>^^ (?t>h^^^^^^ /f^"^^ IVje Rosto?i Rlect?'ical Haridhook THE BOSTON ELECTRICAL HANDBOOK Being a Guide for Visitors from Abroad Attending the International Electri- cal Congress, St. Louis, Mo. September, 1904 iBnstnu I'uMishl-ll 1,11. l,t Ih.- .lllS|,i, CS of \ The Arr^erican Institute of Electrical Engineers \ 1904 Copyright, 1904, by American Institute of Electrical Engineers Stanbopc prcaa ). GliSON COMPANY BOSTON, U.S.A. PREFACE This little volume is intended to set before our dis- tinguished guests from across the sea something of the achievements of New England and of Boston, which is the educational and technical centre of New England, in the applications of electricity. Boston has been the pio- neer in many successful enterprises, and has earned an honorable reputation in particular in the various branches of electrical science. It has, moreover, a distinguished reputation in the training of electrical engineers, as well as in pure science, and has furnished the capital and tiie brains for many successes elsewhere in the United States. It is hoped that these pages will give at least a broad view of the technical features of interest in and about Greater Boston. The earnest thanks of the Committee of Publication are due to the various organizations which have most heartily and enthusiastically co-operated with them in pusiiing this volume to completion, and particularly to a group of gentlemen, not members of the committee, who have freely and cordially given their time and labor to tlie work. Messrs. J. Harvey White, H. E. Reynolds, W. .S. Allen. T. I). Lockwood, E. B. Fillsbury, F. E. Barker, W. D'A. Ryan, C. F. Ames, and Gen. Thomas .Sherwin should receive the special thanks of the commit- tee for their share in the ta.sk ; and also the Congrega- tional Publishing Company of Boston, for the loan of several illustrations not otherwise obtainable. The Stanhojfe Pre.ss, printers, and C. J. Peters & Co., engravers, should al.so receive due credit for their excep- tional promptness in the all-important mechanical work of transforming the manuscript into this volume. CONTENTS Page The Story of Boston ii Electkicai. H(jstox 25 The B(;ard ok Gas and Electric Lkjht Com- missioners 27 The Boston Elevated Railway Comi'axv . 35 The Massachusetts Electric Companies . . 77 The Edison Electric Illuminatin(; Comi'any. 89 Electrical Manufacturing 109 The American Telephone and Telegraph Company 114 New England Telephone and Telegraph Company 150 Harvard University 157 The Massachl'setts Institute of Tech- nology 179 The Western Union Telegraph Company . 1S9 The Postal Tele(;raph-Cap.le Company in New England 192 Some Miscelt-aneous Industries 195 Itinerary (jf the Tour 201 INTERNATIONAL ELECTRICAL CONGRESS LOCAL RECEPTION COMMITTEE BOSTON, MASS. C. L. Edgar, Chairman C. B. BuRLEKJH, Treasurer and Secreia?y C. A. Adams C. F. Ames J. L Ayer W. A. Bancroft Louis Bell F. E. Barker H. E. Clifford C. B. Davis Louis Duncan C. W. Elliot F. P. Fish H. V. Hayes I. N. HOLLIS S. Hosmer A. E. Kennelly G. H. Lyman T. L. Livermore C. H. HODSKINSON E. B. PiLLSBURY H. S. Pritchett W. L. Puffer Thomas Sherwin P. F. Sullivan C. H. Taylor Fred Tudor Elihu Thomson C. S. Sergeant R. L. Warner T. C. Wales H. P. Walcott W. P, Whitmore LuiGi Mario Vitoli COMMITTEE OF PUBLICATION Louis Bell, Chairman C. A. Adams H. E. Clifford C. S. Sergeant Sidney Hosmer THE STORT OF BOSTON The Story of Boston To the visitor from across the sea, Boston pre- sents less of novelty and perhaps more of kindred interest than any other large Ameri- can city. Fifth in the list of size, it is, save New York, the oldest permanent settlement on the American continent which has succeeded in achieving a large growth, and in preserving continuously its earlier character and attributes. From the standpoint of the mother country it is a very young city, and yet its history goes back to the earliest epoch at which the Anglo- Saxon civilization had gained a foothold on the new continent. The Spaniards had settled on the south, and the French on the north, when the Cabots and their ad- venturous successors secured to England and all that the English heritage implies the coast that lay between Acadia and the futile and evanescent settlements in Florida. The first permanent record of Boston and its harbor, studded then with wooded islands and surrounded by wide stretches of salt marsh, was by the adventurous Captain John .Smith, cousin-in-spirit to Drake and that daring list of explorers who had gone before. Smith charted the coast, and gave to some of its salient points the names they have since retained, in 1614. Even then the hardy fishermen from England and from France were storing their ships with cod off the Banks and along the northern coast of New PLngland ; and the country, by repute, was becoming known. F"ive years later came the forerunner of the movement that resulted in the founding of Boston and the perma- nent occupation of the northern country. The advance guard of the I'uritans came, not from England, but from Leyden, and settled, by a somewhat unhappy chance, at II 12 The Boston Plymouth rather than farther south, where they had in- tended to go, or farther north, in Boston, where the geo- graphical conditions would have been more favorable to their adventure. The Pilgrims of the " Mayflower " were closely in touch, however, with their English brothers, from whom, indeed, they drew recruits at the time of their actual sailing; and it was their work, passed back- ward to the mother country, that resulted in the first great movement of English-speaking folk to the new con- tinent. The first European, indeed, to explore the re- gion now Boston and its environs, was Myles Standish, the right arm of the church militant in Plymouth, who, with some of his companions, cruised about the region in 1621. A little later the ill-starred expedition of Sir Fernando Gorges reached these shores, backed by a syndicate of noble rank and small vital interest in colonies as such. It was a speculative operation from the start, and met the end that generally attends such expeditions in the face of the formidable task of developing a new country. It left, however, though abandoned by its pro- moters, a small remnant that settled here and there around Boston Harbor. Picturesque Thomas Morton, with a roystering collection of flotsam and jetsam, settled at Mount Wollaston, in what is now the city of Quincy, a spot which he called Merrymount, and proceeded to make worthy of its name in a fashion that shocked the God- fearing men of Plymouth, and brought Captain Myles Standish, with his soldiers, again toward Boston, bent on an errand of effective suppression. On an island in the harbor that still bears his name was settled, with his family, Thomas Weston, one of Gorges' attorneys, per- haps cherishing a forlorn hope of holding the country for his client. On Noddle's Island Samuel Maverick, another of Gorges' party, founded a home ; and Wal- ford, a blacksmith, preempted the near peninsula, now Charlestown. The first settler in the city of Boston proper was still another who shared the fortunes of Gorges, — William Blackstone, a graduate of Cambridge University ; a Electrical Handbook ij strange, shadowy figure, who dwelt in a lonely home on the western slope of what is now Beacon Hill, looking out over the wide meadows of the Charles. But these were strays and wanderers. In 1629 began the real influx from England. A strong body of the sturdy Puritan stock from around old Boston, with a powerful and wealthy backing of influential commoners, obtained a royal charter and set forth, not merely for adventure or trade, but for the founding of a colony. They were grim reformers, these Puritans, whom opposition at home and despair of carrying out a scheme of universal and drastic reform had turned regretfully away from their native land to form a commonwealth after their own hearts in a newer England. They came in 1630, after sending an advance party that settled at Salem under John Endi- cott, a thousand strong, under the leadership of John Winthrop, and landed at first in Charlestown. They were of the stuff that conquers nature and builds up commonwealths ; and Winthrop was a type of the leaders who have made the Anglo Saxon race supreme in many a hard-won land. Of these and by these was created Boston and the country that has grown to be the guardian of Anglo- Saxon civilization in the West. From the first the colony bore with it the elements of permanent success. Its task in winning the country was much lighter than that which has fallen to the lot of most colonies, for, by a curious chance, the aborigines in this locality had already, even before the coming of the Pilgrims, been for the most part swept away by internecine strife and by pestilence, prob- ably small pox or measles acquired from the visiting fish- ermen ; so that of .savage opposition there was practically none in the vicinity of Massachusetts Bay. The centre of the colony soon became the hill-studded peninsula which is the nucleus of the present Boston. It had been known to the Indians as Shawmut, but the colonists bestowed on it and on the later .settlements about it the names of their loved home towns. Here they built their village and set up their government. — a popular government, woven around the church which 1 4- The Boston they had crossed the seas to preserve and maintain. For more than half a century Massachusetts was practically an independent nation, under the direct government of its founders and their successors ; and in that period Boston had grown to be the most active and important settlement on the American coast. It was preeminently a trading and sea-faring community, the base of sup- plies for the large fishing interests, and the commercial centre of the new world. With popular government and their sturdy church the Puritans linked, from the very first, provisions for popu- lar education. They had hardly formed their settlement before they appointed Philemon Pormont a schoolmaster, — the first of that long line of New England schoolmas- ters that has kept up the supremacy of letters through all the stress of building up the nation. Six years from the time when Winthrop and his party set foot on land, they founded Harvard University, which still remains the most notable, as it was the first, institution for higher learning on the continent. As the settlers went out into the surrounding wilder- nes.s, axes in hand, the town-meeting, the church and the school went with them ; and in 1647, by a general law of the Commonwealth, it was enacted that every township " which the Lord hath increased " to fifty householders should appoint from their number a schoolmaster, and that when the number of families reached a hundred they should set up a "grammar school " capable of fitting youth for the university. The school was part of the Puritan policy, and it has gone with the descendants of the Puritans from Boston to the Golden Gate, until every town in the three thousand miles that lie between is marked by a towering school-building, conspicuous to all comers, and bearing still the mark of the Puritan desire for and policy of education. The settlers of Massachusetts were English to the core ; and English their descenadnts have remained to an extent unusual in a country swept over by great tides of immigration in succeeding generations. Boston, a half-century after the founding of Harvard University, Electrical Handbook 15 was characteristically an English town, with the tradi- tions of the old home still strong about it. It had then come to be a town of about six thousand inhabitants, and already the colonists had begun to stretch their bounds by grasping land from the sea. In the beginning Bos- ton had been a peninsula, connected with the mainland by a narrow neck nearly a mile long, and so low that great tides now and then swept over it. It was margined by tidal marshes, through which Long Wharf, at the foot of State Street, the city's financial centre, then King Street, was later built out 2,000 feet to accommodate the larger commerce. The whole peninsula included but 783 acres, an area which has been much more than Paul Revere's Map of Boston doubled by the reclamation and filling of the marslies, on which stand to-day the principal residence and some of the largest commercial districts of the city. The old .sea line swept through the western part of what is now Boston Common. The jurisdiction of Boston in tho.se early days in- cluded a large part of the outlying country, later cut up into the towns and cities which go to make up what is known as Greater Boston, and some of which have since been reclaimed by the old city. By the latter part of the eighteenth century Boston had risen to be a compact and well-built city of .some 25.000 inlialjilants, decidedly the most important city l6 T he Bos t on upon the coast, although later far outstripped in size by New York. To-day it has grown to be a city of some 560,000 inhabitants, covering nearly 43 square miles of territory, and embracing within its tributary region of Greater Boston nearly 40 cities and towns with an aggre- gate present population of nearly 1,200,000 people. Bos- ton proper has no technical jurisdiction over these, but they are welded into a whole by situation, by common interests, and by common organization for certain public purposes. The Metropolitan Parks district comprises the region as a whole, and includes 38 cities and towns ; the Metropolitan Water district includes 17 ; the Metro- politan Sewerage district, 24; and the Boston Postal dis- trict, 10. In a sense, therefore, the outlying cities and suburbs are now, in fact, as they were and always have been by origin, condition, and spirit, a part of one great municipal community. Boston has been waggishly defined as "not a locality, but a state of mind ; " and it is the pride of Boston and of Massachusetts that this state of mind is the heritage from Winthrop and his followers, who brought with them to the new England the best traditions of the old. To-day Boston is the fifth city in population in the United States ; in financial and commercial importance it takes a much higher rank. Once almost exclusively a city of shipping and shipping interests, the wealth which it thus accumu- lated has gone out into new fields of endeavor, and its quickening touch has been felt throughout the country. From this impulse came, on the very outskirts of Boston, the first railroad built in the country ; the beginnings of the cotton industry; and many another enterprise that has added to the wealth of the nation. Structurally there is litde left of the older Boston. Time and again it has been swept by fires, and to-day only scattered buildings remain as relics of the colonial period. The Old State House, the centre of government in colonial days ; Faneuil Hall, enlarged nearly a century ago out of all semblance to its former self; the Old South Church, in the wooden predecessor of which Ben- jamin Franklin was baptized, and next door to which Electrical Handbook n stood the house of John Winthrop; King's Chapel, the first permanent home of the Established Church of England in the colony, now long dispossessed of it; and a few other venerable buildings, — are all that is left of colonial Boston's brick and stone. The Old State House Modern Boston is a well-built city, architecturally distinguished from others of its size mainly in being rather better kept up as to its general appointments, and i8 T h e B s t n in possesfcing, outside the limits of the old city, perhaps the finest group of residential suburbs to be found on the continent. The growth of suburban life is favored, in spite of the peninsular character of old Boston, by the general topographical situation, with fine rolling and hilly country stretching for miles about the city, and by two rivers, the Charles and the Mystic, the former of which winds in a peculiarly sinuous course among the western suburbs, lending a special charm to the landscape in the environs of the city. Boston is favored, too, in possessing what is very unusual in cities of its class, — a considerable park, formed by the ancient Common and the Public Garden, later added to it from reclaimed land, in the very heart of the city, touching, indeed, the busi- ness centre ; and, besides, in the wonderfully beautiful and diversified park system, under the control of the Metropolitan Park Commission, giving to suburban Bos- ton, as well as the city proper, an exceptional group of parks, unusual both in size and in beauty. Boston is also favored by having its varied suburban districts kept in close touch with the centre of the city both by a considerable number of suburban steam lines, and by what is probably the most effective electric car system in the world, presently to be described at greater length. These advantages have favored the growth of the city in a very remarkable degree, especially within the last decade. In public and semi-public buildings and institutions Boston is particularly rich, and especially so in institutions of learning, old and new. The Boston educational sys- tem, of course, centres around its ancient Harvard Uni- versity, later to be described at some length. Modern technical instruction is represented nowhere in the country by a more worthy example than the Massachu- setts Institute of Technology, resting largely upon a public foundation, though aided by private benefactions, and which for nearly forty years has held a commanding position in the study of applied science. Its special facilities are worthy of description by themselves. In addition to these, Greater Boston possesses a note- Electrical Handbook ^9 worthy group of less widely known but most efficient in- stitutions of iiigh collegiate grade, which for years have done efficient and distinguished work. Boston Univer- sity, Boston College, and Tufts College are large and well- administered sectarian institutions, doing both under- graduate and graduate work. The last mentioned has devoted more than usual attention to modern engineering courses, and has done a large and praiseworthy work in furthering modern education as distinguished from the old academic lines. Of these three, Boston University and Tufts College are co-educational institutions. Public Library- There are, too, three important colleges for women: Wellesley, in one of the most beautiful outlying suburbs, founded in 1875, and long noted as one of the most im- portant of its class; Radcliffe College, which has been built up under the wing of Harvard University, and now grown to important dimensions; and Simmons College, recently founded, and forming, in a sense, a women's technological school for instruction in such branches in art, science, and industry as will best enable women to earn an independent livelihood. To the.se must be added a considerable group of higher schools, preparing for the universities, and giving special and professional training. 20 The Boston Quite co-ordinate with any of these institutions in its bearing upon public education is the Boston I'ublic Library, long the pride of the city, and unique in its intimate relation to the citizens as individ- uals. It occupies now a severely beautiful quadrangu- lar building on Copley Square, covering an acre and a half of ground, exclusive of the great central court. The interior is rich in mural decorations by famous artists. It has a splendidly administered set of reading-rooms for general, special, and technical work, and contains now Main Stairway, Boston Public Library about 900,000 volumes, thus placing it among the world's great libraries in point of absolute size. It is a true circulating library, free to every citizen of Boston for the withdrawal of books, and for reference to all comers without the slightest formality. It maintains 10 branch libraries scattered over the city; 22 free delivery stations, of which 14 are reading-rooms as well ; and a large num- ber of points at which there are regular deposits of books, including all the public schools. In the total there are Electrical Handbook 21 157 direct points of contact between tlie public and the contents of this great library. It is by far the largest actively circulating library in the country, and in fact the largest in the world. Besides this enormous local work, in which a million and a half volumes are annually circu- lated, it carries on an extensive educational work by free lectures and special exhibitions. The extent to which it is popularly used is best shown by the fact that it has out about 75,000 regular and special cards, which means that about 15 per cent of the population actually use tlie library for the home reading of books. A minor but most interesting function of the library is an informal system of interlibrary loans by which books actually needed for serious research can be loaned to or borrowed from other libraries in New England, or even in the country at large. Such a privilege is neces- sarily rather carefully guarded, but its value is self-evi- dent. This feature of American library service, by the way, has now developed to a considerable extent, so that it becomes possible for scholars located near any large centre, to command, in case of need, the aggregate resources of most of the great American libraries. Including college and society libraries, the Boston student can obtain, if necessary, access to more than 2,000,000 volumes in the imme- diate vicinity. On Copley Square also is situated the great Museum of Fine Arts, which ranks above any similar insti- tution in the countrj', particularly in some of its departments: and Trinity Church (Protestant Episcopal), a fine example of modern ecclesiastical 22 The Boston architecture. Here, too, stand the older buildings of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Natural History Museum, containing a library and important collections. Of other public enterprises perhaps the most note- worthy is the City Hospital, located in the South End of Boston, one of the best organized and administered in- stitutions of its class in the world. The Puritan impulse in popular education has surely not been lost in the later years of Boston's development, spurred on by a great group of notable men in education, literature, and art, and the whole Boston region has pro- duced more than its share of commanding figures in the intellectual world. Here Prescott, Motley, and Parkman, historians, carried on their life-work. Here Ralph Waldo Emerson preached, and later, in retirement, studied and wrote. Here Hawthorne wove his matchless romances. Here Longfellow and Lowell and Holmes lived and wrought Here, too, Edgar Allan Poe was born. Aside from pure literature, Boston has been pre-emi- nently, as might be well imagined from its history, the home of aggressive reformers. It was the centre of the anti-slavery movement that with gathering force eventu- ally drove out the greatest blight on the western civiliza- tion. Here, in protest against the older theology, arose the spirit of Unitarianism, and many another movement that has done its share in shaping the world's thought. In pure science, too, Boston and its environs have a distinguished roll of names, beginning with Benjamin Franklin, who was born here nearly opposite the Old South Church. Near there also was the early home of Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford, who later won permanent fame as the pioneer in the dynamical theory of heat. S. F. B. Morse, the father of telegraphy, here was born and passed his youth. Asa Gray, the botanist, and Agassiz, did their life-work at Harvard. In mathe- matics, Nathaniel Bowditch, of "Navigator" fame, was a commanding figure in the early part of the last century ; and following him, the Pierces, father and son. In as- tronomy, the Bonds, father and son again, gave to that Electrical Handbook science its first vital movement in this country ; and their worthy successors, the Pickerings and Chandler, have carried on their work at Harvard up to the present. In connection with them should be mentioned Alvan Clark and his two distinguished sons, builders of many of the world's great telescopes. Kind's Cliapel In the middle of the last century Boston was the scene of Morton's immortal experiments in anaesthesia, and tlic first operation under ether was performed by him in the Massachusetts General Hospital, a great institu- tion still distinguished in the annals of surgery. 2^ Electrical Handbook And in applied science it should not be forgotten that Boston was and is the home of telephony; for in the labora- toriesof Harvard and the Instituteof Technology, Graham Bell worked out what should probably rank as the great- est single time-saving invention of modern times, and the telephone industry has had here its permanent centre. Bos- ton, too, was the first large city to adopt electric traction, and one of the earliest homes of incandescent lighting. Of these later achievements it is the purpose of this volume to speak in suitable detail, and to set forth the practical importance of the engineering sciences in the service of modern life Electf^ical Boston MASSACHUSETTS, the original seat of pop- ular government on this side of the Atlan- tic, has developed its principles in many interesting ways, in nowise more effectively shown than in dealing with tlie problems which arise in connection with the administration of affairs in a metropolitan community like Boston. The principle underlying the administration of government in this Commonwealth, seems to be the direct dealing with pub- lic affairs in the interests of the people. To this end, the referendum is a measure very frequently employed, particularly in the metropolitan districts, where public questions are submitted to the direct franchise. Another manifestation of the same direct and in- formal method of action is in the granting of large pow- ers to Commissions dealing with various matters of public importance, and coming into direct touch with the parties to discussions on these matters. Although the authority granted to these special Commissions might seem, at first sight, a step away from popular gov- ernment, the closeness of their relation to the interests put in their charge enables the public feeling and the public wishes to be expressed clearly and forcibly to those who have authority to act. The result of grant- ing governmental powers to those Commissions has, upon the whole, been very happy. The Metropolitan Park Commission and the Metropolitan Water Commis sion, and the rest, have been able to effect notable improvements with the minimum of fruitless friction, and with a promptness almost impossible to attain by any other means. 25 26 El e c tr i c al Handbook Especially in dealing with the quasi-public corpora- tions in their relation to the cities of the Commonwealth these commissions have been invaluable. Two of them, the Railway Commission and the Gas and Electric Light Commission, come in close touch with electrical enterprises. A brief view of the functions and opera- tions of the latter of these organizations will give a clear idea of the way in which they practically operate, and the useful end which they serve in protecting both cor- porate interests and the rights and privileges of the pub- lic at large. It has proved possible to secure for service on these various commissions, men of high judicial character and unquestioned integrity, who have given to the unusual bodies which they constitute much the same reputation for efficiency and integrity that has long made the Massachusetts judiciary distinguished. The Board of Gas and Electric Light Commissioners THE Board of Gas and Electric Light Commis- sioners was organized in 1S85 under authority of a legislative act of that year. It origi- nally had under its authority only gas com- panies, but in 18S9 its supervision was extended to electric light companies, and it has the same powers re- specting both classes of corporations. 