A few years later, in 1878, Edison went to Wyoming with a group of astronomers14, to test his tasimeter during an eclipse of the sun, and saw the land white to harvest. He noticed the long hauls to market or elevator that the farmers had to make with their loads of grain at great expense, and conceived the idea that as ordinary steam-railroad service was too costly15, light electric railways might be constructed that could be operated automatically over simple tracks, the propelling motors being controlled at various points. Cheap to build and cheap to maintain, such roads would be a great boon16 to the newer farming regions of the West, where the highways were still of the crudest character, and where transportation was the gravest difficulty with which the settlers had to contend. The plan seems to have haunted him, and he had no sooner worked out a generator and motor that owing to their low internal resistance could be operated efficiently17, than he turned his hand to the practical trial of such a railroad, applicable to both the haulage of freight and the transportation of passengers. Early in 1880, when the tremendous rush of work involved in the invention of the incandescent lamp intermitted a little, he began the construction of a stretch of track close to the Menlo Park laboratory, and at the same time built an electric locomotive to operate over it.
This is a fitting stage at which to review briefly18 what had been done in electric traction19 up to that date. There was absolutely no art, but there had been a number of sporadic20 and very interesting experiments made. The honor of the first attempt of any kind appears to rest with this country and with Thomas Davenport, a self-trained blacksmith, of Brandon, Vermont, who made a small model of a circular electric railway and cars in 1834, and exhibited it the following year in Springfield, Boston, and other cities. Of course he depended upon batteries for current, but the fundamental idea was embodied22 of using the track for the circuit, one rail being positive and the other negative, and the motor being placed across or between them in multiple arc to receive the current. Such are also practically the methods of to-day. The little model was in good preservation23 up to the year 1900, when, being shipped to the Paris Exposition, it was lost, the steamer that carried it foundering24 in mid-ocean. The very broad patent taken out by this simple mechanic, so far ahead of his times, was the first one issued in America for an electric motor. Davenport was also the first man to apply electric power to the printing-press, in 1840. In his traction work he had a close second in Robert Davidson, of Aberdeen, Scotland, who in 1839 operated both a lathe25 and a small locomotive with the motor he had invented. His was the credit of first actually carrying passengers—two at a time, over a rough plank26 road—while it is said that his was the first motor to be tried on real tracks, those of the Edinburgh-Glasgow road, making a speed of four miles an hour.
The curse of this work and of all that succeeded it for a score of years was the necessity of depending upon chemical batteries for current, the machine usually being self-contained and hauling the batteries along with itself, as in the case of the famous Page experiments in April, 1851, when a speed of nineteen miles an hour was attained27 on the line of the Washington & Baltimore road. To this unfruitful period belonged, however, the crude idea of taking the current from a stationary28 source of power by means of an overhead contact, which has found its practical evolution in the modern ubiquitous trolley29; although the patent for this, based on his caveat30 of 1879, was granted several years later than that to Stephen D. Field, for the combination of an electric motor operated by means of a current from a stationary dynamo or source of electricity conducted through the rails. As a matter of fact, in 1856 and again in 1875, George F. Green, a jobbing machinist, of Kalamazoo, Michigan, built small cars and tracks to which current was fed from a distant battery, enough energy being utilized31 to haul one hundred pounds of freight or one passenger up and down a "road" two hundred feet long. All the work prior to the development of the dynamo as a source of current was sporadic and spasmodic, and cannot be said to have left any trace on the art, though it offered many suggestions as to operative methods.
The close of the same decade of the nineteenth century that saw the electric light brought to perfection, saw also the realization33 in practice of all the hopes of fifty years as to electric traction. Both utilizations depended upon the supply of current now cheaply obtainable from the dynamo. These arts were indeed twins, feeding at inexhaustible breasts. In 1879, at the Berlin Exhibition, the distinguished35 firm of Siemens, to whose ingenuity36 and enterprise electrical development owes so much, installed a road about one-third of a mile in length, over which the locomotive hauled a train of three small cars at a speed of about eight miles an hour, carrying some twenty persons every trip. Current was fed from a dynamo to the motor through a central third rail, the two outer rails being joined together as the negative or return circuit. Primitive37 but essentially38 successful, this little road made a profound impression on the minds of many inventors and engineers, and marked the real beginning of the great new era, which has already seen electricity applied39 to the operation of main lines of trunk railways. But it is not to be supposed that on the part of the public there was any great amount of faith then discernible; and for some years the pioneers had great difficulty, especially in this country, in raising money for their early modest experiments. Of the general conditions at this moment Frank J. Sprague says in an article in the Century Magazine of July, 1905, on the creation of the new art: "Edison was perhaps nearer the verge40 of great electric-railway possibilities than any other American. In the face of much adverse41 criticism he had developed the essentials of the low-internal-resistance dynamo with high-resistance field, and many of the essential features of multiple-arc distribution, and in 1880 he built a small road at his laboratory at Menlo Park."
