NIAGARA IN HARNESS 



electric current. The active ingredients of the storage 

 battery are usually lead compounds, which through 

 action of the electric currents have been decomposed and 

 placed in a state of chemical instability. The dis- 

 sociated molecule of the lead compound, when per- 

 mitted to reunite with the atoms with which it was 

 formerly associated, will give up electrical energy. 



Such a storage battery might readily be charged with 

 electricity generated at Niagara Falls. It might then 

 be conveyed to any part of the world, and, its poles 

 being connected, the charge of electricity would be 

 made available. Such storage batteries are in common 

 use in connection with electric automobiles, as we have 

 seen. But the great difficulty is that they are enormously 

 heavy in proportion to the amount of electricity that 

 they can generate; therefore, their transportation is 

 difficult and expensive. In practice it is cheaper to 

 produce electricity through the operation of a steam 

 engine in a distant city than to transmit the electricity 

 with the aid of a storage battery from Niagara. So the 

 storage battery served as little as compressed air to solve 

 the engineer's problem. 



When the electric dynamo became a commercial 

 success for such purposes as the operation of trolley 

 lines it seemed as if the Niagara problem was on the 

 verge of solution. And so, in point of fact, it really was, 

 though more time was required for it than at first 

 seemed needed. The power generated by the dynamo 

 could, indeed, be transmitted along a wire, but not 

 without great loss. Sir William Siemens, in 1877, had 

 pointed out in connection with this very subject of the 



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