1 1 consists of three men appointed by the governor of the Commonwealth, with the approval of the council, each for a term of three years, and the terms are so arranged that one appoint- ment must be made every year. The expenses of the commission are paid by the State, but are recovered an- nually from the companies by a special tax levied upon tliem in proportion to their respective incomes. Originally the board was given a general supervision over the companies, and was to secure their compliance with such restrictive legislation as might be in existence with respect to them. All companies were required to make annual returns in the form prescribed by the board, and to keep their books and accounts in such manner as the regulations of the board should determine. In any city or town in which one company was in oper- ation no second companv could undertake the supply of the same kind of Mght, except after a public hearing be- fore the local authorities, from whose decision an appeal might be made to the board of commissioners, whose de- cision upon such questions was final. The board had also authority, upon petition of the local authorities or twenty customers of the company, to fix the price for gas or 27 28 The B slo n electric light, after notice to the company and a public hearing. It had authority too, after pui^lic hearing, to compel companies to supply a would-be customer with gas or electric light. All these powers have been continued, but from time to time the Legislature has had occasion to require from the board special reports upon matters of unusual perplex- ity which apparently called for remedial legislation ; and by first obtaining from the board the pertinent facts and its opinions, too hasty and ill-considered legislative action has frequently been avoided. In 1891, the Legislature empowered municipal corpora- tions, under certain conditions, to undertake the supply of gas and electric light, but gave the Board of Gas and Electric Light Commissioners certain supervision over those towns and cities which should take advantage of this law. Such municipalities are accordingly required to keep their accounts and make annual returns in such manner and form as the board may require. In this way more definite and reliable information relative to these enterprises has been secured in Massachusetts than any other of the United States. Except in respect to their accounts and the exhaustive data which municipalities are required to furnish relative to the business, the authority of the board over them is very largely advisory in its character. The most important extension of the board's power since 1891 was in 1894, when it was given authority to approve the issue of all new securities, whether stock or bonds, and companies were prohibited from issuing such except upon the approval of the board. The policy of the board in its administration has been to prevent any vvatering of the stocks of the companies under its supervision, and, to a remarkable degree, to prevent the securities of any company exceeding the fair structural value of its plant. As stated by the board, "This act and the purposes which underlie it implj^ no hostility to corporate powers, and it is the duty of the board in ad- ministering it to conserve, so far as it may, the interests of both the stockholder and the public. So far as it may Electrical Handbook 2p properly be done, the board should encourage and assist investments made for the performance of a needed pub- lic service rather than embarrass or injure them. The interests of the public and the stockholders alike are best conserved by a policy which will give permanency and security to capital thus employed."' This statement affords a fair indication of the general spirit and policy with which the authority intrusted to the board has been exercised. Subsequently, the board was authorized, upon finding the capital of a company impaired when approving new securities, to require the company to make good such impairment in the way designated by the board. Under this, companies have in rare cases been required to re- strict their dividends in order that larger sums might be available out of earnings, or to call in surplus capital. Under its general supervisory powers the board has in a great number of cases been called upon to arbitrate between companies and customers upon matters not specifically mentioned in the statutes ; and while these cases have not been regarded by the board as of suffi- cient importance to be described in its annual reports, this course has contributed in a very large measure to establish satisfactory relations between the companies and the consumers. The board makes an annual report to the Legislature which gives an account of its doings, exhibits to a very large extent the financial affairs of all the companie.s, and contains extensive and detailed technical informa- tion with respect to them. This report is printed by the State, and finds its way practically to all portions of the world where active interest is taken in the supply of gas or electricity for public use. In accordance with the usual Massachusetts policy of re-appointing efficient public officers, most of the men who have been members of the board have served for several consecutive terms. The present chairman has occupied that position since 1894, and has been a member of the board from its beginning. Another one of the members has .served for more than ten years. By this policy the JO T he B s t on board has come to be practically a commission of experts upon the subjects under its control, and its administration has been entirely free from political or party influence of any kind. Its purpose has been to deal with business questions in a purely business way, seeking thus to secure fair treatment for the public and a liberal measure of success to the corporations while properly managed. At the date of its last report, the board had under its supervision 145 private and 18 municipal corporations. Of the companies, 48 are engaged in the supply of gas only, 25 in the supply of both gas and electric light, and 72 supply only electricity. Of the m.unicipalities, 4 have plants for the supply of gas and electricity, and the other 14 supply electricity only. The total amount invested by these corporations is about seventy-five million dollars, and their gross income for the year ending June 30, 1903, was about seventeen and one-half millions. The Railway Commissioners, a board similarly or- ganized, and with powers almost equally large, has proved effective in guarding the interests of the com- munity in its dealings with steam and electric railways, and in giving to these corporations a character for con- servatism and stability which has, in the end, proved of high value both to them and to the Commonwealth. With many of the problems of corporate rights and privileges in the metropolitan district, the Legislature deals somewhat directly, and, fully realizing the peculiar interests of a great metropolitan district, it has not hesi- tated at any step which would improve the rapid transit facilities about Greater Boston, and which would give to the metropolitan district prompt relief in any exigency. The city of Boston proper has been active in furthering the interests of the community of which it is the centre, and in perhaps nothing more than in rapid transit has it successfully co-operated with the Commonwealth and with private corporations. The electric railway has been of unique value to the city of Boston, in welding to- gether the city and its suburbs into a coherent commu- nity. At the present time, the rapid transit of Greater Boston, developed rapidly by the springing up of local Electrical Handbook ji enterprises, has, in great measure, been unified, and has come to be largely in the hands of a very few important corporations. Chief among these is the Boston Elevated Railway, which forms the centre of the great radiating network of electric lines, largely under its own control in the nearer suburbs, and connecting with the lines of other companies beyond. THE BOSTON ELEVATED RAILWAY COMPANT T'he Boston Elevated Railway Company UNDER the control of this corporation, Boston lias one of the best and most interesting street railway systems to be found on the continent. It would not be characteristic of Boston if it did not itself possess some points of historical interest. Here the trolley car was first demonstrated to be suitable for operation in a large city, and it is largely due to the vast sums spent in determined experimentation by the West End Street Railway Company that electricity was made a practical motive power for street cars. Here the first subway for tram cars was built. Here is found the first and only existing street railway service in which surface, underground, and elevated lines are combined in a single comprehensive system, operated so that all the various lines and different kinds of ser\-ice are made CO operative. Strangers who have no technical knowledge are chiefly impressed with the extensiveness and convenience of the service. The payment of a single 5-cent fare en- ables a passenger to reach practically any point witliin the area of one hundred square miles served by the company. Free transfers are given at convenient points, not only between the various surface lines, but between the elevated, surface, and underground lines whenever necessary. It is possible to ride a distance of 20 miles for 5 cents. The politeness and efficiency of the em- ployees engaged in the car service is particularly notice- able and welcome to the visitor. The features of technical interest are even more nu merous and important. Tlie topography of the city, its narrow and crooked streets, tlie large volume of traffic to be handled, and the scarcity of highways available for that 35 j6 T he B s t on purpose, all combine to produce problems, the solution of which tax the ingenuity of operating officials to the utmost. The company's system of numerous scattered power stations, instead of one central plant, has resulted in an economy and excellence of service that will sur- prise many of the advocates of the single station idea. The system of automatic block-signals is said to be the most complete and efficient in existence, and has amply proved its efficiency by giving complete immunity from accidents. The elevated and subway structures, the plans for the development of the system to provide for future growth, the exceptional excellence of road-bed, tracks, special work and equipment, is worthy of careful investigation and study. The system of selecting, train- ing, and disciplining car service men has resulted in the production of so exceptional a corps of street railway operatives that it will be found highly suggestive and valuable to all who are required to manage large numbers of organized men. THE UPBUILDING OF THE SURFACE SYSTEM Street cars have been operated in Boston for more than fifty years, but it was not until 1887 that steps were taken to adapt the street railway service to the needs of the metropolitan district, of which Boston is the centre. Prior to that time the service was supplied by indepen- dent horse car lines radiating from the business centre. There were no through lines, and few free transfers. In 1887 the Legislature authorized the consolidation of all but one of the street railway companies in Boston into the West End Street Railway Company. This consolida- tion marks the beginning of a serious study of the broad transportation problem of the city. It resulted in a com- prehensive and coherent surface car service for Boston and its residential suburbs. Through lines were estab- lished connecting suburbs on opposite sides of the city, fares were reduced, the interchange of traffic between the various lines was facilitated, and in many other ways the public was provided with better accommodations. Electrical Handbook 37 The president of the company, Mr. Henry M. Whit- ney, immediately sought some motive power better for speed, power, and economy than horses. He had begun BOSTON ELLVATtD RAILWAY SYSTEM The Boston Elevated Railway System the installation of a cable system, when recent develop- ments in the use of electricity were called to his atten- tion, and with a fine foresight he so promptly appreci- j8 The Boston ated its possibilities that the cable project was abandoned, and electrical equipment substituted. The first electric line, opened January i, 1889, ex- tended between Brookline and Boston, and was equipped in part with overhead trolley wire, and in part with an underground conduit system. The conduit portion proved unsatisfactory, and after several months' trial was abandoned, and later replaced with a trolle;) system. On the i6th of February, of the same year, the first complete trolley line, between Cambridge and Boston, was placed in operation, and gave satisfaction from the start. The first equipment was crude, but experiments on a large scale were made, costing, in the total, more than a million dollars; and in due time the experimental stage was passed, and the trolley system of operati^ii became a demonstrated success. With the installation of electrical equipment great improvements in the service were made, and large plans calculated to provide for future development were de- vised. Lines were extended into the suburbs, quicker time was made, larger and better cars were bought, fares were reduced, and free transfer privileges were con- siderably extended. In 1897 the entire West End system was leased to the Boston Elevated Railway Company. During the same year the subway was opened for traiTic and a new era began. Trunk lines of high speed and large capa- city were planned to carry the bulk of the traffic above or below the public streets to points beyond congested and dense street traffic, there to be distributed by surface cars in the residential suburbs. The part to be played by the surface lines in the rapid transit system that is being worked out, is to carry passengers between out- lying districts and the terminals of the trunk lines, and also to supply an accommodation service to and through the business district. THE TREMONT STREET SUBWAY Of the rapid transit structures, the first to be built was the Tremont Street subway. It was planned and Electrical Handbook 3Q constructed under the direction of a public commission called the Boston Transit Commission, at a cost of about ;5!4,ooo,ooo. It was authorized in 1894 and opened in 1897. It is owned by the city of Boston, leased to the West End Company, and subleased to the Boston Elevated Railway Company. It was not planned for high speed service, but was designed and used origi- nally for surface cars exclusively. Its principal purpose was to relieve the business district of the city from excessive congestion by street cars, teams, and pedes- trians. So many cars were being operated on Wash- ington and Tremont Streets that they blocked each other, and rendered it impossible to provide an efficient service. Greater carrying capacity was imperative, and increasing the number of cars upon these streets was clearly impossible. It was therefore decided that the best way to meet this situation was to build an under- ground railway. The engineers who designed the subway had no model to follow, but were obliged to depend entirely upon their ability to foresee the conditions and require- ments of a new kind of service. The subway was equipped with three sets of tracks, — a through track and two loops. The through tracks, — now used for elevated trains, provide transportation across the business and shopping district; while the Park Street and Scollav Square loops enable cars from the west and north respectively, to reach this district at the subway stations for which they are named, where the cars pass around looped tracks and return. THE ELEVATED RAILWAY PROJECT The construction of both subway and elevated railway was authorized in the same legislative enactment in 1S94. The two structures together provide the road-bed for the elevated trains. It may, therefore, surprise those unacquainted with the facts to learn that they were originally two separate and independent enterprises. At the time the legislation was passed, the public demand ^o The Boston was for an elevated road. The subway idea was not popular. The Legislature, however, combined the two schemes in one, and authorized both. The old charter for the elevated road originally authorized the construction of an elevated railway of the Meigs type, but the project failed to attract financial support. It was believed that an elevated railway could not be made profitable, as it would be at a serious disad- vantage in a competition with the excellent service given by the West End Company. Besides this, there was a lack of confidence in the novel and untried Meigs plan of operation, with its peculiar type of car running on a single rail. For these reasons the elevated charter lay dormant in the hands of the original incorporators. In 1896 a number of local bankers and business men conceived a plan for giving Boston not only its desired elevated railway, but a better and larger service than had hitherto been attempted. The plan was to purchase the unused charter of the Meigs company; to secure amend- ments that would eliminate the doubtful Meigs system of operation; to obtain a lease of the West End system, and to unite the surface lines, the subway, and an ele- vated railway in one system. How all this was accom- plished forms an interesting chapter in the history of local progress, but it is enough to say here that the plan was successfully carried out; and in 1897, the year the subway was opened, the Boston Elevated Railway Com- pany assumed the operation of the local street railway system, and began to plan the details of its elevated road, which was opened for business on June 10, 1901. The general plan of the elevated railway is easy of comprehension. The traffic is principally between a central business district and an outlying residential terri- tory. The business district is bordered on the east by the harbor and on the west for a considerable distance by an open pubHc park known as the Common. The principal highways and the lines of travel necessarily run north and south. The more important streets in and leading to the business section are crowded with a con- gestion of street traffic. With these things in view, the Electrical Hand b o o k 41 elevated railway was therefore constructed between points north and south of the centre of traffic and be- yond the congested territory. The subway solved a serious difficulty by providing a possible, although unsatisfactory, road-bed upon which elevated trains could be run through a portion of the city where it would not be feasible to build an elevated structure on account of the large sums that would be required for the settlement of land damage claims. By utilizing the subway in connection with the elevated structure a high speed service is supplied that skirts the business area and extends both north and south to the suburban territory, in which the service is supplied by radiating surface lines connecting with the elevated rail- way at its terminals. Briefly stated, the present functions of the elevated lines are to take the long distance north and south traffic out of the public streets and to carry it beyond the con- gested territory, and also to supply a fast service of large carrying capacity where the traffic is greater than can be accommodated by surface cars. THE RAPID TRANSIT SYSTEM As has already been stated, the territory in which the company supplies all of the street railway service is about 100 square miles in area and contains a population of upwards of 1,000,000. Besides the city of Boston, it includes the whole or portions of eleven other cities and towns. Cars from outside companies are operated upon lines connecting with the elevated train service at the terminals, and at the Park .Street subway station by means of these cars passengers are able to reach places at a considerable distance from Boston without a change of car. From Park Square a line of high speed cars is operated to the city of Worcester, situated about 50 miles to the west. At the Sullivan Square terminal there are cars to be taken to the city of Lowell, 26 miles to the northwest. The system is laid out on the radial plan. A corresponding service east and west will be supplied 42 T he B o sto n in the near future. A tunnel extending eastward, under a portion of Boston Harbor, connecting the business dis- trict with an important island called East Boston, is nearly completed. This line will probably be open for business during the present year. It is of interest to note that at the point where the tunnel passes underneath the elevated structure, the company will supply trans- portation at three different levels. A deep tunnel station is being completed at the junction of State Street and Atlantic Avenue. Above this station, upon the street surface, trolley cars are being operated. Over the street the elevated structure extends, and transfers may be obtained at this point between the different lines operating in all directions. The rapid transit trunk line to the west will be built, in the relatively near future, from Scollay Square to or near Harvard Square in the city of Cambridge, the seat of Harvard University. This structure will consist of a subway at the Boston end and an elevated railway in Cambridge. It will cross the Charles River on a large and handsome bridge now in process of construction. The Tremont Street subway has been found so poorly adapted to the requirements of an elevated train service that a new underground hne is to be built under Washing- ton Street for the accommodation of elevated trains. The present subway contains one eighth per cent down grade, and two up and two down grades of five per cent, besides numerous sharp curves. Station platforms are in some cases built on curves, and are too short to accommodate the increasing volume of travel. The Washington Street tunnel may be said to be fairly under way, as plans for a portion of the structure have been made, and some of the land takings effected. Tlie tracks in this tunnel will be very nearly straight, the grades easy, and the stations designed so that platforms of sufficient length to accom- modate eight car trains can be built. Upon the com- pletion of the W^ashington Street tunnel the elevated trains will be removed from the Tremont Street subway, and tlie tracks now used by the elevated trains will be restored to their former use by the surface cars. Electrical Handbook ^j Another underground line has been authorized, cross- ing the business district in a north and south direction, to be built for the use of surface cars whenever it shall become necessary. THE ELEVATED ROADWAY The elevated roadway was designed and built under the direction of Mr. George A. Kimball, Chief Engineer. It was a little over two years in building, and was opened to traffic June lo, 1901. It cost approximately $400,000 per mile outside of stations and land damage expense. The distance between the terminals by way of Atlantic Avenue is 5.4 miles. The longest distance between sta- tions is between Sullivan Square and Thompson Square in Charlestown, and measures 5.605 feet or 1.06 miles, while the shortest stretch of track between stations lies between State Street and Rowe's Wharf on the Atlantic Avenue line, and measures 988 feet or .1S9 miles. In the track layout there are 6.644 miles of main track, 6.46S miles of second track, and 2.903 miles of siding, switches, cross-overs, etc., making a total of 16.015 miles of track for elevated operation. The minimum distance between the pavement and running rail is at Dudley Street, where it is 20 feet. The highest point is in Charlestown, at the junction of Main and Bunker Hill Streets, where the running rail is 39 feet 6 inches above the level of the street. The tracks are laid 12 feet apart on centres. The running rail is standard A. S. C. E. section "T" rail, and weighs 85 pounds to the yard. The third rail is of the same pattern and weight and chemical composition as the running rail, except in the subway opposite stations, where a special rail is used. The guard rail is Pennsyl- vania Steel Company's, .Section No. 1 16, weighing 100 lbs. to the yard. Guard timbers are bolted to the ties both inside and outside of the running rail. The inside guard timber is 4 inches and the outside one lol inches from the gauge of the running rail. The centre of the third rail is 19J inches from the centre of the running rail. The /f./f. T he B s ton rails lie on Goldie tie plates, and are fastened by 5.V in. x /s in. spikes of the Lehigh Valley R.R. pattern to ties of hard pine on the elevated structure and of chestnut in the subway, and are laid 16 inches on centres in the former, and 20 inches in the latter case. ELEVATED STRUCTURE AND CONSTRUCTION The elevated structure is built of medium steel, sup- ported on steel posts resting on a foundation of con- crete. In general, the foundations commence 10 or 12 feet below the surface of the ground, this depth being considered necessary for the requisite stability, and to provide against the danger of being undermined by the ordinary excavations made in the streets and sidewalks for sewers, conduits, foundations for buildings, or other excavations which are frequent in city streets. They are built of Portland cement concrete, laid in courses about two feet thick, the first course being of such dimensions as are necessary to distribute properly the load on the earth or piles, varying from 6 feet square in hard material to 12 or more in soft material. The courses are gradually diminished in size, the upper course being 4^ feet square, on which is set a cast- iron pedestal ; soft steel anchor rods 6 ft. 2 in. x if in. are embedded in the concrete and pass through the pedestal ; and lugs on the steel posts where they are fastened by nuts, are afterwards embedded in concrete. Where piles are necessary, they are driven in such number and to such depth as to give a stable and safe foundation, and are cut off at a grade 5 feet above mean low water, or as much lower as necessary to get below the ground water level. In the design, provision was made for the dead load of structure and track system, and for a live load of 50-ton cars, each 40 ft. long. The cars which are actually operated on this structure weigh about 30 tons empty, or about 36 tons crowded, and are 46 ft. loi in. in length over all. In designing the structure, it was considered best to make provision for much heavier rolling stock Electrical Handbook 45 than is now used, as it is possible that future develop- ments in methods of transportation may call for a loco- motive system, or for cars that are much heavier than those now in use. The stresses allowed in the concrete are as follows: Compressive, varying with the different grades of con- crete from 300 lbs. to 450 lbs. per square inch. Tensile, not in excess of 30 lbs. per square inch. The ma.ximum L Sullivan Square Terminal, B. E. Ry. Co. tension in the anchor bolts is 16.000 lbs. per square inch. As the abutting power of the earth in resistance to hori- zontal forces has been neglected, the allowed tension in offsets for the bottom course and at the ba.se of the anchor course, though in general not over 30 lbs. per square inch, has been as high as 35 lbs., and in a few instances 40 lbs. The concrete was composed of American Portland cement, broken stone and sand, usually mixed in the pro- ^6 T he B ston portion ot i part cement, 2\ parts sand, and 5 parts broken stone ; but in practice the concrete for the lower courses was frequently mixed in the proportion of 1,3, and 6, and for the upper course a richer mixture of i, i, and 3 was used. The difference in the mixture was made on account of the difference in pressure per square inch between the lower and upper courses. The number of foundations built in the streets was 1,133, ^"d of these about one-half cost ^260 each in round figures, or )?9.50 per linear foot of double track structure. The remainder averaged about ^700 each, or ^25.50 per linear foot of double track structure, the increased cost being due to soft ground and interference with underground structures. These gross figures include the cost of pedestal castings, anchor castings and anchor bolts, all of which were fur- nished by the company, averaging 322.30 per foundation, also the cost of removing underground structures (paid directly to other corporations), averaging 518.30 per pier. The additional cost of concreting around the foot of each post and structure, and protecting it with wheel guards is not included in the figures. On account of the crooked streets with varying widths, many different designs of structure are used. The upper section weighs 1,060 lbs. per lineal foot, the middle, 1,105 lbs., and the lower, 1.447 l^^s. The floor system con.sists of cross-ties of Southern pine, 7 ins. by 8 ins. by 8 ft. long, laid 16 ins. on centres, and lapped i in. on the steel girder. Two inside 6 in. by 6 in., and two outside 6 in. by 9 in., hard Southern pine timbers are laid, parallel with tlie rail as guards. The running rail, as already mentioned, is 85 lbs. T. American Society of Civil Engineers' standard. On curves of 400 ft. radius or less, a high 100 lbs. guard rail is used, which is bolted to the running rail, and further supported by the rail braces. The elevated stations are provided with island or inter- track platforms 160 ft. in length. The buildings and canopies over the platforms at the way-stations are built of steel covered with copper. The platform floors are of Southern hard pine timber, resting upon steel girders, and the stairwavs are of steel and cast iron. Electrical Handbook 47 ELEVATED RAILWAY OPERATION Between the two terminals of the elevated lines, trains are operated in both directions by way of the subway. From each of the terminals a loop service is maintained in each direction through the subway and Atlantic Avenue lines. This arrangement enables pas- sengers to reach any elevated or subway stations by means of the elevated trains. The shortest headway between trains from the ter- minals is two minutes. Ten trains pass the signal towers every six minutes at the junction of the terminal lines with the Atlantic Avenue circuit during the period of shortest headway. During the rush hours thirty-four trains are in service on the elevated structure at the same time. The trains consist of three cars during hours of light riding, and four cars during "rush hours" when the patronage is highest, the rear car of each train being a smoking car. The average daily mileage is 20,000. Free transfers, without the use of transfer checks, may be made between the elevated trains and connecting surface cars operating on tracks at the same level with the elevated trains at each terminal, and at the Park street and Boylston stations in the subway. At the Sullivan Square Terminal the surface cars connect with five suburban cities and towns ; at Dudley street, with two. and at Park street and Boylston street, with seven. The population thus served amounts to approximately one million. The cars of other companies operating in districts lying beyond the Elevated's territory, and giving access to the whole of eastern New P-ngland, run to each of the terminals and to the Park street subway station. At each of the twenty-two stations free transfers are given between the elevated and surface lines. An average of over 100.000 passengers are handled daily at each terminal, and about 60.000 each at the Boyls- ton street and the Park street subway stations. During the evening rush hours, an average of .S.500 passengers per hour arrive at each terminal by train. Twenty-six thou- sand passengers have been admitted at an "island" 4-8 The Boston station in one day, the station being attended by two ticket sellers and two ticket choppers. The station slops average twelve seconds on the structure, and twenty in the subway. The paying passengers carried on the whole Boston system last year reached the enormous total of 233,563,578 ; and the car-miles footed up to 47,- 688,487. BLOCK SIGNALS A feature of the elevated system is its very complete and successful equipment with positive block signals. In this it has followed and improved upon current steam railway practice, and this valuable innovation has resulted in remarkable operative success, and in a feeling of entire security on the part of the public that is most gratifying and unusual. The block signals of the Boston Elevated Railway are electro-pneumatic; that is, the motive power is air con- trolled electrically. The electric power and compressed air are furnislied by small motor generator sets and compressors, located at suitable distril)ution points along the hne. Tlie cur- rent is supplied at 100 volts and the air at 85 lbs. pressure per square inch. As in steam railroad practice, a "track circuit" is used, one rail of the track being given up to the signal system. This rail is divided into block sections by in- sulating joints. At one end of a block section, current is supplied to this rail, passing along the rail to the other end of the block, through the relay, which controls the signal movement, back to the other rail, returning along it to the other end of the block and the other pole of the current supply. If there is no train in the block, current thus supplied to the relay energizes it ; the relay, in its turn, admits compressed air to the signal operating cyl- inder by means of a magnetic valve, and the signal is put to "clear" position. When a train enters the block, the relay is short circuited by the wheels and axles, being thus de-energized ; the compressed air is shut off from Electrical Handbook 4p the signal and it goes to ''Danger'' by means of its counter-weight. The system as a whole is unique in being the first track circuit system to be installed on an electric road, itself using the rails as a return path for the car motor currents. As the tendency of this return current is, un- der certain conditions, to energize the relays, even with a train in the block, thus giving a clear signal, although the block might be occupied, special precautions had to be taken ; the return copper for the car-motor current had to be sufficient to keep the return drop per signal block low, the relays had to be so adjusted as to respond only to a voltage higher than could ever be reached from the action of these return currents, and the track circuit voltage had to be kept high. In steam railroad practice the usual track circuit vol- tage is that of one gravity cell — about one volt — while on this road, it is kept up to from fifteen to twenty volts. Although the electric power required is, from a steam railroad signal engineer's point of view, extreme, being ICO watts per block, as against the usual o.i watt per block used by steam railroads, this is of little importance, as electric power is so plentiful and readily available on electric roads. Another thing to be guarded against in this installa- tion, was the possibility of the car-motor current passing back through the signal rail and relay instead of through the other common grounded rail, which would be the ca.se if the car wheels for any reason became insulated from this grounded rail, as might be the case in the pres- ence of sand, snow, or sleet. To guard against this, the relay is made polarized, the field coils are energized from the track rails, as described above, while the armature coils are energized with a constant polarity direct from the signal supply mains. Under normal conditions the polarities of the field coils and armature coils are such that the armature swings to the right, closing the magnet valve circuit. If, however, owing to sand, snow, or sleet, the return current from the car motors fails to get its trround on the common return rail, and tries to find a 50 The Boston ground tlirough the relay field coils, which are connected to the block rails, they become energized in the reverse direction, the armature is directed to the left instead of to the right, the circuit to the magnet valve remains open, and the signal stays at " Danger." The automatic stop was first systematically applied in this installation. This automatic stop is a T-sliaped Automatic Stup for Air-brakes piece of iron, which is mechanically connected to the signal, and rises alongside and above one of the running rails, when the signal is at " Danger." If a car goes by the signal under these conditions, the stop engages with the handle of a valve in the train pipe of the air brake Electrical II and ho ok 5/ system and causes an emergency application of the brakes. There are ninety-five track circuits on the road ; most of these control the ordinary block signals, the remainder being used to safeguard interlocking signals. The short- est block is 297 feet long, and the longest 1,997 feet. All the block signal equipment and the five interlock- ing towers are of the standard Westinghouse electro- pneumatic type. The system has proved highly efficient, the failures to operate from any cause whatsoever have averaged only about one failure for from twenty-five to thirty thousand movements, and a large proportion of these few failures have been from the grounding of the signal rail to the ironwork of the structure. There has never been a collision between trains in service, or of trains on the road — the. whole road outside of the yards being protected by either block or interlocking signals. CAR EQUIPMENT To give the technical reader a clear idea of the exact material in roiling stock necessary for the successful JKindling of the great and rapidly increasing traffic of the elevated railway proper, the following .schedule of equip- ment is appended. It is far greater in amount than was at first aiiticipated from the data available, and is stead- ily upon the increase. 