On May 13th of the year named this interesting road went into operation as the result of hard and hurried work of preparation during the spring months. The first track was about a third of a mile in length, starting from the shops, following a country road, passing around a hill at the rear and curving home, in the general form of the letter "U." The rails were very light. Charles T. Hughes, who went with Edison in 1879, and was in charge of much of the work, states that they were "second" street-car rails, insulated with tar9 canvas paper and things of that sort—"asphalt." They were spiked42 down on ordinary sleepers43 laid upon the natural grade, and the gauge44 was about three feet six inches. At one point the grade dropped some sixty feet in a distance of three hundred, and the curves were of recklessly short radius45. The dynamos supplying current to the road were originally two of the standard size "Z" machines then being made at the laboratory, popularly known throughout the Edison ranks as "Longwaisted Mary Anns," and the circuits from these were carried out to the rails by underground conductors. They were not large—about twelve horse-power each—generating seventy-five amperes46 of current at one hundred and ten volts47, so that not quite twenty-five horse-power of electrical energy was available for propulsion.
The locomotive built while the roadbed was getting ready was a four-wheeled iron truck, an ordinary flat dump-car about six feet long and four feet wide, upon which was mounted a "Z" dynamo used as a motor, so that it had a capacity of about twelve horsepower. This machine was laid on its side, with the armature end coming out at the front of the locomotive, and the motive power was applied to the driving-axle by a cumbersome48 series of friction49 pulleys. Each wheel of the locomotive had a metal rim21 and a centre web of wood or papier-mache, and the current picked up by one set of wheels was carried through contact brushes and a brass50 hub to the motor; the circuit back to the track, or other rail, being closed through the other wheels in a similar manner. The motor had its field-magnet circuit in permanent connection as a shunt across the rails, protected by a crude bare copper51-wire safety-catch. A switch in the armature circuit enabled the motorman to reverse the direction of travel by reversing the current flow through the armature coils.
Things went fairly well for a time on that memorable52 Thursday afternoon, when all the laboratory force made high holiday and scrambled53 for foothold on the locomotive for a trip; but the friction gearing was not equal to the sudden strain put upon it during one run and went to pieces. Some years later, also, Daft again tried friction gear in his historical experiments on the Manhattan Elevated road, but the results were attended with no greater success. The next resort of Edison was to belts, the armature shafting54 belted to a countershaft on the locomotive frame, and the countershaft belted to a pulley on the car-axle. The lever which threw the former friction gear into adjustment was made to operate an idler pulley for tightening55 the axle-belt. When the motor was started, the armature was brought up to full revolution and then the belt was tightened56 on the car-axle, compelling motion of the locomotive. But the belts were liable to slip a great deal in the process, and the chafing57 of the belts charred58 them badly. If that did not happen, and if the belt was made taut59 suddenly, the armature burned out—which it did with disconcerting frequency. The next step was to use a number of resistance-boxes in series with the armature, so that the locomotive could start with those in circuit, and then the motorman could bring it up to speed gradually by cutting one box out after the other. To stop the locomotive, the armature circuit was opened by the main switch, stopping the flow of current, and then brakes were applied by long levers. Matters generally and the motors in particular went much better, even if the locomotive was so freely festooned with resistance-boxes all of perceptible weight and occupying much of the limited space. These details show forcibly and typically the painful steps of advance that every inventor in this new field had to make in the effort to reach not alone commercial practicability, but mechanical feasibility. It was all empirical enough; but that was the only way open even to the highest talent.
Smugglers landing laces and silks have been known to wind them around their bodies, as being less ostentatious than carrying them in a trunk. Edison thought his resistance-boxes an equally superfluous60 display, and therefore ingeniously wound some copper resistance wire around one of the legs of the motor field magnet, where it was out of the way, served as a useful extra field coil in starting up the motor, and dismissed most of the boxes back to the laboratory—a few being retained under the seat for chance emergencies. Like the boxes, this coil was in series with the armature, and subject to plugging in and out at will by the motorman. Thus equipped, the locomotive was found quite satisfactory, and long did yeoman service. It was given three cars to pull, one an open awning-car with two park benches placed back to back; one a flat freight-car, and one box-car dubbed61 the "Pullman," with which Edison illustrated62 a system of electric braking. Although work had been begun so early in the year, and the road had been operating since May, it was not until July that Edison executed any application for patents on his "electromagnetic railway engine," or his ingenious braking system. Every inventor knows how largely his fate lies in the hands of a competent and alert patent attorney, in both the preparation and the prosecution63 of his case; and Mr. Sprague is justified64 in observing in his Century article: "The paucity65 of controlling claims obtained in these early patents is remarkable66." It is notorious that Edison did not then enjoy the skilful67 aid in safeguarding his ideas that he commanded later.
