Part 11

This dynamo and engine weighed twenty-seven tons, and was then, and for a long time after, the eighth wonder of the scientific world. Its arrival and installation in Paris were eagerly watched by the most famous scientists and electricians in Europe.

XVI

THE FIRST EDISON CENTRAL STATION

From the beginning of his experiments on the electric light Edison had one idea ever in mind, and that was to develop a system of lighting cities from central stations. His plan was to supply electric light and power in much the same way that gas is furnished.

He never forsook this idea for a moment. Indeed, it formed the basis of all his plans, although the scientific experts of the time predicted utter failure. While the experiments were going on at Menlo Park he had Mr. Upton and others at work making calculations and plans for city systems.

Soon after he had invented the incandescent lamp he began to take definite steps toward preparing for the first central station in the city of New York. After some consideration, he decided upon the district included between Wall, Nassau, Spruce and Ferry Streets, Peck Slip and the East River, covering nearly a square mile in extent.

He sent into this district a number of men, who visited every building, counted every gas-jet and found out how many hours per day or night they were burned.

These men also ascertained the number of business houses using power and how much they consumed. All this information was marked in colored inks on large maps, so that Edison could study the question with all the details before him.

All this work had taken several months, but, with this information to guide him, the main conductors to be laid in the streets of this district were figured, block by block, and the results were marked upon the maps. It was found, however, that the quantity of copper required for these conductors would be exceedingly large and costly, and, if ever, Edison was somewhat dismayed.

This difficulty only spurred him on to still greater effort. Before long he solved the problem by inventing the "feeder and main" system, for which he signed an application for patent on August 4, 1880.

By this invention he saved seven-eighths of the amount of copper previously required. So the main conductors were figured again, at only one-eighth the size they were before, and the results were marked upon enormous new maps which were now prepared for the actual installation.

It should be remembered that from the very start Edison had determined that his conductors should be placed underground. He knew that this was the only method for permanent and satisfactory service to the public.

Our young readers can scarcely imagine the condition of New York streets at that time. They were filled with lines of ugly wooden poles carrying great masses of telegraph, telephone, stock ticker, burglar alarm and other wires, in all conditions of sag and decay. The introduction of the arc-lamp added another series of wires which with their high potentials carried a menace to life. Edison was the first to put conductors underground, and the wisdom of so doing became so clear that a few years later laws were made compelling others to do likewise.

But to return to our story. Just before Christmas in 1880 the Edison Electric Illuminating Company of New York was organized, and a license was issued to it for the use of the Edison patents on Manhattan Island.

The work for the new station now commenced in real earnest. A double building at 255 and 257 Pearl Street was purchased, and the inside of one half was taken out and a strong steel structure was erected inside the walls.

Work on the maps and plans for the underground network of conductors was continued at Menlo Park. Mr. Edison started his factories for making dynamos, lamps, underground conductors, sockets, switches, meters, and other details. Thus, the wheels of industry were humming merrily in preparation for the installation of the system. Every detail received Edison's personal care and consideration. He had plenty of competent men, but he deemed nothing too small or insignificant for his attention in this important undertaking.

In the fall of 1881 the laying of the underground conductors was begun and pushed forward with frantic energy. Here again Edison left nothing to chance. Although he had a thousand things to occupy his mind he also superintended this work. He did not stand around and give orders, but worked with the men in the trenches day and night helping to lay tubes, filling up junction boxes, and taking part in all the infinite detail.

He would work till he felt the need of a little rest. Then he would go off to the station building in Pearl Street, throw an overcoat on a pile of iron tubes, lie down and sleep a few hours, rising to resume work with the first gang.

It is worth pausing just a moment to glance at this man taking a fitful rest on a pile of iron pipe in a dingy building. His name is on the tip of the world's tongue. Distinguished scientists from every part of Europe seek him eagerly. He has just been decorated and awarded high honors by the French government. He is the inventor of wonderful new apparatus and the exploiter of novel and successful arts. The magic of his achievements and the rumors of what is being done have caused a wild drop in gas securities and a sensational rise in his own electric-light stock from one hundred dollars to thirty-five hundred a share. Yet these things do not at all affect his slumber or his democratic simplicity, for in that, as in everything else, he is attending strictly to business, "doing the thing that is next to him."

The laying of the underground conductors was interrupted by frost in the winter of 1881, but in the following spring the work was renewed with great energy until there had been laid over eighty thousand feet. In the mean time the buildings of the district were being wired for lamps, and the machine-works had been busy on the building of three of the "Jumbo" dynamos for the station. These were larger than the great dynamo that had been sent to Paris.