174 passenger cars Passenger car bodies built I wrecking car • by Wason Mfg. Co. 53 I construction car St. Louis Car Co. 99 I tool car Osgood Bradley Car Co. 22 3 Hat cars 180 total number of cars. Measurements of Passenger Cars. 46' io|" length over draw bars. 8' gi" width over drip boards. 8' 7f" widtii across platforms. 3' 8" running rail to top of platform. 32' 2\" between truck centres. 37' (•>" length inside car. 12' 5" height of car. ^2 T he B s t on 5' 6" wheel base of trailer truck. 6' wheel base of motor truck. 4' width of middle door. 3I" between platform and centre. Weight of car light, 59,090 lbs. or 29.55 tons. Weight of car loaded, 72.090 lbs. or 36. " Percentage of weight on motor trucks, 63.45 Seating capacity, 48. All cars carry fire extinguishers. Motors: 200 Westinghouse 50-C, 150 H.P. Gear ratio 50 : 21 = 2.38. 100 Westinghouse 50-E, 150 H.P. Gear ratio 54 : 17 = 3.18. 48 Gen. Electric 68-f:, 170 H. P. Gear ratio 59: 18 = 3.28. Trucks: 104 Baldwin; Cradle motor suspension on 150 cars. 50 Brill ; .Swinging link nose suspension on 24 cars. 21 Curtis. Wheels: Cast steel, cast iron and wrought iron centres. 34-inch steel tires on motor wheels, and 31 -inch steel tires on trailer wheels. Use Krupp, Latrobe, .Stan- dard, and Mid vale tires. Each tire is ground about once every two weeks. About 48 pairs ground per day. This excessive wear is mostly caused by numerous curves on line. Life of tires is from 2i- to 3 years. Motor truck axle is b\", ']\" in wheel and gear fit, 4I" X 8" at journal. Trailer truck axle is 5^", M. C. B., 3~3i" X 7" at journal. Air Brake: Christensen system. 2 compressors. Chri.s- tensen motorman's valve. 24 new cars equipped with New York triple valves. All cars equipped with automatic trip and emergency valve. Control: 150 cars equipped with Sprague Multiple Unit Automatic Control (cylindrical;; 24 cars equipped with Sprague-General Electric Multiple Unit Auto- matic Control (contactor system). Approximate maximum .speed, 45 miles per hour. Schedule speed averages 18 miles per hour. Average k. w. hours per car mile, 4.0. Electrical Handbook jj ELEVATED DIVISION Repair Shops The machine shop of repair shop is equipped with : 1 Putnam 90" double head lathe. I Putnam 36" tire truing lathe. 4 Springfield wheel grinders. I Putnam 300-ton wheel press. I Colhurn key-way cutter. I Chicago Pneumatic Tool Go's i\ ton pneumatic geared hoist, i 15-ton electric travelling crane — 40 ft. span (Cleveland). 1 6 ton hand travelling crane, with air hoist. 1 25-ton Otis plunger elevator. I Niles 60" radial drill. I 6-ton stationary air hoist. I 20-inch shaper (Cincinnati) I iS-inch lathe (La Blond). I Pond 42-inch wheel lathe. All large tools are motor driven. An Ingersoll-Sergeant motor compressor furnishes compressed air for forges, hoists, pneumatic hammers, and testing apparatus. Kails and turntables are laid in machine shop floor for economical movement of trucks and wheels. THE SELECTION AND TRAINING OF EMPLOYEES The system of selecting men for employment in the car service is elaborate and efficient. The company is exacting in its requirements. Applicants whose general appearance is slovenly or unprepossessing are dismissed summarily, while those whose neatness, address, and ap- parent intelligence commend them are subjected to a preliminary examination and to various tests to deter- mine whether or not they meet the requirements of the service. These requirements are, in brief, that the applicant must be not less than twenty-one years nor more than thirty-five years of age for elevated service, nor more than forty-five years of age for surface-car service. His eyesight must be perfect. This is tested by the usual methods employed by oculists in fitting glasses, and the 5^ T h e B s I o n slightest defect in eitlier eye is an absolute bar to furtlier consideration. His hearing must likewise be perfect, and the applicant is required to nod his head in response to the clicks of a device that is sounded at varying dis- tances and from different directions as a test for the quickness and accuracy of each ear. Since the elevated lines were placed in operation an additional test for color-blindness has been added. The candidate is required to select from many skeins of worsted of various hues and shades those which he thinks match in general color certain samples that are handed to him. He is further required to name correctly the colored discs of light displayed by a lantern in a dark room, and a failure to select and name correctly is suffi- cient cause for rejection. No man is employed as a conductor who is less than 5 ft. 4 in. in height, nor as a motorman or brakeman if he falls below 5 ft. 6 in. ; and no man can enter the car ser- vice at all unless his fingers and thumbs are all present and in good working order. Conductors must possess a common school education, and motormen must be able to read and write the English language. If this preliminary examination discloses no unfitness, the applicant's moral character is investigated with the greatest possible thoroughness. If this investigation establishes positively that the candidate is trustworthy and otherwise desirable, he is sent to the company's phy- sician for final physical examination. This examination is intended to disclose any constitutional or organic de- fects that might interfere with the discharge of his duties in a long term of employment. About one out of every eight is rejected by the physician. The kidneys, heart, lungs, and feet have been found to be particularly vul- nerable points in men employed upon the cars ; and the company feels that it is not justified in the expenditure of the time and money necessary to break in new men who are not absolutely sound in these respects. The number of men who succeed in running the gauntlet of all of these examinations amounts to only about twenty-five per cent of the total wlio apply for Electrical Handbook jj BOSTON ELEVATED RAILWAY SYSTEM ELfVATCS LtNCS OPERATES BV S.E.CO. *>^^.« 8UPFACE t.lNE8 OPERATED BV B.E.CO BUHrACE lINEt OPERATED BY OTMU CO'I BuewAYB OB TUNNEU *^— -»^ CAB HOUBEI m POWER BIATIONt « ^6 T he B o s t n positions. It is doubtful if any other corporation or con- cern, public or private, exercises so great care in the selection of men for service. As a further precaution the company requires every conductor to furnish a bond with two real estate owners as sureties, each in the sum of three hundred dollars. The bonds of surety compa- nies are not accepted, for the reason that it is believed that the stipulation of private bondsmen is certain to result in securing greater fidelity among the employees. An individual will not assume the risk of losing three hundred dollars by the misconduct of another unless he has very excellent grounds for believing in the honesty of the person for whose possible wrong-doing he is to be held liable. An applicant who has passed the various tests, and convinced the employment department that he is in all probability capable of becoming a satisfactory operative, is then placed under instruction. On the surface lines the men are taught on the cars by instructors selected from the more competent motormen and conductors. The instructions include the rules, training in the per- formance of ordinary duties, equipment and mechanism of street cars, and the proper treatment of accidents and emergencies. The course of instruction for elevated employees is similar in general principles to that for surface employ- ees, but the method of instruction is different and of more popular interest. Men assigned to the elevated divisions begin as brakemen, are in time promoted to be guards, and finally become motormen. For each of these positions instruction and the passing of a rigid examina- tion is required. For the purpose of teaching and dem- onstration, a school-room has been equipped in the Sulli- van Square terminal station. In this room there has been built a skeleton three-car train containing all of the mechanism of a regular train, except the trucks. There are no sides, seats or roofs to the cars, these having been omitted in order that the mechanism may be exposed to view and accessible for examination. Upon this train new men and candidates for promotion are shown the Electrical Handbook 57 S8 The Boston location, operation, and use of the various devices. They learn how to connect a train, how to put it in order to take out of the yard, how to operate it, how to give and respond to the various signals, what to do in emergen- 1.4 , 1.3 J 1 1 S; 1 1 i - J COST OF POWER p ^ PER K.W. HOUR C i 1 " FOR YEAR OCT 1,1901 TO SEPT.30,1902 1.0 f ^ DEPT.OF WIRES AND CONDUITS IM 1 i ELEC 1 1 1 , 1 .9 1 .8 i T H .7 T tr i — - i --[ - L f- I r. \ t .6 t 1 i ^ p iLj 1 --- .5 - .4 5- - — — - - .3 ,L. -~ - .2 -- - - — --- - — - - C.P ■S. E.C. ^S A. \% DH.P.S. t-B P.S. D. ^S. H. >.% L.F y%. TO TAL 1 1 COAL _i p RE PA RS r iLAiOF X P SUPPLIES, SUF T.ANDC EN.EXP. - Nm \l: DIARRAM SHO A/s cost'of'oper TION ALC NEWTH OUTFXE D CHARC FS Cost of Power in Plants of Boston Elevated Railway Company cies, and how to lay up a train when it is hauled off the main line. Tliere is no make-believe about anything ex- cept the motion of the train. No man is permitted to assume the responsibilities of his position until he has demonstrated on the dummy train that he is thoroughly Electrical Handbook jp familiar with his duties and with the equipment he is expected to handle. An absolutely perfect examination must be passed before the train-master will certify that a candidate is qualified for the service. The examina- tions for brakemen, guards, and motormen are different, and consist of prescribed questions that are answered orally or by demonstration. GENERAL RELATIONS WITH EMPLOYEES Tiie company does its utmost to thoroughly instruct new men, and it is equally painstaking in their subse- quent training. It aims to perfect every man as fully as possible in all the details of the business, not only because it must have reliable men on the cars, but be- cause it must find its future superintendents, inspectors, and other officers among the men who to-day manipu- late the controller and bell chord. Every man brings a new problem to his superintend- ent and assistants. It is their duty to .see that all ac- cepted men are made into good men, to see that good men are made better, and to see that the best men are recommended for promotion. With this end in view, leniency and consideration are extended to new men who are at fault until the company is satisfied that they are well versed in the rules which should govern their conduct, but men who negligently and willfully violate rules are disciplined by reprimand, suspension, or discharge. Suspension is a severe form of discipline, imposed only for serious offences. Kepeti- tion of these offences leads to discharge. The work of every man is studied by his superiors from the day he begins to run a car until his connection with the company is severed. It is no slight task to keep a w\atchful eye upon the conduct of five thousand men who are performing their duties far from those who are held responsible for what they do, say, or omit ; but, with the aid of a force of uniformed and non-uniformed insi^ectors, it is possible to keep up a very good super- vision of the work of each man. 6o The Boston Although a division superintendent cannot be so in- timately acquainted with every man under his authority as to know, as a matter of memory, the temperament, merit, and capabiHty of each, yet as a matter of justice to the company and to the employees, some form of rec- ord must be provided ; and for this reason, among others, a ledger account is kept with every man that makes full information available whenever an employee is under consideration for discipline or reward. Each surface division is sub-divided into districts, and a street inspector in uniform is assigned to duty in each district, and is held responsible, so far as possible, for the movement of cars, correction of mistakes, viola- tions of rules, and for report of defects that occur within the district. This is accomplished by informing any mo- torman or conductor of any failure of conduct observed by the inspector, and explaining the nature of the error and how it should have been avoided, later making a full report of the occurrence to the division superintendent. Inspectors, from time to time, are assigned to different districts, so that all may have a thorough knowledge of the entire division. Street inspectors are not only ex- pected to observe and report upon everything affecting the service, but are to keep trafific moving by diverting cars in case of accident, fire, or other obstruction. They are required to regularly report by telephone to the office of the division superintendent. As a result of the efforts of the street inspection force, both the number and proportion of accidents at- tributable to motormen and conductors have been greatly reduced. The plan is to have every mistake or wrongful act pointed out and explained at the time it occurs, while every circumstance is in the mind of the offender. Uni- formed inspectors explain, instruct, correct and report, but all matters of discipline are decided by the division superintendents and their superior officers. Another corps of inspectors, who wear no uniforms, supplements the work of the division inspectors. These men are selected and trained with the greatest possible care to observe and report upon the conduct of the men Electrical Handbook 6 1 as it appears from inside the cars, in the same manner that the street inspectors observe from without. The reports of these inspectors are of the greatest possible value to the management and to the men who perform their work well. In dealing with the men collectively every effort is made to bring about an atmosphere of sympathetic and harmonious co-operation. One of the most successful methods employed for this purpose is the holding of meetings of a semi-formal nature for the discussion of operating problems. Twice each month the Superintend- ent of Transportation holds meetings of superintendents of divisions and departments. The.se meetings are opened with a talk by the Superintendent of Transporta- tion upon some subject relating to division management, the improvement of the service, the interpretation of rules, and other kindred themes. After his address an "experience meeting" is held, in which all participate. At first the discu.ssion usually centres upon the subject pre.sented by the Superintendent of Transportation, but after that is disposed of, all sorts of subjects are brought up. Reports are made, advice is asked and given, and ideas are exchanged. Once a month a similar meeting of chief inspectors, and such other inspectors as choose to attend, is con- ducted by the Superintendent of Transportation, and the same general programme is followed. Division superin- tendents also conduct meetings of inspectors and starters attached to their divisions, and explain and discuss the affairs of the division. They al.so hold meetings of the car men at such times and places as will enable every man in the division to attend at least one meeting each month. In this manner the management, through its direct representatives, talks as often as once a month to every man directly engaged in handling traffic. The company strives to show its interest in the wel- fare of the men in many ways, and does all tnat is possi- ble for their well-being. Among other things it pays about the highest wages in the country. Conductors and motormen on the surface lines receive ;>2.25 per day for 62 The Boston lo hours' work, and 4 cents for every ten minutes over- time, while 35 and 40 cents per hour is paid for snow- plow work. On the elevated lines all men are paid by the hour. Ten hours constitutes a day's work, and on that basis brakemen who are beginners are paid 31-^5 ; guards are paid $2.10, and motormen $2.2,0 the first year, 32.40 the second year, and 32.50 for subsequent service. Learners are paid $\ a day ; extra men are guaranteed about two- thirds full pay for being on call, whether work is given them or not, and are paid more if they earn more. All men in the car service are paid 5 cents a day extra for five years' continuous service, 10 cents for ten years, and 15 cents for fifteen or more years. Fifteen dollars extra pay is given at the end of each year for meritoriuus service. Men who have spent twenty-five years in continuous service, or have reached the age of sixty, after fifteen years of continuous service, upon becoming incapacitated for future work are granted an annuity, usually $25 a month, for the remainder of their lives. The company never discharges a man except for cause, and endeavors to make the lot of its employees as comfortable as possi- ble, often going far out of its way to do so. During the recent coal strike the company imported twenty thousand tons of coal to be distributed among its employees at cost ; and many a house was warmed tliat would other- wise have been cold and wretched. The lobbies at the car sheds are made thoroughly comfortable for the men. They are supplied with papers, rr.agazines, and other good reading matter at an annual expense of more than 31.500. The toilet and sanitary arrangements are adequate and convenient. The car- sheds are business establishments, and not club houses; nevertheless the company endeavors to provide whole- some, attractive, and comfortable quarters for its em- ployees. The company pays the running expenses of two mu- tual benefit associations organized and conducted by employees. Both of these associations pay members Electrical Handbook dj $7 a week during sickness not exceeding ten weeks in a year, and one of them pays Sioo and the other Si,ooo in case of death. All of the payments for sickness and death are met by monthly assessments. The annual cost of membership is about 515. The company assumes the cost of collecting and distributing the money, of keeping the books and other incidental expenses, so that every dollar contributed by the men is available for distribu- tion. The contribution of the company for this purpose amounts to nearly $7,000 annually. A very good band of music has been organized among the men, and this is also supported by the company. Then, too, the company comes to the relief of men in individual cases of hardship. Efforts are constantly being made to make the men feel that the management is a friend and helper to every man who is loyal to the service, and faithful in the performance of his duties. The legal department may be consulted by any employee free of expense. The President is accessible to every individual at all seasonable hours, and no person having legitimate business to present is ever denied an audience. The President is always ready and glad to discuss any matter with individuals or groups, and make changes or adopt suggestions whenever it is feasible to do so. Perhaps what has already been said will give a gen- eral idea of the manner in which the company deals with the individual. At best it can be no more than sugges- tive of the many other means adopted to establish an individual relationship between every employee and the central office. The aim is to have every man feel that the management has a personal interest in him, that it is anxious to help him improve, that if he does well it is known and he receives credit, and that if he does ill it is also known and lie must take the consequences. POWER STATIONS AND ELECTRIC SYSTEM The IJoston Elevated Railway system comprises 421.5 miles of tramway tracks, and 16 miles of elevated tracks, all within a radius of seven miles from the State House on Beacon Hill. 64. The Boston For the operation of these tracks there are required about 1,550 closed tramway cars and a like number of open cars, and 174 elevated cars. The elevated road traverses the heart of the city from north to south, connecting with the surface lines in terminals at either end and at every intermediate station. In the city proper there are two branches, one through the subway, underground, and the other by the water front overhead. Collector and Track Brush Power for this work is furnished by eight power .sta- tions, operating on the 550 volt, direct current, track return, system. These power station.s, with a total normal generating capacity of 36,444 kilowatts, are divided, as to size and number of units, as follows: I. Central Power Station Capacity, 14.400 k.w. Units Lincoln Power .Station Capacity, 8,100 k.w. Units Charlestown Power Station Capacity, 4,300 k.w. Units 1-2700 k.w. 2-1500 " ] 6-1200 " L 30-50 " 3-2700 k.w. 1-2700 k.w. 2-SoO " Electrical Handbook 6^ 4. Harvard Power Station Capacity, 3,600 k.w. Units 3-1200 k.w. 5. East Cambridge Power Station Capacity, 2,700 k.w. Units 6-450 k.w. 6. Dorchester Power Station • Capacity, 2,000 k.w. Units 2-1000 k.w. 7. Allston Power Station Capacity, 744 k.w. Units 12-62 k.w. 8. East Boston Power Station Capacity, 600 k.w. Units 3-200 k.w. Reference to the map on page 57 will show the lo- cation of the several power stations, each one being represented by a star. All are located on tide water with the exception of the Allston power station, so that water is available for condensing purposes. I. Central Power Station This, the main station of the system, is situated on Harrison Ave., south of Dover Street. The equipment consists of six 1,800 h.p. horizontal triple-expansion, condensing engines; two 2,000 h.p. hor- izontal, cross-compound, condensing engines ; and one 4,200 h.p. vertical cross-compound condensing engine, all direct coupled to multipolar generators. Condensing water is drawn from the South Basin, nearby, and is utilized in condensers of the Bulkley siphon type. The boiler room is in tandem with the engine room, and the boilers are arranged in two rows facing each other, with a track down the center from which coal cars di.scharge their load in front of each unit. The boilers are hand fired. Coal is brought by electric locomotives and cars from the coal wharf across the street, where two electrically operated buckets on travelling cranes discharge the coal from lighters and barges, over tunnels equipped with 66 The Boston chutes for loading cars for transportation to this and other power stations and car houses. The wharf has a storage capacity of about 24,000 tons of coal. Lincoln Power Station In a building adjacent to the main station are 30-50 k.w. bipolar generators, belted to tandem compound, high speed, engines. These machines were originally installed for temporary use in an old building on the premises, to Electrical Handbook 6y be used during the construction of the main powerhouse. This plant has never been discarded, although but little used. 2. Lincoln Power Station This is the newest station of the Company, and is situated on the harbor front at the corner of Atlantic Avenue and Battery Street. The equipment consists of three 4,200 h.p. vertical, cross-compound condensing engines, direct coupled to multipolar generators. The boiler room is back of and parallel with the engine room. The boilers are arranged in two rows, facing each other, and are fed with coal from the bunkers overhead, through hoppers to mechani- cal stokers. The condensers of this station are of the jet type, the pumps for the same being steam driven. Condensing water is taken directly from and discharged into the dock. A coal handling and storage plant is situated on tlie wharf directly back of the power station, equipped with 3 steam-operated coal towers, and having a storage capa- city of about 4.000 tons of coal. The coal is transferred to the bunkers over the boilers by a system of moving buckets. An unusual feature of the electrical equipment of this station is the generator switchboard, on which there are only the positive terminals and connections of tlie gen- erators, the negative terminals being connected directly to the negative bus. 3. Charlestown Power Station This station is situated near the northerly terminal of the elevated road in Charlestown. Its equipment con- sists of one 4,200 h.p. vertical, cross-compound, conden- sing engine, and two i.ooo h.p. horizontal, cross-compound condensing engines, all direct coupled to multipolar gen- erators. The condenser for the large engine is of tlic ]5iilklev siphon type with steam circulating pump. The conden- 68 T he B s ton sers for the two small engines are of the jet type with steam pumps. The boiler room is back of and parallel with the engine room, and the boilers are arranged in a single row. Coal is conveyed by a bucket conveyor to the bunkers above the boilers, to which it is fed by me- chanical stokers. 4. Harvard Power Station This station, as its name implies, is situated not far from Harvard Square, on Boylston Street in Cambridge. Its equipment consists of three 1,800 h.p. cross-com- pound, horizontal, condensing engines, direct coupled to multipolar generators. The condensing water is drawn from the Charles River on the shore of which the station is located, and is utilized in jet condensers, equipped with steam air and circulating pumps. The boiler room is back of and parallel with the engine room, and the boilers are arranged in one row. Coal is brought to this station from the coal wharves at Central or Lincoln Power Stations by a specially de- signed car, and is deposited, through openings in the bottom of the car, into coal bunkers below the track, from which it is conveyed by small cars and an endless chain, and deposited in hoppers above the furnaces, from which it is discharged into mechanical stokers. 5. East Cambridge Power Station This is one of the oldest power stations and is situ- ated in East Cambridge on the river front. The equip- ment consists of two 1,000 h.p. and one 500 h.p. horizontal triple-expansion, condensing engines, with broad face fly- wheels, belted to a jack shaft, from which are belted six 4-pole generators. This jack shaft is divided into three parts, which may be united by means of clutches. The condensers for two of the engines are of the sur- face type, and for the other one of the Bulkley type, with steam pumps. The boiler room stands at right angles with the engine room, and the boilers are arranged in one Electrical Handbook 6g row. Coal is discharged at the station from lighters and deposited in a pile in front of the boiler house, into which it is wheeled by hand. The boilers are hand fired. 6. Dorchester Power Station This station is located on the shore of Dorchester Bay on Commercial Point. Its equipment consists of two 1,500 h.p. horizontal, cross-compound condensing engines, direct coupled to multipolar generators. The condensers are of the jet type with steam pumps. The boiler room is back of and parallel with the en- gine room, and the boilers are arranged in one row. Coal is discharged from lighters at the wharf alongside the power station, and is deposited in a pile near the building, from which it is wheeled into the boiler room and shovelled into hoppers, through which it pas.ses to the mechanical stokers with which the boilers are equipped. 7. AUston Power Station This is the oldest of all the stations. It was built to operate the first electric cars run in Boston, and was originally designed for one-half the present size, but the design was changed and the station doubled in capacity before it was finished. Its equipment consists of four horizontal-tandem, compound, high speed non-condensing engines, belted to bipolar generators. The boiler room is back of and parallel with the engine room and the boilers are arranged in one row. They are of the fire tube type and are hand fired. Coal is brought to this station from the coal wharf at Central or Lincoln Power Stations by means of a spe- cially designed coal car, and the coal is deposited on the floor of the boiler room in front of the boilers. 