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VSI'^I 



SEP 16 I'ciny 



SCIENCE 



[Entered at the Post-Offlce of New York, N.Y., as Second-Class Matter.] 



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A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER OF ALL THE ARTS AND SCIENCES. 



Seventh Year. 

 Vol. XIV. No. 345. 



NEW YORK, September 13, li 



Single Copies, Ten Cents. 

 ^3.50 Per Year, in Advance. 



AN ELECTRIC TRANSFER-TABLE. . 



The accompanying cut represents the new transfer-table at the 

 Fitchburg car repair shops at Fitchburg, Mass., just built by the 

 Fitchburg Railroad Company. The table or car is moved by the 

 Union Electric Car Company's system. The motor, gears, clutches, 

 etc., are all on the front axle of the car. The motor is geared to 

 the axle, and the gears run in an enclosed bath of oil. They are 

 brass cut gears, and work with the least possible amount of fric- 

 tion and consequent loss of power. The switch which governs 

 the motor and controls the car is just above the motor, on a plat- 

 form built out from the front of the car, as are also the reversing 



being at the dynamo, now run the table and draw on and off the 

 cars, which work formerly required twelve men and a shifting loco- 

 motive and its men, and some four times the amount of work can 

 be done by these three men. 



The Union Electric Car Company will use this same system on 

 the Beverly and Danvers Railroad, which is being equipped by the 

 company, and will be running this month. These cars will use 

 storage batteries in place of the overhead wires for the propelling 

 power. The storage batteries are placed under the seats, with 

 two sets to each car. They are charged by a steam and electrical 

 plant in the car-house. Each set runs the car forty miles. It takes 

 eight hours to charge. The batteries are changed by the con- 



ELECTRIC TRANSFER-TABLE AT FITCHBURG, MASS. 



bar and the handle throwing in and out the clutch by which the 

 motor is used either to propel the car in the desired direction or to 

 draw off and on the cars to be changed from one track to an- 

 other. 



The two shops are each five hundred feet long, and face each 

 other. Each shop is divided into three divisions, separated by 

 brick walls running through the roof. In each division there are 

 eight tracks, making twenty-four in each shop. Between these 

 shops, which are seventy-five feet apart, is the pit in which the ta- 

 ble or car moves. The car is ten feet long and seventy feet wide, 

 and runs on four rails laid in the pit. The track on the car, run- 

 ning from side to side, matches the tracks in the shops. The con- 

 trol of the table is so perfect, by the use of the switch, that it can 

 be put and matched to any track desired without the least trouble 

 or hitch; the same power that moved the car forward, stops or 

 slows it. The table is run by the dynamo which lights the shops 

 at night, and is connected by two overhead wires, on which run 

 two trolleys, the trolley-poles being on the top of the house built 

 over the front platform at the front of the table. Three men, one 



ductor and driver in from three to ten minutes, and each car 

 makes a run of eighty miles per day. 



THE SOFTENING OF HARD WATERS FOR DO.MES- 

 TIC USE. 

 Since waters possessing an inconvenient degree of hardness are 

 very common in many localities, owing to the almost universal 

 prevalence of calcareous soils and geological deposits, it is of no 

 little interest to have some simple means of doing away with this 

 property, so as to render such waters more convenient for domes- 

 tic uses. This is the more important, as in some cases the pres- 

 ence of a large proportion of magnesia tends to cause serious, 

 even though usually only temporary, gastric disturbance with per- 

 sons unused to such waters, whereby quite frequently an unfounded 

 prejudice against the general health-conditions of perfectly health- 

 ful localities is created. This subject has been heretofore dis- 

 cussed in many places, especially in California, but its 'continued 

 importance and the frequent demand for information in the prem- 



