these parts was used for the storing of underground supplies, while the other was occupied by the generating machinery, for the support of which a special foundation of steel and concrete was provided. The necessary steam boilers were accommodated in the basement, while the second floor was occupied by six generators of 125 horse-power each, nicknamed “Jumbos.”

Simple as sounds this original Edison equipment, it nevertheless represented years of research and experimenting on the part of Edison and those associated with him.

Edison and the Electric Light.

In 1878 Thomas A. Edison, at his experimental laboratory at Menlo Park, New Jersey, where he had already invented the carbon telephone transmitter and many other things, undertook the task of devising a general system for the generation, distribution and utilization of electricity for lighting and power purposes.

The first marked accomplishment in operative detail was a lamp with a platinum wire burner of high resistance, protected by a high vacuum in an all-glass globe, and with the leading-in wires sealed into the glass by fusion. Such a lamp necessarily had a small illuminating power compared with that of the arc light, which was the only electric light then in commercial use.

“THE GREAT WHITE WAY”

Times Square, New York, at night, with Broadway on the left, a curving ribbon of white light. Here every night in winter thousands upon thousands of people throng to theaters and cafés.]

The next step in the development of Mr. Edison’s electric-lighting system was taken on October 21, 1879, when he discovered that if a carbonized cotton thread were substituted as a burner for the platinum wire of his earlier lamp, the slender and apparently frail carbon was mechanically strong, and also durable under the action of the electric current. The announcement of the invention of the carbon filament lamp was first made to the public in December, 1879.

With the experience gained by an experimental system at Menlo Park, Mr. Edison began, in the spring of 1881, at the Edison Machine Works, Goerck Street, New York City, the construction of the first successful direct-connected steam dynamo. The development of an adequate underground conduit proved also most serious. The district selected for lighting was the area--nearly a square mile in extent--included between Wall, Nassau, Spruce, and Ferry Streets, Peck Slip and the East River in New York City. In those days such electrical transmission as existed--this of course related largely to telegraphy--was accomplished by means of a veritable forest of poles and wires augmented by the distribution equipments of fire alarm, telephone, burglar alarm and stock ticker companies. So used had people become to this sort of thing that even the most competent electrical authorities of the time doubted extremely whether Edison’s scheme of an underground system could be made either a scientific or a commercial success, owing to the danger of great loss through leakage. However, the Edison conduits once in use, both the public and even the telephone, telegraph and ticker companies acknowledged their feasibility. Such, in fact, was the success of the new method that the city compelled at length the removal of all telegraph poles.

In the Trenches.

The systematic laying out of street mains in the first company district was begun in the summer of 1881. It must not be thought, of course, that these old-time conduits resembled strikingly those of the present day. The method then used was to dig a trench in which were laid the pipes measuring twenty feet in length. Through these the conductors were drawn, two half-round copper wires kept in place first by heavy cardboard and afterward by rope. The conductors having been drawn in, a preparation of asphaltum and linseed oil was forced into the piping to serve as insulation. The spending of three and four arduous nights a week in these trenches by Mr. Edison and his associates suggests the rigor of the later European warfare. This work, together with that incident to the operation of the new station, often proved too much even for Edison’s phenomenal endurance. At such times he slept on a cot close beside the running engines, while the rest of the crew crawled in on the lower row of field-magnet coils of the dynamos, a place warm enough, though a trifle bumpy. One of the inventor’s early assistants tells of going to sleep standing up, leaning against a door frame--this, after forty-eight hours of uninterrupted work.

September 4th saw a full 400 lamps turned on from the Pearl Street station. From that day on the station supplied current continuously until 1895, with but two brief interruptions. One of these happened in 1883 and lasted three hours. The other resulted from the serious fire of January 2, 1890, and lasted less than half a day. The record in the second case would appear astounding, as no less a handicap occurred than the burning down of the station itself. The situation was saved, however, by the presence of an auxiliary plant that had already been opened on Liberty Street.

Edison as a Central Station Pioneer.

The layman, while appreciating the tremendous advance in generating machinery since the early eighties, is surprised to learn that the great Edison system of today is conducted upon principles that Edison developed and put into practice at that time. Edison’s, in truth, was the master mind, the forming spirit of all the advances made in the seventies and eighties. Exceedingly much, on the other hand, is due the energy of his fellow workers, many of whom figure conspicuously in the country’s electrical affairs at present.

