580 
board was placed above a kind of stone cellar into which the 
high pressure leads were conducted, the pressure being 2000 
volts. By moving the levers on the switch board the current 
could be switched on and resistance gradually removed from the 
star winding in the rotor circuits, so that by the time these had 
attained their proper speed, all the additional resistance had 
been cut out. We saw the operation of starting successfully 
performed. 
A number of diagrams had been prepared to illustrate to us 
the essential characteristics of the apparatus. One of these 
curves seemed to show that the efficiency of the three-phase 
motors remained within a very small percentage of the same 
value, the load increasing from 40 per cent. to its full value, a 
fact which seems to illustrate the great advantage which may be 
and is obtained by using these motors on variable loads. 
Viset to Schaffhausen and Neuhausen.—-One is, of course, 
always pleased to see Schaffhausen on its own account, but there 
did not seem any particular electrical reason for visiting it. 
There is the usual central station, power being taken from the 
Rhine with a fall of from 4 to 5 metres. A little higher up 
the river there is another similar but older station, the tail race 
of which is built under the head race of the lower station. One 
of the turbines was governed by a device which looked about as 
simple as. the machinery employed in cotton spinning, but it 
seemed to act all the same, though not better than the simpler 
devices employed by Escher, Wyss and Co. Some of the electric 
power is used for driving the machinery of a worsted spinning 
mill and twine works which were visited by several members of 
the party. Some of the water of the Rhine is deflected, one 
might almost say stolen, from above the falls at Neuhausen to 
work a plant most artistically situated just opposite the castle. 
There is no question but that the appearance of the falls has 
suffered by the water so deflected, and it is understood that local 
vested interest in the appearance of the falls is likely to prove 
too strong for those who desire to utilise their power. 
Part of the afternoon was spent in a visit to the works of 
Messrs. Sulzer Bros. at Winterthur, so well known to engineers 
as the birthplace of economical engines. We saw several of the 
engines whose economic performances have secured the admir- 
ation of the engineering world. They are of the compound, 
tandem type, with modified Corliss valve gear, both cylinders 
being steam jacketed, and heavily lagged with a non-conducting 
compound. Outside all is a coating of planished steel, which 
gives the engine a remarkably fine appearance. It appears that 
there is some evidence that these engines have on occasion 
developed one I.H.P. on as little as six kilos of steam. 
On Wednesday, September 6, a meeting of the Institution of 
Electrical Engineers was held in the great hall of the Poly- 
technikum, to hear a paper by Prof. Amsler on the water power 
at Schaffhausen. Dr. Amsler was not present himself, his paper 
being read by the secretary, and afterwards discussed indis- 
criminately by the English and Swiss engineers present. It is 
not to be inferred from this that they necessarily understood 
one another ; in fact, the writer was rather surprised to find 
that the linguistic powers of Swiss engineers do not appear to 
be appreciably greater than those of their English com/réres. 
It is usual to see the Polytechnikum of Ziirich held up for 
our admiration as representing all that is best in technical edu- 
cation. If magnificence of building, opulence in apparatus and 
luxury of appointment constitutes a successful Polytechnik, then 
there is no doubt that quite apart from its staff the Zurich insti- 
tution deserves the position which it apparently commands. The 
writer cannot help saying that he did not see a single piece of 
apparatus which he had not seen thousands of times before, that 
nearly all the apparatus in the Physical Laboratory appeared to 
him to be clumsy and old-fashioned in design, and that he saw 
no evidence of anything except an immense amount of what 
may perhaps be suitably described as second-class teaching of 
the ‘‘fife and drum” order. With regard to the Chemical 
Laboratory, the appliances were magnificent ; but there again, 
so far as the actual laboratories were concerned, there was not 
very much of interest, or if there was we did not see it. The 
basement of the chemical building was taken up by the most 
magnificent appliances for drawing in fresh air, either through a 
stream of water in summer time, or over a heated surface in 
winter, the whole of the air supply of the building being treated 
in this manner. So far as the writer could judge, the electro 
technic department appeared to be the most interesting part of 
the Polytechnikum, and there was no lack of machinery of all 
kinds of the latest type. It is understood that the Swiss elec- 
NO. 1563, VOL. 60] 
NATURE 
[OcToBER 12, 1899 
trical manufactories make great use of the facilities for testing 
afforded by the electro technic department of the Poly- 
technikum. It is fair to add that we were rather hurried in our 
visit ; neither the writer nor any one else saw the whole of the 
departments ; and it was the middle of vacation time, when the 
busiest chemical laboratory looks like a desert. 