8. East Boston Power Station This station is located in East Boston on the water front and supplies power for that part of the system located on the island. The equipment consists of three yo The Boston 250 h.p. horizontal, cross-compound, condensing engines, direct coupled to multipolar generators. The conden- sers at this station are of the jet type with steam pumps. The boiler room is back of and parallel to the engine room, and the equipment consists of three inter- nally fired, vertical tubular boilers which are hand fired. Coal is brought to this station by teams from the coal wharf at Lincoln Power Station, and is deposited on the floor of the boiler room. These eight power stations, although separated from one another by distances ranging from 2 to 3 miles, oper- ate in parallel with each other through feeder sections to which two or more of them are connected. DISTRIBUTION OF POWER The whole system is divided into 65 feeder sections, controlled by switches and circuit-breakers at the several power stations; 21 of these are .sections which are fed from two or more stations, and it is through the copper connecting these sections with the power stations that the latter are worked in parallel. The morning load works from the outer part of the system radially toward the centre, and the evening load, in the reverse manner. This tie copper together with the adjustment of station voltage, permits of a fairly uniform load and a high load-factor for each station. If one of the generating units at one of the power stations becomes disabled, the load upon that station is reduced by lowering its voltage, allowing the other sta- tions to assume the extra burden to an extent propor- tional to their several abilities. Service has been maintained in this manner at a time when two of the 2,700 k.w., and one of the 1,300 k.w. units were out of service at times of maximum load. TRANSMISSION SYSTEM The feeders and returns are carried underground from all stations, except East Cambridge, Allston, and East Boston, from which they are still carried overhead. Electrical Handbook ji The standard sizes of wire for overhead feeders are 500,000 cm. and 1,000,000 cm. The standards for under- ground worlv are 500,000 cm., 1,000,000 cm., and 2,000,. 000 cm., the latter size being used for carrying the heavy currents required in the elevated service. The standard size for trolley wire is No. 00. In underground work vitrified earthware duct is now the standard construction. There are, however, some few miles of cement-lined iron pipe, installed at the in- ception of the work of placing feeders underground. There are emergency connections between adjacent surface feeder sections and between adjacent elevated feeder sections ; and there are also emergency connec- tions between the elevated and surface sections, so that, in the event of failure of the copper of any section, service may be quickly restored. Seven emergency crews with properly equipped wagons are located at advantageous points over the system, ready to respond to orders from the power station authorities in time of trouble. The elevated lines are operated by the third rail sys- tem, current being collected for the motors of the cars by a special form of spring collecting shoe. Throughout the subway this third rail is divided into sections corresponding in length with the signal blocks, and controlled by a conveniently located switch, so that, should an accident occur to the electrical equipment of a train while in the subway, it may be isolated very quickly. , The following facts concerning the transmission lines and feeder sections may be of interest. The longest di.s- tance over which power is normally transmitted from each power station is as follows : From Central, 8.05 miles (with boosters). " Lincoln, 2.10 " Charlestovvn, 5.17 " " Harvard, 5.91 " " East Cambridge, 6.1 5 " " Dorchester, 5.00 " " East Boston, i (>S " y2 The B st n The average distances over which power is normally transmitted from each station, to the electrical centres of gravity of the feeder sections, are as follows: Central, 1.40 miles Lincoln, 1.14 " Charlestown, 2.75 " Harvard, 2.14 " East Cambridge, 1.50 " Dorchester, 1.2S " Miles of trolley wire, 413 " " feeder and return wire (overhead) (in 500,000 cm. equivalent), 551 " " " and return wire (underground) (in 500,000 cm. equivalent), 295 " " submarine cable, 4.6 " " underground conduit structure, 26.5 " " '' " duct, 239.5 Number of manholes, 583 No. of feed taps to trolley (direct), 633 " " " " " " (through switches), 800 " " connections to tracks from return wires, 608 " " insulating joints in trolley, 913 " " poles (all kinds), 18,102 The most striking electrical feature of the Boston Elevated Railway system is the fact that the company has adhered consistently to the policy of generating its power at a number of independent stations, instead of following the now common fashion of generating at one colossal plant and transmitting power at high tension to sub-stations with rotaries feeding various parts of the network. This diversity in practice is not without reason. It does not represent either extreme conserva- tism or a condition of being hopelessly behind the times, but rather a realization of the possibilities of economical generation of power in stations of moderate size. One of the points most often argued among electrical engineers, is the variation of power-cost with capacity of station, other conditions remaining approximately equal. Representing this variation in the form of a curve, it is clear enough that at some point of output this curve be- Electrical Handbook /j comes asymptotic ; that is, at some capacity of indeter- minate amount a further increase in size does not effecta perceptible saving in cost. The present tendency has been to assume, in many cases without adequate proof, that this critical size is extremely large, so that stations of 50,000 to 100,000 kilowatts output have been frequently planned, and sometimes in fact built. Obviously in order that generation of power at such a colossal station shall prove finally to be economical, it is necessary that the cost at this station be small enough to permit material losses in transmission and in the rotaries at the sub-stations, still leaving the net cost of power at the sub-station bus-bars less than it would be if generated in separate stations at approximately the same points. There is good reason to believe that the aggregate of these losses, including proper charges for the mainte- nance and depreciation of the transmission lines, is large ; seldom, perhaps never, less tlian 25 per cent of the total cost of power ; sometimes, perhaps rather often, in excess of that amount. The concrete problem which faces the engineer is therefore the possibility of saving, by generating in one immense station, enough in cost of power to enable him to lose with impunity what may be a very material frac- tion of the whole. Can he, in other words, by building one station of 50,000 kilowatts capacity, or more, produce and distribute (costs being reckoned at the substation busbars) his power more cheaply than if those bus-bars were fed by separate stations? Under existing conditions here in Boston, the engineers of the Boston Elevated Rail- way Company have steadily held to the negative of this proposition, believing that where it is possible, as it is here, to locate independent stations practically upon tide- water, or at least at points extremely accessible, the costs of generation in stations of moderate size are so near those which can be attained under similar conditions in very large stations as to leave no margin for the nece.s- sary losses of transmission and of sub-station opera- tion. The annexed diagram sliows in a most vivid and con- J 4- T he B si on vincing manner the substance of their argument from practice. This diagram gives the cost of power per kilo- watt hour for a complete year for each of the generating stations of the system, and the average of the whole. It must be distinctly understood that these costs are not computed costs or values determined from sets of experi- mental runs of the various plants. They are the figures of operation day in and day out, as obtained at each of the plants. Each station is, in fact, under continuous test, the amount of coal used and the amount of water evapor- ated being determined as part of the regular operation of the system. The final costs, therefore, represent what actually happened. The diagram shows the complete and final costs of operation without the fixed charges annexed, which is the common and customary method of comparison in considering power-house costs. A glance at it shows at once that three of the stations, those at East Cambridge, Allston, and East Boston, are conspicuously higher in cost of power production than any of the others. The latter two of these are small stations : Allston of 744 kilo- watts, in small units ; East Boston of only 600 kilowatts, in three units. The East Cambridge power station, al- though of an aggregate capacity of 2,700 kilowatts, is composed of units of only 450 kilowatts each. The other five stations all sh nv low costs of power. At Dorchester and at Harvard the cost per kilowatt hour is just seven- tenths of a cent. At the Lincoln power station it is 0.725 cent ; at the Charlestown power station 0.755 cent ; at the Central power station 0.76 cent ; and in the total, taking into consideration the adverse effect of the three old and relatively inefficient stations, the final cost is only 0.775 cent. The three typical modern power stations, Dorchester, Harvard, and Lincoln, show operating costs of a most gratifying character, and the point which deserves espe- cial notice is that the Dorchester and Harvard stations, the former of 2,000 and the latter of 3,600 kilowatts, are perceptibly better in performance than the Central power station of over 14,000 kilowatts, and the Lincoln power Electrical Handbook 75 station of over S,ooo. A cost of power of seven-tenths of a cent per kilowatt hour, with coal at $3.60 per ton, which was the actual average during the period covered by the diagram, is so low as to leave no reasonable margin for the losses in, and cost of, high voltage transmission and sub-station work, deriving its energy from a central power station. Unquestionably, part of the excellence of the result reached is due to the fact that the stations are skillfully handled, not only as units, but as a whole, so that the load factors are kept high as far as it is possible to keep them high upon a street railway system. An- other most interesting point is that the Central station, with hand fired boilers, shows a lower cost for coal and labor combined than either the Lincoln or Charlestown stations with mechanical stokers. Whatever the ex- planation may be, the- uncompromising fact is in evi- dence. So far as conditions existing here in Boston are con- cerned, this diagram is a complete vindication of the wisdom of the policy which has been pursued. There is very small probability that, using any present prime movers and electrical apparatus, a station of any practi- cable size located on tide-water in or near Boston, could actually turn out power cheaply enough to permit econom- ical transmission over the Boston network as against stations showing the performance of the best of these in- dividual stations, or even of the average. There may be opportunities in this territory for the economical transmission of power to sub-stations (the conditions which exist in the Boston network do not necessarily exist in other localities) ; but taking things as they are, the simplicity of the method and the excellence of the results are a striking lesson in the intelligent in- stallation and management of medium sized station.s, a lesson which engineers in other parts of the country would do well to take to heart, at least to the extent of investigating carefully the conditions of power genera- tion on a moderate scale in connection with the transmis- sion of power to sub-stations. There is no final and definite solution to a problem such as tliis; all solutions jS Electrical H andh ook are necessarily special and proximate ; but the results at- tained in the practice of the Boston Elevated Railway Company are certainly worthy the solemn consideration of those contemplating the construction of enormous generating stations. T/ie Massachusetts Electric mnies CompL ASIDE from the work of the Boston Elevated Railway Company, the suburban lines in the vicinity of Boston are in the hands of several organizations, the Newton & Boston Street Railway, the Boston & Worcester Street Railway, and other corporations ; but the great mass of the work, north and south of the city, has fallen to the lot of the Mas- sachusetts Electric Companies. This organization is a voluntary association of owners of stock in two previously existing large street railway systems and in one electric light company. The larger organization was formed in 1899, and is managed by a board of trustees, who hold the title to all its assets. Practically, it has complete control of the Hyde Park Electric Light Company and of the Boston & Northern and the Old Colony Street Railway Com- panies. These last two had previously come into exist- ence through the virtual consolidation of a very large number of interests. Thirty-two street railway com- panies have thus come under the control of one carefully managed and coherent organization, doing an immense business north and south of Boston, including most of the street railway facilities of Massachusetts, and lines as far north as Nashua, N. H., and extending on the south as far as Fall River, Newport, and Providence, R. I., and connecting at the Boston end with the Boston Elevated system. The southern lines were grouped under the name of the Old Colony Street Railway Company, and the northern lines under the name of the Boston & Northern Street Railway Company, the two street rail- way components of the present Massachusetts Electric Company, and in fact the operators of the north and south sections of the network, respectively. 77 78 The Boston Electrical H a n dh o ok 79 The effect of this wholesale consolidation has been to unify the rapid transit facilities in the metropolitan dis- trict and in the farther suburban regions to a remarkable degree. The process is still going on, and, as will presently be explained, the problem of supplying power economically to this great aggregation of roads is now in prospect of solution. Obviously, wliile each one of an extensive group of roads may originally have been pro- vided with power by a system correctly designed for that Cable Terminal Station, Uincktuu particular road, so soon as pliysical consolidation of the groups has taken place, conditions are cliangcd, and tlie former points of power supply are by no means the most economical which could be selected to meet the new conditions. From an engineering standpoint the questions thus arising are of great interest, and they are occupying to- day a large part of the attention of the engineers of the ortranization under discussion. It is to be understood 8o The Boston that the Old Colony Street Railway Company and the Boston & Northern Street Railway Company, although actually closely unified as the Massachusetts Electric Company, are, as operating companies, still in active service, and are united merely through a holding com- pany, although closely enough to secure the practical benefits of a more elaborate system of consolidation. Quincy Point Station. Interior The map of this complicated and interesting system will give a clear idea of the nature of the problem of dis- tribution involved in consolidating the generating stations. The great new station at Quincy Point is the main elec- trical centre of the southern half of the network. The reorganization of the power supply on the northern half has not yet been finally formulated. The Brockton sub- Electrical Handbook ynn, tS84. The First Thomson- Houston Factory, Lynn, 1884 The development of the business took place very rapidly, in the hands of the energetic Lynn manage- ment, and while it originally related almost entirely to the Thomson-Houston arc-lighting system, it was soon extended to include the various dei)artments of electrical engineering. In the arc-lighting field alone, within eight years after the Lynn management began work, the number of arc lights installed had increased from a few hundreds to 80,000 or more, and tliis num- ber is now being produced annually. In succession, the business of manufacturing series incandescent lamps for constant current circuits, in- io8 The Boston candescent lamps for direct current constant potential circuits, alternating current lamps, alternating current lamps with transformers, electric railway apparatus and marine, power and mining apparatus of all kinds were taken up, and factory after factory was added to the original plant, and the increase has steadily kept up until the enormous manufacturing plant of the General Electric Company, now existing at Lynn, has been developed. During this great industrial development, many in- ventions were brought out by the inventors and engi- General Electric Works, Lynn, 1S93 neers of the Company, and the technical work under- taken became recognized as being well in the forefront of electrical engineering development. This period re- ferred to, marked the inception of many of the devices, the use of which in later years has been extended in a very large way, such, for example, as the electric meters, first brought out in 1889. It was in 1892 that the Edison General Electric Company, working under the Edison patents and sys- tem, was merged with the Thomson-Houston Electric Electrical Ha n d book log Company, to form what now is the General Electric Company, having its principal works and office at Schenectady, New York. Before this consolidation of interests, which was of great importance in the elec- trical field, the Thomson-Houston Electric Company had already acquired the Brush Electric Company at Cleveland, Ohio, and had incorporated the Brush business with its own. It will be remembered that the Brush Electric Company was the first company to exploit series arc-lighting, under the patents of Mr. Charles F. Brush. The present plant at Lynn employs about 6,000 hands, being second in size of the works controlled and operated by the General Electric Company, and its productions are of great importance in the business of the Company. Ow-ing to local conditions at Lynn, the plant is at present subdivided into three groups of buildings. These are known as the West Lynn Works, the River Works, and the Incandescent Lamp Factory, and they cover a combined area of about 80 acres, with a floor space of about 1,200,000 square feet. The initial plant, greatly extended and known as the West Lynn Works, covers about 10 acres, with a floor space of something over half a million square feet. It is devoted largely to the manufacture of moderate and small-sized apparatus, such as arc-lamps, arc-dynamos, electric meters, measuring instruments, alternating and direct current fan motors, small and moderate sized alternating and direct current stationary motors, gen- erators of moderate capacity, electric heating apparatus; and general supplies, such as insulated wire, built-up mica, and other insulating materials. This factory has the distinction of having the largest output of the above mentioned classes of apparatus of any manu- facturing concern in the world. The "River Works," as it is called, is about a mile from the West Lynn jjhmt and is situated on the east bank of the Saugus River, which is a tidal stream and no The Boston furnishes adequate water freight transportation, and is auxiliary to exceptional railway facilities. The first buildings of this large plant were the iron and steel foundries, erected in 1894. In the iron foundry iron castings are made for the general manufacture, and in the steel foundry heavy and light steel castings are produced on a large scale. It is worthy of note that the steel foundry at the River Works at Lynn was probably the first foundry specially devoted to the production of steel castings solely for electrical ma- chinery. Gradually the nucleus formed by these foundries became surrounded by a growth of buildings devoted to many other branches of the work, so that the total floor area is now approximately 652,000 square feet. Here are located the general carpenter shop of the Lynn factories, the pattern shop, the large general machine shop, with the most modern equipment of tools, etc., and the insulation department, devoted to the various treatments and preparations which enter into the other manufactures to secure high insulation. Here also will be found the punch-press department, where all the stampings for the rest of the works are made, such as transformer stampings, motor and generator armature stampings and the like. Here also are presses for forming sheet metal into various shapes. The manufacture of railway motor equipments and transformers is also carried on in a group of buildings at the River Works. A recent addition to the plant in the form of a huge steel-frame building, having a floor area of 140,000 square feet, is nearing completion. This building is to be devoted to the manufacture of the Curtis Steam Turbine in sizes ranging from i| to 1,500 k.w. capacity. The manufacture of incandescent lamps in Lynn was started by the Thomson-Houston Electric Com- pany about the year 1885, in one of the early additions to its original plant. This was continued with en- largements up to the time of the union v.-ith the Edison Electrical Handbook m tt2 The BostoTt General Electric Company in 1892, and soon there- after the incandescent lamp business of the General Electric Company was concentrated at its large lamp works at Harrison, New Jersey. It is interesting to note that in the past two or three years the General Electric Company has again established a portion of its incandescent lamp business in Lynn, and there is now in operation a factory, the capacity of which is 20,000 lamps per day, and additional facilities are being provided for a much larger production. In this factory, all the manifold operations which are involved in the production of the complete incandescent lamp are carried on. It was the policy of the Thomson-Houston Electric Company — and this policy has been continued by its successor, the General Electric Company — to devote a certain portion of its energies to the development of new inventions and designs. To this end, facilities have always existed in the Lynn Works, as also in the Schenectady Works, of the Com- pany for the experimental development of new appa- ratus. In this way the Lynn Works has contributed largely to the art in the new devices and inventions from time to time developed by the Company's engi- neers. From the first, the policy of the Thomson-Houston Electric Company was that of recognizing merit in other enterprises, and securing control of the important ones, whereby its business was widely extended through- out the country. For example, Mr. Charles J. Van Depoele had, as early as February, 1883, been doing pioneer work in the propulsion of street-cars and ex- hibited an electric railway in Chicago; at the exhibi- tion in Toronto in 1884 he had operated a conduit electric railway; and in 1885 the Toronto road was operated by an overhead conductor, with an under- running trolley. In 1888 the Thomson-Houston Com- pany purchased the patents of Mr. Van Depoele, and secured his services. From that time the Company Electrical Handbook iij became a very considerable factor in the electric rail- way business, and the plant at West Lynn was largely devoted to the supplying of railway motor equipment and power station equipments required in the business. It will be remembered that the first direct connected d.c. 500-volt, 1,500 k.w. generator was installed at the World's Fair in Chicago in the operation of the Intramural Railway within the exhibition grounds. The parts of this large generator were built in Lynn and were assembled for the first time in the power house at the Exposition. Some idea of the growth of the works at Lynn may be obtained from the statement that in 1892 the floor space occupied had increased to 350,000 square feet, and the number of employees had risen to over 4,000. T'he A?}terica?i Telephone a?td Telegraph Company THE RISE OF THE TELEPHONE BOSTON is preeminently the Telephone City. It is the birthplace and early home of the telephone, and is, and always has been, the headquarters of the telephone business in North America. Before the year 1876 there was not a single speaking telephone in the hands of the public anywhere in the whole world. When that year opened, though Alexander Graham Bell had previously discovered the fundamental principles of the telephone, had invented the art of elec- trically transmitting spoken words, and plans for practis- ing it, and though he had even made telephones exem- plifying such principles, no patent protecting the invention had as yet been granted to him ; no one except the in- ventor had ever made or used the instruments ; and such suggestions of transmitting conversation over wires by means of the electrical current as had perchance made their appearance were either disregarded altogether, or, if considered at all, were by press and people alike treated as an excellent joke. But now in the year of grace, 1904, everyone knows, in a general way, what the telephone is ; what the telephone exchange is ; and that this wonderful means of electrically transmitting thought and communicating intelligence from one place to another is universally employed and made available in almost every city and considerable town of every civilized country. The invention of the telephone was the result of the fortuitous combination of the right man, an appropriate environment, and a special training ; and admirably exemplifies the truth that while for the accomplishment of such special work, energy, aptitude, and perseverance are 114 Electrical Handbook li£ essential qualifications, their value is immeasurably in- creased and the chances of success infinitely enhanced, if to them are superadded the special equipment of special training and education ; the conviction that the object sought is attainable; and the determination to attain it. Perhaps no man ever was so well equipped as Graham Bell for making an invention. Certainly no man could be better equipped for the making of this particular in- vention. His father, Alexander Melville Bell, was a professor of vocal physiology, and he himself had been trained and educated from boyhood to the same profes- sion. He had been familiar with the operation, the constitution and nature of speech for many years, and as a boy had made a mechanical talking machine. Born and brought up in Scotland, young Bell — then twenty-three years old — moved with his parents to Can- ada in 1870, and ultimately in 1872 to Boston, where he lectured upon vocal physiology at Boston University, besides giving lessons to private pupils. Much of his work consisted in teaching deaf-mutes to talk ; that is, to carry on conversation orally, although they themselves could not hear it, a thing which seems much more diffi- cult now than the electrical transmission of speech ; and we need not wonder that he grew to mentally see the movement of the air particles which constitutes sonorous vibration. Nor, considering the manner of man he was, is it to be wondered at, that since the time for the appear- ance of the speaking telephone was now at hand, he should be the discoverer of the important and essential fact that the current flowing in the line between a trans- mitting and receiving plate or membrane must be an electrical copy of the vibrations of the original sounds, — must, to use his own words, be "similar in form to the vibrations of the air accompanying " such original sound.s, — in order that the motion of one of the plates should control that of the other, and that the motion of the controlled plate should in every respect be a copy of that of the controlling one. A clear conception of the nature of the prolilcm, and a plan for its solution, certainly presented themselves to 116 The Boston the mind of Mr. Bell during tlie year 1S74, and in October of that year he imparted his ideas to a friend ; but here for the moment he was stopped by the apprehension that any working currents generated on the plan he had in mind (which in substance involved the magneto-electric apparatus he subsecjuently developed) would probably be too feeble to produce practically useful results. Now the telephone was not the only matter in addition to his regular duties that our inventor had on hand at this time. He was also engaged with inventions in har- monic multiple, and autographic telegraphy, and being too poor to prosecute his researches independently, had entered into an arrangement with certain gentlemen (one of whom, Mr. Gardiner G. Hubbard, subsequently be- came his father-in-law), under which they should pay the expenses of experimenting with these telegraphic inven- tions and of obtaining United States patents for them, while he should give up a portion of his professional work and give the time thus saved to telegraphic experi- mentation. These gentlemen, who thought something could be made out of the telegraphic inventions, but had no faith in the speaking telephone, and regarded it as being wholly chimerical and fantastical, naturally wished to push the multiple telegraph invention forward, and discouraged work on the latter. Mr. Hubbard, telling the story of the relations between him.self and Mr. Bell at that time, remarks with some naivetd that he had " no belief in Mr. Bell's ability to transmit vocal speech," and that he thought he was wasting his time in allowing his mind to dwell upon that subject, which certainly could never be made commer- cially valuable ; and ought to spend more of his time upon "instruments that would transmit many musical notes simultaneously, or upon an autograph telegraph at which he was working; as such instruments would be of more value than any instrument for transmitting speech." It need not therefore be a matter of surprise that Mr. Bell halted before the apparent difiRculty of the exces- sive feebleness of the magneto electric current for some time, since he was not an electrician of skill and experi- Electrical Handbook II J ence, but rather, as Maxwell has well said, "a speaker, who, to gain his private ends, has become an electrician ; " since he had many other matters to attend to, including that of earning his living; and since he had financial backers urging him in the direction of multiple teleg- raphy, and deriding the thought of protitably trans- mitting speech. But while temporarily blocked, Mr. Bell did not waver in his convictions, and continued to think and watch. On June 2, 1875, the casual observation of the unexpect- edly vigorous way in which a reed vibrated in corre- spondence with the enforced vibrations of a similarly tuned reed at another part of a circuit, and under acci- dental conditions, at once carried conviction to the trained mind that the apprehended difficulty was imagin- ary, and was speedily followed by the construction of the first pair of magneto telephones. These each consisted of an electromagnet having a U-shaped iron core, a coil round one limb of the core, a thin iron armature hinged to the other limb and stretching across the pole-sur- rounded core, and a membrane diaphragm stretched across a tube serving as a moutlipiece and mounted in a frame with its centre immediately opposite the active pole of the magnet, and with the armature meclianically attached to its centre. These were the first