 CHAPTER 16 THE FIRST EDISON CENTRAL STATION A noted inventor once said at the end of a lifetime of fighting to defend his rights that he found there were three stages in all great inventions, the first in which people said the thing could not be done, the second in which they said anybody could do it, and the third in which they said it had always been done by everybody. In his central station work Edison has had very much this kind of experience, for while many of his opponents came to acknowledge the novelty and utility of his plans and gave him unstinted praise, there are doubtless others who to this day profess to look upon him merely as an adapter. How different the view of so eminent a scientist as Lord Kelvin was may be appreciated from his remark when in later years in reply to the question why someone else did not invent so obvious and simple a thing as the feeder system, he said, the only answer I can think of is that no one else was Edison. Undaunted by the attitude of doubt and the predictions of impossibility Edison had pushed on until he was now able to realize all his ideas as to the establishment of a central station in the work that culminated in New York City in 1882. After he had conceived the broad plan his ambition was to create the initial plant on Manhattan Island where it would be convenient of access for watching its operation and where the demonstration of its practability would have influence in financial circles. The first intention was to cover a district extending from Canal Street on the north to Wall Street on the south. But Edison soon realized that this territory was too extensive for the initial experiment and he decided finally upon the district included between Wall, Nassau, Spruce and Ferry Streets, Peck Slip and the East River, an area nearly a square mile in extent. One of the preliminary steps taken to enable him to figure on such a station and system was to have men go through this district on various days and note the number of gas jets burning at each hour up to two or three o'clock in the morning. The next step was to divide the region into a number of sub-districts and institute a house-to-house canvas to ascertain precisely the data and conditions pertinent to the project. When the canvas was over Edison knew exactly how many gas jets there were in every building in the entire district, the average hours of burning and the cost of light. Also every consumer of power and the quantity used, every hoist away which an electric motor could be applied and other details too numerous to mention such as related to the gas itself, the satisfaction of the customers and the limitations of day and night demand. All this information was embodied graphically in large maps of the district by annotations in colored inks and Edison thus could study the question with every detail before him. Such reconnaissance like that of a coming field of battle was invaluable and may help give a further idea of the man's inveterate care for the minutiae of things. The laboratory notebooks of this period, 1878 through 1880 more particularly, show an immense amount of calculation by Edison and his chief mathematician Mr. Upton on conductors for the distribution of current over large areas and then later in the district described. With the results of this canvas before them, the sizes of the main conductors to be laid throughout the street of this entire territory were figured block by block and the results were then placed on the map. These data revealed the fact that the quantity of copper required for the main conductors would be exceedingly large and costly and if ever Edison was somewhat dismayed, but as usual this apparently insurmountable difficulty only spurred him on to further effort. It was but a short time thereafter that he solved the naughty problem by an invention mentioned in a previous chapter. This is known as the feeder and main system for which he signed the application for a patent on August 4th, 1880. As this invention affected a saving of seven-eighths of the cost of the chief conductors in a straight multiple arc system, the mains for the first district were refigured and enormous new maps were made which became the final basis of the actual installation as they were subsequently enlarged by the addition of every proposed junction box, bridge safety catch box and street intersection box in the whole area. When this patent, after protracted fighting, was sustained by Judge Green in 1893, the electrical engineer remarked that the General Electric Company must certainly feel elated because of its importance. And the journal expressed its fear that although the specifications and claims related only to the maintenance of uniform pressure of current on lighting circuits, the owners might naturally seek to apply it also to feeders used in the electric railway work already so extensive. At this time, however, the patent had only about a year of life left owing to the expiration of the corresponding English patent. The fact that 13 years had elapsed gives a vivid idea of the ordeal involved in sustaining a patent and the injustice to the inventor, while there is obviously hardship to those who cannot tell from any decision of the court whether they are infringing or not. It is interesting to note that the preparation for hearing this case in New Jersey was accompanied by models to show the court exactly the method and its economy as worked out in comparison with what is known as the tree system of circuits, the older alternative way of doing it. As a basis of comparison, a district of 36 city blocks in the form of a square was assumed. The power station was placed at the center of the square. Each block had 16 consumers using 15 lights each. Conductors were run from the station to supply each of the four quarters of the district with light. In one example, the feeder system was used, in the other, the tree. With these models were shown two cubes which represented one-one-hundredth of the actual quantity of copper required for each quarter of the district by the two-wire tree system as compared with the feeder system under light conditions. The total weight of copper for the four quarter districts by the tree system was 803,250 pounds, but when the feeder system was used it was only 128,739 pounds. This was a reduction from $23.24 per lamp for copper to $3.72 per lamp. Other models emphasize this extraordinary contrast. At the time Edison was doing this work on economizing and conductors, much of the criticism against him was based on the assumed extravagant use of copper implied in the obvious tree system, and it was very naturally said that there was not enough copper in the world to supply his demands. It is true that the modern electrical arts have been a great stimulator of copper production, now taking a quarter of all made. Yet, evidently, but for such inventions as this, such arts could not have come into existence at all, or else in growing up they would have forced copper to starvation prices. 11. Footnote 11. For description of feeder patent, see appendix. It should be borne in mind that from the outset Edison had determined upon installing underground conductors as the only permanent and satisfactory method for the distribution of current from central stations and cities, and that at Menlo Park he laid out and operated such a system with about 425 lamps. The underground system was limited to the immediate vicinity of the laboratory and was somewhat crude as well as much less complicated than would be the network of over 80,000 lineal feet which he calculated to be required for the underground circuits in the first district of New York City. At Menlo Park no effort was made for permanency, no provision was needed in regard to occasional openings of the street for various purposes, no new customers were to be connected from time to time to the mains, and no repairs were within contemplation. In New York the question of permanency was of paramount importance, and the other contingencies were sure to arise as well as conditions more easy to imagine than to forestall. These problems were all attacked in a resolute, thoroughgoing manner, and one by one solved by the invention of new and unprecedented devices that were adequate for the purposes of the time, and which are embodied in the apparatus of slight modification in use up to the present day. Just what all this means it is hard for the present generation to imagine. New York and all the other great cities in 1882, and for some years thereafter were burdened and darkened by hideous masses of overhead wires carried on ugly wooden poles along all the main thoroughfares. One after another rival telegraph and telephone, stock ticker, burglar alarm, and other companies had strung their circuits without any supervision or restriction, and these wires in all conditions of saggy decay ramified and crisscrossed in every direction, often hanging broken and loose ended for months, there being no official compulsion to remove any dead wire. None of these circuits carried dangerous currents, but the introduction of the arc light brought an entirely new menace in the use of pressures that were even worse than the bully of the West, who kills on site because this kindred pearl was invisible, and might lurk anywhere. New poles were put up, and the lighting circuits on them, with but a slight installation of cotton impregnated with some weatherproof compound, straggled all over the city exposed to wind and rain and accidental contact with other wires or with the metal of buildings. So many fatalities occurred that the insulated wires used, called underwriters, because approved by the insurance bodies, became jocularly known as undertakers, and efforts were made to improve its protective qualities. Then came the overhead circuits for distributing electrical energy to motors for operating elevators, driving machinery, etc., and these, while using a lower safer potential, were proportionately larger. There were no wires underground. Morse had tried that at the very beginning of electrical application in telegraphy, and all agreed that renewals of the experiment were at once costly and foolish. At last, in cities like New York, what may be styled generically, the overhead system of wires broke down under its own weight, and various methods of underground conductors were tried, hastened in many places by the chopping down of poles and wires as the result of some accident that stirred the public indignation. One typical tragic scene was that in New York, where, within sight of the city hall, a lineman was killed at his work on the arc light pole, and his body slowly roasted before the gaze of the excited populace, which for days afterward dropped its silver and copper coin into the alms box nailed to the fatal pole for the benefit of his family. Out of all this in New York came a board of electrical control, a conduit system, and in the final analysis, the Public Service Commission, that is credited to Governor Hughes as the furthest development of utility corporation control. The road to yesterday, back to Edison and his insistence on underground wires, is a long one, but the preceding paragraph traces it, even admitting that the size and weight of his low-tension conductors necessitated putting them underground, this argues nothing against the propriety and sanity of his methods. He believed deeply and firmly in the analogy between electrical supply and that for water and gas, and pointed to the trite fact that nobody hoisted the water and gas mains into the air on stilts, and that none of the pressures were inimical to human safety. The arc lighting methods were unconsciously and unwittingly prophetic of the latter-day long-distance transmissions at high pressure that, electrically, have placed the energy of Niagara at the command of Syracuse and Utica, and have put the power of the falling waters of the Sierras at the disposal of San Francisco 200 miles away. But within city limits, overhead wires which such space-consuming potentials are as fraught with mischievous peril to the public as the dynamite stored by a nonchalant contractor in the cellar of a schoolhouse. As an offset, then, to any tendency to depreciate the intrinsic value of Edison's lighting work, let the claim be here set forth modestly and subject to interference that he was the father of underground wires in America, and by his example outlined the policy now dominant in every city of the first rank. Given the comment of a cynic, in regard to electrical development, may be accepted. Some electrical companies wanted all the air, others apparently had used for all the water. Edison only asked for the earth. The late Jacob Hess, a famous New York Republican politician, was a member of the commission appointed to put the wires underground in New York City in the 80s. He stated that when the commission was struggling with the problem and examining all kinds of devices and plans, patented and unpatented, for which fabulous sums were often asked, the body turned to Edison in its perplexity and asked for advice. Edison said, all you have to do gentlemen is to insulate your wires, draw them through the cheapest thing on earth, iron pipe, run your pipes through channels or galleries under the street, and you've got the whole thing done. This was practically the system adopted and in use to this day. What puzzled the old politician was that Edison would accept nothing for his advice. Another story may also be interpolated here as to the underground work done in New York for the first Edison station. It refers to the man higher up, although the phrase had not been coined in those days of lower public morality, that a corporation should be held up was accepted philosophically by the corporation as one of the unavoidable incidents of its business. If the corporation got back by securing some privilege without paying for it, the public was ready to condone if not a flood. Public utilities were in the making and no one in particular had a keen sense of what was right or what was wrong in the hard practical details of their development. Edison tells this illuminating story. When I was laying tubes in the streets of New York, the office received notice from the commissioner of public works to appear at his office at a certain hour. I went up there with a gentleman to see the commissioner, H. O. Townsend. On arrival he said to me, you are putting down these tubes. The Department of Public Works requires that you should have five inspectors to look after this work and that their salary shall be $5 per day, payable at the end of each week. Good morning. I went out very much crestfallen thinking I would be delayed and harassed in the work which I was anxious to finish and was doing night and day. We watched patiently for those inspectors to appear. The only appearance they made was to draw their pay Saturday afternoon. Just before Christmas in 1880, December 17th, as an item for the silk stocking of Father Nickerbocker, the Edison Electric Illuminating Company of New York was organized. In pursuance of the policy adhered to by Edison, a license was issued to it for the exclusive use of the system in that territory, Manhattan Island, in consideration of a certain sum of money and a fixed percentage of its capital and stock for the patent rights. Early in 1881 it was altogether a paper enterprise, but events moved swiftly as now rated already and on June 25th, 1881, the first jumbo prototype of the Dynamo Electric Machines to generate current at the Pearl Street station was put through its paces before being shipped to Paris to furnish new sensations to the flenure of the boulevards. A number of the Edison officers and employees assembled at Gherk Street to see this gigantic machine go into action and watched its performance with due reverence all through the night until five o'clock on Sunday morning when it respected the conventionalities by breaking a shaft and suspending further tests. After this Dynamo was shipped to France and its successors to England for the Hallborn Viaduct plant, Edison made still further improvements in design, increasing capacity and economy and then proceeded vigorously with six machines for Pearl Street. An ideal location for any central station is at the very center of the district served. It may be questioned whether it often goes there. In the New York First District the nearest property available was a double building at numbers 255 and 257 Pearl Street occupying a lot so by 100 feet. It was four stories high with a firewall dividing it into two equal parts. One of these parts was converted for the uses of the station proper and the other was used as a tube shop by the underground construction department as well as for repair shops, storage, etc. Those were the days when no one built a new office for station purposes. That would have been deemed a fantastic extravagance. One early station in New York for arc lighting was an old soapworks whose well-soaked floors did not need much additional grease to render them choice fuel for the inevitable flames. In this Pearl Street instance the building erected originally for commercial uses was quite incapable of sustaining the weight of the heavy dynamos and steam engines to be installed on the second floor. So the old flooring was torn out and new one of heavy girders supported by stiff columns was substituted. This heavy construction, more familiar nowadays and not unlike the supporting metal structure of the Manhattan Elevated Road, was erected independent of the enclosing walls and occupied the full width of 257 Pearl Street and about three quarters of its depth. This change in the internal arrangements did not at all affect the ugly external appearance which did little to suggest the stately and ornate stations since put up by the New York Edison Company, the latest occupying whole city blocks. Of this episode Edison gives the following account. While planning for my first New York station, Pearl Street of course, I had no real estate and from lack of experience had very little knowledge of its cost in New York. So I assumed a rather large liberal amount of it to plan my station on. It occurred to me one day that before I went too far with my plans I had better find out what real estate was worth. In my original plan I had 200 by 200 feet. I thought that by going down on a slum street near the waterfront I would get some pretty cheap property. So I picked out the worst dilapidated street there was and found I could only get two buildings each 25 feet front one 100 feet deep and the other 85 feet deep. I thought about $10,000 each would cover it but when I got the price I found that they wanted $75,000 for one and $80,000 for the other. Then I was compelled to change my plans and go upward in the air where real estate was cheap. I cleared out the building entirely to the walls and built my station of structural ironwork running it up high. Into this converted structure was put the most complete steam plant obtainable together with all the mechanical and engineering adjuncts bearing upon economical and successful operation. Being in a narrow street and a congested district the plant needed special facilities for the handling of coal and ashes as well as for ventilation and forced drought. All of these details received Mr. Edison's personal care and consideration on the spot in addition to the multitude of other affairs demanding his thought. Although not a steam or mechanical engineer his quick grasp of principles and omnivorous reading soon supplied the lack of training nor had he forgotten the practical experience picked up as a boy on the locomotives of the Grand Trunk Road. It is to be noticed as a feature of the plant in common with many of later construction that it was placed well away from the water's edge and equipped with non-condensing engines whereas the modern plant invariably seeks the bank of a river or lake for the purpose of a generous supply of water for its condensing engines or steam turbines. These are among the refinements of practice coincidental with the advance of the art. At the award of the John Fritz Gold Medal in April 1909 to Charles T. Porter for his work in advancing the knowledge of steam engineering and for improvements in engine construction Mr. Frank J. Sprig spoke of behalf of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers of the debt of electricity to the high-speed steam engine. He recalled the fact that the French exposition of 1867 Mr. Porter installed two Porter Allen engines to drive electric alternating current generators for supplying current to primitive lighthouse apparatus. While the engines were not directly coupled to the dynamos it was a curious fact that the piston speeds and number of revolutions were what is common today in isolated direct coupled plants. In the dozen years following Mr. Porter built many engines with certain common characteristics i.e. high piston speed and revolutions, solid engine bed and babbit metal bearings. But there was no electric driving until 1880 when Mr. Porter installed a high-speed engine for Edison at his laboratory in Menlo Park. Shortly after this he was invited to construct for the Edison Pearl Street station the first of a series of engines for so-called steam dynamos each independently driven by a direct coupled engine. Mr. Sprig compared the relations thus established between electricity and the high-speed engine not to those of debtor and creditor but rather to those of partners and industrial marriage one of the most important in the engineering world. Here were two machines destined to be joined together, economizing space, enhancing economy, augmenting capacity, reducing investment and increasing dividends. While rapid progress was being made in this and other directions the wheels of industry were humming merrily at the Edison tube works for over 15 miles of tube conductors were required for the district besides the boxes to connect the network at the street intersections and the hundreds of junction boxes for taking the service conductors into each of the hundreds of buildings. In addition to the immense amount of money involved this specialized industry required an enormous amount of experiment as it called for the development of an entirely new art. But with Edison's inventive fertility if ever there was a cross fertilizer of mechanical ideas it is he and with Mr. Krusey's never-failing patience and perseverance applied to experiment and evolution rapid progress was made. A franchise having been obtained from the city the work of laying the underground conductors began in the late fall of 1881 and was pushed with almost frantic energy. It is not to be supposed however that the Edison tube system had then reached a finality of perfection in the eyes of its inventor. In his correspondence with Krusey as late as 1887 we find Edison bewailing the inadequacy of the insulation of the conductors under 1200 volts pressure. As for example dear Krusey there is nothing wrong with your present compound it is splendid the whole trouble is air bubbles the hotter it is poured the greater the amount of air bubbles at 212 it can be put on rods and there is no bubble. I have a man experimenting and testing all the time until I get at the proper method of pouring and getting rid of the air bubbles it will be waste of time to experiment with other asphalt. Resin oil distills off easily it may answer but paraffin or other similar substances must be put in to prevent brittleness. One thing is certain and that is everything must be poured in layers not only the boxes but the tubes. The tube itself should have a thin coating the rope should also have a coating the rods also the whole lot rods and rope when ready for tube should have another coat and then be placed in tube and filled this will do the business. Broad and large as a continent in his ideas if ever there was a man of finical fussiness and attention to detail it is Edison. A letter of seven pages of about the same date in 1887 expatiates on the vicious troubles caused by the air bubble and remarks with fine insight into the problems of insulation and the ideas of layers of it. Thus you have three separate coatings and it is impossible an air hole in one should match the other. To a man less thorough and empirical in method than Edison it would have been sufficient to have made his plans clear to associates who are subordinates and hold them responsible for accurate results. No such vicarious treatment would suit him ready as he has always been to share the work where he could give his trust. In fact he realized as no one else did at this stage the tremendous import of this novel and comprehensive scheme for giving the world light and he would not let go even if busy to the breaking point. Though plunged in a veritable maelstrom of new and important business interests and though applying for no fewer than 89 patents in 1881 all of which were granted he's super intended on the spot all this laying of underground conductors for the first district nor did he merely stand around and give orders. Day and night he actually worked in the trenches with the laborers amid the dirt and paving stones and hurry burly of traffic helping to lay the tubes filling up junction boxes and taking part in all the infinite detail. He wanted to know for himself how things went why for some occult reason a little change was necessary what improvement could be made in the material. His hours of work were not regulated by the clock but lasted until 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 tubes lie down and sleep for a few hours rising to resume work with the first gang. There was a small bedroom on the third floor of the station available for him but going to bed meant delay and consume time. It is no wonder that such impatience such an enthusiasm drove the work forward at a headlong pace. Edison says of this period when we put down the tubes in the lower part of New York in the streets we kept the big stock of them in the cellar of the station at Pearl Street as I was on all the time I would take a nap of an hour or so in the daytime anytime and I used to sleep on those tubes in the cellar. I had two Germans who were testing there and both of them died of diphtheria caught in the cellar which was cold and damp. It never affected me. 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 $100 to $3,500 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. Part of the Russian feverish haste was due to the approach of frost which, as usual in New York, suspended operations in the earth. But the laying of conductors was resumed promptly in the spring of 1882, and meantime other work had been advanced. During the fall and winter months two more jumbo dynamos were built and sent to London after which the construction of six for New York was swiftly taken in hand. In the month of May three of these machines, each with a capacity of 1200 incandescent lamps, were delivered at Pearl Street and assembled on the second floor. On July 5, owing to the better opportunity for ceaseless toil given by a public holiday, the construction of the operative part of the station was so far completed that the first of the dynamos was operated under steam. So that three days later, the satisfactory experiment was made of throwing the flood of electrical energy into a bank of 1000 lamps on an upper floor. Other tests followed in due course. All was excitement. The field regulating apparatus and the electrical pressure indicator, first of its kind, were also tested and in turn found satisfactory. Another vital test was made at this time, namely of the strength of the iron structure itself on which the plant was erected. This was done by two structural experts, and not till he got their report as to ample factors of safety was Edison reassured as to this detail. A remark of Edison, familiar to all who have worked with him when it is reported to him that something new goes all right, and is satisfactory from all points of view is, well, boys, now let's find the bugs. And the hunt for the phylloxera begins with fiendish remorseless zest. Before starting the plant for regular commercial service, he began personally a series of practical experiments and tests to ascertain in advance what difficulties would actually arise in practice so that he could provide remedies or preventatives. He had several cuts placed in the adjoining building, and he and a few of his most strenuous assistants worked day and night, leaving the work only for hurried meals and a snatch of sleep. These crucial tests, aiming virtually to break the plant down if possible within predetermined conditions lasted several weeks. And while most valuable in the information they afforded, did not hinder anything. For meantime, customers premises throughout the district were being wired and supplied with lamps and meters. On Monday, September 4, 1882 at three o'clock PM, Edison realized the consummation of his broad and original scheme. The Pearl Street Station was officially started by admitting steam to the engine of one of the jumbos. Current was generated, turned into the network of underground conductors, and was transformed into light by the incandescent lamps that had thus far been installed. This date and event may properly be regarded as historical, for they mark the practical beginning of a new art, which in the intervening years has grown prodigiously and is still increasing by leaps and bounds. Everything worked satisfactorily in the main. There were a few mechanical and engineering annoyances that might naturally be expected to arise in a new and unprecedented enterprise, but nothing of sufficient moment to interfere with the steady and continuous supply of current to customers at all hours of the day and night. Indeed, once started, this station was operated uninterruptedly for eight years with only insignificant stoppage. It will have been noted by the reader that there was nothing to indicate rationness in starting up the station, as only one dynamo was put in operation. Within a short time, however, it was deemed desirable to supply the underground network with more current, as many additional customers had been connected, and the demand for the new light was increasing very rapidly. Although Edison had successfully operated several dynamos in multiple arc two years before, i.e., all feeding current together into the same circuits, there was not, at this early period of experience, any absolute certainty as to what particular results might occur upon the throwing of the current from two or more such massive dynamos into a great distributing system. The sequel showed the value of Edison's cautious method in starting the station by operating only a single unit at first. He decided that it would be wise to make the trial operation of a second jumble on a Sunday when business houses were closed in the district, thus obviating any danger of false impressions in the public mind in the event of any extraordinary manifestations. The circumstances attending the adding of a second dynamos are thus humorously described by Edison. My heart was in my mouth at first, but everything worked all right. Then we started another engine and threw them 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 seesaw. 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, afterwards 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. This trouble was at once attacked by Edison in his characteristic and strenuous way. The above experiment took place between three and four o'clock on a Sunday afternoon, and within a few hours he had gathered his superintendent and men of the machine works and had them at work on a shafting device that he thought would remedy the trouble. He says, of course I discovered that what had happened was that one set was running the other as a motor. I then put up a long shaft, connecting all the governors together, and thought this would certainly cure the trouble, but it didn't. The torsion of the shaft was so great that one governor still managed to get ahead of the others. Well, it was a serious state of things, and I worried over it a lot. Finally, I went down to Girk Street and got a piece of shafting in a tube in which it fitted. I twisted the shafting one way and the tube the other as far as I could, and pinned them together. In this way, by straining the whole outfit up to its elastic limit in opposite directions, the torsion was practically eliminated, and after that the governors ran together all right. Edison realized, however, that in commercial practice this was only a temporary expedient, and that a satisfactory permanence of results could only be attained with more perfect engines that could be depended upon for close and simple regulation. The engines that were made part of the first three jumbos placed in the station were the very best that could be attained at the time, and even then had been specially designed and built for the purpose. Once more, quoting Edison on this subject, about that time, when he was trying to run several dynamos in parallel in the Pearl Street station, I got hold of Gardner C. Sims, and he undertook to build an engine to run at 350 revolutions and give 175 horsepower. He went back to Providence and set to work, and brought the engine back with him to the shop. It worked only a few minutes when it busted. That man sat around that shop and slept in it for three weeks until he got his engine right and made it work the way he wanted to. When he reached this period I gave orders for the engine works to run night and day until we got enough engines, and when all was ready we started the engines. Then everything worked all right. One of these engines that Sims built ran 24 hours a day, 365 days in the year, for over a year before it stopped. 12. Footnote 12. We quote the following interesting notes of Mr. Charles L. Clark on the question of sea-sawing, or hunting, as it was afterward termed. In the Hallburn Viaduct station the difficulty of hunting was not experienced. At the time the jumbos were first operated in multiple arc, April 8, 1882. One machine was driven by a Porter Allen engine, and the other by an Armington and Sims engine, and both machines were on a solid foundation. At the station in Milan, Italy, the first jumbos operated in multiple arc were driven by Porter Allen engines, and dashpots were applied to the governors. These machines were also upon a solid foundation, and no trouble was experienced. At the Pearl Street station, however, the machines were supported upon long iron floor beams, and at the high speed of 350 revolutions per minute, considerable vertical vibration was given to the engines, and the writer is inclined to the opinion that this vibration, acting in the same direction as the action of gravitation, which was one of the two controlling forces in the operation of the Porter Allen governor, was the primary cause of the hunting. In the Armington and Sims engine, the controlling forces in the operation of the governor were the centrifugal force of revolving weights, and the opposing force of compressed springs, and neither the action of the gravitation nor the vertical vibrations of the engine could have any sensible effect upon the governor. The Pearl Street station, as this first large plant was called, made rapid and continuous growth in its output of electric current. It started, as we have said, on September 4, 1882, supplying about 400 lights to a comparatively small number of customers. Among those first supplied was the banking firm of Drexel Morgan and Company, corner of Broad and Wall Streets at the outermost limits of the system. Before the end of December of the same year, the light had so grown in favor that it was being supplied to over 240 customers whose buildings were wired for over 5,000 lamps. By this time, three more jumbos had been added to the plant. The output from this time forward increased steadily up to the spring of 1884, when the demands of the station necessitated the installation of two additional jumbos in the adjoining building, which, with the Venus improvements that had been made in the meantime, gave the station the capacity of over 11,000 lamps actually in service at any one time. During the first three months of operating the Pearl Street station, light was supplied to customers without charge. Edison had perfect confidence in his meters and also in the ultimate judgment of the public as to the superiority of the incandescent electric light as against other illuminants. He realized, however, that in the beginning of the operation of an entirely novel plant, there was ample opportunity for unexpected contingencies, although the greatest care had been exercised to make everything as perfect as possible. Mechanical defects or other unforeseen troubles in any part of the plant or underground system might arise and cause temporary stoppages of