736 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



strated than anywhere else. At Redlands, California, there is a 

 plant that delivers the power at a distance of over twenty miles. At 

 Fresno, California, over two thousand horse power is transmitted 

 about thirty-five miles. A noticeable feature of this last-named in- 

 stallation is the enormous height of the water fall. The head is four- 

 teen hundred and ten feet, which is the greatest in use, commercially, 

 in any part of the world. What such a head really means can be 

 realized when we state that the pressure of the water amounts to over 

 six hundred pounds to the square inch. The distance of trans- 

 mission, thirty-five miles, is also the longest now in actual use, but 

 it is less than that of the Pioneer Electric Company of Ogden, Utah, 

 which is in process of construction. The work now under way at 

 this latter place will transmit power to Salt Lake City, a distance of 

 thirty-six miles, but it is intended to carry the line to mines thirty 

 miles beyond this point; therefore, when the whole system is com- 

 pleted, the total distance of transmission will be sixty-six miles. 



The Folsom-Sacramento power-transmission plant is one of the 

 most noteworthy of those so far installed, as it serves to show clearly 

 the great benefits derivable from the use of electricity. The power 

 station is located at Folsom, on the American River, where one of the 

 largest water powers in the State of California is available. The 

 first attempt to utilize this power was made as far back as 1866, but 

 owing to the conditions then existing was necessarily limited in its 

 capacity to the demands of the immediate vicinity. The work as 

 at first conceived embraced a dam across the river, the water to be 

 used in part for power and in part for irrigation purposes. The 

 plan was modest in its proportions, and remained so for many years; 

 but the development of electric transmission has magnified it into an 

 undertaking of vast magnitude, embracing the development and 

 transmission of over Hve thousand horse power when the full capa- 

 city is reached. The dam now used is six hundred and fifty feet 

 long and eighty-nine feet high, and has a storage capacity of about 

 thirteen million cubic yards. The water is conveyed to the water 

 wheels by canals two miles long and fifty feet wide by eight feet 

 deep. 



The power station in which the wtaer wheels and the electric 

 generators are located is so designed that the latter are connected 

 direct with the former, being mounted upon the same shafts, but 

 separated from each other by a stone wall, through which the shafts 

 pass. The electric current developed in this station is transmitted 

 to Sacramento, a distance of about twenty-five miles, and is there 

 received in a substation, the interior of which is shown on page 733. 

 The current coming into this station from the power plant is of a 

 very high pressure, entirely too high for commercial use, and there- 