The daily newspapers and technical journals lost no time in bringing the road to public attention, and the New York Herald68 of June 25th was swift to suggest that here was the locomotive that would be "most pleasing to the average New Yorker, whose head has ached with noise, whose eyes have been filled with dust, or whose clothes have been ruined with oil." A couple of days later, the Daily Graphic69 illustrated and described the road and published a sketch70 of a one-hundred-horse-power electric locomotive for the use of the Pennsylvania Railroad between Perth Amboy and Rahway. Visitors, of course, were numerous, including many curious, sceptical railroad managers, few if any of whom except Villard could see the slightest use for the new motive power. There is, perhaps, some excuse for such indifference71. No men in the world have more new inventions brought to them than railroad managers, and this was the rankest kind of novelty. It was not, indeed, until a year later, in May, 1881, that the first regular road collecting fares was put in operation—a little stretch of one and a half miles from Berlin to Lichterfelde, with one miniature motorcar. Edison was in reality doing some heavy electric-railway engineering, his apparatus72 full of ideas, suggestions, prophecies; but to the operators of long trunk lines it must have seemed utterly73 insignificant74 and "excellent fooling."
Speaking of this situation, Mr. Edison says: "One day Frank Thomson, the President of the Pennsylvania Railroad, came out to see the electric light and the electric railway in operation. The latter was then about a mile long. He rode on it. At that time I was getting out plans to make an electric locomotive of three hundred horse-power with six-foot drivers, with the idea of showing people that they could dispense75 with their steam locomotives. Mr. Thomson made the objection that it was impracticable, and that it would be impossible to supplant76 steam. His great experience and standing77 threw a wet blanket on my hopes. But I thought he might perhaps be mistaken, as there had been many such instances on record. I continued to work on the plans, and about three years later I started to build the locomotive at the works at Goerck Street, and had it about finished when I was switched off on some other work. One of the reasons why I felt the electric railway to be eminently78 practical was that Henry Villard, the President of the Northern Pacific, said that one of the greatest things that could be done would be to build right-angle feeders into the wheat-fields of Dakota and bring in the wheat to the main lines, as the farmers then had to draw it from forty to eighty miles. There was a point where it would not pay to raise it at all; and large areas of the country were thus of no value. I conceived the idea of building a very light railroad of narrow gauge, and had got all the data as to the winds on the plains, and found that it would be possible with very large windmills to supply enough power to drive those wheat trains."
Among others who visited the little road at this juncture79 were persons interested in the Manhattan Elevated system of New York, on which experiments were repeatedly tried later, but which was not destined80 to adopt a method so obviously well suited to all the conditions until after many successful demonstrations81 had been made on elevated roads elsewhere. It must be admitted that Mr. Edison was not very profoundly impressed with the desire entertained in that quarter to utilize32 any improvement, for he remarks: "When the Elevated Railroad in New York, up Sixth Avenue, was started there was a great clamor about the noise, and injunctions were threatened. The management engaged me to make a report on the cause of the noise. I constructed an instrument that would record the sound, and set out to make a preliminary report, but I found that they never intended to do anything but let the people complain."
It was upon the co-operation of Villard that Edison fell back, and an agreement was entered into between them on September 14, 1881, which provided that the latter would "build two and a half miles of electric railway at Menlo Park, equipped with three cars, two locomotives, one for freight, and one for passengers, capacity of latter sixty miles an hour. Capacity freight engine, ten tons net freight; cost of handling a ton of freight per mile per horse-power to be less than ordinary locomotive.... If experiments are successful, Villard to pay actual outlay82 in experiments, and to treat with the Light Company for the installation of at least fifty miles of electric railroad in the wheat regions." Mr. Edison is authority for the statement that Mr. Villard advanced between $35,000 and $40,000, and that the work done was very satisfactory; but it did not end at that time in any practical results, as the Northern Pacific went into the hands of a receiver, and Mr. Villard's ability to help was hopelessly crippled. The directors of the Edison Electric Light Company could not be induced to have anything to do with the electric railway, and Mr. Insull states that the money advanced was treated by Mr. Edison as a personal loan and repaid to Mr. Villard, for whom he had a high admiration83 and a strong feeling of attachment84. Mr. Insull says: "Among the financial men whose close personal friendship Edison enjoyed, I would mention Henry Villard, who, I think, had a higher appreciation of the possibilities of the Edison system than probably any other man of his time in Wall Street. He dropped out of the business at the time of the consolidation85 of the Thomson-Houston Company with the Edison General Electric Company; but from the earliest days of the business, when it was in its experimental period, when the Edison light and power system was but an idea, down to the day of his death, Henry Villard continued a strong supporter not only with his influence, but with his money. He was the first capitalist to back individually Edison's experiments in electric railways."
In speaking of his relationships with Mr. Villard at this time, Edison says: "When Villard was all broken down, and in a stupor86 caused by his disasters in connection with the Northern Pacific, Mrs. Villard sent for me to come and cheer him up. It was very difficult to rouse him from his despair and apathy87, but I talked about the electric light to him, and its development, and told him that it would help him win it all back and put him in his former position. Villard made his great rally; he made money out of the electric light; and he got back control of the Northern Pacific. Under no circumstances can a hustler be kept down. If he is only square, he is bound to get back on his feet. Villard has often been blamed and severely88 criticised, but he was not the only one to blame. His engineers had spent $20,000,000 too much in building the road, and it was not his fault if he found himself short of money, and at that time unable to raise any more."
Villard maintained his intelligent interest in electric-railway development, with regard to which Edison remarks: "At one time Mr. Villard got the idea that he would run the mountain division of the Northern Pacific Railroad by electricity. He asked me if it could be done. I said: 'Certainly, it is too easy for me to undertake; let some one else do it.' He said: 'I want you to tackle the problem,' and he insisted on it. So I got up a scheme of a third rail and shoe and erected89 it in my yard here in Orange. When I got it all ready, he had all his division engineers come on to New York, and they came over here. I showed them my plans, and the unanimous decision of the engineers was that it was absolutely and utterly impracticable. That system is on the New York Central now, and was also used on the New Haven90 road in its first work with electricity."
At this point it may be well to cite some other statements of Edison as to kindred work, with which he has not usually been associated in the public mind. "In the same manner I had worked out for the Manhattan Elevated Railroad a system of electric trains, and had the control of each car centred at one place—multiple control. This was afterward91 worked out and made practical by Frank Sprague. I got up a slot contact for street railways, and have a patent on it—a sliding contact in a slot. Edward Lauterbach was connected with the Third Avenue Railroad in New York—as counsel—and I told him he was making a horrible mistake putting in the cable. I told him to let the cable stand still and send electricity through it, and he would not have to move hundreds of tons of metal all the time. He would rue92 the day when he put the cable in." It cannot be denied that the prophecy was fulfilled, for the cable was the beginning of the frightful93 financial collapse94 of the system, and was torn out in a few years to make way for the triumphant95 "trolley in the slot."
Incidental glimpses of this work are both amusing and interesting. Hughes, who was working on the experimental road with Mr. Edison, tells the following story: "Villard sent J. C. Henderson, one of his mechanical engineers, to see the road when it was in operation, and we went down one day—Edison, Henderson, and I—and went on the locomotive. Edison ran it, and just after we started there was a trestle sixty feet long and seven feet deep, and Edison put on all the power. When we went over it we must have been going forty miles an hour, and I could see the perspiration96 come out on Henderson. After we got over the trestle and started on down the track, Henderson said: 'When we go back I will walk. If there is any more of that kind of running I won't be in it myself.'" To the correspondence of Grosvenor P. Lowrey we are indebted for a similar reminiscence, under date of June 5, 1880: "Goddard and I have spent a part of the day at Menlo, and all is glorious. I have ridden at forty miles an hour on Mr. Edison's electric railway—and we ran off the track. I protested at the rate of speed over the sharp curves, designed to show the power of the engine, but Edison said they had done it often. Finally, when the last trip was to be taken, I said I did not like it, but would go along. The train jumped the track on a short curve, throwing Kruesi, who was driving the engine, with his face down in the dirt, and another man in a comical somersault through some underbrush. Edison was off in a minute, jumping and laughing, and declaring it a most beautiful accident. Kruesi got up, his face bleeding and a good deal shaken; and I shall never forget the expression of voice and face in which he said, with some foreign accent: 'Oh! yes, pairfeckly safe.' Fortunately no other hurts were suffered, and in a few minutes we had the train on the track and running again."
