2 THE DESIGN OF STATIC TRANSFORMERS 



alternating currents, with static transformers to reduce these 

 currents from the high pressure necessary for the economical 

 transmission of electrical energy to the lower pressures required 

 for the operation of incandescent lamps and for other purposes. 

 No inventions ever met with greater opposition in their com- 

 mercial development than those relating to the generation, 

 distrihution and utilisation of alternating currents." 



The zeal displayed twenty-five years ago by Mr. Westing- 

 house in the matter of the introduction and the extension of 

 systems employing alternating electricity has continued down 

 to the present day, and while, in my opinion, one result has 

 been to employ alternating electricity in a good many instances 

 where continuous electricity would have afforded the more 

 economic solution, nevertheless the engineering profession is 

 in no small measure in Mr. Westinghouse's debt for the 

 immense progress made in the last twenty-five years in the 

 use of alternating electricity and in the development of the 

 static transformer. 



It must not be concluded that America was the principal 

 scene of the early development of the static transformer. On 

 the contrary, in Dr. J. A. Fleming's "Alternate Current 

 Transformer," the first edition of which was published in 

 1889, will be found a record of work done in England on a 

 larger scale than had at that time been approached in 

 America. The volumes of the Journal of the Institution of 

 Electrical Engineers, for the years from 1888 to 1892 (Vols. 

 XVII. to XXI.), contain a number of papers which are of 

 very great interest as bearing upon developments during the 

 period when alternating electricity was first being introduced 

 on a large commercial scale. Amongst these papers may be 

 mentioned : " Alternate - current Transformers," by Kapp ; 

 " Central Station Lighting : Transformers v. Accumulators," 

 by Crompton ; " Alternate-current Working," by Mordey ; 

 " Transformer Distribution," by James Swinburne ; " On 

 some Effects of Alternating-current Flow in Circuits having 