telephones. Tlieir immedi.ite success was not very great, the reason, as we now know, being threefold: no one knew what the reproduced sounds of the telephone would be like, and the still small voice it really did possess being unexpected, remained for the time unrecognized : the place where they were tried, a workshop, was in any event too noisy for inex- perienced persons (and every one was inexperienced then) to hear the sound of the voice reproduced by a telephone receiver; and the art of constructing tele- phones being just born, the instruments were mechani- cally l)ad. Bell, however, was now sure of liis ground ; the results he ol)tained were sufficient to keep him steadilv at it from this time on ; and the instruments of the summer Il8 The Boston of 1875, tried at a later period in a quieter place, and after the experimenters had obtained some experience and knew what to expect, turned out to be really good, practical telephones. During the remainder of 1875, the inventor applied himself in the first place, to making trial of every imagin- able variation in the proportioning and arrangement of the coil, magnet, and armature, of instruments of this sort; and secondly, to the work, undertaken and carried out solely by himself, of preparing appropriate descrip- tions of the telephone invention for the application for his original United States Patent. The application for the patent was filed in the Patent Office on February 14, 1876, and the patent when granted on March 7 of the same year bore the number of 174,465. After an eventful life of seventeen years, during which time it bore with invariable success the brunt of a litigation unexampled in the annals of patent law, it ex- pired on March 7, 1893. The form of telephone described and illustrated in the patent specification had not ad- vanced very far beyond that of the instruments of June, 1875, but there had been added hollow cones attached to the armature membranes to direct the impact of the voice upon the membrane in one instrument, and towards the ear of a listener in the other. The first account of the speaking telephone and its powers presented to the public was given in Boston on M ay 10, 1S76, in a paper read by Bell before the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; and from this we learn that the fashion of using a relatively heavy armature, and of hinging it to one pole of the magnet, had already gone by; and that its place was taken by a small patch of clock-spring steel glued to the membrane centre, close to but without touching the magnet pole carrying the coil. Articulate speech clearly understandable, and sometimes surprisingly distinct, was obtained on a circuit contain- ing a battery of. say, about ten volts E. M. F. and extend- ing between two rooms at a distance from one another in the same building, by means of two magnet instru- ments of this kind. A variable resistance transmitter Electrical H andbook iig sometimes having a wire attached to the membrane and dipping into acidulated water, and sometimes a small carbon cylinder similarly carried on the membrane and dipping into mercury, was also spoken of, as having been devised and experimented with ; and the accounts given of it show that while the inventor clearly had at that time a preference for the magneto transmitter operating by the development of currents of variable electromotive force, probably for its extreme simplicity and for the stability of its moving parts, he had in mind variable resistance transmitters also. It was at tliis stage of its development that the tele- phone was exhil)ited at the Centennial Exposition held at Philadelpiiia in the summer of 1876 to commemorate the completion of the first hundred years of the national existence of the United States. Its exhibition there was the beginning of its public career. There, its capabilities and the remarkable re- sults of its operation attracted the admiring attention of many distinguished votaries of science; and it was the recipient of much appreciative acclaim and laudatory re- mark from Professor Joseph Henry and Sir William Thomson (now Lord Kelvin) of the board of judges of the scientific section. It cannot be doubted that this early acknowledgment by the highest scientific authority, of the surpassing magnitude and importance of the discovery as a scientific achievement, and the far-reaching possibilities of the invention, made it at once celebrated, and brought it prominently before the public eye, creating for it a general and widespread interest, which apart from this noteworthy occasion would have been less expeditiously secured ; and which materially facilitated the task of practically introducing it into active employment as a useful, efficient, and simple means of reciprocal commu- nication over the electric wire. With one exception the telephone instruments exhib- ited at Philadelphia were of the same simple construction as had been described by the inventor to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, consisting of a stretched I20 The Boston membrane having a little piece of iron attached to its centre, and thus held closely confronting the pole of an electromagnet; these instruments being used indifferently to transmit and receive. The exception was a pa^'ticular form which at the Exhibition was operated as a receiver only, and which therefore has received the designation of the " Centennial Receiver." This instrument, dispens- ing altogether with the stretched membrane, was formed of a tubular electromagnet whose coil surrounded an iron core and was enclosed in an iron tube. A thin, circular piece of sheet iron served as armature and vibrating plate, and rested by its edge upon the rim of the tube, its middle part not quite touching the end of the central iron core. This instrument is of his- toric interest, as being the first speaking telephone with a metallic diaphragm ; and was the direct forerunner of the iron diaphragm commercial telephone instrument which is still universally employed as the receiver. Stimulated by his Centennial success, the inventor of the telephone devoted himself during the latter half of 1876 to its improvement with redoubled ardor, and made many structural advances, which for the most part he sought to describe and protect in a second patent granted to him on January 30, 1877. In the Exhibition displays and in all telephone work up to the summer of 1876 we find Bell employing electro- magnets for his telephones, and using a voltaic battery connected in the line circuit to establish a constant line current. Now, however, he begins to cast about in the direction of simplification, and he shrewdly suspects that the only material function of the battery is to excite his electromagnets. He writes to a friend on July 2, 1876: "I am sure by substituting a permanent magnet for the pole of the electromagnet I could work it without a battery at all." This, indeed, had been the original idea of Mr. Bell in 1874, but with the instruments thus far made, the effects obtained had been more powerful with a battery in the line; or so he had fancied. A permanent magnet instru- ment was now, however, made and tried, and, as had been Electrical Handbook I2i anticipated, it was found that the essential thing was the presence of the magnet howsoever produced. Accord- ingly, after confirmation of these results by many experi- ments the battery was towards the end of the year finally eliminated, and the permanent magnet generally employed. The diaphragm also received consideration, and many hundreds of experiments were made, with the object of determining once for all the best size, thickness, and shape. Now that the telephone had actually been made to talk, it was found difiicult to make it so that it would not; and the size and thickness were varied between wide limits without seriously affecting its talking powers. Generally, it was ascertained that keeping the thickness the same, the articulation remained good with diaphragms of all sizes, say from a diameter of six inches down ; but that the tone with the largest sizes became resonant or cavernous, and with the smaller sizes nasal, or Punch-and- Judy-like. But it was also ascertained by repeated trials with the membrane diaphragm having the patch of iron glued to its centre, that the bigger the patch of iron was made, the better the telephone worked, and the more dis- tinct grew its articulation. The iron patch ultimately grew so large that it became obvious that the membrane was superfluous ; it was therefore discarded entirely, the simple sheet-iron diaphragm henceforth taking its place in all mstruments made. The coil, as a result of many trials, was shortened until it became the thin bobbin now a characteristic feature of receivers ; and it soon became clear, that quickness rather than strength of action was required ; and that it was a distinct advantage to have the coil just long enough both as a winding and as a spool to act effectively upon the extreme end of the magnet nearest the diaphragm, and an equally distinct disadvantage to have it any longer. The resonating space within the speaking or hearing tube and in front of the diaphragm was made thin and flat, and thus brought into line with well-established acoustical principles. It was demonstrated that the size of a telephone instrument could be extensively varied 122 The B St n without interfering with its operativeness or efficiency ; and this permitted the employment of a small bar or U magnet enclosed in a handle in portable form, such as is used to this day. Still later, a soft iron polepiece screwed to the end of the hard steel permanent magnet within the coil was adopted. A great advance in effectiveness over the " Centen- nial" instruments followed and resulted from these alter- ations. The talk reproduced by the receiver was much louder and clearer ; the telephone, no longer a mere scientitic triumph and toy, had become a practical success, and was ready for introduction to commercial life ; its inventive work was completed ; and it remained only to devise forms most suitable for practice, and most con- venient for the public. Before the autumn of 1876, while much talk had been transmitted by telephone over electric circuits, every com- munication had been sent and received between places in the same building and under one roof ; and no message had been transmitted over a real line connecting two stations at a distance from one another. As early as August of that year Mr. Bell, while paying his annual visit to Canada, experimented upon a five-mile telegraph line between Brantford and Mount Pleasant, Ontario, and probably transmitted some short sentences and several songs; but no very tangible account of the affair is re- corded. He is soon, however, again in Boston, and that the telephone — notwithstanding the minuteness of its current — would work well on a real line supported on poles in the open air, was demonstrated beyond peradventure on the evening of October 9, when the first long conversa- tion ever carried on by word of mouth over a telegraph line, was transmitted upon a line owned by the Walworth Manufacturing Company, extending from their office in Boston to their factory in Cambridge ; Mr. Bell being at the Boston end, and his assistant in Cambridge. Every word of this conversation was recorded at both end stations; and from that time there was no longer room to doubt that the telephone could be made practically useful. Electrical Handbook 12J The telephone even in these archaic times was not re- stricted to short lines ; and on November 26, 1876, it was experimentally employed as a medium of communication between Boston and Salem, Alassachusetts, by way of North Conway, New Hampshire, about two hundred miles of actual line wire ; and at a later period Mr. Bell and his associate exchanged conversation over a Western Union Telegraph Company's wire between Boston and New York ; both of which performances would even in these later days be accounted good work for a magneto transmitter. Early in 1S77 the inventor and his friends made active efforts to give publicity to the invention, and to attract attention to its promise. Mr. Bell gave lectures in many places, including Boston and New York, publicly exhib- iting the telephone and exemplifying its operation at each one. This was done to prove to the public the operative- ness and practicality of the apparatus, and incidentally to raise money for its commercial introduction. Mr. Wat- son, the associate of Mr. Bell from the beginning, remarks upon " the great doubt that existed in everybody's mind, when first spoken to about the telephone, as to whetlier it was possible to do such a wonderful thing as to tran.s- mit articulate speech over a telegraph wire." Every possible effort was at this time made to excite a general interest in, and familiarize the pu])lic with, the new invention. Mr. Gardiner G. Hubbard, in wliom, as trustee, the telephone patents had been vested, had many instru- ments made and distributed as loans to telegraph and other companies and individuals, to attract enlightened public attention, and to influence capital for the commer- cial introduction of the telephone. Agents were appointed and given power to lease tele- phones, receiving a commission on each ; and before April I, 1S77, an arrangement was made for their manu- facture. H was. however, uphill work at this time. Still, progress was made : and in the early spring a line was erected in 15oston (the first telephone line ever built) for the express purpose of estal)lisliing regular 12^ The Boston telephonic communication between the factory of Mr. Charles Williams, Jr., the manufacturer who had been engaged, and his residence at Somerville. This line was finished and put in operation on April 4, 1877, and was mentioned by several of the Boston newspapers on the following day. Numbers of people came to see and try it, and orders began to come in for telephones and tele- phone lines. Before the end of April other telephone lines were constructed, connecting Professor Bell's own laboratory. No. 5 Exeter Place, Boston, with the factory of Mr. Williams, and other points in Boston, and the office of Stone & Downer (now Downer & Co.), 28 State Street, Boston, with the house of one member of the firm in Somerville. In the early part of May, 1877, an agreement was made with the Board of Waterworks of the neighboring city, Cambridge, Mass., for the equipment with tele- phones of a line connecting the principal office of the department in the business part of the city with the works at Fresh Pond, a couple of miles distant. The idea of using the telephone as a time-saving ap- pliance, and as a means of communicating intelligence, began to spread ; and telephone lines put up for business purposes in the city of New York and in Altoona, Penn., closely followed the Cambridge installation. During the months of April and May, 1877, applica- tions for agencies began to come in with increasing fre- quency, and the business management was constantly engaged in disposing of exclusive privileges and territo- rial licenses under the patents, and in meeting the rapidly enlarging demands for telephones. This was an excellent beginning, since even for pri- vate line work it at once became manifest that the telephone — an instrument which any person howsoever unskilled might after a few trials use effectually — was a wonderful convenience, and a great improvement over anything which had gone before ; but it was soon per- ceived that the potentialities of the instrument could never be fully realized, were its employment permanently Electrical Handbook 12^ restricted to communication in each case between the same two or the same half-dozen stations ; and that its scope of action would be inimitably enhanced by making it the medium of unrestricted intercommunication be- tween any number of stations. This consideration led to the telephone exchange. The fundamental idea of every telephone exchange, great or small, is that the lines composing it, each leading from telephone apparatus at an outlying station, — the residence or place of business of a user, — shall converge to -a central station, where by uniting the ends of any two lines, telephonic communication between their respective out-stations shall be established. Whether there are but two, two hundred, or two tliousand customers' wires thus entering the central office, the principle is the same ; each, by means of the central station switchboard or commuta- tor, can be connected with the other. Or, 'ringing the changes upon them, the end of any one may be switched to the end of any of the others whenever required. And since by increasing the number of subscribers' lines to one thousand, ten thousand, or, in fact, any number, the number of possible connections is likewise increased, we may regard the value of the exchange to its patrons as being broadly proportionate to the number of its sta- tions ; precisely as the value as an advertising medium of the great city newspaper, with its circulation of half a million, far exceeds that of its village contemporary which prints and circulates but a couple of hundred cop- ies weekly. While it is the telephone that has made the telephone exchange possible, it is the exchange that has made the telephone indispensable. Telephone transmission is known to the world mainly through the medium of the telephone exchange ; and so immeasurably does the exchange system overshadow all other uses, that in the public estimation the telephone and telephone service are one and the same thing. The idea of the "exchange" commended itself to Mr. Bell and his associates at a very early day in tlie his- tory of the telephone as a means for tiie profitable utiliza- 126 The B osi n tion of the invention, and was referred to by Mr. Bell in his lectures of the spring of 1877. The writer of these lines was present at the New York lectures on the even- ings of May 17, 18, and 19, 1877, and heard the lecturer outline and eloquently advocate the proposed use of the telephone in the telephone exchange, yet to be developed. Boston was the scene of the earliest instance of the interconnection on the exchange plan of lines having out-stations equipped with telephones for direct commu- nication between the stations of any two lines ; and this occurred in May, 1877. At this time the business of pro- viding electrical protection against burglary was carried on by the Holmes Burglar Alarm Company, and to this company a number of telephones had been furnished for trial and experiment. From the central station at 342 Washington Street, Boston, burglar alarm circuit lines radiated to a number of banks and stores, each line being provided with apparatus at the central point by means of which the burglarious entering of its station might be announced ; and arrangements were made for the use of these lines, their sub-stations, and the central station as an experimental telephone exchange. The lines of Brewster, Bassett & Co., bankers (now Estabrook & Co.), the Shoe and Leather Bank, the National Exchange Bank, and the Hide and Leather Bank, together with a new line from the ofifice of Mr. Williams, the manufac- turer, were fitted out with telephones and connected at the Holmes central station with a small switchboard made for the purpose. These lines were repeatedly in- terconnected, and many conversations were interchanged between their stations, the burglar alarm apparatus being employed to transmit the regular call signals. This was in fact the first telephone exchange. The telephones used by Professor Bell in his lectures were large instruments, in the shape and about the size of the camera of a professional photographer, and com- prised a large horseshoe permanent magnet, with short coils of wire on its poles strongly mounted by wooden supports on a baseboard, and an iron diaphragm about four inches in diameter fastened close to the poles on a Electrical Handbook I2y perforated wooden block, behind a mouthpiece about three inches long, the whole being covered with a wooden box. The telephones which were made for public use were, however, more portable, and while their working parts remained heavy their cases were made flatter and smaller. No battery transmitters of the variable resist- ance or microphone type were obtainable during the sum- mer of 1877, or for some months thereafter ; and the Bell a.ssociates indeed did not advocate or furnish any battery transmitter until the latter part of 1878. The in- convenience of having but a single telephone instrument, and of changing it from the mouth to the ear, or re- versely, according as the u.ser was required to talk or listen, soon became apparent, and two magnet telephones, one for speaking and the other for hearing, were then supplied, the former being a modified heavy telephone retaining the large magnet and diaphragm in a large but thin and flat case, which might be fixed at the proper height upon a wall ; and the latter in a portable form with flexible conductor attachments, and of a size to be car- ried in the hand, and placed to the ear for listening pur- poses only. These were termed "Box" and "Hand" telephones, respectively, and the latter term still sur- vives. The first hand telephone had a turned wooden casing and handle, a cylindrical bar permanent magnet about four inches long, a spool for its coil about a quarter of an inch long and one and one-eighth inches across, and a diaphragm of ferrotype iron one and three-quarters inches in diameter, and was made in May, 1877. This shajie was .slightly modified in June, the handle being made plainer in shape, and with a deeper flare at the mouth- piece ; and by December, 1877, wood as a material for the handles was given up, hard rubber from tliat time to the present taking its place. It may in this connection be added that about the middle of August, 1S77, the sin- gle bar magnet thus far used in hand telephones was dis- continued, and a compound magnet formed of several thin lamina- of magnetized steel with a .soft iron polepiece was substituted. 128 The Boston Thus made, the hand telephone has remained without further change until a relatively recent period, when, in place of the compound bar magnet, a long U magnet with its poles brought near to one another close to the dia- phragm centre has been adopted. During the month of May, 1877, Mr. Bell and his associates published their first manifesto — a sort of circular advertisement — announcing that they were pre- pared to furnish telephones and erect lines all over the country, and stating the price and terms. It is noteworthy that this circular asserted the practicality of the instru- ment for distances up to twenty miles; that it acknowl- edges that at first the reproduced voice seems indistinct; and that it points out that slight practice only is required for the acquisition of familiarity in the use of the instru- ment. From this time forward the work of furnishing tele- phones and of sending them out for commercial purposes advanced by leaps and bounds. By June 30, 1877, 230 telephones were in regular use. This number within one month had increased to upwards of 750; at the end of August to 1,300; and by the spring of 1880, when the American Bell Telephone Company took over the busi- ness, we find in operation, some 61,000 transmitting and receiving telephones. Here it may be remarked, that since magneto telephones only were employed for several months subsequent to the establishment of a regular tele- phone business, it became customary to count each in- strument as a telephone even though there might be two in a single installation, one used exclusively as a trans- mitter and the other as a receiver. This practice neces- sarily continued after the general introduction of the variable resistance transmitter, since each instrument contained the invention; and it thus comes about, that even at the present day, each instrument, whether a transmitter or a receiver, is reckoned as a telephone ; and that the transmitter and the receiver of each station are counted as two telephones. By the late summer of 1877 it had become clear that some sort of an organization was necessary to take charge Electrical Handbook I2g and properly supervise the commercial development of the telephone, which was assuming dimensions of very considerable magnitude. As a temporary expedient, the owners of Mr. Bell's telephone patents, who at this time were very few, including merely Mr. Bell, Mr. Hubbard, certain members of their respective families, Mr. Thomas Sanders, the gentleman who with Mr. Hubbard had in- terested himself in the Bell inventions, and Mr. Thomas A. Watson, Mr. Bell's assistant, formed themselves in August of that year into a sort of informal unincorporated association having no capital ; to which was given the name of the Bell Telephone Association. It was formed to assist and act in support of Mr. Gardiner G. Hubbard, to whom as trustee the Bell telephone patents had been assigned, in the management of the business relations of the telephone; and in devising the best means for its general commercial introduction. The commercial establishment of telephone exchanges involved much preparatory work ; and it devolved upon the Association thus formed, to devise ways and means for establishing. and carrying it on ; to supervise as best it might, the inventing, contriving, and arranging of suit- able call bells and other signaling apparatus, the develop- ment of early switchboards and switches ; and to arrange systems of exchange circuits and apparatus generally, and even systems of bookkeeping; for it had already been decided to work mainly through licensed operating individuals or corporations, to whom telephones should be supplied. Since the telephone exchange business was radically new, and therefore something of which the pro- prietors of the telephone and the prospective operating parties were alike totally ignorant, it was inevitable that the Association was required to plan for the business; and after instructing itself, to impart such knowledge as experimentally or otherwise, up to any point, it might have gained, to its intended colleagues; that is, to those who under its authority had engaged in or who were about to engage in the business of operating exchanges. 'I'here was so much to do, and so much more to think of, plan, and learn, that it is not surprising that notwith- I JO The Boston standing the strenuous efforts of the Bell Association and the little band of Boston experimenters, the year 1878 dawned before the practical establishment of the exchange business anywhere. The telephone central office system at New Haven, Conn., was opened for business on Jan. 28, 187S, and was the first fully equipped commercial telephone exchange ever established for public or general service. Of course more was learned about the telephone ex- change business, and the questions concerned in the con- duct of an exchange, by the practical experience of one brief month, than had been by the previous nine months of speculative consideration ; and equally of course, the example of New Haven was speedily followed by other cities, the subsequent installation of other exchanges in the large cities being from this time, and for many months thereafter, a continuous performance, with the result that by March, 1881, within a year after the American Bell Telephone Company began business, there were in the United States only nine cities of more than ten thousand inhabitants, and only one of more than fifteen thousand, without a telephone exchange. 