These three dynamos were installed in the station, and the other parts of the system were completed. A bank of one thousand lamps was placed in one of the buildings; and in the summer a whole month was spent in making tests of the working of the system, using this bank of lamps instead of sending current out to customers' premises. Edison and his assistants made the station their home during this busy month. They even slept there on cots that he had sent to the station for this purpose.

The system tested out satisfactorily, and finally, on September 4, 1882, at three o'clock in the afternoon, the station was started by sending out current from one of the big dynamos through the conductors laid in the streets, and electric light was supplied for the first time to a number of customers in the district.

The station was now started and everything went well. New customers were added daily, and very soon it became necessary to supply more current. This called for the operation of two dynamos at one time. As this involved new problems, Edison chose a Sunday to try it, when business places would be closed. We will let him tell the story. He says: "My heart was in my mouth at first, but everything worked all right.... Then we started another engine and threw the dynamos in parallel. Of all the circuses since Adam was born, we had the worst then! One engine would stop, and the other would run up to about a thousand revolutions, and then they would see-saw. The trouble was with the governors. When the circus commenced the gang that was standing around ran out precipitately, and I guess some of them kept running for a block or two. I grabbed the throttle of one engine, and E. H. Johnson, who was the only one present to keep his wits, caught hold of the other, and we shut them off."

One of the gang that ran, but, in this case, only to the end of the room, afterward said: "At the time it was a terrifying experience, as I didn't know what was going to happen. The engines and dynamos made a horrible racket, from loud and deep groans to a hideous shriek, and the place seemed to be filled with sparks and flames of all colors. It was as if the gates of the infernal regions had been suddenly opened."

Edison attacked this problem in his strenuous way. Although it was Sunday, he sent out and gathered his men and opened the machine-works to make new appliances to overcome this trouble.

Space will not permit of telling all the methods he applied until the difficulty was entirely conquered. It was only a short time, however, before he was able to operate two or any number of dynamos all together as one, in parallel, without the least trouble.

This early station grew and prospered, and continued in successful operation for more than seven years, until January 2, 1890, when it was partially destroyed by fire. This occurrence caused a short interruption of service, but in a few days current was again supplied to customers as before, and the service has never since ceased.

Increasing demands for service soon afterward led to the construction of other stations on Manhattan Island, until at the present time the New York Edison Company (the successor to the Edison Electric Illuminating Company of New York) is operating over forty stations and sub-stations. These supply current for about 800,000 customers, wired for 17,000,000 incandescent lamps and for about 1,300,000 horse-power in electric motors.

The early success of the first central station in New York led to the formation of new companies in other cities, and the installation of many similar plants. The business has grown by leaps and bounds, until at the present time there are many thousands of central stations spread all over the United States, furnishing electric light, heat, and power, chiefly by use of the principles elaborated so many years ago by Mr. Edison.

We ought to mention that this tremendous growth has also been largely due to another invention made by him in 1882, called the "three-wire system." Its value consists in the fact that it allowed a further saving of sixty-two and one-half per cent, of copper required for conductors. This invention is in universal use all over the world.

It may be mentioned here that at the opening ceremonies of the Electrical Exposition in New York, on October 11, 1911, the leading producers and consumers of copper presented Mr. Edison with an inscribed cubic foot of that metal in recognition of the stimulus of his inventions to the industry. The inscription shows that the yearly output of copper was 377,644,000 pounds at the time of Edison's first invention in 1868, and in October, 1911, the yearly output had increased to 1,910,608,000 pounds.

XVII

EDISON'S ELECTRIC RAILWAY

It is quite likely that many of our young readers have never seen a horse-car. This is not strange, for in a little over twenty years the victorious trolley has displaced the old-time street-cars drawn by one or two horses. Indeed, a horse-car is quite a curiosity in these modern days, for such vehicles have almost entirely disappeared from the streets.

The first horse railroad in the United States was completed in 1827, and it was only seven years afterward that a small model of a circular electric railroad was made and exhibited by Thomas Davenport, of Brandon, Vermont. Other inventors also worked on electric railways later on, but they did not make much progress, because in their day there were no dynamos, and they had to use primary batteries to obtain current. This method of generating current was far too cumbersome and expensive for general use.

In 1879, after dynamos had become known, the firm of Siemens exhibited at the Berlin Exhibition a road about one-third of a mile in length, over which an electric locomotive hauled three small cars at a speed of about eight miles an hour.