operation, thus giving grounds for uncertainty, which would create a feeling of public distrust in the permanence of the supply of light. As to the kind of mishap that was want to occur, Edison tells the following story. One afternoon after our Pearl Street station started, a policeman rushed in and told us to send an electrician at once up to the corner of Ann and Nassau streets, some trouble. Another man and I went up. We found an immense crowd of men and boys there and in the adjoining streets, a perfect jam. There was a leak in one of our junction boxes and on account of the cellars extending under the street the topsoil had become insulated. Hence, by means of this leak, powerful currents were passing through this thin layer of moist earth. When a horse went to pass over it, he would get a very severe shock. When I arrived, I saw coming along the street a ragman with a dilapidated old horse and one of the boys told him to go over to the other side of the road, which was the place where the current leaked. When the ragman heard this, he took that side at once. The moment that horse struck the electrified soil, he stood straight up in the air and then reared again. And the crowd yelled, the policeman yelled, and the horse started to run away. This continued until the crowd got so serious that the policeman had to clear it out, and we were notified to cut the current off. We got a gang of men cut the current off for several junction boxes and fixed the leak. One man who had seen it came to me the next day and wanted me to put in apparatus for him at a place where they sold horses. He said he could make a fortune with it because he could get old nags in there and make them act like thoroughbreds. So well had the work been planned and executed, however, that nothing happened to hinder the continuous working of the station and the supply of light to customers. Hence it was decided in December 1882 to begin charging a price for the service and, accordingly, Edison electrolytic meters were installed on the premises of each customer then connected. The first bill for lighting based upon the reading of one of these meters amounted to $50.40 and was collected on January 18, 1883 from the Ensoni Abras and Copper Company, 17 and 19 Cliff Street. Generally speaking, customers found that their bills compared fairly with gas bills for corresponding months where the same amount of light was used and they paid promptly and cheerfully with emphatic and comiums of the new light. During November 1883, a little over one year after the station was started, bills for lighting amounting to over $9,000 were collected. An interesting story of meter experience in the first few months of operation of the Pearl Street Station is told by one of the boys who was then in position to know the facts. Mr. J. P. Morgan, whose firm was one of the first customers, expressed to Mr. Edison some doubt as to the accuracy of the meter. The latter, firmly convinced of its correctness, suggested a strict test by having some cards printed and hung on each fixture at Mr. Morgan's place. On these cards was to be noted the number of lamps in the fixture and the time they were turned on and off each day for a month. At the end of that time, the lamp hours were to be added together by one of the clerks and figured on the basis of a definite amount per lamp hour and compared with the bill that would be rendered by the station for the corresponding period. The results of the first month's test showed an apparent overcharge by the Edison company. Mr. Morgan was exultant while Mr. Edison was still confident and suggested a continuation of the test. Another month's trial showed somewhat similar results. Mr. Edison was a little disturbed but insisted that there was a mistake somewhere. He went down to Drexel Morgan and company's office to investigate and, after looking around, asked when the office was cleaned out. He was told it was done at night by the janitor who was sent for and upon being interrogated as to what light he used, said that he turned on a central fixture containing about ten lights. It came out that he had made no record of the time these lights were in use. He was told to do so in the future and another month's test was made. On comparison with the company's bill rendered on the meter reading, the meter came within a few cents of the amount computed from the card records and Mr. Morgan was completely satisfied of the accuracy of the meter. It is a strange but not extraordinary commentary on the perversity of human nature and the lack of correct observation. To note that even after the Pearl Street station had been in actual operation 24 hours a day for nearly three months there should still remain an attitude of can't be done. That such a skepticism still obtained is evidenced by the public prince of the period. Edison's electric light system and his broad claims were freely discussed and animadverted upon at the very time he was demonstrating their successful application. To show some of the feeling at the time we reproduced the following letter which appeared November 29, 1882 to the editor of the Sun. Sir, in reading the discussions relative to the Pearl Street station of the Edison light I have noted that while it is claimed that there is scarcely any loss from leakage of current nothing is said about the loss due to the resistance of the long circuits. I am informed that this is the secret of the failure to produce with the power and position a sufficient amount of current from all the lamps that have been put up and that while six and even seven lights to the horsepower may be produced from an isolated plant the resistance of the long underground wires reduces this result in the above case to less than three lights to the horsepower thus making the cost of production greatly in excess of gas can the Edison company explain this investigator this was one of many anonymous letters that had been written to the newspapers on the subject and the following reply by the Edison company was printed December 3, 1882 to the editor of the Sun. Sir, investigator in Wednesday's Sun says that the Edison company is trouble that it's Pearl Street Station with a loss of current due to the resistance of the long circuits also that whereas Edison gets six or even seven lights to the horsepower in isolated plants the resistance of the long underground wires reduces that result in the Pearl Street Station to less than three lights to the horsepower both of these statements are false as regards lost due to resistance there is a well-known law for determining it based on Ohm's law by use of that law we knew in advance that is to say when the original plans for the station were drawn just what this loss would be precisely the same as a mechanical engineer when constructing a meal with long lines of shafting can forecast the loss of power due to friction the practical result in the Pearl Street Station has fully demonstrated the correctness of our estimate thus made in advance as regards our getting only three lights per horsepower our station has now been running three months without stopping a moment day or night and we invariably get over six lamps per horsepower or substantially the same as we do in our isolated plants we are now lighting one hundred and ninety-three buildings wired for forty four hundred lamps of which about two-thirds are in constant use and we are adding additional houses and lamps daily these figures can be verified at the office of the board of underwriters where certificates with full details permitting the use of our light are filed by their own inspector to light these lamps we run from one to three dynamos according to the lamps in use at any given time and we shall start additional dynamos as fast as we can connect more buildings neither as regards the loss due to resistance nor as regards the number of lamps per horsepower is there the slightest trouble or disappointment on the part of our company and your correspondent is entirely an error is assuming that there is let me suggest that if investigator really wishes to investigate and is competent and willing to learn the exact facts he can do so at this office where there is no mystery of concealment but on the contrary a strong desire to communicate facts to intelligent inquirers such a method of investigating must certainly be more satisfactory to one honestly seeking knowledge than that of first assuming an error as the basis of a question and then demanding an explanation yours very truly S.B. Eaton president and viewed from the standpoint of over 27 years later the wisdom and necessity of answering anonymous newspaper letters of this kind might be deemed questionable but it must be remembered that although the Pearl Street station was working successfully and Edison's comprehensive plans were abundantly vindicated the enterprise was absolutely new and only just stepping on the very threshold of commercial exploitation to enter in and possess the land required the confidence of capital and the general public hence it was necessary to maintain a constant vigilance to defeat the insidious attacks of carping critics and others who would attempt to injure the Edison system by misleading statements it will be interesting to the modern electrician to note that when this pioneer station was started and in fact for some little time afterward that there was not a single electrical instrument in the whole station not a voltmeter or an ammeter nor was there a central switch board each dynamo had its own individual control switch the feeder connections were all at the front of the building and the general voltage control apparatus was on the floor above and automatic pressure indicator had been devised and put in connection with the main circuits it consisted generally speaking of an electromagnet with relays connecting with a red and blue lamp when the electrical pressure was normal neither lamp was lighted but if the electromotive force rose above a predetermined amount by one or two volts the red lamp lighted up and the attendant at the handwheel of the field regulator inserted resistance in the field circuit whereas if the blue lamp lighted resistance was cut out until the pressure was raised to normal later on this primitive indicator was supplanted by the Bradley bridge a crude form of the Howell pressure indicators which were subsequently used for many years in the Edison stations much could be added to make a complete pictorial description of the historic Pearl Street station but it is not within the scope of this narrative to enter into diffuse technical details interesting as they may be to many persons we cannot close this chapter however without mention of the fate of the Pearl Street station which continued in successful commercial operation until January 2 1890 when it was partially destroyed by fire all the jumbos were ruined accepting number nine which is still a venerated relic in the possession of the New York Edison Company luckily the boilers were unharmed bell driven generators and engines were speedily installed and the station was again in operation in a few days the uninjured jumbo number nine again continued to perform its duty but in the words of Mr. Charles L. Clark the glory of the old Pearl Street station unique in bearing the impress of Mr. Edison's personality and as it were constructed with his own hands disappeared in the flame and smoke of that Thursday morning fire the few days interruption of the service was the only series one that has taken place in the history of the New York Edison Company from September 4 1882 to the present date the Pearl Street station was operated for some time subsequent to the fire but increasing demands in the meantime having led to the construction of other stations the mains of the first district were soon after were connected to another plant the Pearl Street station was dismantled and the building was sold in 1895 the prophetic insight into the magnitude of central station lighting that Edison had when he was still experimenting on the incandescent lamp over 30 years ago is a little less than astounding when it is so amply verified in the operations of the New York Edison Company the successor of the Edison Electric Illuminating Company of New York and many others at the end of 1909 the New York