4 By this time the work of the Bell Telephone Associa- tion and its management had become so heavy that the expediency of a more formal and more effective organi- zation of ownership was manifest. The Association realizing the necessity, took its first action in this respect by forming the New England Telephone Company, which was incorporated under the general laws of Mas- sachusetts on Feb. 12, 1878, with a capital of two hundred thousand dollars ; and by granting it the exclusive right to use, license others to use, and to manufacture telephones, in the New England States. This company, however, is not, and has no relation to, the New England Telephone and Telegraph Company now operating throughout the major part of New England ; the latter being a subse- quently created operating company formed by the amalga- mation of a number of smaller original licensees. Attention was next turned to ways and means for ex- tending the use of the telephone throughout the United Electrical Handbook iji States outside of New England ; and to this end the As- sociation proceeded to create the Bell Telephone Com- pan}', which was incorporated with a capital of four hun- dred and fifty thousand dollars, July 30, 1S7S, also under the general laws of Massachusetts. The annoyances inseparable from inventorship, and which uniformly attend the prospectively successful op- eration of patented inventions, were now to assail and cluster thickly round the newly-established industry ; and a litigation, never again to utterly cease for more than a few months at once, until the expiration of the patents at the close of the term of years for which they were re- spectively granted, was now to begin. For seventeen months after the grant of Mr. Bell's original patent for the telephone, no one, publicly at least, disputed his claims to originality ; and nobody had asserted, as far as was publicly known, that any one ex- cept Mr. Bell had originated any apparatus capable of transmitting spoken words ; or had conceived the idea of making the line current similar in form to the sound wave. I le came before the world as the first inventor of the speak- ing telephone, and as such every one liad hailed him. He was called upon l)y learned men to give lectures about and exhibitions of his telephone, and he gave them ; and the practical and commercial success of the speaking tele- phone had been unquestionably attested by the avidity with which the public by this time had taken it up. But by August, 1877, the Western Union Telegraph Company — a corporation which had established a sub- stantial monopoly in the transmission of intelligence by electricity — appears to have become satisfied of the great commercial value of the speaking telephone, and, engaging in its manufacture and use, set up several rival claimants to its inventorship; proceeding within the fol- lowing year, in conjunction with its as.sociates the Gold and Stock Telegraph Company, and a new organization which it had formed, tlie American Speaking Telephone Company, to establish telephone exchanges in many im- portant cities and towns. The Western Union Company was in a good jiosition for tliis aggressive action. It had 1^2 The Boston great experience; lines already constructed all over the country; many competent electrical experts ; and, during the time between the date of its determination to use the telephone as its own, and that on which it commenced actual business, Mr. Edison, employed for the express purpose, had succeeded in producing an excellent carbon transmitter. For the rest, it was prepared to ignore the work of Bell, and to appropriate to its own use the art and appar- atus he had invented ; alleging, of course, that others had done it before him. The possession of a good battery transmitter counted heavily in favor of the competitor; and for some months which intervened before the Bell Companies could bring their patents to bear effectually upon the situation, it was apparent that they labored under a decided practical dis advantage. But during the summer of 1S78 an excellent form of transmitter was invented by Mr. Francis Blake, which, being acquired by the Bell Telephone Company, was commercially introduced towards the end of the year, bringing the parties to the contest into a more nearly equal position. This was the well-known Blake transmitter. It was a true microphone, and an instrument of remarkable merit, which for sensitiveness and range of adjustment has never been surpassed. It received at once high public favor, and from the time of its introduction until the beginning of the long-line system (when it became gradually displaced by the more powerful, highly developed transmitters of the " Runnings " or granular carbon type), it was practi- cally without a rival. The New England and Bell Telephone Companies had the courage to bring suit, in September, 1878, against one Peter A. Dowd, the Boston agent of the Western Union Telegraph Company. But after a good deal of evidence was taken on both sides, the telegraph company became convinced that Bell was the original and first in- ventor of the electric speaking telephone ; and a settle- ment was effected between the companies on Nov. 10, 1879, under which the Western Union Telegraph Com- Electrical Handbook IJJ pany and its associates, acquiescing in the original inven- torship of Bell, admitted that the Bell telephone patents were good and valid ; and agreed to discontinue the tele- phone business, and that the telephone inventions they had acquired, the telephones they had made, and the telephone exchanges they had established, should, for suitable compensation, pass under the authority and con- trol of the Bell companies. Meanwhile, the Bell and New England Telephone Companies had coalesced into a third Boston corpora- tion, which took the name of The National Bell Tele- phone Company, and came into existence on March 13, 1879, with a capital of 3850,000. The brief, but (for the time it existed) vigorous Wes- tern Union competition was a kind of blessing in dis- guise. At any rate it was not altogether unproductive of results beneficial to the telephone exchange business at large. The very fact that two distinct interests were actively engaged in the work of organizing and estab- lishing competing telephone exchanges all over the coun- try, greatly facilitated the spread of the idea and the growth of the business, and familiarized the people with the use of the telephone as a business agency ; while the keenness of the competition extending to the agents and employees of both companies, brought about a swift but quite unforeseen and unlocked for expansion in the indi- vidual exchanges of the larger cities, and a correspond- ing advance in their importance, value and usefulness. It may here be mentioned, en passant, that the busi- ness of producing anticipators of the achievement of Bell thus started, went merrily on for the entire life of the Bell patents ; and although the claimants were all one after another defeated, and the claims of each to prior in- ventorship promptly proved to be destitute of foundation, the same baseless pretensions were set up over and over again throughout the entire litigation, the parties adverse to the patents in each successive infringement suit intro- ducing not only those that had appeared and been refuted before, but also a new crop of their own ; so that by the time that Bell's patents had run their course, the number 134 The Boston of persons asserted to have invented the telephone before him, and of course each before all of the others, was by- no means insignificant. It was the old story, so aptly outlined by Milton: — " The invention all admired, And each, how he, to be the inventor missed ; So easy it seemed once found. Which yet unfound, most would have thought impossible." At the close of 1879 the National Bell Telephone Company stood alone, as the proprietor of telephony within the United States, and as the exponent of the telephone business ; and the character and prospects of the business having been noised abroad by the litigation and its outcome, there was no longer any difficulty in en- listing all the capital which might be required for req- uisite extension. New capital had in fact already been obtained and new blood had entered the counsels of the company. The scope and plan on which the National Bell Tele- phone Company had been organized were seen to be in- commensurate to the expansion already in sight. Accord- ingly, on March 19, 1S80, the American Bell Telephone Company was incorporated by a special act of the Massa- chusetts Legislature with an authorized capital of ^10,000,000, and purchasing the property, took over the business of the National Bell Telephone Company. In conformity with the growth of the business, the American Bell Telephone Company increased its capital from time to time, so that at the end of 1899, the outstanding stock amounted to about $26,000,000. The property and busi- ness of the company were then transferred to the Ameri- can Telephone and Telegraph Company, a separate corporation which it had organized in 1885 to develop the long line business, and the American Bell Telephone Company discontinued its general business. The history of the telephone exchange is a history of steady and persistent effort and constant and progressive improvement ; alike in line work, in central and sub- station apparatus, and in methods of design, construction, operation, and administration. Electrical Handbook IJ^ As has already been pointed out, one of the great difficulties at the outset of the exchange business was the fact that no one, not even those most intimately concerned in its management, knew anything about it. There was nothing to know. The business was absolutely a new one ; everything was experimental ; everything had to be learned. When in the spring of iSSo the American Bell Tele- phone Company assumed charge of the business, there was no underground construction, and the lines, for the most part of iron or steel, were altogether on roofs or poles. The telephone circuits were single wire lines with earth returns ; cable making was an imperfectly mastered art, and cables crude and untrustworthy ; the use of cop- per line wire was little known and discountenanced ; there were no standards in construction and apparatus, every man doing and adopting what might be right in his own eyes. But under the wise and enterprising supervision, emi- nent ability and sound judgment of William H. Forbes, the first president of the American Bell Telephone Com- pany, Theodore N. Vail, its first general manager, and John E. Hudson, who succeeded Mr. Vail as general manager and later became president, the business has been gradually systematized, and these imperfections have disappeared. In the twenty-four years which have elapsed since that time, reliable low capacity poly-conductor cables, mainly employing air as an insulating medium, have been devised and their employment has become universal ; underground construction has become the rule instead of the exception ; beginning with the year 1883 a metallic circuit system of long distance lines has been built of hard drawn copper wire, and has overspread the country ; the average excellency of these long lines, terminating as they do in switchboards at exchange central stations, has resulted in correspondingly improved construction in ex- changes everywhere, including the substitution of copper for iron as a material for line wire, and the metallic cir- 136 The Boston cuit for the ground return single-conductor line; the operating companies now have their own buildings specially designed to accommodate the central station operating rooms, and affording facilities for the ingress of the subterranean cables ; an elaborate system of pro- tection has been provided for both ends of each telephone line, and where such lines pass through cables, at the cable ends also, to take care of trespassing currents strong enough to be destructive ; and lastly, but by no means of least importance, the old and well-known hand operated magneto machine — for years the most approved call- sending apparatus, — and the multitudinous batteries of which one was provided with the transmitter of each user to furnish current for its operation, have both been super- seded in the modern well-appointed exchange, by a single central station battery which supplies not only the electric current for all the transmitters of the outlying stations, but also for the transmitters of the central station, and for the switchboard call and supervisory signals. By this change a few cells of battery are enabled to take the place and do the work of many ; and the establishment of the few retained cells at the central station where they may always be under skilled supervision is provided for. These advances which have systematized the techni- cal side of telephony, and which have received the approval of, and have been made available by the fore- most telephone engineers in all parts of the earth, are largely attributable to the ability and persevering appli- cation of the headquarters' engineering staff ;' and to the stimulating and encouraging attitude towards practical and meritorious improvement in appliances and methods which has uniformly characterized the Boston manage- ment. Not only is Boston intimately associated with the in- vention of the telephone and the technical development of the telephone industry, but it remains the centre of the telephonic development of the United States. The courage and far-sightedness of the group of Boston men who at the start put in their money boldly, and worked out plans for a broad and complete development of the Electrical Handbook 137 industry, have come down to those still actively con- cerned in the ever-increasing extension of the network of wires now covering the whole country. The American Bell Telephone Company, after long years of litigation, found itself confirmed in its patents and in a position to utilize the great invention. But the men who had faith in the value of the telephone as a factor in modern social and commercial life had not been, during these years of litigation, content to accept what was then considered to be the best in this tield. On the contrary they worked steadily and patiently to devise means which should make the great fundamental inven- tion more useful and better apphcable to all the varying conditions which are met in a modern community. At the outset an experimental department was estab- lished, where problems concerning the clear transmission of speech under varying conditions, the use of cables for telephone wires, and the future employment of under- ground wires, were given thorough, careful, scientific in- vestigation, always looking towards the end of improving the service and increasing the facilities which the com- panies might offer to the public. The work was carried on strictly in accordance with the fundamental principle, firmly established in the minds of those interested, that whatever would extend the use of the telephone would be for the benefit alike of the public at large and those who had invested their money. The numerous telephone companies, not connected with the Bell system, which have sprung up in various parts of the country, have had the advantage of this care- ful work. It was but a few years after the invention of the tele phone, namely in iSSi, that tiie following statement was made in the annual report of the directors of the Ameri can Bell Telephone Company: — "It will take some time yet to get first-rate .service in a large network of towns, as the practical difficulties at least equal tiiose whicii were met in giving prompt con- nection within the limits of one city, but nothing butexpe rience and tests of various methods are needed to enal)le such groups of exchanges to reach satisfactory results." rjS The Boston This quotation shows how plainly the officers foresaw the telephone organization as it exists to-day, a network of companies working together to secure a service as far- reaching as the conlines of the United States, with con- nections extending into other parts of North America. The original plan upon which the telephone business was started provided for the issuance of a license by the American Bell Telephone Company, the owners of the patents, to use the Bell patents within certain defined territories, the instruments being furnished by the Bell Company. At first these areas were small. Rights were given to use the invention in perhaps a single county, or even a single city ; but as time went on it was found that this did not yield the best results, and as early as 1883 we find in the directors' report the following : — "An important feature has been the consolidation of local telephone interests into large companies covering nianv counties, and even in several instances the whole or the greater part of entire States." In 1884 the report of the directors treated this subject more fully : — "The tendency toward consolidation of telephone companies noticed in uur last report has continued, and is for the mo^t part in tlie interest of economical and con- venient handling of the business. The connection of many towns together, causing large territories to assume the character of great telephone exchanges, made it of importance to bring as large areas as possible under one management toinsure simple and convenient arrangements for furnisliing rapid intercommunication. As methods are devised for making the telephone commercially useful over long lines, the advantages of this centralization of management will be still more apparent, as well as the importance to the put)lic of having the business done in large territories under one responsible head, with far- reaching connections throughout the whole country. "To make this service of the highest value to the people will be complicated enough under one control. Were it in the hands of many competing companies, the confu.sion resulting would be very serious, as the value of the telephone will be largely measured by its capacity to give prompt connection with all parts of the country. " The cjuestion of bringing this about to the best ad- vantacre is the one to which we have now to address our- Electrical Handbook Ijg selves. The task is no light one, and it is one in which we have a common interest with the public; and in spite of tlie prevailing opinion that the development of the tele- phone substantially under one control is against public interest, we believe that an intelligent examination of this question would demonstrate that this is not true, and that in no other way could the desired results be obtained and the difficulties be surmounted so rapidly and so well as by the present one." With the movement towards consolidation it was seen at once that large sums of money must be raised for the extension of the business ; and in order to aid the operating companies, and at the same time to keep such an interest in them as would enable the owners of the patents to assist in giving the public telephone service, the policy of the company owning the patents was to invest in the stock of the companies operating under licenses, and funds, secured by issue of the stock of the American Bell Telephone Company, were sown broadcast in con- struction over the whole United States. Almost all of this money was secured from a group of Boston and New England investors, who had faith in the management and the policy outlined. The result of this policy of investment in local com- panies has been that the American Telephone and Tele- graph Company has at present a financial interest in the telephone business in every part of the United States. It has persistently and steadily worked towards the end that there shall be a system of telephones and telephonic communication so homogeneous in its construction and its methods that, regardless of the part of the country where it may be used, or however distant the point with which communication may be desired, every part of the ma- chinery of administration and operation shall work to- gether harmoniously to give the best possible results to the public. The American Telephone and Telegraph Company is only in a minor degree an operating company. It has a department which builds and operates the so-called Long Distance lines, whose object is to tie together the lines of the various local companies, and to handle the business /^O The Boston which passes from the territory of one of the operating companies into that of another, and this business is han- dled from the New York office. The American Telephone and Telegraph Company, so far as its Boston organization is concerned, acts as an advisory body through which harmony of methods is sought. Its engineering department and its accounting department seek so to combine and consolidate, and study the information received from all of the companies actually operating telephone systems as to produce a system which will be uniform, and which will work smoothly and economically in whatever part of the country it may be used. Standard methods for con- struction of pole lines, standard types for switchboards and other apparatus, and standard methods of accounting are prepared and presented to the companies operating, not as compulsory methods to be employed, but as methods which, in the judgment of those who have access to the widest possible range of information, have commended themselves as worthy of careful consideration by the workers in the field. Akin to these plans, by which standard methods are recommended, are the careful studies made by the engi- neering department, showing the probable lines of tele- phonic development in large cities. These studies serve as a guide to those in charge of the exchanges at different points. They indicate the proper location for the ex- change buildings, and the streets in which underground construction ought to be carried out. In preparing them, the engineers take into consideration the present location of the telephone subscribers, the probable growth in population of the cities, and the geographical direction in which this growth is likely to take place, and their report contains recommendations for underground con- duits and cables of sufficient size, laid out upon such lines as will insure future extensions being made upon economical lines. These questions present problems of such vital interest to the companies operating, that the existence of this central organization, which can collate the results of the experience of all those who have seen Electrical Handbook T4I the practical side of the problem, is of immense impor- tance to them, both from a technical and financial standpoint. The flexibility of a system of administration under which a central advisory body deals with problems on broad lines, and allows to local management in the field the adaptation to local conditions of the general conclu- sions laid down, is one of the factors which has led to the steady and uniform development of the Bell tele- phone system. The plan of organization of the Bell telephone system, laid out almost from the beginning of the corporate ex- istence of the company, is simple and elastic. Here in Boston is located the central company, which in the beginning w^as the owner of the patents and granted licenses for the use of the patented devices, but which has from time to time invested large sums of money in the securities of those companies which actually fur- nished local telephone service, and in addition has built the long distance lines which bind together the various operating companies. Then, with general offices located in some thirty-five cities scattered over the United States, we have the operating companies, in which the parent company has a financial interest, and for whose interests it acts as a central advisory body. Then, beyond these companies, which have this direct connection with the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, lies a group of smaller companies built by local capital and managed by local men, which, by the adoption of uniform methods and the employment of IjcU instruments, furnished for a small annual charge, secure connection with the great toll line system of the operating companies and the longdistance lines of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company. In this way it is possible for any small communitj', at slight expense, to .secure the benefits of the great national system of the Bell companies. Starting in 1S84 with the experimental line between Boston and New York, the long distance service has i^ The Boston grown with enormous rapidity, until to-day it reaches over all of the eastern section of the country, meeting the Canadian system at various points on the boundary line, and extending beyond the Mississippi nearly to the western edge of Nebrasl 1 1 1 1 L A'-77 10J 1 f ■ . /■' N THE+- ' ■l,2ll|l,ubo I [ 1 1 •1,100/tUiii H 1 '^ - - - ri, Si 1 1 j z\ m U 1 ' 1 .-■'. — roti.ijoo 1 1 ~j : '-hi, ' f ■' „ .1 1 ' 1 f ■i^ - > .1- ?^ 1 1 ' 1 ^7 'u - 'T -1 ^V ['/; 1 1' 1 / ,.- / " ! 1 1 1 1 / C" -■-,■ ^ -7/ " ^ -" '-I x.'"^!,- ■ -l.itl r' " 1 1 ' 1 - -— r* ■^ ''.'•^ --V •'*1 1 . — lOp.lKK) ^ -— ""^ 1 ■ H'l. , C-'^ ' I'J f> I "• F -',»1, - - -^ - 1 T— f-r — 1 'If fe^ ^ V -v H i -\ ^ imt '82 '84 'SU 88 IS'JIJ '92 W 'ati 'yti VJM '1)2 '04 Growtli of Connections on the larger farms of the West, and for the speedy apprehension of criminals and protection against thieves, the telephone has changed the entire aspect of farm life. From a commercial standpoint, an enormous saving has been made to the farmer by enabling him to receive market quotations for his products, and he has been relieved from the prevarications of the buyer, who for- merly made his price to the farmer without regard to the price at the great market centres Thanks to the tele- phone, he is not obliged to carry his produce to the market and find it overstocked, for in five minutes he can ascertain whether there is any demand for what he Electrical Handbook 145 has to sell, or can find, in the case of the great staples like wheat and cotton, whether the prices are such as he is desirous of accepting. He can, moreover, every morn- ing, receive the government predictions regarding the weather for the next twenty -four hours, and when any special warning bulletins of storms or early frosts are sent out from Washington, these, by means of the telephone, are distributed among the farms, and heavy losses are prevented by such timely warnings. 1 [ ' — 1 — 1 — — ~ ~ ~ ~ — — 1 1 1 1 1 so— 1 3^(J0( m^y /" ^- ' TP 1 E .H ■^i-ifc-e-fci'* h 2,CU(K(KJ0- N THE /' -u ■ \ 3^ / 1 , / /-' 2,2llH.(KX) ■N- / Ul 2,000,(XKi 6 5=0£ ^ A,"- ■lvSO(l,i)Uil / > 1 ^ \^ i4 ■■> '/? •i-,(x 10,(100- 1 1 1 <; / ■o'i ' , . ---i "' / il7,5. 02 < — 80l,hll(J0- 1 1 1 - - -^ ^ nv ff •= ^ y (_ - - - - 2: J- - — 60<|l;000 ~ ~ ~ ~ A- ^ „n^:- r^ fek s>-> ^ ~ ~ - 1- - ' t f b_it^_ i,..:y:^t?5' 1 ail ' Tnvi|>ii-^ t. \ "^ -<^^^'^ f\ ,(iUO ,_L- ■fSM'lsi-i:- ■:^rA\'^\ ^l_i u. =: = E: — L= zl. t ^viv.---| f IT L_ L 1 1 '-()-' ISWJ '82 'SI "60 '8B 1830 '32 'W "80 ''JS 1300 02 r.rowth of Circuits The magnitude of this industry, which, starting here in Hoston less than thirty years ago, has spread in that time to all the ends of the world, is well shown by the figures recently issued by the Census Department at Washington, showing the telephone development of the United States at the close of 1902, and including the figures of both Bell and independent companies. There were at that time 2.137,256 subscribers connected with exchange systems, and of these 1,277,983 were subscribers to the Hell system. There were almost 5.000.000 miles of single wire in use in the United States, and over 10.000 exchanges. 1^6 The Boston But the most significant figures shown were those of the number of messages — 4,949,850,491 exchange mes- sages and 120,704,854 long distance and toll messages, making a total of over 5,070,000,000, of which approxi- mately 60 per cent pass over the lines of the companies making up the Bell system. These figures are more significant in showing the important part which the tele- phone plays in the life of this country when we consider the fact that the number of letters and post cards pass- 1 1 1 1 1 1 BFLL TELE(i HONE N THE , I 1 *- lU ' 0,10,,-,-. lOfl.OOOp- 1" V / / 1 1 ' 1 1 oobitwu ( - ,< 1 ' 1 LU . y > 'fl'T / '(' 1 -G,-00b.(hOO 1 I { r i / ('' I*** U) -5,000,000 1 1 / } -mm L^ ' r / i/ -40,000- - / " ^V_ '' sN^ / ' t\ «^ t^^^^^ -3»^.prs V .ftr^ ^i.^ N IV .. , T . '':;,,*--Wxi 1 • t^i " 1 H-O.-' ^ "■cr'l^__^ ,-^<^ a -^" , 1"' 1" j JJ lo — " J _ _ -J " VV u 1 1 1 1 u 1 u 1 L„ _l ISSO '82 .N4 sn SS ISUO UL' IM 'M US IIHX) '02 '04 Growth of Traffic and Employees ing through the United States mail in 1903 was only 5,034,000,000 as against 5.070,000,000 telephone messages, and that in that year the total number of telegraph messages only reached 92.000,000. Judging from the ratio of growth of the Bell telephone companies, the messages transmitted over the telephone lines of the United States during the year 1904 will far exceed the number of letters and postal cards transmitted through the United States mail. At the date of the last annual report of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company on December 31, 1903, there were 1,525,167 stations in the United States, Electrical Handbook i^y and the average number of daily calls per station was six and one-half. That this enormous extension of busi- ness calls for vast sums of money is shown by the fact that during the four years from 1900 to 1903 inclusive, the sum of $135,329,700 was added to the telephone con- struction of the companies making up this Bell system. This sum was divided in the following way: approxi- mately $94,300,000 was used for exchange construction and equipment, 531.400.000 for toll wires, and 59.600.000 for real estate and buildings used for telephone exchanges and offices. With this vast plant growing out of the invention made by Mr. Bell in 1875 and the enormous use made of it, it is hard to estimate what the saving from an economic standpoint has been to the world at large. We are accustomed to think of the wonderful develop- ment of the telegraph system, now double the age of the telephone, and we find it transmitting in the United States 92.000,000 messages a year, while the telephone, in its thirty years, has reached a point where it sends more than this number of messages every week. It is hard to realize what a modern community would i)e without the telephone ; and to the small scattered villages and the isolated farmhouses the loss of the tele- phone would be even greater than would be the case if it were to be eliminated from our cities. It would be an inconvenience and a tremendous waste of energy if we were obliged to .send messengers or write letters for all of the thousand and one things for which we use the telephone, or to spend our own time in walking around ihe streets and making useless journeys, finding people not at home, but in the city we could get along. But to tlie people who are scattered all over the country, where tiie absence of the telephone means long delay.s, it is impossible to make any statement in figures which in any way shows the value to everybody of this invention. The telephone is unique in one feature, — the persons who use this means of communication are brought together in such a way as to enable them to transmit their messages themselves ; there is no giving the mes- I^ The Boston sage to some one to send — the very tones of the voice are reproduced at the distant point and are easily recog- nizable. It is as if we were actually listening with eyes shut to some one speaking. The simplicity of the use of the telephone makes it possible for any one who can speak to use it: it can transmit any language, and is as available for the Chinaman or the Turk as for the Englishman or Italian. There is no need for trans- forming Oriental languages into conventional letters, as is the case with the telegraph, nor for skilled employes to transmit the message. The messages are spoken by the sender and heard by the receiver, and there is no intervention by any one. From its earliest conception down to the present day, Boston has been the heart of the telephone industry, from which there has spread not only throughout the United States but throughout the world, this wonderful means for bringing people separated from one another by long distances or by physical disability into instant communication, allowing the exchange of business and social communications, and revolutionizing the social and commercial life wherever it has been introduced. That the field is covered at the present time no one hints. Vast sums of money are necessary to complete the extension of the present Bell system, but the time will come when every dwelling and place of business in the country will regard the telephone as essential for every day life as is artificial light. When every house- hold is provided with a telephone it will then begin to be time to talk of the saturation of the population with telephone facilities, but not until this stage is reached. The nearer this point of saturation is reached the more evident it will become that in the very nature of things the telephone systems must be so allied and con- nected as to furnish one system. It is impossible to conceive that a means of communication, which owes its value to the number of persons which it can reach, can be of the highest value to all the people when some telephones are connected to one central system and others to a different one. The full development of this Electrical Handbook i^g means of communication can only be reached when one great national system has been created — when each and every user can reach every one who has a telephone. Then and then only can this invention, created in Boston and built up here to its present condition, secure to the public the full value of the work of Alexander Graham Bell. New England Telephone and Telegraph Company ONE of the largest companies in the United States, constituting a part of the American Bell Telephone system, is the New England Telephone and Telegraph Company, which has its principal executive office in Boston, and operates the exchanges and toll lines in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Massachusetts, serving an aggregate popu- lation of 4,255,000. The operating companies coordinated with the Ameri- can Telephone and Telegraph Company undertake the colossal work of organizing the telephone service of the country. Their success is witnessed by the immense volume of business done annually and the prodigious network of wires that now reaches almost every corner of the United States. The work in New England alone is comparable with that developed in the territory of one of the Great Powers. The Company was organized in 1883 by the consolida- tion of several local companies which had constructed exchanges in many of the more important cities and towns, and while others of the American Bell companies cover a wider area and serve a larger population, no section of the country presents more varied conditions, or has furnished a more interesting field for the develop- ment of the telephone industry than this portion of the New England States. Maine has its lumbering and manufacturing interests its fisheries, quarries and lime kilns, its ship-building plants, and grand stretch of sea-coast; New Hampshire, aptly designated " The Granite State", has cotton and Electrical Handbook 151 woolen mills, and its beautiful mountain scenery, which attracts a summer population from all parts of the United States: \'ermont, "The Green Mountain State," also famous for its scenery, has marble and other indus- tries; Massachusetts has its great maritime, commercial, financial and manufacturing interests. While none of these states is looked upon primarily as agricultural, each has large and prosperous farming communities, which retain the qualities that have characterized the New Eng- land people from the earliest times, of industry, frugality and thrift; communities, too, in which is found a compara- tively high degree of educa- tion, and a well developed public school system. When the New England Company was formed, the tele- phone business was in the earlier stages of its develop- ment. Numerous small com- panies had been establi.'