This was just before Edison had developed the efficient commercial dynamo with low-resistance armature and high-resistance field, which made it possible to generate and use electric power cheaply. Thus we see that Edison was not the first to form the broad idea of a electric railway, but his dynamo and systems of distribution and regulation of current first made the idea commercially practicable.

When Edison made his trip to Wyoming with the astronomers in 1878 he noticed that the farmers had to make long hauls of their grain to the railroads or markets. He then conceived the idea of building light electric railways to perform this service.

As we have already noted, he started on his electric-light experiments, including the dynamo, when he returned from the West. He had not forgotten his scheme for an electric railway, however, for, early in 1880, after the tremendous rush on the invention of the incandescent lamp had begun to subside, he commenced the construction of a stretch of track at Menlo Park, and at the same time began to build an electric locomotive to operate over it.

The locomotive was an ordinary flat dump-car on a four-wheeled iron truck. Upon this was mounted one of his dynamos, used as a motor. It had a capacity of about twelve horse-power. Electric current was generated by two dynamos in the machine-shop, and carried to the rails by underground conductors.

The track was about a third of a mile in length, the rails being of light weight and spiked to ties laid on the ground. In this short line there were some steep grades and short curves. The locomotive pulled three cars; one a flat freight-car; one an open awning-car, and one box-car, facetiously called the "Pullman," with which Edison illustrated a system of electromagnetic braking.

On May 13, 1880, this road went into operation. All the laboratory "boys" made holiday and scrambled aboard for a trip. Things went well for a while, but presently a weakness developed and it became necessary to return the locomotive to the shop to make changes in the mechanism. And so it was for a short time afterward. Imperfections of one kind and another were disclosed as the road was operated, but Edison was equal to the occasion and overcame them, one by one. Before long he had his locomotive running regularly, hauling the three cars with freight and passengers back and forth over the full length of the track. Incidentally, the writer remembers enjoying a ride over the road one summer afternoon.

The details of the various improvements made during these months are too many and too technical to be given here. It is a fact, however, that at this time Edison was doing some heavy electric railway engineering, each improvement representing a step which advanced the art toward the perfection it has reached in these modern days.

The newspapers and technical journals lost no time in publishing accounts of this electric railroad, and once again Menlo Park received great numbers of visitors, including many railroad men, who came to see and test this new method of locomotion.

Of course, in operating this early road there were a few mishaps, fortunately none of them of a serious nature. In the correspondence of the late Grosvenor P. Lowry, a friend and legal adviser of Mr. Edison, is a letter dated June 5, 1880, giving an account of one experience. The letter reads as follows: "Goddard and I have spent a part of the day at Menlo, and all is glorious. I have ridden at forty miles an hour on Mr. Edison's electric railway--and we ran off the track. I protested at the rate of speed over the sharp curves, designed to show the power of the engine, but Edison said they had done it often. Finally, when the last trip was to be taken, I said I did not like it, but would go along. The train jumped the track on a short curve, throwing Kruesi, who was driving the engine, with his face down in the dirt, and another man in a comical somersault through some underbrush. Edison was off in a minute, jumping and laughing, and declaring it a most beautiful accident. Kruesi got up, his face bleeding, and a good deal shaken; and I shall never forget the expression of voice and face in which he said, with some foreign accent: 'Oh yes! pairfeckly safe.' Fortunately no other hurts were suffered, and in a few minutes we had the train on the track and running again."

This first electric railway was continued in operation right along through 1881. In the fall of that year Edison was requested by the late Mr. Henry Villard to build a longer road at Menlo Park, equipped with more powerful locomotives, to demonstrate the feasibility of putting electric railroads in the Western wheat country.

Work was commenced at once, and early in 1882 the road and its equipment were finished. It was three miles long, and had sidings, turn-tables, freight platform and car-house. It was much more complete and substantial than the first railroad. There were two locomotives, one for freight and the other for passenger service.

The passenger locomotive was very speedy and hauled as many as ninety persons at a time. Many thousands of passengers traveled over the road during 1882. The freight locomotive was not so speedy, but could pull heavy trains at a good speed. Taken altogether, this early electric railway made a great advance toward modern practice as its exists to-day.

There are many interesting stories of the railway period at Menlo Park. One of them, as told by the late Charles T. Hughes, who worked with Edison on the experimental roads, is as follows: "Mr. Villard sent J. C. Henderson, one of his mechanical engineers, to see the road when it was in operation, and we went down one day--Edison, Henderson, and I--and went on the locomotive. Edison ran it, and just after we started there was a trestle sixty feet long and seven feet deep, and Edison put on all the power. When we went over it we must have been going forty miles an hour, and I could see the perspiration come out on Henderson. After we got over the trestle and started on down the track Henderson said: 'When we go back I will walk. If there is any more of that kind of running I won't be in it myself.'"