Edison Company alone was operating 28 stations and substations having a total capacity of 159,500 kilowatts connected with its lines were approximately 85,000 customers wired for 3,813,899 incandescent lamps and nearly 225,000 horsepower through industrial electric motors connected with the underground service a large quantity of electrical energy is also supplied for heating and cooking charging automobiles chemical and plating work and various other uses end of chapter 16 reading by Anthony Wilson chapter 17 of Edison his life and inventions this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Mitch Leppard Edison his life and inventions by Frank Louis Dyer and Thomas Comerford Martin chapter 17 we have now seen the Edison lighting system given a complete convincing demonstration in Paris London and New York and have noted steps taken for its introduction elsewhere on both sides of the Atlantic the Paris plant like that at the Crystal Palace was a temporary exhibit the London plant was less temporary but not permanent supplying before it was torn out no fewer than 3,000 lamps in hotels churches stores and dwellings in the vicinity of Holborn Viaduct there Messiers Johnson and Hammer put into practice many of the ideas now standard in the art and secured much useful data for the work in New York of which the story has just been told as a matter of fact the first Edison commercial station to be operated in this country was that at Appleton Wisconsin but its only serious claim to notice is that it was the initial one of the system driven by water power it went into service August 15th 1882 about three weeks before the Pearl Street station it consisted of one small Dynamo of a capacity of 280 lights of 10 CP each and was housed in an unpretentious wooden shed the Dynamo electric machine though small was robust for under all the varying speeds of water power and the vicissitudes of the plant to which it belonged it continued in active use until 1899 17 years Edison was from the first deeply impressed with the possibilities of water power and as this incident shows was prompt to see such a very early opportunity but his attention was in reality concentrated closely on the supply of great centers of population a task which he then felt might well occupy his lifetime and except in regard to furnishing isolated plants he did not pursue further the development of hydroelectric stations that was left to others and to the application of the alternating current which has enabled engineers to harness remote powers and within thoroughly economical limits transmit thousands of horsepower as much as 200 miles at pressures of 80,000 and 100,000 volts owing to his insistence on low pressure direct current for use in densely populated districts as the only safe and truly universal profitable way of delivering electrical energy to the consumers Edison has been frequently spoken of as an opponent of the alternating current this does him an injustice at the time a measure was before the Virginia legislature in 1890 to limit the permissible pressures of current so as to render it safe he said quote you want to allow high pressure wherever the conditions are such that by no possible accident could that pressure get into the houses of the consumers you want to give them all the latitude you can and quote in explaining this he added quote suppose you want to take the falls down at Richmond and want to put up a water power why if we erect a station at the falls it is a great economy to get it up to the city by digging a cheap trench and putting in an insulated cable and connecting such station with the central part of Richmond having the end of the cable come up into the station from the earth and they're connected with motors the power of the falls would be transmitted to these motors if now the motors were made to run dynamos conveying low pressure currents to the public there is no possible way whereby this high pressure current could get to the public end quote in other words Edison made the sharp fundamental distinction between high pressure alternating current for transmission and low pressure direct current for distribution and this is exactly the practice that has been adopted in all the great cities of the country today there seems no good reason for believing that it will change it might perhaps have been all together better for Edison from the financial standpoint if he had not identified himself so completely with one kind of current but that made no difference to him as it was a matter of conviction and Edison's convictions are granitic more over this controversy over the two currents alternating and direct which has become historical in the field of electricity and is something like the quote irrepressible conflict and quote we heard of years ago in national affairs illustrates another aspect of Edison's character broad as the prairies and free and thought as the winds that swept them he is idiosyncratically opposed to loose and wasteful methods to plans of empire that neglect the poor at the gate everything he has done has been aimed at the conservation of energy the contraction of space the intensification of culture Burbank and his tribe represent in the vegetable world Edison in the mechanical not only has he developed distinctly new species but he has elucidated the intensive art of getting twelve hundred dollars out of an electrical acre instead of twelve a manured market garden inside London and a ten bushel exhausted wheat farm outside Lawrence Kansas being the antipodes of productivity yet very far short of exemplifying the difference of electrical yield between an acre of territory in Edison's quote first New York district and quote and an acre in some small town Edison's lighting work furnished an excellent basis in fact the only one for the development of the alternating current now so generally employed in central station work in America and in the McGraw electrical directory of April nineteen oh nine no fewer than four thousand one hundred and sixty four stations out of five thousand seven hundred eighty reported its use when the alternating current was introduced for practical purposes it was not needed for arc lighting the circuit for which from a single dynamo would often be twenty or thirty miles in length it's current having a pressure of not less than five or six thousand volts for some years it was not found feasible to operate motors on alternating current circuits and that reason was often urged against it seriously it could not be used for electroplating or deposition nor could it charge storage batteries all of which are easily within the ability of the direct current but when it came to be a question of lighting a scattered suburb a group of dwellings on the outskirts a remote country residents or a farmhouse the alternating current in all elements save its danger was and is ideal its thin wires can be carried cheaply over vast areas and at each local point of consumption the transformer of size exactly proportion to its local task takes the high voltage transmission current and lowers its potential at a ratio of twenty or forty to one for use in distribution and consumption circuits this evolution has been quite distinct with its own inventors like gulard and Gibbs and Stanley but came subsequent to the work of supplying small dense areas of population the art thus growing from within and using each new gain as a means for further achievement nor was the effect of such great advances as those made by Edison limited to the electrical field every department of mechanics was stimulated and benefited to an extraordinary degree copper for the circuits was more highly refined than ever before to secure the best conductivity and purity was insisted on in every kind of insulation Edison was intolerant of sham and shoddy and nothing would satisfy him that could not stand cross examination by microscope test tube and galvanometer it was perhaps the steam engine on which the deepest imprint for good was made referred to already in the remarks of Mr. F. J. Sprague in the preceding chapter but best illustrated in the perfection of the modern high speed engine of the Armington and Sims type unless he could secure an engine of smoother running and more exactly govern and regulated than those available for his dynamo and lamp Edison realized that he would find it almost impossible to give a steady light he did not want his customers to count the heartbeats of the engine in the flicker of the lamp not a single engine was even within gunshot of the standard thus set up but the emergency called forth its man in Gardner C. Sims a talented draftsman and designer who had been engaged in locomotive construction and in the engineering department of the United States Navy he may be quoted as to what happened quote the deep interest financial and moral and friendly backing I received from Mr. Edison together with valuable suggestions enabled me to bring out the engine as I was quite alone in the world poor I had found a friend who knew what he wanted and explained it clearly Mr. Edison was a leader far ahead of the time he compelled the design of the successful engine end quote quote our first engine compelled the inventing and making of a suitable engine indicator to indicate it the Tabor he obtained the desired speed and load with a friction brake also regulator of speed but waited for an indicator to verify it then again there was no known way to lubricate an engine for continuous running and Mr. Edison informed me that as a marine engine started before the ship left New York and continued running until it reached its home port so an engine for his purposes must produce light at all times that was a poser for me for a five hours run was about all that had been required up to that time quote a day or two later Mr. Edison inquired quote how far is it from here to Lawrence it is a long walk isn't it end quote quote yes rather end quote he said quote of course you'll understand I meant without oil end quote to say I was deeply perplexed does not express my feelings we were at the machine works gork street I started for the oil room when about entering I saw a small funnel lying on the floor it had been stepped on and flattened I took it up and it had solved the engine oiling problem and my walk to Lawrence like a tramp actors was off the eccentric strap had a round glass oil cup with a brass base that screwed into the strap I took it off and making a sketch went to Dave Cunningham having the funnel in my hand to illustrate what I wanted made I requested him to make a sheet brass oil cup and solder it to the base I had he did so I then had a standard made to hold another oil cup so as to see and regulate the drop feed on this combination I obtained a patent which is now universally used end quote it is needless to say that in due course the engine builders of the United States developed a variety of excellent prime movers for electric light and power plants and were grateful to the art from which such a stimulus came to their industry but for many years one never saw an Edison installation without expecting to find one or more Armington and Sims high speed engines part of it though the type had gone out of existence like so many other things that are useful in their day in generation it was once a very vital part of the art and one more illustration of that intimate manner in which the advances in different fields of progress interact and cooperate Edison had installed his historic first great central station system in New York on the multiple arc system covered by his feeder and main invention which resulted in a notable saving in the cost of conductors as against a straight two wire system throughout of the tree kind he soon foresaw that still greater economy would be necessary for commercial success not alone for the larger territory opening but for the compact district of large cities being firmly convinced that there was a way out he pushed aside a massive other work and settled down to this problem with the result that on November 20th 1882 only two months after current had been set out from Pearl Street he executed an application for a patent covering what is now known as the three wire system it has been universally recognized as one of the most valuable inventions in the history