ELECTRIC POWER STATION

The seventeen great gas engines are operated by gas from the blast furnaces which was formerly allowed to escape. Each engine drives a 2,500-kilowatt dynamo.]

In this manner Edison and his assistants became established in New York City. Current at first was supplied free to customers for approximately five months, which speaks quite as much for Edison’s Scotch “canniness” as for his inventive genius. Well before the period was over the new illuminant had justified itself, until today it shows itself an element indispensable in every phase of the country’s activity.

Early Growth.

Within two years from the opening of the station the demand for service had so increased that over one hundred applications were filed in excess of what could be accepted, because the plant was taxed already to its utmost capacity. Allusion has already been made to the auxiliary plant at Liberty Street, a station of 2,000 lights’ capacity which was instituted in 1886. By 1887, not only a second but a third district had been mapped out, the whole extending from Eighteenth to Forty-fifth Street. All the underground system in the two new districts was laid according to Edison’s new three-wire patent; and it was presently announced that customers would be supplied with power as well as with light.

Six months after the disastrous fire of 1890, in which the Pearl Street station was burned, the site was chosen for the Edison Duane Street building on which operations were so hastened that machines were installed and current turned on the first of May the following year.

The Waterside Stations.

For some time the need of a central generating plant had been apparent to all familiar with the company’s facilities and prospects. Already during the summer of 1898 an engineering commission had visited all the chief electrical stations of Europe and consulted the best-known experts of the industry, and in 1902 the first waterside station in New York was opened upon a site bordering the East River between Thirty-eighth and Thirty-ninth Streets. The new operating room contained sixteen vertical engines with a capacity each of over 5,000 horse-power. From these current was generated by 3,500 kilowatt generators and sent out to the various distributing centers.

As a very natural consequence of such development, the company by 1902 had 420 miles of underground system supplying installation amounting to 1,928,090 fifty-watt equivalents.

Electricity a Living Factor.

To talk about electrical development in terms of power consumed tells but one side of the story. More impressive even than figures are the immense number of uses to which electricity is put. Electric lighting, introduced in 1882, has become practically the standard for illumination, not only here, but for the entire civilized world.

In the Printing Trade.

Electric power was introduced, timidly, by way of a few fans in 1884 and following this, in 1888, motor drive for printing presses was undertaken. At the present moment in New York City there is hardly a printing establishment worthy the name that is not electrically operated throughout. Among the largest customers of the central station in New York City are the great daily newspapers, among them the _Times_, the _World_, the _Sun_, the _Evening Post_, and the _American_.

Construction.

Not only are passengers conveyed up and down by electric elevators in skyscrapers, but the buildings themselves are erected by means of electricity. Recent examples of such construction are the Woolworth and Equitable buildings in New York City; in this last instance a thousand horse-power was used in digging the foundations alone.

A FAIRYLAND OF LIGHT

The canyon of lower Broadway, south from the Woolworth Building--a glorious miracle of light.]

Not only are New York City’s subways operated by electricity; they were also built by electricity, a statement which applies to the new subways as well as the parts of the first system. In digging for the new Broadway subway, an electric company supplied 25,000 horse-power. The mammoth new aqueduct system by which water is carried from the Catskills to the Battery is another example of electricity as a source of power for large construction work. Still more picturesque is the use of electricity in building the under-river tubes. Indeed, it is doubtful whether this particular form of operation could have been carried on without the aid of electricity.

Loft Manufacturing.

Aside from these special instances of electricity in construction, one must think of electricity as responsible for nearly all the manufacturing, large and small, that goes on in the ever-increasing number of loft-buildings throughout all large cities. For example, New York City serves as the center of the garment-making industry for the entire country, there being fully a quarter of a million garment-trade workers in the Greater City. Along Fifth and Fourth Avenues are found the large establishments, electrically equipped throughout for cutting, stitching and pressing, while even in the smallest shops on the East Side foot-power machines have become almost a thing of the past.

Electric Heating.

The commercial use of electric heating is one of the more recent electrical developments. For the most part, this also applies to the garment trade and its closely allied clothing industries. In the modernly equipped factories one finds electric flat irons, velvet steamers and coffee urns. In the printing trade, electrically heated linotype melting pots are being introduced successfully, while glue-pots and sealing-wax melters can be seen in binderies and banking institutions. Absence of fire risk accounts for the introduction of electric heating units of different kinds into the motion-picture film manufacturing industry, a rapidly growing province. The same element of safety where inflammable substances are employed has produced the electric japan oven and similar apparatus.

