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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 some one 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 practicability
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 canvass to ascertain
precisely the data and conditions pertinent to
the project. When the canvass 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 hoistway to 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 a 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 note-books of this
period--1878- 80, 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 canvass before them, the
sizes of the main conductors to be laid
throughout the streets 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 knotty
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 4,
1880. As this invention effected 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 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 thirteen 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 thirty-six city
blocks in the form of a square was assumed. The
power station was placed at the centre of the
square; each block had sixteen consumers using
fifteen 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
like 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 emphasized this extraordinary
contrast. At the time Edison was doing this
work on economizing in 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]
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 in cities; and
that at Menlo Park he laid out and operated
such a system with about four hundred and
twenty-five lamps. The underground system
there 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 eighty thousand 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 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 sag or 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 sight," because this kindred peril
was invisible, and might lurk anywhere. New
poles were put up, and the lighting circuits on
them, with but a slight insulation of cotton
impregnated with some "weather-proof"
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 wire
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, two hundred miles away. But
within city limits overhead wires, with 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 under- ground wires in
America, and by his example outlined the policy
now dominant in every city of the first rank.
Even the comment of a cynic in regard to
electrical development may be accepted: "Some
electrical companies wanted all the air; others
apparently had use 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 "eighties." 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; and if the corporation "got
back" by securing some privilege without paying
for it, the public was ready to condone if not
applaud. 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. Thompson.
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
17--as an item for the silk stocking of
Father Knickerbocker --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 in stock for the
patent rights. Early in 1881 it was
altogether a paper enterprise, but events moved
swiftly as narrated already, and on June 25,
1881, the first "Jumbo" prototype of the
dynamo-electric machines to gen- erate current
at the Pearl Street station was put through its
paces before being shipped to Paris to furnish
new sensations to the flaneur of the boulevards.
A number of the Edison officers and employees
assembled at Goerck 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
Holborn 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 centre 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
Nos. 255 and 257 Pearl Street,
occupying a lot so by 100 feet. It was four
stories high, with a fire-wall 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 edifice for
station purposes; that would have been deemed a
fantastic extravagance. One early station in
New York for arc lighting was an old
soap-works 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 a 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 water-front
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 draught.
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 had 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. Sprague
spoke on behalf of the American Institute of
Electrical Engineers of the debt of electricity
to the high-speed steam-engine. He recalled
the fact that at 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 to-day 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
babbitt-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. Sprague
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--an 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
hum- ming merrily at the Edison Tube Works,
for over fifteen 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. Kruesi'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 Kruesi, as late as
1887, we find Edison bewailing the
inadequacy of the insulation of the conductors
under twelve hundred volts pressure, as for
example: "Dear Kruesi,--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 asphalts.
Resin oil distils off easily. It may answer,
but paraffine 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 in 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 idea 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 or
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
eighty-nine patents in 1881, all of which
were granted, he superintended 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 consumed 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 a 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-- any time--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 $3500
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 rush and feverish haste was due to
the approach of frost, which, as usual in New
York, suspended operations in the earth; but
the laying of the 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 twelve
hundred incandescent lamps, were delivered at
Pearl Street and assembled on the second
floor. On July 5th--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 its flood of
electrical energy into a bank of one thousand
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 preventives. He had several cots 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 3
o'clock, P.M., 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 rashness 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 "Jumbo" 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
dynamo 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
see-saw. The trouble was with the governors.
When the circus commenced, the gang that was
standing around ran out precipitately, and I
guess some of them kept running for a block or
two. I grabbed the throttle of one engine, and
E. H. Johnson, who was the only one present
to keep his wits, caught hold of the other, and
we shut them off." One of the "gang" that
ran, but, in this case, only to the end of the
room, afterward said: "At the time it was a
terrifying experience, as I didn't know what
was going to happen. The engines and dynamos
made a horrible racket, from loud and deep
groans to a hideous shriek, and the place seemed
to be filled with sparks and flames of all
colors. It was as if the gates of the infernal
regions had been suddenly opened."
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 Goerck Street and got a piece
of shafting and 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 "Jum- bos" placed in the
station were the very best that could be obtained
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 Gardiner C. Sims,
and he undertook to build an engine to run at
three hundred and fifty revolutions and give one
hundred and seventy-five horse-power. 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 it 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 twenty-four hours a day, three
hundred and sixty-five days in the year, for
over a year before it stopped."[12]
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 four hundred lights to
a comparatively small number of customers.
Among those first supplied was the banking firm
of Drexel, Morgan & 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 two
hundred and forty customers whose buildings were
wired for over five thousand 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 venous
improvements that had been made in the mean
time, gave the station a capacity of over eleven
thousand lamps actually in service at any one
time.
During the first three months of operating the
Pearl Street station light was supplied to
customers with- out 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 wont 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 top soil 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 on the other side of the
road--which was the place where the current
leaked. When the rag- man heard this he took
that side at once. The moment the 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 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 Ansonia Brass 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 encomiums of the new
light. During November, 1883, a little
over one year after the station was started,
bills for lighting amounting to over $9000
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 a 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 &
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 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 twenty- four hours a day for nearly
three months, there should still remain an
attitude of "can't be done." That such a
scepticism still obtained is evidenced by the
public prints 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 reproduce 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 in position a
sufficient amount of current to run all the lamps
that have been put up, and that while six, and
even seven, lights to the horse-power 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 horse-power, thus making the cost of
production greatly in excess of gas. Can the
Edison company explain this?
"INVESTIGATOR."
This was one of the 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 troubled
at its 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 horse-power 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 horse-power.' Both of these statements
are false. As regards loss 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 mill 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 horse-power, our station has now
been running three months, without stopping a
moment, day or night, and we invariably get
over six lamps per horse-power, 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 horse-power, is there the
slightest trouble or disappointment on the part
of our company, and your correspondent is
entirely in 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."
Viewed from the standpoint of over twenty-seven
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, there was not a single electrical
instrument in the whole station-- not a
voltmeter or an ammeter! Nor was there a
central switchboard! 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. An 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 a 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
hand-wheel 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,
excepting No. 9, which is still a venerated
relic in the possession of the New York Edison
Company. Luckily, the boilers were unharmed.
Belt- driven generators and engines were
speedily installed, and the station was again in
operation in a few days. The uninjured
"Jumbo," No. 9, again continued to
perform its duty. But in the words of Mr.
Charles L. Clarke, "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 serious 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 mean time having led to the
construction of other stations, the mains of the
First District were soon afterward 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 thirty 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
twenty-eight 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 horse-power 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.
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