^hed, each operating in a single city or town, or at most in a very limited area, and having toll connections, if any, only to adjacent points. For tlie most part the lines were iron ground return circuits, the central office appa- ratus of various types, long since discarded. The American public, especially that portion which repre- sented large commercial and financial interests, had even then, come to recognize in the telephone an impor- tant and valuable agent for the conduct of business and 152 The Boston professional affairs, but its use had, to that time, been confined principally to the larger business and industrial concerns and to people of liberal means. The term which has elapsed since that period has been one of marvellous progress in the tele- phone business of New England, not only in enlargement of the business, but in im- provement of the character of plant, equipment, and meth- ods of operation. At the beginning of that term, the exchange stations numbered about fourteen thou- sand. The company has now connected with its system of ex- changes and toll lines more than ten times that number. To accomplish the results already at- tained has not only involved the expendi- ture of many millions of dollars for exten- sions of the property, but the frequent rebuilding and replacement of lines and equipment. New and approved forms of central office apparatus have been sub- stituted for that of older and less effective design so fast as improvements in the art have been made ; sub- stantially the entire system has been converted from ground return to metallic circuits, and copper wire and cables have been substituted for iron wire to a great extent. More than two-thirds of the entire mileage of wire used by the Company for exchange purposes has Electrical Handbook ijj been placed underground, and in the larger cities and towns buildings of fireproof construction have been erected at the centres of underground distribution, especially designed to serve the requirements of the exchanges. In the large exchanges relay switchboards, with central power plants and lamp signals, have been installed, and others of the same character will be erected during this year. Within that time also a sys- tem of toll lines has been constructed, connecting the numerous exchanges and toll stations in the four states above named, having a wire mileage of nearly one hundred thousand miles. The management of the New England Telephone and Telegraph Company has realized that the constant additions which have been made, year by year, to the number of exchange stations have not only been condu- cive to the stability and strength of the business, but have added materially to the value and usefulness of the service to the whole body of its subscribers; and it has aimed to extend and enlarge tlie business as rapidly as is consistent with sound business methods, and to bring the service, so far as possible, within the reach of all classes in the community who can use it to their advantage. To this end not only the best and most economical methods of construction and operation have been made the object of constant study, but also such adjustment and graduation of rates and service as would provide alike for the requirements of subscribers having large Ijusine.ss interests and the tradesman or householder of smaller means, whose use of the service is more limited. Under the plan of development adopted by the New England Company, the result has followed that the service within its territory is employed not principally by persons of large means and extended interests, but, to a ferger and increasing extent, by tho.se of moderate means, who find it of value in the conduct of busines.s, or a convenience and safeguard in their homes. The gradual extension of telephone lines to all the towns and villages still left the service of the rural 154- T he Boston districts, which contain a large percentage of the popu- lation, undeveloped. The plan first adopted to supply this deficiency was that known as the sub-license plan, upon which the New England Company allowed local companies or groups of residents to develop limited sections of its territory, furnishing them Bell telephones at a reasonable annual rental, and connecting their lines with its toll system at some mutually convenient point. This plan proved successful, but left the problem of rural service only partially settled. The solution seemed impossible on any reasonable economical basis, until, after much thought and investi- gation, a new class of service known as the " Farmers Line Exchange Service" was introduced. Under this plan' the Company builds and equips the lines and fur- nishes service through its own exchanges, the stipulations being that there must be two subscribers to each circuit mile, and that the line shall not extend more than six circuit-miles from the exchange centre without mileage charge. Electrical Handbook ijj Though put into effect only a few months since, six thousand contracts have already been taken at the new rates, and the demand is increasing. The management of the New England Telephone and Telegraph Company has always been conservative, and it has, from the tirst, been its policy to appropriate from its revenue each year an amount sufficient to keep the existing property in effective condition, and to provide for replacement of such portions of the plant as have become unserviceable by reason of use and decay, or destruction by storm, or which have become obsolete by the introduction of new and better forms of equipment. The average rates of depreciation upon the various classes of property, from the causes first named, have now become quite definitely established, and as, with successive years, the property investment has increased, the cost of its care and reconstruction has increased nearly in the same ratio. During the series of recent years the annual charge for maintenance of the plant, not including new con- struction, has amounted to slightly more than one-third of the gross revenue from all sources. At the beginning of the present year, the Company had in operation three hundred and eighty-two exchanges. The largest exchange of the Company is in Boston, a city of 560,000 people. At the close of 1903, the ex- change stations in that city numbered 34,602. In some thirty cities and towns situated within a radius of ten or twelve miles from the centre of Boston, constituting a part of the Boston and .Suburban Division, and having an aggregate population of 578,000, there were 18.955 exchange stations. The next exchange in point of size is that in Worcester, Mass.. where, in a population of 118,000, there are somewhat more than six thousand subscribers. Among the other large and more important of the Company's exchanges are those in the cities of Fall River, Lawrence, Lowell, and New 15edford. Massa- chusetts: Lewiston. Maine, and Manchester, New Hamp- shire, widely known for their textile manufactories; Lynn. Brockton, and Haverhill, whose principal industry is the ij6 Electrical Handbook manufacture of shoes ; Springfield, Holyoke, and Salem, Massachusetts; Portland and Bangor, Maine; Rutland and Burlington in Vermont. The system of exchanges and toll lines of the Company has now grown to proportions far in excess of what any one conversant with the business, even ten years ago, would have ventured to predict. So extensive has been the development, that there is no town of considerable size within the four states before named, in which the Company has not an exchange in operation, and but few villages or small centres of population whose resi- dents cannot readily place themselves in communication, by means of its exchanges and toll lines, with the people of the neighboring towns, or with far distant places, as their business or convenience requires; while the con- nection with the longdistance lines of the American Tele- phone and Telegraph Company furnishes the means of telephonic communication with the people of the great West. The Capital Stock of the New Eng- land Telephone and Telegraph Company is, 821,616,700 For several years past dividends have been paid at the rate of six per cent. For the year 1903 the Gross Revenue was, 6,692,865 The expenses were, 5.277,725 Leaving the Net Revenue available for divi- dends, 1,415,140 The exchange stations, including those oper- ated by sub-licenses, numbered at the end of the year, 136,089 Private Line stations, 7,014 The mileage of exchange wire was, 220,749 miles " " " toll " " 94,295 " Average number of exchange connections daily, 606,826 Average number of toll connections daily, 35,095 It is estimated that about twenty thousand exchange stations will be added to the above number during the present year. Harvard University TX the fall of 1636, the General Court of the Mas- sachusetts Bay Colony voted four hundred pounds to build a school or college. The vote was approved by Henry Vane, then governor of the Colony. A year later, the Court appointed a com- mission to take charge of the matter. Scarcely had they begun the work of organization and building, when they received a bequest of the entire library and half the remaining property of an English clergyman, John Harvard, who had died in Charlestown (Boston) after a residence in the Colony of about a year. The new school was therefore named Harvard College, and the name of the town in which it was built was changed from Xewtowne to Cambridge, as a tribute to the uni- versity where many of the colonists had been educated. In 1650 the General Court drew up for the College the charter under which it is still governed. This docu- ment, which established the oldest corporation in the country, now hangs in the librarian's room in Gore Hall. The corporation thus established consists of the President, the Treasurer, and five Fellows. They fill vacancies in their own number, and make all laws, orders, and appointments, subject only to the approval of the Board of Overseers. This body is a descendant of the board appointed by the General Court before the charter of 1650. Its character has changed some- what at various times. It now consists of thirty mem- bers, besides the president and treasurer, five of whom are elected on each commencement day for a term of six years, by a vote of Bachelors of Arts of five years' standing. In 1642 the first class was graduated, nine in number. In June, 1904, the Bachelor's degree was conferred 157 Electrical Handbook on some five hundred candidates in Arts and Sciences; and, all told, there were nearly i,ioo degrees conferred. In 1652, the senior class consisted of one man, and the whole college had, perhaps, twenty students. In the year 1903-4 there were more than five thousand stu- dents enrolled in all departments of the University. The original building, which lasted less than forty years, has been succeeded by an equipment covering in all, some five hundred acres of ground. In 1780, the Massachusetts Constitution referred to Harvard as a University. Up to 1783, when medical lectures were first given, it was properly called Harvard College. Now the College is but one, though an extremely im- portant one, of the sixteen departments of the Uni- versity. DEPARTMENTS OF INSTRUCTION There arc nine departments of instruction: Harvard College, the Graduate School, the Lawrence Scientific School, the Summer School, the Divinity School, the Law School, the Medical School, the Dental School, and the Bussey Institution (the Agricultural and Hor- ticultural department). The administration of these nine schools is com- mitted to four Faculties: the Faculty of Arts and Sci- ences, the Faculty of Divinity, the Faculty of Law, and the Faculty of Medicine. University Expenses. The total University expenses for the year 1902-3, excluding new buildings, amounted to $1,600,000, and the receipts from student fees about $720,000, or less than one-half of the expenditures. The invested funds amount to about $16,000,000, excluding University grounds and buildings. FACULTY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES Harvard College, the Lawrence Scientific School, and the Graduate School, are under the administration of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, numbering 132, (in 1902-03, excluding other instructors and assistants). Electrical Handbook i^g The Summer School of Arts and Sciences is also in charge of a committee of this Faculty. Admission Examinations. Admission to the College and Scientific School is by examination, according to a system devised to give the candidate all desirable freedom in the choice of studies he offers and to re- quire of the candidates the same amount of prepara- tory work. In general, entrance examinations aim to bring out what a candidate is qualified to do rather than what he has already done. These examinations are held in June and September in forty cities of the United States, in Germany, Hawaii, and Japan. In 1902-3, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences pro- vided 240 whole courses and 214 half courses of instruc- tion in various fields. A course represents ordinarily three hours a week in the class or lecture room, and Tom three to eight hours a week of work outside the class room. Where a course includes work in a lab- oratory, three hours of such work is usually counted as the equivalent of one lecture and the outside study connected therewith. The method of instruction is largely by lectures, supplemented in most cases by theses and reports, by recitations, conferences, "quiz- zes," problems, laboratory work, field work, — as the subject demands. The courses of instruction in any one field are in the immediate charge of a Division Committee. Six of these Divisions are so large as to require sub- divisions into De])artments. The students registered in the three schools admin- istered by this faculty share for the most part freely in the instruction ofTered by any of its Divisions, insofar as they are qualified therefor; and in many courses may be found College, Scientific School, and Graduate School students working side by side on equal terms. In the advanced courses, the students of the Graduate School predominate, while in the elementary courses the College and Scientific School students are more in evidence. A student registered in the College usually has as i6o The Boston his objective a general education, is free to choose his courses, and receives the degree of A.B. after the sat- isfactory completion of 172 of these courses. This usually occupies four years, although a steadily increas- ing number satisfy the requirements in three years. The number of students registered in the College dur- ing 1902-03 was 2,109. A student registered in the Lawrence Scientific School has usually some definite scientific or technical objective, and selects one of a number of prescribed 4-year programmes of study, in each of which are laid down the courses required for the degree of S.B. in the chosen field. The number of courses required in the several programmes varies from 20 to 23. This re- quires four years of substantial work. The number of students registered in the Scientific School was 548 in 1903-04, distributed among the several programmes as follows: — Civil Engineering, 72; Mechanical Engi- neering, 56; Electrical Engineering, 74; Mining and Metallurgy, 68; Architecture, 40; Landscape Archi- tecture, 16; Forestry, 7; Chemistry, 23; Geology, 4; Biology, 14; Anatomy and Physiology, 35; for Teach- ers of Science, 13; General Science, 126. Work in the Graduate School leads to the degree of Master of Arts, Master of Science, Doctor of Philos- ophy and Doctor of Science. A Bachelor's degree is required for admission. The Master's degree requires the completion with high grades of four courses, ordi- narily a year's work. The Doctor's degree requires in most departments at least one year's residence, a thor- ough knowledge of the entire subject and minute prep- aration in .some special field of the subject. The re- sults of investigation in the special field must be set forth in a thesis. The number of students enrolled in the Graduate School in 1902-03 was 325. They rep- resented more than no colleges. Electrical Handbook i6i ENGINEERING The Lawrence Scientific School, founded in 1847, was intended by its chief benefactor, the Hon. Abbott Lawrence, to be a school of applied science, and as such was the second in America; but although instruc- tion in Engineering was begun in 1850, the energies of the school were directed towards pure science. Here, in 1848, Louis Agassiz introduced the laboratory ^..^ Engineering Laljoratories, Harvard method of teaching science; here also taught such men as Ik'HJamin Peirce, Asa Gray, Eben Horsford, Jeffries Wyman and Josiah Cooke. On this foundation many of the now independent scientific establishments of the university had their beginnings; but for almost forty years the technical instruction was confined to Civil Engineering in its narrower sense. The real development of instruction in Engineering began about 1890, when the Lawrence Scientific School, the Graduate School and the College were merged under the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. In 1888-89 i62 The Boston a four-year programme in Electrical Engineering was established, in 1893-94 one in Mechanical Engineer- ing, in 1894-95 one each in Mining and Architecture, in 1900-01 one in Landscape Architecture, and in 1903-04 one in Forestry. These Departments are now all commodiously housed in Pierce Hall, the Rotch Building, and Robinson Hall. In addition to these buildings are the Chemical Labo- ratory (Boylston Hall), the Jefferson Physical Labora- tory, and the Laboratories of the University Museum, instruction in all of which is regularly given to students of Engineering. The electrical engineering students re- ceive not only their instruction in general physics but also that in electrical measurements and in the theory of electricity, from the Division of Physics in the Jef- ferson Laboratory, the relations between this Division and the Department of Electrical Engineering being very close. The most distinguishing characteristic of technical instruction at Harvard is its close affiliation with the other arts and sciences; for not only do students reg- istered in the Scientific School, and following a four years' programme in engineering, partake of the in- struction offered by other Divisions, but College and Graduate-School students elect and count for their degrees, courses offered by the Division of Engineer- ing. In this latter custom the University expresses its belief in the educational value of most of the engineer- ing courses. In many of these courses, 25 or 30 per cent of the students enrolled are from the College and Graduate School. The only difference between the student registered in the Lawrence Scientific School (for example, an engineering student) and one reg- istered in the College, is in the manner of selecting his courses; the former elects a programme of study chosen by the Division concerned, as requisite to a systematic training in that field {e.g., civil engineer- ing), while the latter elects each course separately. This close affiliation is considered of great value to the students of both schools. To the engineering stu- Electrical II a n u b o o k i6 j i6^ The Boston dent it gives a breadth of view and wealth of interest quite unusual in technical schools, and to the college or graduate student it often brings the opportunity which turns him towards engineering as a profession. The McKay bequest of about five million dollars, for Applied Science (especially for mechanical engineer- ing), will become available in five or six years, and will place technical instruction at Harvard on an en- larged foundation. PROFESSIONAL SCHOOLS The Harvard Law School was established in 1817. At that time it was the only school of the sort in the country in close connection with a college. In 1883 Austin Hall, the present Law School, was finished and occupied. Professor C. C. Langdell, while Dean of the Law School, practically reorganized it and gave it its present high standard. This he accomplished by introducing a system of thorough examinations, by originating and using the "case system" of instruction, and finally by making the holding of a college degree a requirement for admission. The School has now in the neighborhood of 750 students. The original purpose of Harvard College was avow- edly to train up a learned clergy for the new country. Five of the nine graduates in 1642 went into the min- istry, as did a large part of each succeeding class for many years. In June, 1904, there were seven graduates in theology as against five hundred in arts and sci- ences. The Divinity School is non-sectarian; it could not be otherwise in a university which supports an institution like Phillips Brooks House, where active and strong student religious organizations of all sects and creeds live and work together. Students of all denominations, too, voluntarily attend daily prayers in Appleton Chapel. There are four schools in the university that take little or no part in the social life of the students in Cambridge. The Harvard Medical School is situated Electrical Handbook i6j on Boylston Street in Boston, three miles from Harvard College, in order that it may secure the clinical ad- vantages offered by a large city. The students visit the various hospitals daily, and some fifty of the stu- dents a year are drawn into their service. The stand- ard of the school is high, a Bachelor's degree is re- quired for admission, its examinations are severe, and its facilities of all kinds are great. It employs 2)3 pro- fessors and assistant-professors, and iii other instruc- tors. It has between 450 and 500 students. It is the oldest professional school of the university. Recent gifts of something over two and a quarter million dol- lars have enabled the Medical School to begin the erection of five new buildings on the corner of Hunt- ington and Longwnod Avenues, in Brookline, a suburb of Boston about five miles from Cambridge. The Dental School is also situated in Boston. It is now on North Gn)ve Street, but it will probably have accommodations, m the course of time, on the site of the new Medical School buildings. The requirements for admission are lower than those for admission to the College, but they are gradually being brought up to the College standard. The programme covers three years, the first year of which is nearly identical with that of the Medical School. There is also a School of Agriculture and Horticul- ture, called the Bussey Institution, after its principal benefactor, and designed to furnish instruction in scientific agriculture. SUMMER SCHOOL During the long vacation in the summer, a number of short courses are given in Cambridge under the direction of a Committee of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. These courses, which cover a wide variety of the subjects regularly taught in the College, Scien- tific School, and Graduate School, are designed for teachers, and are open to all qualified men and women without formal examination. Some may be taken in- i66 The B s t n stead of the corresponding courses in the College or Scientific School, and count towards the Bachelor's degree. The courses meet five times a week for six weeks, and each aims to occupy all the student's work- ing time, though there are a few combinations of two courses that may profitably be taken together. The number of students enrolled during the summer of 1903 was 1,186, exclusive of the members of the Summer Schools of Theology and of Medicine. The Library, Harvard THE LIBRARY This is located in Gore Hall, includes over 400,000, volumes, and is open during term-time every week, day from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m., and Sundays from i to 5.30 P.M. In addition to this main library, there are ten departmental and twenty-eight reference libraries, with collections numbering all together over 200,000 volumes. The total is thus more than 600,000 vol- umes. THE ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATORY The Astronomical Observatory is situated in Cam- bridge, on the corner of Concord Avenue and Bond Street. The annual income used exclusively for re- search is about $50,000. The investigations thus far Electrical Handbook i6y completed fill fifty quarto volumes of annals, and the distinguished work here carried on has probably done more to give the University an international reputa- tion than any other single portion of its rich contribu tions to science. This observatory and that at Kiel, Germany, have been selected by international agreement as centres for prompt distribution of astronomical discoveries. Besides the station at Cambridge, the Observatory maintains a very important observing station near Arequipa, Peru, and a series of meteorological stations, crossing the Andes. UNIVERSITY MUSEUM The University Museum is commonly called the Agassiz Museum, a title which is no more than a just recognition of the services of Louis and Alexander Agassiz. The north wing of the building contains the Museum of Comparative Zoology, the Mineralogical and Botanical Museums are in the centre, the Geolog- ical Museum, and the Peabody Museum of American .Archaeology and Ethnology, are in the south wing. There are many exhibition rooms constantly open to the public. The Ware Collection of Blaschka Glass Models of Plants and Flowers has proved particularly attractive to visitors. It consists of some seven hun- dred models and three thousand sections made from study of the living specimens of a wide variety of plants. The models are made of glass colored by mineral pigments, imitating with striking accuracy every visible- characteristic of the plants themselves. They are the artistic handiwork of Leopold (deceased) and Rudol{)h Blaschka of Germany. When the latter dies, the .se- crets of this art will ])robably die with him. The Botanic Garden. The Botanic Garden, situ- ated at the corner of Garden and Linnjuan Streets, Cambridge, and covering seven acres, was established at the beginning of the last century, and was made famous by the work of the late Professor Asa Gray. i68 The Boston The Gray Herbarium, located in the Botanic Gar- den, is a collection of 350,000 sheets of mounted speci- mens, founded and largely developed by the untiring energy of Professor Gray. The Arnold Arboretum, a living museum of trees and shrubs, occupies 220 acres of land in Jamaica Plain, about six miles from Cam- bridge. It is traversed by about four miles of park roads, and is open to the public every day in the year from sunrise to sunset. The College Yard, Harvard GROUNDS AND BUILDINGS The term "College Yard" has been applied since the earliest records to the main quadrangle enclosed by the College buildings. It vi^as originally the plot between Harvard and Massachusetts Halls, but now properly includes the two main quadrangles, though the term is often restricted to the western, and older, of the two. The oldest of the buildings now standing in the Yard is Massachusetts Hall, which was finished in 1720, and Note. — When the location of a building is omitted, it may readily be found on the accompanying map ; from which may also be obtained a rough estimate of the size of each building. Electrical Handbook i6g has not since been changed in outward appearance. Harvard Hail, which faces it, was buiit in 1766 to take the place of the older hall of the same name, which was destroyed by fire on the site of the present build- ing in 1764. It is now devoted to lecture rooms and department libraries. The Colonial buildings in the order of their age are Massachusetts Hall, Wadsworth House (for many years the President's house), Holden Chapel, and HoUis Hall. Massachusetts Hall was then a dormitory. Holden Chapel was given by the wife and daughter of Samuel Holden, M.P., himself a liberal benefactor of Harvard. It was the first build- ing to take its name from an English benefactor. Hol- lis Hall is named for Thomas Hollis, an English mer- chant, who, though a Baptist, gave sums, then con- sidered vast, to a college that dismissed its first presi- dent because he objected to the baptism of infants. Holworthy Hall was named for Sir Matthew Hol- worthy, who in 1678 left the College a thousand pounds. Stoughton and Holworthy Halls, both dormitories, were built in 1804 and 181 2, respectively, and Univer- sity Hall, now the Administration Building, immedi- ately followed Holworthy. The other buildings in the old quadrangle are Thayer, Weld, Grays and Mat- thews Halls, all dormitories. Dane Hall — the first home of the Law School, is now occupied by the Bursar and the Harvard Co-operative Society. Boylston Hall is the Chemical Laboratory. Here is given all the in- struction in Chemistry under the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. It accommodates about 600 students, and contains a Department library of 1,600 volumes. Sever Hall, on the eastern side of the new quadrangle, is the largest building devoted entirely to lecture and class rooms. In Appleton Chapel are held during term- time, daily morning prayers, Sunday evening services, and vesper services Thursday afternoons during the winter months, attendance at all of which is voluntary. These services are conducted by a board of five preach- ers of various denominations, and the Plummer Pro- fessor of Christian Morals. IJO The B sto n Phillips Brooks House, situated in the northwest cor- ner of the Yard, was built by subscription in memory of Phillips Brooks, of the class of 1855, Preacher to the University, Overseer, and Protestant Episcopal Bishop of Massachusetts. This building is the home of the various student religious societies of whatever denomi- nation. It contains a large and very attractive recep- tion room, where are held the weekly receptions given by the members of the Faculty and their wives to the students. Memorial Hall. Harvard The William Hayes Fogg Art Museum was erected in 1895, at a cost of $170,000. It has an endowment of $50,000. Nelson Robinson, Jr., Hall, the Architec- ture Building, was erected in 1900-01 at a cost of about $150,000. It has an endowment of about $250,000, and is one of the most thoroughly equipped buildings in the University. By far the most noteworthy