Thursday, September 7, was practically occupied by a cheap 
trip to Engelberg, except that it was not particularly cheap. 
The greater number of the members visited the Stansstad- 
Engelberg Railway, and for the first time the majority were 
able to see how a railway may be driven by means of three-phase 
motors. The starting and stopping of these machines apparently 
goes on in the smoothest way, and when the cars are running 
downhill the motors work as generators and pump power back 
to the generating station, where it is absorbed by resistances. 
A still better illustration of traction on the three-phase system 
was afforded by the visit on the last day of the meeting to the 
Kander power station, near Spiess, and then to the Burgdorf- 
Thun Railway. In fact, there was a tolerable consensus of 
opinion that this was the most important day of the tour. The 
Kander station is not large, but is equipped in the most modern 
manner by Brown, Bowri and Co. The water of the Kander 
at Spiezwyler, with an effective head of about 69 metres, is 
carried in an iron pipe down to the turbine house, where it 
operates turbines of about 900 horse-power working upon three- 
phase alternate current generators working at 4000 volts ‘* com- 
posed” pressure and 40 cycles per second. This current is 
partially used for distribution in the neighbourhood ; it is partly 
raised to 16,000 volts, and transmitted to Berne, Burgdorf and 
Munsingen, where it is re-transformed and used for general 
purposes. In addition to this, a large part of the power is 
transmitted at 16,000 volts, and distributed by means of trans- 
former stations along the course of the Burgdorf-Thun Railway 
at a pressure of 750 volts. Now an electric railway, as every- 
body knows, takes its power in a very irregular manner, so that 
the engineers of the Kander station have had to face the difti- 
culty of regulating a load part of which is practically constant 
and part of which is exceedingly variable. Some, if not all, of 
the generators are run in parallel, which means that all of them 
run strictly in synchronism ; consequently, if a load varies, the 
water-supply must be varied to each turbine at the same 
time and in the same manner. This was being accomplished 
by the apparently primitive device of having a man on the 
stop-valve of each turbine. The writer does not feel that he 
is entitled to pass an opinion on this practice ; but on men- 
tioning what he had seen to M. R. Thury, of Geneva, who 
has had immense experience of hydraulic electric stations, that 
engineer expressed himself as confident that it is quite possible 
to regulate even such a variable load as that of the Kander 
automatically. The writer was informed that there was an 
accident to the water pipes at the Kander station not very long 
ago which upset the regulating devices. The pressure at which 
“the current 1s generated was regulated by two men at the switch 
board, who constantly varied the exciting current of the exciters 
of the generators, which was itself furnished by an independent 
dynamo which was the subject of regulation. Ina station of 
this kind the difficulty of regulation is no doubt affected by the 
fact that any variation in the water supplied to the turbines 
necessarily alters the pressure under which the water is delivered. 
The switch board was a fine complicated affair on a base of 
white marble, and some of the fittings appeared to be from 
America. 
Burgdorf-Thun Ratlway.—This railway, 40 kilometres long, 
is not distinguished in any way from an ordinary railway except 
that it is being worked electrically by power transmitted from 
the Kander station. The rolling stock consists of ordinary 
carriages hauled by electric locomotives, each of which carries 
two asynchronous 300-horse power motors. The motors are 
connected with the axles through the intermediary of gearing 
which we were informed can be adjusted to run at either of two 
speeds, intermediate regulation being obtained by varying the 
existence of the rotor windings. Immense rheostats are 
required for motors of this kind, and are carried to a large 
extent on the top of the locomotive, so that it has a very strange 
appearance. Two trolley wires are used, the third one being of 
course the rails, and into this three-wire system current is fed at 
intervals by fourteen transformer stations. There is nothing of 
the tramway about this road. It forms part of the permanent 
railway system of Switzerland, and runs under much the same 
conditions as if the trains were hauled by steam locomotives. 