All this rough-and-ready dealing97 with grades and curves was not mere98 horse-play, but had a serious purpose underlying99 it, every trip having its record as to some feature of defect or improvement. One particular set of experiments relating to such work was made on behalf of visitors from South America, and were doubtless the first tests of the kind made for that continent, where now many fine electric street and interurban railway systems are in operation. Mr. Edison himself supplies the following data: "During the electric-railway experiments at Menlo Park, we had a short spur of track up one of the steep gullies. The experiment came about in this way. Bogota, the capital of Columbia, is reached on muleback—or was—from Honda on the headwaters of the Magdalena River. There were parties who wanted to know if transportation over the mule100 route could not be done by electricity. They said the grades were excessive, and it would cost too much to do it with steam locomotives, even if they could climb the grades. I said: 'Well, it can't be much more than 45 per cent.; we will try that first. If it will do that it will do anything else.' I started at 45 per cent. I got up an electric locomotive with a grip on the rail by which it went up the 45 per cent. grade. Then they said the curves were very short. I put the curves in. We started the locomotive with nobody on it, and got up to twenty miles an hour, taking those curves of very short radius; but it was weeks before we could prevent it from running off. We had to bank the tracks up to an angle of thirty degrees before we could turn the curve and stay on. These Spanish parties were perfectly101 satisfied we could put in an electric railway from Honda to Bogota successfully, and then they disappeared. I have never seen them since. As usual, I paid for the experiment."
In the spring of 1883 the Electric Railway Company of America was incorporated in the State of New York with a capital of $2,000,000 to develop the patents and inventions of Edison and Stephen D. Field, to the latter of whom the practical work of active development was confided102, and in June of the same year an exhibit was made at the Chicago Railway Exposition, which attracted attention throughout the country, and did much to stimulate103 the growing interest in electric-railway work. With the aid of Messrs. F. B. Rae, C. L. Healy, and C. O. Mailloux a track and locomotive were constructed for the company by Mr. Field and put in service in the gallery of the main exhibition building. The track curved sharply at either end on a radius of fifty-six feet, and the length was about one-third of a mile. The locomotive named "The Judge," after Justice Field, an uncle of Stephen D. Field, took current from a central rail between the two outer rails, that were the return circuit, the contact being a rubbing wire brush on each side of the "third rail," answering the same purpose as the contact shoe of later date. The locomotive weighed three tons, was twelve feet long, five feet wide, and made a speed of nine miles an hour with a trailer car for passengers. Starting on June 5th, when the exhibition closed on June 23d this tiny but typical road had operated for over 118 hours, had made over 446 miles, and had carried 26,805 passengers. After the exposition closed the outfit104 was taken during the same year to the exposition at Louisville, Kentucky, where it was also successful, carrying a large number of passengers. It deserves note that at Chicago regular railway tickets were issued to paying passengers, the first ever employed on American electric railways.
With this modest but brilliant demonstration, to which the illustrious names of Edison and Field were attached, began the outburst of excitement over electric railways, very much like the eras of speculation105 and exploitation that attended only a few years earlier the introduction of the telephone and the electric light, but with such significant results that the capitalization of electric roads in America is now over $4,000,000,000, or twice as much as that of the other two arts combined. There was a tremendous rush into the electric-railway field after 1883, and an outburst of inventive activity that has rarely, if ever, been equalled. It is remarkable that, except Siemens, no European achieved fame in this early work, while from America the ideas and appliances of Edison, Van Depoele, Sprague, Field, Daft, and Short have been carried and adopted all over the world.
Mr. Edison was consulting electrician for the Electric Railway Company, but neither a director nor an executive officer. Just what the trouble was as to the internal management of the corporation it is hard to determine a quarter of a century later; but it was equipped with all essential elements to dominate an art in which after its first efforts it remained practically supine and useless, while other interests forged ahead and reaped both the profit and the glory. Dissensions arose between the representatives of the Field and Edison interests, and in April, 1890, the Railway Company assigned its rights to the Edison patents to the Edison General Electric Company, recently formed by the consolidation of all the branches of the Edison light, power, and manufacturing industry under one management. The only patent rights remaining to the Railway Company were those under three Field patents, one of which, with controlling claims, was put in suit June, 1890, against the Jamaica & Brooklyn Road Company, a customer of the Edison General Electric Company. This was, to say the least, a curious and anomalous106 situation. Voluminous records were made by both parties to the suit, and in the spring of 1894 the case was argued before the late Judge Townsend, who wrote a long opinion dismissing the bill of complaint. [15] The student will find therein a very complete and careful study of the early electric-railway art. After this decision was rendered, the Electric Railway Company remained for several years in a moribund107 condition, and on the last day of 1896 its property was placed in the hands of a receiver. In February of 1897 the receiver sold the three Field patents to their original owner, and he in turn sold them to the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company. The Railway Company then went into voluntary dissolution, a sad example of failure to seize the opportunity at the psychological moment, and on the part of the inventor to secure any adequate return for years of effort and struggle in founding one of the great arts. Neither of these men was squelched108 by such a calamitous109 result, but if there were not something of bitterness in their feelings as they survey what has come of their work, they would not be human.