of the lighting art see footnote 13 its use resulted in a saving of over 60 percent of copper in conductors figured on the most favorable basis previously known inclusive of those calculated under his own feeder and main system such economy of outlay being affected in one of the heaviest items of expense in central station construction it was now made possible to establish plants and towns where the large investment would otherwise have been quite prohibitive the invention is in universal use today alike for direct and for alternating current and as well in the equipment of large buildings as in the distribution system of the most extensive central station networks one cannot imagine the art without it footnote 13 for technical description and illustration of this invention see the appendix the strong position held by the Edison system under the strenuous competition that was already springing up was enormously improved by the introduction of the three wire system and it gave an immediate impetus to incandescent lighting desiring to put this new system into practical use promptly and receiving applications for license from all over the country Edison selected Brockton, Massachusetts and Sunbury, Pennsylvania as the two towns for the trial of these two Brockton required the larger plant but with the conductors placed underground it was the first to complete its arrangements and close its contract Mr. Henry Billard it will be remembered had married the daughter of Garrison the famous abolitionist and it was through his relationship with the Garrison family that Brockton came to have the honor of exemplifying so soon the principles of an entirely new art Sunbury however was a much smaller installation employed overhead conductors and hence was the first to cross the tape and quote it was specially suited for a trial plant also in the early days when a yield of six or eight lamps to the horsepower was considered subject for congratulation the town being situated in the coal region of Pennsylvania good coal could then be obtained there at 75 cents a ton the Sunbury generating plant consisted of an Armington and Sims engine driving two small Edison dynamos having a total capacity of about 400 lamps of 16 CP the indicating instruments were of the crudest construction consisting of two volt meters connected by quote pressure wires and quote to the center of electrical distribution one ammeter for measuring the quantity of current output was interpolated in the neutral bus or third wire return circuit to indicate when the load on the two machines was out of balance the circuits were opened and closed by means of about half a dozen roughly made plug switches see footnote 14 the quote bus bars end quote to receive the current from the dynamos were made of number 0000 copper line wire straightened out and fastened to the wooden sheathing of the station by iron staples without any presence to insulation commenting upon this Mr. W. S. Andrews detailed from the central staff says quote the interior winding of the Sunbury station including the running of two three wire feeders the entire length of the building from back to front the wiring up of the dynamos and switchboard and all the instruments together with bus bars etc in fact all labor material used in the electrical wiring installation amounted to the sum of $90 I received a rather sharp letter from the New York office expostulating for this extravagant expenditure and stating that great economy must be observed in future end quote the street conductors were of the overhead pole line construction and were installed by the construction company that had been organized by Edison to build and equip central stations a special type of street pole had been devised by him for the three wire system footnote 14 by reason of the experience gained at this station through the use of these crude plug switches Mr. Edison started a competition among a few of his assistants to devise something better the result was the invention of a quote breakdown end quote switch by Mr. W. S. Andrews which was accepted by Mr. Edison as the best of the devices suggested and was developed and used for a great many years afterward end of footnote 14 supplementing the story of Mr. Andrews is that of Lieutenant F. J. Sprague who also gives a curious glimpse of the glorious uncertainties and vicissitudes of that formative period Mr. Sprague served on the jury at the Crystal Palace exhibition with Darwin's son the present Sir Horace and after the tests were ended left the Navy and entered Edison's service at the suggestion of Mr. E. H. Johnson who was Edison's shrewd recruiting sergeant in those days quote I resigned sooner than Johnson expected and he had me on his hands meanwhile he had called upon me to make a report of the three wire system known in England as the Hopkinson both Dr. John Hopkinson and Mr. Edison being independent inventors at practically the same time I reported on that left London and landed in New York on the day of the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge in 1883 May 24th with a year's leave of absence quote I reported at the office of Mr. Edison on Fifth Avenue and told him I had seen Johnson he looked me over and said quote what did he promise you I replied quote $2,500 a year and quote he did not say much but looked at about that time Mr. Andrews and I came together on July 2nd of that year we were ordered to Sunbury and to be ready to start the station on the 4th the electrical work had to be done in 48 hours having traveled around the world I had cultivated an indifference to any special difficulties of that kind Mr. Andrews and I worked in collaboration until the night of the 3rd I think he was perhaps more appreciative that I was of the discipline of the Edison Construction Department and thought it would be well for us to wait until the morning of the 4th before we started up I said we were sent over to get going and insisted on starting up on the night of the 3rd we had an Armington and Sims engine with sight feed oiler I had never seen one and did not know how it worked with the result that we soon burned up the babbit metal in the bearings and spent a good part of the night getting them in order the next day Mr. Edison Mr. Insul and the chief engineer of the construction department appeared on the scene and wanted to know what happened they found an engine somewhat loose in the bearings and there followed remarks which would not look well in print Andrews skipped from under he obeyed orders I did not but the plant ran and it was the first three wire station in this country seen from yet another angle the worries of this early work were not merely those of the men on the quote firing line end quote Mr. Insul in speaking of this period says quote when it was found difficult to push the central station business owing to the lack of confidence in its financial success Edison decided to go into the business of promoting and constructing central station plants and he formed what was known as the Thomas A. Edison construction department which he put me in charge of the organization was crude the steam engineering talent poor and owing to the impossibility of getting any considerable capital subscribed the plants were put in as cheaply as possible I believe that this construction department was unkindly named the destruction department it served its purpose never made any money and I had the unpleasant task of presiding at its obsequies on July 4th the Sunbury plant was put into commercial operation by Edison and he remained a week studying its conditions and watching for any unforeseen difficulty that might arise nothing happened however to interfere with the successful running of the station and for 20 years thereafter the same two dynamos continued to furnish light in Sunbury they were later used as reserve machines and finally with the engine retired from service as part of the collection of Edisonia but they remain in practically as good condition as when installed in 1883 Sunbury was also provided with the first electrochemical meters used in the United States outside New York City so that it served also to accentuate electrical practice in a most vital respect namely the measurement of the electrical energy supplied to customers at this time and long after all arc lighting was done on a flat rate basis the arc lamp installed outside of customers' promises or in a circuit for public street lighting burned so many hours nightly so many nights in the month and was paid for at that rate subject to rebate for hours when the lamp might be out through accident the early arc lamps were rated to require nine to ten amp years of current at 45 volts pressure each receiving which they were estimated to give 2000 cp which was arrived at by adding together the light found at four different positions so that in reality the actual light was about 500 cp few of these data were ever actually used however and it was all more or less a matter of guesswork although the central station manager aiming to give good service would naturally see that the dynamos were so operated as to maintain as steadily as possible the normal potential and current the same loose methods applied to the early attempts to use electric motors on arc lighting circuits and contracts were made based on the size of the motor the width of the connecting belt or the amount of power the consumer thought he used never on the measurement of the electrical energy furnished him here again Edison laid the foundation of standard practice it is true that even down to the present time the flat rate is applied to a great deal of incandescent lighting each lamp being charged for individually according to its probable consumption during each month this may answer perhaps in a small place where the manager can gauge pretty closely from actual observation what each customer does but even then there are elements of risk and waste and obviously in a large city such a method would soon be likely to result in financial disaster to the plant Edison held that the electricity sold must be measured just like gas or water and he proceeded to develop a meter there was infinite skepticism around him on the subject and while other inventors were also giving the subject their thought the public took it for granted that anything so utterly intangible as electricity that could not be seen or weighed and only gave secondary evidence of itself at the exact point of use could not be brought to accurate registration the general attitude of doubt was exemplified by the incident in Mr. J.P. Morgan's office noted in the last chapter Edison however had satisfied himself that there were various ways of accomplishing the task and had determined that the current should be measured on the premises of every consumer his electrolytic meter was very successful and was of widespread use in America and in Europe until the perfection of mechanical meters by Ella Hugh Thompson and others brought that type into general acceptance hence the Edison electrolytic meter is no longer used despite its excellent qualities Houston and Kennerley in their electricity and everyday life some the matter up as follows quote the Edison chemical meter is capable of giving fair measurements of the amount of current passing by reason however of dissatisfaction caused by the inability of customers to read the indications of the meter it has in later years to a great extent been replaced by registering meters that can be read by the customer the principle employed in the Edison electrolytic meter is that which exemplifies the power of electricity to decompose a chemical substance in other words it is a deposition bath consisting of a glass cell in which two plates of chemically pure zinc are dipped into a solution of zinc sulfate when the lights or motors in the circuit are turned on and a certain definite small portion of the current is diverted to flow through the meter from the positive plate to the negative plate the latter increases in weight by receiving a deposit of metallic zinc the positive plate meantime losing in weight by the metal thus carried away from it this difference in weight is a very exact measure of the quantity of electricity or number of ampere hours that have so to speak pass through the cell and hence of the whole