Part 4

It would have been thought that after the direct distribution of current to glow-lamps had taken up a determined position, it would not have been difficult to discover a self-regulating system of distribution with transformers. However, the fact shows this was not the case, for after the Edison lighting system was long known, we find such electricians as Haitzema Enuma, Gaulard, and Kennedy, experimenting with the series system of connection; indeed the last of these even deters his colleagues from the attempt to run transformers in parallel, because he openly held the opinion that this method of connection was impracticable.

We have here the development of current distribution by means of transformers, as it completed itself in Europe. The American electricians however, made the matter somewhat easier. They quietly waited until the invention gave useful results in Europe, and then simply imported it.

The field to-day belongs to the parallel method of connection, and after the installation in the alkali works at Aschersleben was destroyed by flooding, there only remains a single installation with series connection, as far as we know; this is that which was fitted up in Tivoli near Rome in the year 1886. This installation however, serves only to feed an invariable number of street-lamps, and can therefore have no claim to the designation of an installation for the distribution of electric currents by means of transformers.

LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] See also ‘Scientific American,’ 5th April, 1879, p. 212.

[2] Avernarius, Centralblatt für Elektrotechnik, vol. iii. p. 323.

[3] At that time a customary and very characteristic expression.

[4] Comptes Rendues, 1881, p. 872.

[5] The ‘Electrical Engineer,’ 17th Feb., 1888.

[6] La ‘Lumière électrique,’ vol. xvii. p. 145—148, 1885.

[7] La ‘Lumière électrique,’ vol. x. p. 496, 1883.

[8] La ‘Lumière électrique,’ vol. xiv. p. 45.

[9] ‘Electricien,’ 7th March, 1885.

[10] ‘Natura,’ 25th January, 1885, p. 60.

[11] Elektricitätsverteilung aus Centralstationen, System Zipernowsky-Déri, Centralbl. f. Elektrotechnik Bd. VII. S. 422.

[12] ‘Electrical Review,’ vol. xvii. p. 157.

[13] ‘Elektrotechnische Zeitschrift,’ September, 1885.

End of Project Gutenberg's History of the Transformer, by F. Uppenborn