The young reader, who is now living in an age in which the electric railway is regarded as a matter of course, will find it difficult to comprehend that there should ever have been any doubt on the part of engineering experts as to the practicability of electric railroads. But in the days of which we are writing such was the case, as the following remarks of Mr. Edison will show: "At one time Mr. Villard got the idea that he would run the mountain division of the Northern Pacific Railroad by electricity. He asked me if it could be done. I said: 'Certainly; it is too easy for me to undertake; let some one else do it.' He said: 'I want you to tackle the problem,' and he insisted on it. So I got up a scheme of a third rail and shoe and erected it in my yard here in Orange. When I got it all ready he had all his division engineers come on to New York, and they came over here. I showed them my plans, and the unanimous decision of the engineers was that it was absolutely and utterly impracticable. That system is on the New York Central now, and was also used on the New Haven road in its first work with electricity."

Mr. Edison knew at the time that these engineers were wrong. They were prejudiced and lacking in foresight, and had no faith in electric railroading. Indeed, these particular engineers were not by any means the only persons who could see no future for electric methods of transportation. Their doubts were shared by capitalists and others, and it was not until several years afterward that the business of electrifying street railroads was commenced in real earnest.

In the mean time, however, Edison's faith did not waver, and he continued his work on electric railways, making innumerable experiments and taking out a great many patents, including a far-sighted one covering a sliding contact in a slot. This principle and many of those covered by his earlier work are in use to-day on the street railways in large cities.

The early railroad at Menlo Park has gone to ruin and decay, but the crude locomotive built by Edison has become the property of the Pratt Institute, of Brooklyn, New York, to whose students it is a constant example and incentive.

Down to the present moment Edison has kept up an active interest in transportation problems. His latest work has been in the line of operating street-cars with his improved storage battery. During the time that this book has been in course of preparation he has given a great deal of time to this question.

Some years ago there were a number of street-cars in various cities operated by storage batteries of a class entirely different from the battery invented by Edison. We refer to storage batteries containing lead and sulphuric acid. These were found to be so costly to operate and maintain that their use was abandoned.

Mr. Edison's new nickel and iron storage battery with alkaline solution has been found by practical use to be entirely satisfactory for operating street-cars, not only at a low cost, but also with ease of operation and at a trifling expense for maintenance. Of course there have been many problems, but he has surmounted the principal difficulties, and there are now quite a number of street-cars operated by his storage battery in various cities. These cars are earning profits and their number is steadily increasing.

XVIII

GRINDING MOUNTAINS TO DUST

On walking along the sea-shore the reader may have noticed occasional streaks or patches of bluish-black sand, somewhat like gunpowder in appearance. It is carried up from the bed of the sea and deposited by the waves on the shore to a greater or lesser extent on many beaches.

If a magnet be brought near to this "black sand" the particles will be immediately attracted to it, just as iron filings would be in such a case. As a matter of fact, these particles of black sand are grains of finely divided magnetic iron in a very pure state.

Now, if we should take a piece of magnetic iron ore in the form of a rock and grind it to powder the particles of iron could be separated from the ground-up mass by drawing them out with a magnet, just as they could be drawn out of a heap of seashore sand. If all the grains of iron were thus separated and put together, or concentrated, they would be called concentrates.

During the last century a great many experimenters besides Edison attempted to perfect various cheap methods of magnetically separating iron ores, but until he took up the work on a large scale no one seems to have realized the real meaning of the tremendous problems involved.

The beginning of this work on the part of Edison was his invention in 1880 of a peculiar form of magnetic separator. It consisted of a suspended V-shaped hopper with an adjustable slit along the pointed end. A long electromagnet was placed, edgewise, a little below the hopper, and a bin with a dividing partition in the center was placed on the floor below.

Crushed ore, or sand, was placed in the hopper. If there was no magnetism this fine material would flow down in a straight line past the magnet and fill the bin on one side of the partition. If, however, the magnet were active the particles of iron would be attracted out of the line of the falling material, but their weight would carry them beyond the magnet and they would fall to the other side of the partition. Thus, the material would be separated, the grains of iron going to one side and the grains of rock or sand to the other side.

This separator, as afterward modified, was the basis of a colossal enterprise conducted by Mr. Edison, as we shall presently relate. But first let us glance at an early experiment on the Atlantic seashore in 1881, as mentioned by him. He says: