[bovby] presidential ADDRESS 13 



Company is not less than that it derives irom the important part which 

 it sustains in the Xiagara installation. The speed of the ring at its 

 periphery is 9,300 feet when making 250 revolutions per minute. 



It has been found that the governor controls the speed so well that 

 even if the whole load of 5000 horse j^ower be thrown off instantly, the 

 nominal speed of 250 revolutions only increases to 300 revolutions, and 

 settles back to 252 in less than 20 seconds, the perturbation being over in 

 less than 27 seconds. The guaranteed effect of the governor was to keep 

 the speed within two per cent of the nominal speed at all times, and that 

 if one quarter load be thrown off or on, the speed should not vary more 

 than 4 per cent. In point of fact, under these conditions, with one 

 quarter load thrown off or on, there is only a little over 3 per cent 

 variation in speed. 



The switchboard equipment in the power house is unique, one of the 

 remarkable features being the Westinghouse design of main switches not 

 intended to be used except in case of great emergency, but which can be 

 oiDerated to interrupt the current of 5.000 horse power, without any 

 sparking or sensible rise in potential. The fuse blocks also have been 

 reduced to occupy small space. The bus bars for live dynamos are made 

 cylindrical, of copper tubing decreasing in size fi'om the central section, 

 adapted to the whole current of the output of five dynamos, all with 

 lateral conductors insulated by the best rubber covering. 



The transformation of the alternating current into direct current for 

 the Pittsburg Reduction Com^xiny is accomplished by machinery built by 

 the General Electric Company of the United States, which also designed 

 the machinery required by the Carborundum Company, to obtain a 

 variable potential reducing from 2200 volts to the minimum required 

 in the work. 



I have dwelt somewhat fully on the details of this great undertaking, 

 as showing the close connection which is now maintained between theory 

 and practice, each great engineering enterprise being regarded as an 

 experiment on a larger scale than would otherAvise be possible, from 

 which we may derive new principles of action. 



It is impossible to refer even briefly to the numberless purposes to 

 which electricity is now applied. The advance in electric lighting has 

 been most remarkable, and has conferred an enormous boon in giving us 

 light without much heat and without the destruction of the life-giving 

 properties of the atmosphere. It bids fair to revolutionize the heating 

 and ventilating of our dwellings and the cooking of our food. It seems 

 to do everything from ringing our bells and regulating our clocks, to 

 the exploding of submarine mines and the firing of large ordnance. I 

 cannot, however, leave the subject without a glance at the newest and 

 most remarkable application of electricity to the production of kathode 

 rays, by which photographing through opaque substances has been made 

 possibl e. 