As a matter of fact, Edison retained a very lively interest in electric-railway progress long after the pregnant days at Menlo Park, one of the best evidences of which is an article in the New York Electrical Engineer of November 18, 1891, which describes some important and original experiments in the direction of adapting electrical conditions to the larger cities. The overhead trolley had by that time begun its victorious110 career, but there was intense hostility111 displayed toward it in many places because of the inevitable112 increase in the number of overhead wires, which, carrying, as they did, a current of high voltage and large quantity, were regarded as a menace to life and property. Edison has always manifested a strong objection to overhead wires in cities, and urged placing them underground; and the outcry against the overhead "deadly" trolley met with his instant sympathy. His study of the problem brought him to the development of the modern "substation," although the twists that later evolutions have given the idea have left it scarcely recognizable.
[Footnote 15: See 61 Fed. Rep. 655.]
Mr. Villard, as President of the Edison General Electric Company, requested Mr. Edison, as electrician of the company, to devise a street-railway system which should be applicable to the largest cities where the use of the trolley would not be permitted, where the slot conduit system would not be used, and where, in general, the details of construction should be reduced to the simplest form. The limits imposed practically were such as to require that the system should not cost more than a cable road to install. Edison reverted113 to his ingenious lighting114 plan of years earlier, and thus settled on a method by which current should be conveyed from the power plant at high potential to motor-generators115 placed below the ground in close proximity116 to the rails. These substations would convert the current received at a pressure of, say, one thousand volts to one of twenty volts available between rail and rail, with a corresponding increase in the volume of the current. With the utilization34 of heavy currents at low voltage it became necessary, of course, to devise apparatus which should be able to pick up with absolute certainty one thousand amperes of current at this pressure through two inches of mud, if necessary. With his wonted activity and fertility Edison set about devising such a contact, and experimented with metal wheels under all conditions of speed and track conditions. It was several months before he could convey one hundred amperes by means of such contacts, but he worked out at last a satisfactory device which was equal to the task. The next point was to secure a joint117 between contiguous rails such as would permit of the passage of several thousand amperes without introducing undue118 resistance. This was also accomplished119.
Objections were naturally made to rails out in the open on the street surface carrying large currents at a potential of twenty volts. It was said that vehicles with iron wheels passing over the tracks and spanning the two rails would short-circuit the current, "chew" themselves up, and destroy the dynamos generating the current by choking all that tremendous amount of energy back into them. Edison tackled the objection squarely and short-circuited his track with such a vehicle, but succeeded in getting only about two hundred amperes through the wheels, the low voltage and the insulating properties of the axle-grease being sufficient to account for such a result. An iron bar was also used, polished, and with a man standing on it to insure solid contact; but only one thousand amperes passed through it—i.e., the amount required by a single car, and, of course, much less than the capacity of the generators able to operate a system of several hundred cars.
Further interesting experiments showed that the expected large leakage120 of current from the rails in wet weather did not materialize. Edison found that under the worst conditions with a wet and salted track, at a potential difference of twenty volts between the two rails, the extreme loss was only two and one-half horse-power. In this respect the phenomenon followed the same rule as that to which telegraph wires are subject—namely, that the loss of insulation121 is greater in damp, murky122 weather when the insulators123 are covered with wet dust than during heavy rains when the insulators are thoroughly124 washed by the action of the water. In like manner a heavy rain-storm cleaned the tracks from the accumulations due chiefly to the droppings of the horses, which otherwise served largely to increase the conductivity. Of course, in dry weather the loss of current was practically nothing, and, under ordinary conditions, Edison held, his system was in respect to leakage and the problems of electrolytic attack of the current on adjacent pipes, etc., as fully10 insulated as the standard trolley network of the day. The cost of his system Mr. Edison placed at from $30,000 to $100,000 per mile of double track, in accordance with local conditions, and in this respect comparing very favorably with the cable systems then so much in favor for heavy traffic. All the arguments that could be urged in support of this ingenious system are tenable and logical at the present moment; but the trolley had its way except on a few lines where the conduit-and-shoe method was adopted; and in the intervening years the volume of traffic created and handled by electricity in centres of dense125 population has brought into existence the modern subway.
But down to the moment of the preparation of this biography, Edison has retained an active interest in transportation problems, and his latest work has been that of reviving the use of the storage battery for street-car purposes. At one time there were a number of storage-battery lines and cars in operation in such cities as Washington, New York, Chicago, and Boston; but the costs of operation and maintenance were found to be inordinately126 high as compared with those of the direct-supply methods, and the battery cars all disappeared. The need for them under many conditions remained, as, for example, in places in Greater New York where the overhead trolley wires are forbidden as objectionable, and where the ground is too wet or too often submerged to permit of the conduit with the slot. Some of the roads in Greater New York have been anxious to secure such cars, and, as usual, the most resourceful electrical engineer and inventor of his times has made the effort. A special experimental track has been laid at the Orange laboratory, and a car equipped with the Edison storage battery and other devices has been put under severe and extended trial there and in New York.
