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uous system, as first generally adopted 

 by Edison and now universally employed, 

 it was customary to have all the mains in 

 the district connected together into a 

 large network, with feeding cables going 

 to different points. Those feeders, all 

 issuing from the central station, were 

 connected to one set of mains, and all the 

 dynamos were connected in parallel to 

 those mains, all working together. There 

 was a difficulty in alternate currents work- 

 ing in parallel, and it was customary 

 not to make a single network over the 

 whole of a district, but to subdivide it 

 into small districts, each with its separate 

 feeder, and each feeder might be fed by 

 a separate machine or a number of the' 

 feeders might be grouped on to one 

 machine. At the beginning of the 

 evening's work all the feeders would be 

 upon one machine. As the consumption 

 of electricity increased, some of the 

 feeders would be passed on to another 

 machine, and so on. The author con- 

 sidered it impossible to switch the feeders 

 on to a new dynamo without making 



