RAILWAYS, ELECTRIC. 



D7 f> 



selects a board of five commissioners, who ap- 

 point the teachers and have a general over- 

 sight. The schools are open to children from 

 five to sixteen years of age, but the commis- 

 sioners have power to charge a fee, if they deem 

 it proper, between the ages of seven and four- 

 teen. The estates of the Jesuits form a fund, 

 which must be increased each year by a suffi- 

 cient grant from public moneys to raise the 

 amount to $88,000. The annual grant amounts 

 to $155,394, and the total sum raised for edu- 

 cational purposes is $2,000,000. The value of 

 the buildings used for superior education in the 

 province, and the annual expenditure in con- 

 nection with them, are : 



There are in the libraries of the institutions 

 for superior education 259,318 volume. 



There are in the province 1,010 school mu- 

 nicipalities and 4,039 school -houses, with a re- 

 gistered attendance of 235,574 pupils, and an 

 average attendance of 180,370. 



RAILWAYS, ELECTRIC. So long as we were 

 confined to the direct generation of electric 

 currents from chemical action in a battery, any 

 attempt to utilize electricity in industrial oper- 

 ations involving large power would have been 

 hopeless. But the development of the mechani- 

 cal generation of electricity has rendered feasi- 

 ble the use of this agent as a motive power in a 

 great variety of cases. 



By means of the modern dynamo we can 

 convert mechanical into electric energy upon 

 the largest scale, and by reversing the process 

 we can obtain from this electrical energy 

 mechanical power. The dynamo supplies us 

 with electric currents if we rotate its armature, 

 or this will revolve if we pass electric currents 

 into it. Since the generating dynamo may be 

 at one place, and the motor which is operated 

 by the currents supplied by it at another, we 

 are not limited to using the power at or very 

 near its place of production. As the distance 

 between the two may be very considerable, and 

 the loss in conveyance small, this arrangement 

 gives us a means of transmitting and utilizing 

 power not heretofore possessed, and one which 

 can hardly fail of being of the utmost industri- 

 al importance. Among the applications of elec- 

 tricity as a motive power none promises to be 

 more important than its use in the propulsion 

 of railway-cars. Aside from the advantages 

 due to the absence of smoke and cinders, this 

 mode of propulsion possesses distinct advan- 

 tages on the score of economy and greater 

 safety. With the present system of railway- 

 travel a number of cars linked together are 

 drawn by a locomotive which must be heavy 

 to obtain sufficient adhesion to the rails to 

 move its load. In consequence of this great 

 weight of the motor, the whole equipment of 

 the road rails, road-bed, bridges etc. must 

 be of great strength. In the case of electric 

 propulsion it is not necessary to have any- 

 thing corresponding to a locomotive; each 

 car can be provided with its own electro- 

 motor, and all of these can be operated togeth- 

 er from a cab at the head of the train with the 

 same ease with which continuous brakes are 



now manipulated. All the wheels of a train 

 can thus be utilized as drivers, and hence great 

 weight is not necessary to give sufficient adhe- 

 sion. The permanent way can therefore be 

 much lighter, and consequently less costly, 

 while the wear and tear would be greatly re- 

 duced. On account of the diminished weight 

 of trains a collision would be a much less seri- 

 ous matter than at present. We may not only 

 obtain with the electric railway lessened dam- 

 age in case of collision, but we can by a prop- 

 er construction, as we shall see further on, ren- 

 der collision impossible. 



Electricity may be applied to the propulsion 

 of cars in two quite different ways. In one 

 case the current is supplied to the electro- 

 motors from storage- batteries carried by the 

 cars. This method requires no change in the 

 ordinary road-bed, and would not necessarily 

 introduce new methods of operating railways. 

 It is particularly well adapted to the operation 

 of cars in the streets of cities, but its adoption 

 is hardly feasible to-day, as the storage-battery 

 upon which it depends has not yet reached a 

 sufficiently perfect condition to make it eco- 

 nomical. In the second case the current is sup- 

 plied to the motors on moving trains from sta- 

 tions along the line of the road through prop- 

 erly placed conductors. This method requires 

 a construction of the road throughout with 

 reference to the electrical conditions which 

 properly constitute it an electric railway. 

 Several different forms of the electrical rail- 

 way are possible, depending upon the method 

 by which the current is conducted to the 

 motors. By one method the two rails are used 

 as conductors, the current going out by one 

 rail and returning by the other. It passes to 

 the electro-motors through the wheels of the 

 train, those on opposite sides being insulated 

 from each other. The chief difficulty with 

 this construction is that of insulating the out- 

 going rail perfectly enough to avoid a large 

 loss by leakage. It is impracticable in cities, 

 on account of the danger arising from touch- 

 ing both rails at once, and thereby diverting a 

 portion of the current through the person or 