Menlo Park, in ruin and decay, affords no traces of the early Edison electric-railway work, but the crude little locomotive built by Charles T. Hughes was rescued from destruction, and has become the property of the Pratt Institute, of Brooklyn, to whose thousands of technical students it is a constant example and incentive127. It was loaned in 1904 to the Association of Edison Illuminating128 Companies, and by it exhibited as part of the historical Edison collection at the St. Louis Exposition.
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generator
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| n.评价；欣赏；感谢；领会，理解；价格上涨 | |
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4
motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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5
incandescent
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| adj.遇热发光的， 白炽的，感情强烈的 | |
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6
jersey
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| n.运动衫 | |
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alleged
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| a.被指控的，嫌疑的 | |
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8
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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9
tar
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| n.柏油，焦油；vt.涂或浇柏油/焦油于 | |
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10
fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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11
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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12
tremor
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| n.震动，颤动，战栗，兴奋，地震 | |
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13
demonstration
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| n.表明，示范，论证，示威 | |
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14
astronomers
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| n.天文学者，天文学家( astronomer的名词复数 ) | |
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15
costly
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| adj.昂贵的，价值高的，豪华的 | |
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16
boon
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| n.恩赐，恩物，恩惠 | |
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17
efficiently
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| adv.高效率地，有能力地 | |
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18
briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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19
traction
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| n.牵引；附着摩擦力 | |
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20
sporadic
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| adj.偶尔发生的 [反]regular；分散的 | |
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21
rim
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| n.(圆物的)边，轮缘；边界 | |
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22
embodied
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| v.表现( embody的过去式和过去分词 )；象征；包括；包含 | |
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23
preservation
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| n.保护，维护，保存，保留，保持 | |
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24
foundering
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| v.创始人( founder的现在分词 ) | |
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25
lathe
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| n.车床，陶器，镟床 | |
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26
plank
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| n.板条，木板，政策要点，政纲条目 | |
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27
attained
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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28
stationary
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| adj.固定的，静止不动的 | |
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29
trolley
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| n.手推车，台车；无轨电车；有轨电车 | |
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30
caveat
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| n.警告； 防止误解的说明 | |
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31
utilized
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| v.利用，使用( utilize的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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32
utilize
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| vt.使用，利用 | |
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33
realization
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| n.实现；认识到，深刻了解 | |
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34
utilization
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| n.利用，效用 | |
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35
distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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36
ingenuity
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| n.别出心裁；善于发明创造 | |
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37
primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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38
essentially
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| adv.本质上，实质上，基本上 | |
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39
applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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40
verge
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| n.边，边缘；v.接近，濒临 | |
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41
adverse
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| adj.不利的；有害的；敌对的，不友好的 | |
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42
spiked
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| adj.有穗的；成锥形的；有尖顶的 | |
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43
sleepers
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| n.卧铺（通常以复数形式出现）；卧车( sleeper的名词复数 )；轨枕；睡觉（呈某种状态）的人；小耳环 | |
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44
gauge
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| v.精确计量；估计；n.标准度量；计量器 | |
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45
radius
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| n.半径，半径范围；有效航程，范围，界限 | |
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46
amperes
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| n.安培( ampere的名词复数 ) | |
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47
volts
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| n.（电压单位）伏特( volt的名词复数 ) | |
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48
cumbersome
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| adj.笨重的，不便携带的 | |
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49
friction
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| n.摩擦，摩擦力 | |
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50
brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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51
copper
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| n.铜；铜币；铜器；adj.铜(制)的；(紫)铜色的 | |
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52
memorable
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| adj.值得回忆的，难忘的，特别的，显著的 | |
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53
scrambled
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| v.快速爬行( scramble的过去式和过去分词 )；攀登；争夺；（军事飞机）紧急起飞 | |
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54
shafting
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| n.轴系；制轴材料；欺骗；怠慢 | |
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55
tightening
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| 上紧，固定，紧密 | |
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56
tightened
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| 收紧( tighten的过去式和过去分词 )； （使）变紧； （使）绷紧； 加紧 | |
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57
chafing
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| n.皮肤发炎v.擦热（尤指皮肤）( chafe的现在分词 )；擦痛；发怒；惹怒 | |
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58
charred
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| v.把…烧成炭( char的过去式)；烧焦 | |
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59
taut
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| adj.拉紧的，绷紧的，紧张的 | |
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60
superfluous
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| adj.过多的，过剩的，多余的 | |
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61
dubbed
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| v.给…起绰号( dub的过去式和过去分词 )；把…称为；配音；复制 | |
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62
illustrated
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| adj. 有插图的，列举的 动词illustrate的过去式和过去分词 | |
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63
prosecution
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| n.起诉，告发，检举，执行，经营 | |
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64
justified
