Narragansett Herald

POTENT POWER.

Electrical Wonders Exhibited at the World's Fair.

A Tireless Servant of Man Applied to Numerous Uses.

The electrical plant at the world's fair may be divided into three sections controlled by as many different companies. One company, says the Chicago Herald, has the illumination of the grounds and buildings, including Midway Plaisance; another company supplies light for the Electricity Building and also the power for the electric launches, and the third company illuminates the great Terminal Railroad station. It is in the illuminating plant that the people have the most interest, for that is constantly before them.

This plant is wholly located and operated in Machinery Hall. When every light is on and every feature of the nightly illumination is working at its best there are employed twelve 15,000 light dynamos, driven by ten 1,000 horse power compound condensing engines, conjointly with the great Allis turbine. That is to say, it takes 1,000 horse power to drive each 15,000 light dynamo. All these machines are in a group, and they form one of the grandest exhibits in Machinery Hall. To run this machinery there are employed thirty-six steam engineers, twenty dynamo engineers, ten oilers, and fourteen men on the switchboard, which is the distributing point of all this force.

The great electrical current generated by these dynamos is transmitted over huge copper wires, which are incased in leaden tubes through the lower floor of the two-story switch building, whence it is distributed to each division of the park as it may be required. Each dynamo has in the switchboard building a panel and a set of instruments, with which to measure the quantity and the pressure of the currents.

The construction of the switchboard is such that any machine may be operated at any one time, and any number of circuits or distributing lines may be placed on it, the only limit being the power of the machine to generate.

The distribution of this tremendous electrical current and its effects may justly be regarded as one of the wonders of the great exposition. In those beautiful ribbons of fire, which constitute the illuminations of the buildings in the granite basin and which all beholders so greatly admire, comprise 12,000 lamps, each one of sixteen candle power.

Many people would think that there are more than this, but when one comes to reflect, 12,000 lights are a good many. But in addition to these 12,000 illuminating or ribbon lights there are 70,000 similar lights gleaming in various portions of the grounds. One building alone, the Art Palace, has 17,000 lights, and there are many exhibitors who in their pavilions require from 200 to 300 lights. There are, all told, when everything is on at full blast, 85,000 incandescent lights being supplied by these tremendous engines.

To carry and distribute this tremendous force requires the heaviest and best insulated wire that can be manufactured and the most expert electricians that can be found for the work.

In addition to the 85,000 incandescent lamps there are distributed about the grounds of Jackson Park 500 arc lights, all supplied by the same dynamos. In addition to the electrical illuminating display there is the power which runs the intramural trains, and again, the power which runs the electric launches. The same electrical force is supposed to run the movable side-walk on the pier, but as that institution is scarcely ever in working order it does not cut much of a figure in consumption. The electrical launches are charged every morning from a big dynamo in the northern end of Machinery Hall. Each charge is good for a twelve-hour run, or, say seventy-five miles of distance.