Electricity and Safety.

The importance of electricity in factory work cannot be over-estimated. A shop fully equipped with electric machinery is the best possible kind of shop for employee as well as for the owner. Motor-driven machines are the safest possible kind, while absence of overhead shafting and dangerous belts mean health as well as security. In the electric shop, motor-driven blowers carry fumes and dust away from the worker and bring fresh air in. Electrically driven machinery is now regarded as the standard machinery. In the various vocational schools in New York City at present both boys and girls are taught to operate electrically driven machines, it being assumed that those will be what the pupils will be called upon to operate when they leave the school for the shop.

Electricity in Medicine.

Another domain of electric enterprise of the greatest value for the country at large is the increasing use of electricity in medicine. The most conspicuous element in this is the wide-spread acceptance of the X-ray as a necessary tool of the medical profession. Newspapers and magazines were full of the remarkable X-ray achievements of surgeons in charge of the various European war hospitals. Those, of course, were spectacular instances, but it should not be forgotten that every day, in our great hospitals, the X-ray is proving itself almost indispensable in the examination of the sick and injured. Besides utilizing X-ray in the diagnosis of disease, the rays themselves are employed in treatment of cancer and skin diseases. The oculist, the dentist, indeed medical specialists of all kinds, are coming to recognize the immense aid that electricity can give in its various forms and applications.

Electric Vehicles.

The electric truck has already demonstrated itself as a safer and less expensive rival of the gasoline delivery truck in many kinds of service. In the boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx alone, in New York City, there were more than 2,000 such trucks in operation in 1916. Counting both pleasure and business vehicles, the borough of Manhattan boasted about 2,500 storage-battery driven wagons in active use. It is rather interesting to note that Chicago operates many more electric pleasure cars than New York, while New York does far more of its business by means of the electric vehicle. Recently, there was established in New York an electric co-operative garage, the joint enterprise of the electric passenger car manufacturers and an electric company. It was believed that by providing proper and adequate facilities for garaging electric pleasure vehicles the use of passenger-electrics in New York City would be greatly increased.

Electricity and the Home.

In emphasizing the important part which electricity plays in the business of a great metropolis, the home should not be forgotten. It is now possible, by means of electric appliances, practically to eliminate all drudgery from housework. The use of many of these domestic machines is familiar to all: vacuum cleaners, washing machines, fans, and the more usual electric cooking devices. Within the next decade, one looks to see a remarkable advance in this direction. One anticipates the more extensive use of electric refrigeration and other electric labor-saving devices, to the great improvement of city homes, making them pleasanter and more healthy as toilsome operations are done away with. And it must not be forgotten that the city home, like the country home, is the backbone of the well-being of the community. Electricity can have no greater mission than improving, strengthening and upbuilding good homes.

In the upper view the electric chart on the wall facing the switch operator indicates the location of every train in the New York subway system at all times. The lower view shows typical subway construction for third rail train and surface cars. The material used is reinforced concrete.]

The system shown here is used upon the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad. It consists of pairs of wire cables supported by bridges placed about 300 feet apart. Rigid triangles of iron pipe are secured to these cables and the trolley wire attached to the triangles. The trolley wire is kept rigid and free from slack in this manner.]

Decreased Cost of Electricity.

Closely akin to this is another electrical development most pleasing to consider. Years ago, electricity was considered the luxury of the rich. Now electric light is coming to be shed on rich and poor alike. Little by little the shops, factories and dwellings of more humble inhabitants are provided with electricity, so that cleanliness, safety and comfort are by no means confined even to the well-to-do or the more comfortable homes.

One great factor in this change has been the decreasing cost of electricity. Within the last decade, the cost of almost all necessities of life has ascended with leaps and bounds, so that a dollar now, expended in ordinary household goods, will purchase hardly more than what thirty cents would in 1890. But all this while, the cost of electricity has steadily decreased. With centralized generating plants, improved machinery and better lamps, one dollar today will buy eighteen times as much electric light as it would in 1884. With such facts before us, it is fairly easy to predict the still further electrical development of all important centers. There will be more and better light in homes; there will be more and better light in offices and factories, thus greatly lessening the chances for injury or eye-strain. In all industry, great and small, laborious hand processes will be replaced by safely operated electric machinery, while wider use of electric labor-saving appliances will extend into the home.