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| a.正当的，有理的 | |
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65
paucity
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| n.小量，缺乏 | |
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66
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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67
skilful
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| (=skillful)adj.灵巧的，熟练的 | |
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68
herald
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| vt.预示...的来临，预告，宣布，欢迎 | |
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69
graphic
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| adj.生动的，形象的，绘画的，文字的，图表的 | |
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70
sketch
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| n.草图；梗概；素描；v.素描；概述 | |
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71
indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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72
apparatus
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| n.装置，器械；器具，设备 | |
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73
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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74
insignificant
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| adj.无关紧要的，可忽略的，无意义的 | |
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75
dispense
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| vt.分配，分发；配(药)，发(药)；实施 | |
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76
supplant
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| vt.排挤；取代 | |
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77
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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78
eminently
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| adv.突出地；显著地；不寻常地 | |
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79
juncture
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| n.时刻，关键时刻，紧要关头 | |
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80
destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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81
demonstrations
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| 证明( demonstration的名词复数 )； 表明； 表达； 游行示威 | |
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82
outlay
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| n.费用，经费，支出；v.花费 | |
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83
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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84
attachment
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| n.附属物，附件；依恋；依附 | |
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85
consolidation
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| n.合并,巩固 | |
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86
stupor
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| v.昏迷；不省人事 | |
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87
apathy
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| n.漠不关心，无动于衷；冷淡 | |
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88
severely
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| adv.严格地；严厉地；非常恶劣地 | |
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89
ERECTED
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| adj. 直立的，竖立的，笔直的 vt. 使 ... 直立，建立 | |
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90
haven
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| n.安全的地方，避难所，庇护所 | |
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91
afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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92
rue
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| n.懊悔，芸香，后悔；v.后悔，悲伤，懊悔 | |
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93
frightful
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| adj.可怕的；讨厌的 | |
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94
collapse
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| vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷 | |
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95
triumphant
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| adj.胜利的，成功的；狂欢的，喜悦的 | |
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96
perspiration
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| n.汗水；出汗 | |
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97
dealing
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| n.经商方法，待人态度 | |
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98
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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99
underlying
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| adj.在下面的，含蓄的，潜在的 | |
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100
mule
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| n.骡子，杂种，执拗的人 | |
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101
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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102
confided
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| v.吐露（秘密，心事等）( confide的过去式和过去分词 )；（向某人）吐露（隐私、秘密等） | |
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103
stimulate
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| vt.刺激，使兴奋；激励，使…振奋 | |
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104
outfit
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| n.（为特殊用途的）全套装备，全套服装 | |
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105
speculation
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| n.思索，沉思；猜测；投机 | |
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106
anomalous
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| adj.反常的；不规则的 | |
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107
moribund
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| adj.即将结束的，垂死的 | |
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108
squelched
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| v.发吧唧声，发扑哧声( squelch的过去式和过去分词 )；制止；压制；遏制 | |
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109
calamitous
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| adj.灾难的，悲惨的；多灾多难；惨重 | |
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110
victorious
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| adj.胜利的，得胜的 | |
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111
hostility
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| n.敌对，敌意；抵制［pl.］交战，战争 | |
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112
inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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113
reverted
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| 恢复( revert的过去式和过去分词 )； 重提； 回到…上； 归还 | |
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114
lighting
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| n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光 | |
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115
generators
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| n.发电机，发生器( generator的名词复数 )；电力公司 | |
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116
proximity
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| n.接近，邻近 | |
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117
joint
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| adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合 | |
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118
undue
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| adj.过分的；不适当的；未到期的 | |
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119
accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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120
leakage
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| n.漏，泄漏；泄漏物；漏出量 | |
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121
insulation
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| n.隔离；绝缘；隔热 | |
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122
murky
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| adj.黑暗的，朦胧的；adv.阴暗地，混浊地；n.阴暗；昏暗 | |
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123
insulators
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| 绝缘、隔热或隔音等的物质或装置( insulator的名词复数 ) | |
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124
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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125
dense
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| a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的 | |
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126
inordinately
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| adv.无度地，非常地 | |
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127
incentive
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| n.刺激；动力；鼓励；诱因；动机 | |
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128
illuminating
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| a.富于启发性的，有助阐明的 | |
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