consumption in the circuit the amount thus due from the customer is ascertained by removing the cell washing and drying the plates and weighing them in a chemical balance associated with this simple form of apparatus were various ingenious details and refinements to secure regularity of operation freedom from inaccuracy and immunity from such tampering as would permit theft of current or damage as the freezing of the zinc sulfate solution in cold weather would check its operation Edison introduced for example into the meter an incandescent lamp and a thermostat so arranged that when the temperature fell to a certain point or rose above another point it was cut in or out and in this matter the meter would be kept from freezing the standard Edison meter practice was to remove the cells once a month to the meter room of the central station company for examination another set being substituted the meter was cheap to manufacturer and install and not at all liable to get out of order in December 1888 Mr. W. J. Janks read an interesting paper before the American Institute of Electrical Engineers on the six years of practical experience had up to that time with the meter then more generally in use than any other it appears from the paper that 23 Edison stations were then equipped with 5,187 meters which were relied upon for billing the monthly current consumption of 87,856 lamps and 350 motors of 1000 horsepower total this represented about 75% of the entire lamp capacity of the stations there was an average cost per lamp for meter operation of 22 cents a year and each meter took care of an average of 17 lamps it is worthy of note as to the propness with which the Edison stations became paying properties that four of the metered stations were earning upward of 15% of their capital stock three others between 8 and 10% eight between 5 and 8% the others having been in operation too short a time to show definite results although they also went quickly to a dividend basis reports made in the discussion at the meeting by engineers showed the simplicity and success of the meter Mr. C. L. Edgar of the Boston Edison System stated that he had 800 of the meters in service cared for by two men and three boys the latter employed in collecting the meter cells the total cost being perhaps $2,500 a year Mr. J. W. Lieb wrote from Milan, Italy that he had in use on the Edison System there 360 meters ranging from 350 ampere hours per month up to 30,000 in this connection it should be mentioned that the association of Edison illuminating companies in the same year adopted resolutions unanimously to the effect that the Edison meter was accurate and that its use was not expensive for stations above 1,000 lights and that the best financial results were invariably secured in a station selling current by meter before the same association at its meeting in September 1898 at Salt St. Marie Mr. C. S. Shepherd read a paper on the meter practice of the New York Edison Company giving data as to the large number of Edison meters in use and the transition to other types of which today the company has several on its circuits until October 1896 the New York Edison Company metered its current in consumers premises exclusively by the old style chemical meters of which there were connected on that date 8,109 it was then determined to purchase no more Mr. Shepherd went on to state the chemical meters were gradually displaced and that on September 1st, 1898 there were on the system 5,619 mechanical and 4,874 chemical the meter continued in general service during 1899 and probably up to the close of the century Mr. Andrews relates a rather humorous meter story of those early days quote the meter man at Sunbury was a firm and enthusiastic believer in the correctness of the Edison meter having personally verified its reading many times by actual comparison of lamp hours one day on making out a customer's bill his confidence received a severe shock for the meter reading showed a consumption calling for a charge of over $200 whereas he knew that the light actually used should not cost more than one quarter of that amount he weighed and re-waved the meter plates and pursued every line of investigation imaginable but all in vain he felt he was up against it and that perhaps another kind of a job would suit him better once again he went to the customer's meter to look around when a small piece of thick wire on the floor caught his eye the problem was solved he suddenly remembered that after weighing the plates he went and put them in the customer's meter but the wire attached to one of the plates was too long to go into the meter and he had cut it off he picked up the piece of wire took it to the station weighed it carefully and found that it accounted for about $150 worth of electricity which was the amount of the difference end quote Edison himself, however, is the best repertory of stories when it comes to the difficulties of that early period in connection with metering the current and charging for it he may be quoted at length as follows quote when we started the station at Pearl Street in September 1882 we were not very commercial we put many customers on but did not make out many bills we were more interested in the technical condition of the station than in the commercial part we had meters in which there were two bottles of liquid to prevent these electrolytes from freezing we had in each meter a strip of metal when it got very cold the metal would contract and close a circuit and throw a lamp into circuit inside the meter the heat from this lamp would prevent the liquid from freezing so that the meter could go on doing its duty the first cold day after starting the station people began to come in from their offices especially down in Front Street and Water Street saying the meter was on fire we received numerous telephone messages about it some had poured water on it and others said send a man right up to put it out end quote quote after the station had been running several months and was technically a success we began to look after the financial part we started to collect some bills but we found that our books were kept badly and that the person in charge who was no businessman had neglected that part of it in fact he did not know anything about the station anyway so I got the directors to permit me to hire a man to run the station this was Mr. Chinock who was then superintendent of the Metropolitan Telephone Company of New York I knew Chinock to be square and of good business ability and induced him to leave his job I made him a personal guarantee that if he would take hold of the station and put it on a commercial basis and pay five percent on six hundred thousand dollars I would give him ten thousand dollars out of my own pocket he took hold performed the feat and I paid him the ten thousand dollars I might remark in this connection that years afterward I applied to the Edison Electric Light Company asking them if they would not like to pay me this money as it was spent when I was very hard up and made the company a success and was the foundation of their present prosperity they said they were sorry that is Wall Street sorry and refused to pay it this shows what a nice genial generous lot of people they have over in Wall Street quote Chinock had a great deal of trouble getting the customers straightened out I remember one man who had a saloon on Nassau Street he had had its lights burning for two or three months it was in June and Chinock put in a bill for twenty dollars July for twenty dollars August about twenty eight dollars September about thirty five dollars July for twenty dollars August about twenty eight dollars September about thirty five dollars of course the nights were getting longer October about forty dollars November about forty five dollars then the man called Chinock up quote I want to see you about my electric bill end quote Chinock went up to see him he said quote are you the manager of this electric light plant end quote Chinock said quote I have the honor end quote quote well he said my bill has gone from twenty dollars up to twenty eight dollars thirty five dollars forty five dollars I want you to understand young fellow that my limit is sixty dollars end quote quote after Chinock had had all this trouble due to the incompetency of the previous superintendent a man came in and said to him quote did Mr. Blank have charge of the station end quote quote yes end quote quote did he know anything about running a station like this end quote Chinock said quote does he know anything about running a station like this no sir he doesn't even suspect anything end quote quote one day Chinock came to me and said quote I have a new customer end quote I said quote what is it end quote he said quote I have a fellow who's going to take two hundred and fifty lights quote I said quote what for end quote quote he had a place down here in a top law and has got two hundred and fifty barrels of rotgut whiskey he puts a light down in the barrel and lights it up and it ages the whiskey end quote I met Chinock several weeks after and said quote how's that whiskey man getting along end quote quote it's all right he's paying his bill it fixes the whiskey and takes the shutter right out of it end quote somebody went and took out a patent on this idea later quote in the second year we put the stock exchange on the circuits of the station but we're very fearful that there would be a combination of heavy demand and a dark day and that there would be an overloaded station we had an index like a steam gauge called an ampere meter to indicate the amount of current going out I was up at 65th Fifth Avenue one afternoon a sudden black cloud came up and I telephoned to Chinock and asked him about the load he said quote we are up to the muzzle and everything is running all right end quote buy and buy became so thick that we could not see across the street I telephoned again and felt something would happen but fortunately it did not I said to Chinock quote how is it now end quote quote everything is red hot and the ampere meter has made 17 revolutions end quote in 1883 no such fittings as quote fixture insulators end quote were known it was the common practice to twine the electric wires around the disused gas fixtures fasten them with tape or string and connect them to the lamp sockets screwed into attachments under the gas burners elaborated later into what was known as the quote combination fixture end quote as a result it was no uncommon thing to see bright sparks snapping between the chandelier and the lighting wires during a sharp thunderstorm a startling manifestation of this kind happened at sunberry when the vivid display drove nervous guests of the hotel out into the street and the providential storm led mr. luther steeringer to invent the quote insulating joint end quote this separated two lighting systems thoroughly went into immediate service and is universally used today returning to the more specific subject of pioneer plants of importance vatted brockton must be considered for a moment chiefly for the reason that the city was the first in the world to possess an Edison station distributing current through an underground three wire network of conductors the essentially modern contemporaneous practice standard 25 years later it was proposed to employ pole line construction with overhead wires at a party of Edison engineers drove about the town in an open brooch with a blueprint of the circuits and streets spread out on their knees to determine how much tree trimming would be necessary when they came to some heavily shaded spots the fine trees were marked quote T end quote to indicate that the work in getting through them would be tough where the trees were sparse and the foliage was thin the same cheerful band of vandals mark the spots quote E end quote to indicate that it would be easy to run the wires in those days public opinion was not so alive as now to the desirability of preserving shade trees and of enhancing the beauty of a city instead of destroying it brockton had a good deal of pride in its fine trees and a strong sentiment was very soon aroused against the mutilation proposed so thoughtlessly the investors in the enterprise were ready and anxious to meet the extra cost of putting the wires underground Edison's