Hospitals, by aid of electricity, will be able to increase still more their splendid work for the relief of suffering, while cleaner and safer ways of living will serve as a preventive of disease. One can easily say that with increasing electrical development the country will come to be still greater, a country where electricity shall provide for the safety and well-being of all its people.

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How is Die-Sinking Done?

Die-sinking is the art of preparing dies for stamping coins, buttons, medallions, jewelry, fittings, etc. The steel for the manufacture of dies is carefully selected, forged at a high heat into the rough die, softened by careful annealing, and then handed over to the engraver. After the engraver has worked out the design in intaglio the die is put through the operation of hardening, after which, being cleaned and polished, it is called a “matrix.” This is not, however, generally employed in multiplying impressions, but is used for making a “punch” or steel impression for relief. For this purpose another block of steel of the same quality is selected, and, being carefully annealed or softened, is compressed by proper machinery upon the matrix until it receives the impression. When this process is complete the impression is retouched by the engraver, and hardened and collared like the matrix. Any number of dies may now be made from this punch by impressing upon it plugs of soft steel.

The Story in the Making of a Magazine[19]

The printing of a few thousand copies of one of the great American magazines would not be a difficult feat for any large first-class printing plant. The putting of the pages into type and running them through the modern job presses could easily be accomplished. But when, instead of a few thousand copies, millions of copies of the magazine are printed, and these millions are produced unfailingly, week after week, month after month, in a quality of printing rivaling the production of but a few thousand copies, then, indeed, is it marvelous how results are attained.

Obviously, one of the first necessities towards such quantity production is extra speed. This is secured to a certain degree by feeding the paper into the presses from rolls instead of sheet by sheet. But as the quality of the print must be retained, there is a limit in this speeding beyond which it is not safe to go. Some other method of increasing the production without lowering the quality of the printed sheet must be resorted to--and this is duplication. By the process of electrotyping, plates of metal duplicating exactly the printing surface of the type and engravings in the original page, can be made. By providing as many presses as may be needed, and by supplying each press with duplicates, or electrotype plates as they are called, the problem of vast quantity requirements has been solved, so far as the actual printing is concerned.

But there are other factors to be considered. For example, the printed sheets, as they come from the press, must be folded to the size of the magazine. This is done in two ways. Machines which take the sheets, one by one, from the completed pile, and fold them to the required size, are used on some publications, while on others a folding machine and a binding attachment are included as integral parts of the press itself. The paper, as it comes from the printing section of the press, is mechanically folded, cut apart, the previously-printed cover sheet wrapped around it, and the whole stapled together with wire stitches. Thus the white paper, which enters the press from the roll in one long ribbon, is delivered at the other end of the press printed, folded and bound up into complete magazines at the rate of sixty each minute. Issues of a magazine of thirty-two, forty-eight, or even more pages, are produced in this manner.

Many magazines, however, have more pages than this. Then it is necessary to print on separate presses the various sections, or signatures as they are called, which, when combined, will make up a complete magazine. If only a few thousand were printed, these signatures could be collected together by hand, and then fed into the wire-stitching machine, also by hand. This method of collecting the sections and binding them together was the one used until editions became so large that mechanical methods became necessary.

Now, however, the various sections which go to make up the magazine are piled in certain troughs of a binding machine, which, with seeming human intelligence, clasps one copy of each section in turn, and combining them with a copy of the cover sheet, conducts them all, properly collated, into the wire-stitching device, from which they are ejected into orderly piles. Some magazines are bound together in a different manner, however, and are not stitched with wire, but have the inside pages and the cover glued together, and an ingenious binding machine has been perfected which does this automatically.

Another marvel of the periodical of our day is the printing of some of the pages in the full colors of the original paintings. To get this result, it is necessary to print the sheet in four colors and to have each printing in exactly the correct spot on the sheet (a variation of only a hundredth of an inch being detrimental). The process would normally be quite slow--too slow, in fact, for the tremendous quantities necessary for the large editions of the modern magazine. Both of these objections have been overcome, however, by arranging four small cylinders, each printing its designated color--yellow, red, blue or black--so that as the sheet of paper travels around a larger cylinder it is brought into contact with the four printing cylinders in rapid succession.

Many magazines print two colors for covers and inside pages, instead of full four-color printings. Presses of a nature somewhat similar to those explained above are used.

So much for the principal mechanical problems and their solutions, in producing millions of magazines of a high quality each week. But there must be some force that keeps this maze of machinery constantly at work, so that all the parts properly co-ordinate. A slip-up at one spot might cause such a delay as would result if, for instance, hundreds of thousands of the inside pages were printed and ready for binding, but lacked the printed covers. To prevent any such calamity in the work rooms, there is usually prepared a daily schedule which plots out what operation, on each issue of the magazine, is to be completed that day; and if by chance any operation is not up to the schedule, immediate steps are taken to speed up the work until the production has been brought back to where it should be.

And this schedule reaches out into the shipping and mailing departments, so arranging it that the first copies off the press are speeded to the far sections of the country. In this way all the copies as they come from the presses are dispatched, so that the man in San Francisco and the man in Philadelphia find the magazine on the news-stand on the same day.

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How did the Ringing of the Curfew Originate?

The word “curfew” is derived from the French “couvre-feu,” meaning “cover fire.”

The ringing of the curfew originated in England by William the Conqueror, who directed that at the ringing of the bell at eight o’clock all fires and lights should be extinguished. The law was repealed by Henry I in 1100, but the bell continued to be rung in many districts to modern times and probably may still be heard.

The name was also given formerly to a domestic utensil for covering up a fire.

In the United States an ordinance establishing a curfew, with the purpose of keeping young people off the streets, has existed in Salem, Mass., since Puritan days.

Similar ordinances have of late been adopted in other cities, in general providing that children under fifteen shall not frequent the streets after nine o’clock in summer and eight in winter.

The Story of America’s First Horseless Carriage

Mr. Elwood Haynes tells an interesting story of his first “horseless carriage:”

In 1890 I became interested in the natural gas field at Greentown, Ind. My work took me through the country a great deal, and I drove a horse, of course. The great trouble with the horse was his lack of endurance, and this became more apparent day after day.

One afternoon, or night, rather, while driving home after a hard day’s work, I thought to myself that it would be a fine thing if I didn’t have to depend on the horse for locomotion. From then on my mind dwelt a great deal upon the subject of a self-propelled vehicle that could be used on any country road or city street.

I planned to use the gasoline engine. Even the lightest engines made at that time were very heavy per unit of power, and rather crude in construction.

My work was confined to Greentown, Ind., in 1890 and 1891. In the fall of 1892 I moved to Kokomo, and the following summer I had my plans sufficiently matured to begin the actual construction of a machine. I ordered a one-horse-power marine upright, two-cycle gasoline engine from the Sintz Gas Engine Company of Grand Rapids, Mich.

This motor barely gave one brake horse-power and weighed 180 pounds. (It is interesting to note in this connection, that an aeroplane motor of the same weight readily gives forty horse-power.) Upon its arrival from Grand Rapids, in the fall of 1893, lacking a more suitable place, the motor was brought direct to my home and set up in the kitchen.

When the gasoline and battery connection were installed, the motor, after considerable cranking, was started and ran with such speed and vibration that it pulled itself from its attachments to the floor. Luckily, however, one of the battery wires was wound about the motor shaft and thus disconnected the current. In order to provide against vibration I was obliged to make the frame of the machine much heavier than I first intended.

The machine was built up in the form of a small truck. The framework in which the motor was placed consisted of a double “hollow square” of steel tubing, joined at the rear corners by steel castings and by malleable castings in front. The hind axle constituted the rear member of the frame and the front axle was swiveled at its center to the front end of the “hollow square,” in which the motor and countershaft were placed.

The total weight of the machine when completed was about 820 pounds. July 4, 1894, when ready for test, it was hauled into the country about three miles, behind a horse carriage, and started on a nearly level turnpike.

It moved off at once at a speed of about seven miles per hour, and was driven about one and one-half miles farther into the country. It was then turned about, and ran all the way into the city without making a single stop.

I was convinced upon this return trip that there was a future for the “horseless carriage,” although I did not at that time expect it to be so brilliant and imposing.

AMERICA’S FIRST CAR, BUILT BY ELWOOD HAYNES]

The Story in a Sausage[20]

Away back in the dark ages, even before the Christian era, a Chinese husbandman, so we are told, made a wonderful discovery--that pork was good to eat. No one had ever considered the possibility of eating pork, for in those days pigs were pets, and just as every family today has its dog “Rover,” so then, every family had its pig “Scraps.”