own wishes were all together for the use of the methods he had so carefully devised and hence that bustling home of shoe manufacture was spared this infliction of more overhead wires the station equipment at Brockton consisted at first of three dynamos one of which was so arranged as to supply both sides of the system during light loads by a breakdown switch connection this arrangement interfered with correct meter registration as the meters on one side of the system registered backward during the hours in which the combination was employed hence after supplying an all night customer whose lamps were on one side of the circuit the company might be found to owe him something substantial in the morning soon after the station went into operation this ingenious plan was changed and the third dynamo was replaced by two others the Edison construction department took entire charge of the installation of the plant and the formal opening was attended on october 1st 1883 by mr. Edison who then remained a week in ceaseless study and consultation over the conditions developed by this initial three wire underground plant some idea of the confidence inspired by the fame of Edison at this period is shown by the fact that the first theater ever lighted from a central station by incandescent lamps was designed this year and opened in 1884 at Brockton with an equipment of 300 lamps the theater was never piped for gas it was also from the Brockton central station that current was first supplied to a fire engine house another display of remarkably early belief in the trustworthiness of the service under conditions where continuity of lighting was vital the building was equipped in such a manner that the striking of the fire alarm would light every lamp in the house automatically and liberate the horses it was at this central station that lieutenant sprague began his historic work on the electric motor and here that another distinguished engineer and inventor mr. H. Ward Leonard installed the meters and became meter man in order that he might study in every intimate detail the improvements and refinements necessary in that branch of the industry the authors are indebted for these facts and some other data embodied in this book to mr. W. J. Janks who as manager of this plant here made his debut in the Edison ranks he had been connected with local telephone interests but resigned to take active charge of this plant in by being quickly the traditional Edison spirit working hard all day and sleeping in the station at night on a cut brought there for that purpose it was a time of uninterrupted watchfulness the difficulty of obtaining engineers in those days to run the high speed engines 350 revolutions per minute is well illustrated by an amusing incident in the very early history of the station a locomotive engineer had been engaged as it was supposed he would not be afraid of anything one evening there came a sudden flash of fire and a sputtering sizzling noise there had been a short circuit on the copper mains in the station the firemen hid behind the boiler and the engineer jumped out the window mr. Sprague realized the trouble quickly threw off the current and stopped the engine mr. Janks relates another humorous incident in connection with this plant quote one night i heard a knock at the office door and on opening it saw two well-dressed ladies who asked if they might be shown through i invited them in taking them first to the boiler room where i showed them the coal pile explaining that this was used to generate steam in the boiler we then went to the dynamo room where i pointed out the machines converting the steam power into electricity appearing later in the form of light in the lamps after that they were shown the meters by which the consumption of current was measured they appeared to be interested and i proceeded to enter upon a comparison of coal made into gas or burned under a boiler to be converted into electricity the ladies thanked me effusively and brought their visit to a close as they were about to go through the door one of them turned to me and said quote we have enjoyed this visit very much but there is one question we would like to ask what is it that you make here end quote the brockton station was for a long time a show plant of the edison company and had many distinguished visitors among them being professor elehu thompson who was present at the opening and sir w h priest of london the engineering methods pursued formed the basis of similar institutions in laurence massachusetts in november 1883 in fall river massachusetts in december 1883 and in new berg new york the following spring another important plant of this period deserves special attention as it was the pioneer in the lighting of large spaces by incandescent lamps the installation of 5000 lamps on the three wire system was made to illuminate the buildings at the louisville kentucky exposition in 1883 and owing to the careful surveys calculations and preparations of h m buyers be and the late luther steeringer was completed and in operation within six weeks after the placing of the order the jury of awards in presenting four medals to the edison company took occasion to pay a high compliment to the efficiency of the system it has been thought by many that the magnificent success of this plant did more to stimulate the growth of the incandescent lighting business than any other event in the history of the edison company it was literally the beginning of the electrical illumination of american expositions carried later to such splendid displays as those of the chicago world's fair in 1893 buffalo in 1901 and st louis in 1904 thus the art was set going in the united states under many difficulties but with every sign of coming triumph references already been made to the work abroad in paris and london the first permanent edison station in europe was that at malon italy for which the order was given as early as may 1882 by an enterprising syndicate less than a year later march 3rd 1883 the installation was ready and was put in operation the theater santa radiganda having been pulled down at a new central station building erected in its place probably the first edifice constructed in europe for the specific purpose of incandescent lighting here quote jumbos and quote were installed from time to time until at last there were no fewer than 10 of them and current was furnished to customers with a total of nearly 10 000 lamps connected to the mains this pioneer system was operated continuously until february 9th 1900 or for a period of about 17 years when the sturdy old machines still in excellent condition were put out of service so that a larger plant could be installed to meet the demand this new plant takes high tension polyphase current from a water power 30 or 40 miles away at paderno on the river aida flowing from the apennines but delivers low tension direct current for distribution to the regular edison three wire system throughout melan about the same time that southern europe was thus opened up to the new system south america came into line and the first edison central station there was installed at santiago chili in the summer of 1883 under the supervision of mr. w n steward this was the result of the success obtained with small isolated plants leading to the formation of an edison company it can be readily conceived that at such an extreme distance from the source of supply of apparatus the plant was subject to many peculiar difficulties from the outset of which mr. steward speaks as follows quote i made an exhibition of the jumbo in the theater at santiago and on the first evening when it was filled with the aristocracy of the city i discovered to my horror that the binding wire around the armature was slowly stripping off and going to pieces we had no means of boring out the field magnets and we cut grooves in them i think the machine is still running 1907 the station went into operation soon after with an equipment of eight edison k dynamos with certain conditions inimicable to efficiency but which had not hindered the expansion of the local system with those eight dynamos we had four belts between each engine and the dynamos the steam pressure was limited to 75 pounds per square inch we had two wire underground feeders sent without any plans or specifications for their installation the station had neither voltmeter nor ammeter the current pressure was regulated by a galvanometer we were using coal costing $12 a ton and were paid for our light in currency worth 50 cents on the dollar the only thing i can be proud of in connection with the plant is the fact that i did not design it that once in a while we made out to pay its operating expenses and that occasionally we could run it for three months without a total breakdown and quote it was not until 1885 that the first edison station in germany was established but the art was still very young and the plant represented pioneer lighting practices in the empire the station at berlin comprised five boilers and six vertical steam engines driving by belts 12 edison dynamos each of about 55 horsepower capacity a model of this station is preserved in the deutchen museum at munich in the bulletin of the berlin electricity works for may 1908 it is said with regard to the events that led up to the creation of the system as noted already at the rathenau celebration quote the year 1881 was a milestone in the history of the alemania electricity totes gesellschaft the international electrical exposition at paris was intended to place before the eyes of the civilized world the achievements of the century among the exhibits of that exposition was the edison system of incandescent lighting it became the basis of modern heavy current techniques the last phrase is italicized as being a happy and authoritative description as well as a tribute this chapter would not be complete if it failed to include some reference to a few of the early isolated plants of a historic character note has already been made of the first edison plants afloat on the janet and columbia and the first commercial plant in the new york lithographic establishment the first mill plant was placed in the woollen factory of james harrison at new berg new york about september 15 1881 a year later mr. harrison wrote with some pride quote i believe my mill was the first lighted with your electric light and therefore may be called number one besides being job number one it is a number one job and a number one light being better and cheaper than gas and absolutely safe as to fire and quote the first steam yacht lighted by incandescent lamps was james gordon benets nemuna equipped early in 1882 with a plant for 120 lamps of eight candle power which remained in use there many years afterward the first edison plant in a hotel was started in october 1881 at the blue mountain house in the aterondacks and consisted of two z-dynamos with a complement of eight and sixteen candle lamps the hotel is situated at an elevation of 3500 feet above the sea and was at that time 40 miles from the railroad the machinery was taken up in pieces on the backs of mules from the foot of the mountain the boilers were fired by wood as the economical transportation of coal was a physical impossibility for a six hour run of the plant one quarter of a quart of wood was required at a cost of 25 cents per cord the first theater in the united states to be lighted by an edison isolated plant was the bijou theater boston the installation of boilers engines dynamos wiring switches fixtures three stage regulators and 650 lamps was completed in 11 days after receipt of the order and the plant was successfully operated at the opening of the theater on december 12 1882 the first plant to be placed on the united state steamship was the one consisting of an edison z-dynamo and 128 candle lamps installed on the fish commission steamer albatross in 1883 the most interesting feature of this installation was the employment of special deep sea lamps supplied with current through a cable 940 feet in length for the purpose of alluring fish by means of the brilliancy of the lamps marine animals in the lower depths were attracted and then easily ensnared end of chapter 17 recording by mitch leppard atlanta http colon double forward slash mitch leppard dot voices dot com