building outside the Yard is Memorial Hall, which stands on the delta be- Electrical Handbook 171 tween Cambridge, Kirkland, and Quincy Streets. It was built mainly by subscriptions from graduates, as a memorial to the Harvard men who fought and fell in the Civil War. The Corporation, in accepting it from the graduates, called it "the most valuable gift the Uni- versity has ever received, in respect alike to cost, daily usefulness, and moral significance." The western end Physical Laboratory, Harvard of the hall is the one which is literally in daily use; it serves as a dining hall for some twelve hundred of the .students. The eastern end, called Sanders Theatre, is the official as.sembly hall for all public, and many pri- vate academic ceremonies. The building is rich in memorial windows. Randall Hall, built in 1898 gy at a cost of Si 00,000, is another dining hall, and accommodates about 1,200 students on the d la carte plan at a very reasonable price. The Hemenway Gymnasium, with a ground plan 1^2 The Boston area of 15,000 square feet, and a larj^e and varied equip- ment, accommodates about 2,500 students. The Jefferson Physical Laboratory accommodates all the University work in Physics. It is 60 by 200 feet, four stories high, well equipped and commodious. A research endowment of $60,000 is well employed in connection with numerous investigations. Pierce Hall, built in 1901 at a cost of over $200,000, for the Division of Engineering, contains laboratories, draughting-rooms, lecture-rooms, offices, repair-shop, power-plant, and an Engineering Library of more than 6,000 volumes. The Rotch Building is the old Carey Building for athletics, remodelled and enlarged for the Department of Mining and Metallurgy. It contains metallurgical, ore dressing, and assay laboratories. The Astronomical Laboratory, housed in a frame building adjacent to the Rotch Building, is entirely in- dependent of the Astronomical Observatory, and is intended entirely for instruction, whereas the Observa- tory is employed entirely for research. The Germanic Museum, for the most part the gift of Emperor William II, is temporarily housed in the Rogers building. The Semitic Museum was finished in 1902, at a cost of about $50,000. The Stillman Infirmary is a University hospital, beautifully located and with the most approved ap- pointment. Here students and officers are cared for at a moderate price. STUDENT LIFE The number of students who live in Cambridge has increased so rapidly of late that the University no longer attempts to feed and house all of them. Memorial and Randall Halls, conducted by student associations, supply with food about half of them. The others patronize restaurants and boarding houses, or avail themselves of their club privileges — now and then Electrical Handbook //J one finds a student preparing his food over a spirit- lamp in his room. At the private boarding houses as, at Alemorial Hall, groups of men usually form club tables. The price of board at Memorial Hall is about four dollars per week, at Randall Hall somewhat less, and at boarding houses and clubs usually more. About one-half of the students room in the College dormitories. Many find quarters in private houses. Others, whose homes are near at hand, live at home, and a still larger number live in private dormitories. Some of these provide quarters neither essentially bet- ter nor worse than are provided in the buildings owned by the College. In recent years, however, the enter- prise of capitalists has provided very luxurious quarters for the richer students. Most of these are to the south of the College Yard, on Mt. Auburn Street. The various athletic sports are sustained by elab- orate organizations among the students, and are regu- lated by a committee compo.sed of officers of the Uni- versity, graduates and undergraduates. Soldiers Field, the principal college playground, covering 20 acres, was given to the University by Henry Lee Higginson, one of her chief benefactors. On the field are the locker building, the base-ball cage, the base-ball diamond, cricket crease, fields for lacrosse and other sports. The football field and the cinder track are now within the enormous Stadium. The Stadium comes to the University through the generosity of the Class of 1879, and was made possible by the skill and patience of Professors Hollis and John- .son, of the Division of Engineering. It is a steel and concrete grand-stand, U-shaped in plan, to accommo- date some 23,000 spectators at football and other games on Soldiers Field. It can be made to hold 38,000 persons with the aid of temporary structures. It is intended to furnish an economical, fireproof and architecturally pleasing structure in ])lace of the short- lived, dangerous, and unsightly wooden grand-stands hitherto in use. The developed length of the U at the outside row is 174 T h e Boston 1,390 feet, and the uniform width across from front to back of each wing of the U is 98 feet. The area actu- ally under cover is some 120,000 square feet. The over-all length of the Stadium is 575 feet, and the width is 420 feet, both exclusive of some minor details. By way of comparison, it may be stated that the cor- responding dimensions of the Coliseum at Rome are 616 feet and 510 feet, but the Coliseum had a much greater seating capacity than has the Stadium, owing partly to the fact that in the Coliseum both ends were The Harvard Stadium closed and used for seats, and a much smaller space was reserved for the arena. The highest part of the Stadium now finished is about 53 feet above the ground, but after the upper promenade is roofed in, the final height of the structure will be 71 feet. In June, 1904, Class Day exercises were for the first time held in the circular end of the Stadium, and proved a marked success. Rovv'ing is perhaps the oldest of the athletic sports at Cambridge. It began about 1844. Early in the spring there are many races between the class crews, and the various crews of the two boat clubs. From the best of the oarsmen developed in these races the Electrical Handbook lyj University crew is finally selected. The crews, and all who wish to row for pleasure, are accommodated in the two boat houses, the Weld and the Xewell Clubs on opposite sides of the river near Soldiers Field. Football was played on the Delta long before the Civil War. The series of games with Yale began in 1875, and with perhaps but one real interruption (1894-97), has been played regularly ever since. The annual Harvard-Yale game draws a larger audience than does any other athletic contest, the attendance at the last such game being nearly 40,000. Base-ball began at Harvard in 1862, and the series of games with Yale in 1868. In this field Harvard has been very successful, as also in track athletics. At tennis, too, Harvard has turned out players of national reputation. All of Jarvis Field and a part of Holmes Field are now given over to tennis courts which are in constant use all through the season. There are active organizations and teams for playing golf, lacrosse, cricket, and hockey, and there are also fencing and shooting clubs. The Hemenway Gymna- sium is uncomfortably crowded every afternoon during the time when outdoor sports are not in season. Student Publications. The undergraduate publica- tions are now six in number. The Harvard Crimson is the college daily newspaper. The Lampoon, an illus- trated comic paper, and The Advocate, a literary maga- zine, the oldest of the si.x, are published fortnightly. The Monthly, also literary, and the Harvard Illus- trated Magazine are published once a month. The Harvard Engineering Journal is issued quarterly. The editorial boards of all these are self-perpetuating bodies who.se records bear many well-known names. The list of clubs other than athletic is a long one; it would iiu'iuile more than a hundred organizations of various kinds, the history and description of which would make an interesting chapter. They manage the dining halls, and the C()-()])erative store, they are active in religious and j)olitical work, they promote Harvard interest in different sections of the country, they carry //^ The Boston on educational work of all kinds, they devote them- selves to music, chess, vi'hist, and photography. The most interesting clubs, however, are the more purely social ones. One of the newer ones, but now the most important, is the Harvard Union, originally a debating club, which successfully carried out its pur- pose to form the nucleus of a University Club like the Unions at Oxford and Cambridge. Major Henry L. Higginson gave the building; other graduates con- tributed generously in money and effort. The Union is now a handsome, commodious, and well equipped club, membership in which is open to all past and present members of the University at very moderate cost. The Hasty Pudding Club, probably the best known college club in the country, dates from 1795. Its mem- bers originally met in each others rooms to read papers and eat hasty pudding. They still eat the pudding and preserve other traditions, but the literary tradition is almost entirely lost. There are many Greek letter and other societies varying greatly in character, many of them wealthy, with luxurious quarters. There is a flourishing Engineering Society, with branches in civil, electrical, mechanical, and mining engineering. Of the student body as a whole there is little to be said. It represents all but a very few elements of American citizenship, with a considerable foreign ad- mixture. One never sees the whole of it at once; but at the great athletic exhibitions and on a few occasions of special academic interest, one may get a fair idea of what the whole would be like. Electrical Hatidbook n7 Harvard University A. Austin Hall, Law School, Bks. Phillips Brooks House, 1883. 1898. A. C. Appleton Chapel, 1858. C. College House, 1832. A. I). A. 13. Club House. Coop. Harvard Cooperative Soc A.A.*. Alpha Delta I'hi Club Cr. Craigie Hall, 1897. House. Ct. Conant Hall, 1894. A. L. Students' Astronomical Cv. Claverly Hall, 1893. Laboratory, 1901. D. Divinity Hall, 1826. A p. Apley Court, 1897. Da. Dane Hall, 1832. U. lioylston Hall, 1S57. Dana. Dana Chamliers, 1897. Be. Ileck Hall, 1876. Di. Ditjaninia Club. /7c? The Boston Dr. Dunster Hall, 1897. P. M. Dray. Drayton Hall, 1902. Pierce. D. L. Divinity Library, 1822. P'c'l'n. A.*. Delta Phi Club House. *. A.*. Ev. Everett Hall, 1900. Pt. F. Foxcroft House, 1888. Q'cy. Fair. Fairfax Hall. R. F. H. Felton Hall, 1877. R. D. F. M.A.Fogg Museum of Art, Ran. 1895. R'd. G. Grays Hall, 1863. Rob. Gnt. Gannett House. Rotcli. Gy. Gymnasium, 1879. Rus. H. Hollis Hall, 1763. S. H.C. Holden Chapel, 1744. S. I. H.P.C. Hasty Pudding Club Ho. S. M. H. U. Harvard Union, 1901. Se. Ha. Harvard Hall, 1765. Sh. Ham. Hampden Hall, 1902. Si. H'ke. Holyoke House, 1870. T. H'y. Holworthy Hall, 1812. Tr. I. Institute of 1770. U. J. Jefferson Phy. Lab., 1884. W. Lit. Little's Block, 1854. W. B. Lb. Library, Gore Hall, 1841. Wa. L. Lawrence Hall, 1848. Ware. M. Matthews Hall, 1872. West. Mm. Memorial Hall, 1874. W. H. Mn. Manter Block, 1882. Ms. Massachusetts Hall, 1720. Wi. N. L. New Lecture Hall, 1902. Z. P. Perkins Hall, 1894. Z. ♦. P. H. Pi Eta Society. Peabody Museum, 1877. Pierce Hall. Porcellian Club. Phi Delta Psi Club. Prescott Hall, 1896. Quincy Hall, 1892. Rogers Building, i860. Randall Dining Hall, 1898. Randolph Hall, 1897. Read's Block, 1886. Robinson Hall, 1901. Rotch Laboratory, 1890. Russell Hall, 1900. Stoughton Hall, 1805. Stillman Infirmary, 1901. Semitic Museum, 1901. Sever Hall, 1880. Shepherd Block. Signet Club House. Thayer Hall, 1870. Trinity Hall, 1893. University Hall, 181 5. Weld Hall, 1872. Weld Boat House, 1890. Wadsworth House, 1726. Ware Hall, 1894. Westmorly, 1898. Walter Hastings Hall l8go. Winthrop Hall, 189-5. University Museum, i860. Zeta Psi Club House. T'he Massachusetts Institute of Technology THE Massachusetts Institute of Technology is characteristically an institution for instruc- tion in practical engineering in its various branches. The original project of Prof. William V>. Rogers, its first president, and his co-workers in founding the institution, now nearly forty years ago, was to provide a complete system of industrial educa- tion, and that purpose has been, in so far as was possible and in the light of educational advances of recent years, faithfully carried out. The State of Massachusetts has generously aided the Institute by grants of money and of land, and by an allotment to the Institute of one-third of the national grants to the State made just prior to the foundation and in more recent years. The larger part of the en- dowment is, however, due to private beneficence. Around that original foundation has grown up what is now the largest technical and scientific school in the United States, and one of the largest in the world. The aim of the course of instruction is to give a thor- ough, well-rounded education in the arts, in science, and in the various branches of engineering, and to turn out men who are competent to enter into practical life as engineers, with a training which has given them not only a grasp of facts, but a power of initiative which will stand them in good stead. A high standard of scholar- ship has been maintained both in the entrance examina- tions and in the instruction given within the institution, and the curriculum has the reputation of requiring a greater amount of hard and earnest work on the part of students, than is found in any other technical institution of collegiate grade. «79 i8o The Boston By the last catalogue, the number of students in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is 1,528; and the number of teachers, 227 : while the list of graduates has now reached nearly 3,000 in the thirty-six classes which have gone out. It is a body of alumni which, by its professional activity and by its success in practical life, has reflected credit upon the institution and justified the wisdom of the policy pursued by its founder and his Rogers Building. Massachusetts Institute of Technology successors. The undergraduate instruction is arranged upon a group system, resulting in thirteen courses, each leading to the same degree of Bachelor of Science, and requiring four years of hard work for its completion. The abbreviated college course of two or three years recommended or experimented with by institutions deal- ing mainly with the so-called liberal arts, can find no place in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for four years is all too short to cover the amount of work required. Electrical Handbook iSl In the early years of the Institute, the course in civil engineering was its most important feature, and is still one of the largest of the engineering departments. In its present state of development it covers a wide range of engineering instruction, — topographical engineering, the building of railroads, harbors and docks, municipal engineering, with its requirement of sewers, roads and streets, the building of bridges, building walls and other fixed structures, and the hydraulic engineering which has become of so great importance in connection with elec- trical enterprises. A special course in sanitary engi- neering has within the last few years received much attention, differing from the others in its special require- ments in chemistry and in biology. The largest single department in the Institute is that of mechanical engineering, also one of the original de- partments. This course is intended to train the student in the scientific principles that form the basis of all engineering, and to do this in a thorough and practical manner. Much laboratory instruction, in the ample engineering laboratories, is given in this course, and in its latter part there are special studies in marine engi- neering, mill engineering, and heating and ventilation. Mining engineering and metallurgy, in a well equipped special laboratory, receives close attention. The depart- ment has never been a large one, but is intended to give the student a thorough training in the departments of science upon which the technical subjects are based, and to give such laboratory instruction as will render the student competent to attack intelligently the problems which arise in the practical pursuit of his profession, A thorough course in architecture has done sterling work in turning out men who have taken high places in the profession. The course is richer in the engineering instruction necessary to the design of modern buildings than is usual in architectural schools, and the facilities for work on this side of the subject are here unusually good. A recent innovation in connection with this subject, is a course in landscape architecture and de- sign, dealing with that e.xtrcmely interesting debatable l82 The Boston ground which lies between architecture and civil engi- neering. A part of the instruction in this course is given in the Arnold Arboretum, which is by far the best col- lection of trees and shrubs in the country ; and the de- partment of civil engineering cooperates directly with the faculty of architecture in making this department of study complete. Courses in chemistry and chemical engineering occupy a somewhat prominent place in the curriculum. The subject is here taken up both on the scientific and the practical sides, with special reference to fitting the stu- dents to enter the field of technical chemistry and the applications of technical chemistry to modern manufac- tures. To a certain extent the department cooperates with the department of mining and metallurgy, where the subjects naturally overlap, and special technical in- struction in the problems arising in the textile industries is made an available feature in the latter part of the course. Twenty-two years ago the corporation of the Institute established the course of electrical engineering, which has been conspicuous in the subsequent history of the Institute, and has resulted in giving to the profession a large number of electrical engineers competently trained and capable of making their mark in practical life. The Lowell Laboratories of Electrical Engineering, made possible through recent generous gifts, have just been put in working order. They have an exceptionally com- plete equipment and are thoroughly designed for the training of electrical engineers in the various branches of the art. Not only is the general subject taken up in a thorough and competent way, but especial instruction is given in telegraph and telephone engineering, subjects which are usually relegated to a minor place in technical schools. In planning the work of the course in electrical engineering, emphasis has been laid from the very be- ginning on the fundamental importance of physics, mathematics, and theoretical electricity. A large amount of mechanical engineering is also included, an arrange- ment rendered possible by the interdependent and har- Electrical Handbook iSj monious work of the various engineering departments of the Institute. The several departments mutually sup- port and reinforce one another, allowing a specialization of instruction impossible in a smaller college, with a less numerous staff of instructors. The work of the depart- ment is also strengthened by lectures delivered before its students by distinguished engineers not connected with the corps of instruction. Early in the history of the course there was formed a student engineering society, holding monthly meetings throughout the school year, at which papers are presented by the students themselves or, as frequently happens, the meeting takes the form of a smoke talk, an address, not necessarily electrical in character, being given by some man of prominence in engineering. This society also conducts excursions to electrical plants in and near Boston, and its membership is always largely represented in the meetings held under the auspices of the local branch of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers. Since the beginning of the year 1902-3, the Depart- ment of Electrical Engineering has been located in the new Augustus Lowell Laboratories of Electrical Engi- neering, erected during the summer of 1902. These cover an area of about 45.000 sciuare feet, including a main power and testing floor, 300 feet in length by forty feet in width. The Lowell Laboratories comprise not only a large and fine laboratory for dynamo-electric machinery, but a standardizing laboratory and a number of rooms for special research, and a well equipped workshop where apparatus can be prepared. The dynamo laboratory is of particular interest as including not only an extensive equipment of machines for experimental purposes, but also the large working plant which supplies power and light for the whole of the Institute. It is a thoroughly equipped modern power house plus a large engineering laboratory, and as such is a suitable field for giving not only theoretical instruction, but a most practical view of electrical machinery in evervday use. The apparatus in the dynamo room includes nearly every type now in commercial use, besides much appa- i84 The Boston Electrical Handbook iS^ ratus which has been accumulated in previous years, and which represents the growth of the art. It is the aim of instruction in this laboratory to give the student a thor- ough practical acquaintance with the various forms of machinery in current use, to train him in testing and in the minute study of performance which is necessary to grasp the peculiarities of the various machines, to give him, in short, a thorough grip of the fundamental prin- ciples of machine design and operation. The power station supplies the Institute with both direct and alternating currents through a pair of large direct-coupled continuous-current machines, and from a double-current generator of 480 kilowatts capacity, driven by a compound condensing engine, operated in connec- tion with a cooling tower. Along one side of the dynamo laboratory runs the set of special rooms for instruction and research, fully equipped for the carrying out of en- gineering thesis and of serious practical work. There are, besides, admirably equipped rooms for both incan- descent and arc light photometry on a practical scale. The Standardizing Laboratory is fully equipped with the latest forms of measuring apparatus and with special- ized devices for almost any variety of precise electrical measurement that the engineer can be called upon to perform. It has a large series of electrical standards of various sorts, together with provisions for verifying com- mercial instruments and standards, and for carrying on the research work, whicli forms an essential part of the science of electrical measurements. Now that thesis work is so frequently carried on at a distance from the Institute, a careful preliminary study of the methods and apparatus to be used becomes even more important than where the work is carried out in tlie laboratories of the institute itself. In connection with the regular instruction in the standardizing laboratory there is a system of confer- ences in which general methods of measurement for technical work are discussed, and questions of precision of results and economy of time specially emphasized. The Electrical Engineering Laboratories are also iS6 The Boston cahed upon to furnish opportunities for instruction to a considerable number of non-electrical engineers, who will later be called upon to decide certain electrical problems in the selection and operation of electrical machinery. While these students do not need the thorough grounding which is essential to the success of the students in electrical engineering, yet it is extremely desirable that they should have sufficient knowledge to bring about the most satisfactory result in any given case. The laboratory work brings out the matter from the operating standpoint, which is that with which many of this class of men will be most directly concerned. Throughout the laboratory instruction the importance of investigation and research, of contributing to the great fund of technical knowledge, is strongly urged ; and for such work the facilities in the Augustus Lowell Laboratories are unusual. The influence upon under- graduate work of a small body of men carrying on original investigation cannot be overestimated in its effect as an inspiration and as tending to give the student that genuine love for his work which must always exist in the man who is to become really great in any profession. In pure science the Institute is active and well equipped. It is one of the few institutions that is mak- ing a serious attempt to further the study of physical chemistry, for which a new research laboratory has recently been completed, equipped with all facilities for chemical and physico-chemical work. This line of study is not one which attracts a large number of students at present, but in view of its importance in reaching the basis of physical and chemical principles, its introduc- tion here is a forward step in scientific instruction. The course in physics given by the Institute is distinctly a scientific course, aimed directly to meet the requirements of those who intend to enter, for any pur- pose, upon a career of pure science. It gives a con- tinuous and thorough view of the various branches of physics, and includes mathematical training advanced beyond the general requirements of the purely technical Electrical Handbook iSy courses. Special courses within the department have been devised, leading up to the electro-chemical and electro-metallurgical industries. The laboratory of phy- sics is large and well equipped, with ample facilities for the building of special apparatus and for research work in almost any department of tlie science. In the realm of pure science also, a most comprehen- sive and thorough course in biology is given for students who desire to enter it for its own sake or in cooperation with medical or technical studies. It includes careful training in chemistry, physics and modern languages, in the elements of geology, and in those general culture studies which form not a large but an essential part of the curriculum in the engineering courses. The labora- tory equipment is unusually complete, and facilities for research are open to those capable of utilizing them. A special course in geology offers a general education in natural science, together with particular training in geology, which may be of service for general or technical purposes. There is a distinct demand for men who unite a training in geology with a knowledge of geodetic and hydrographic surveying, and a union of these arts, with proper geological instruction, has been specially in mind in building up the geological course at the Institute. A very interesting department of work, which has now been established more than a decade, is a special course in naval architecture, providing instruction in the theory and methods of .ship designing with a view to training students for the work of building up American maritime industries. This department of instruction met prompt recognition from the United States Navy Department, and has been selected by that Department for the professional instruction of officers who are to enter the corps of naval constructors. A special four- yeans' course has been laid out with reference to their needs, including, in addition to the general training and professional work in the regular line, instruction in the technique of warship design. At this point the naval course touches clo.sely upon electrical engineering, and iSS Electrical Handbook facilities are provided for the adequate instruction of officers in tliese applications of electricity which are important in their professional work. A Graduate School has recently been established, enabling students, who, for professional reasons or in the course of study for a higher degree, so desire, to carry on their work beyond the point provided for in the undergraduate curriculum. The introduction of graduate instruction is specially important, as being the basis upon which important researches are likely to be built up, and it is the policy of the Institute to encourage post-graduate study and to provide unusual facilities for those following these higher courses. In connection with the departments of civil engi- neering, mining engineering, and architecture, summer schools are held, not necessarily located at the Institute itself, but carried on at whatever points seem necessary in order to keep in close touch with the practical devel- opments of those sciences. At the Institute itself sum- mer courses are provided during the months of June and July which have proved exceedingly useful for students who wish to enter the Institute with advanced standing, and to those who desire training in certain departments of science. Aside from its laboratories, the Institute is provided with a most efficient library system, including in all some 64,000 volumes, and especially rich in works upon ap- plied science. These collections are, mainly, aside from the general library, which is largely composed of stand- ard reference works, department libraries located in the various centres of instruction for the different de- partments, and thoroughly accessible to the student. The library is a working library in every sense of the word, and the facilities for promptly getting at the nec- essary books are here exceptionally good. The Institute has not had a long career, as measured against some of the older institutions in the country, but it has pursued with a single mind the policy which has placed it in the front rank of technical institutions, not only in the United States, but in the world. T/ie litest em Union T'elegraph Company THE Western Union Telegraph Company is the ohiest American company in the field, and operates along the various lines of rail- way all over the United States. From a very small beginning, has increased until at the pres- ent time it has a capital stock of $100,000,000, and reaches nearly every hamlet and village in the country. According to James D. Reid, who was an old-time authority on the early days of the telegraph, the origin of the company is as follows, as regards its New Eng- land components: — F. O. J. Smith, representative to the 26th Congress from the Cuml)erland Congressional District of Maine in 1839, formed accjuaintance with S. F. B. Morse and his telegra])h. An experimental line was built in Boston from Milk to School Streets, with a view of interesting the public, but no capital was invested in the scheme in Boston. Smith then began to construct a line from New York to Boston with his own money and that subscribed by his personal friends. The contract for the construction of the work was given to George E. Pomeroy of New York, the line to be of co[)per wire, twenty-five poles to the mile. The orig- inal company was organized under the act of the Legislature of the State of Connecticut in the session of 1 845- 1 846 as the New York & Boston Magnetic Tel- egraph Co., with a capital of 8175,000. The Boston manager was Ira Berry. The Company, however, earned no money, owing to the poor construction of the line and consequent innumerable delays in the transmission of business, and public sentiment grew steadily against it. 189 I go The Boston In 1848 the New York & New England Telegraph Company came into existence and both of these com- panies consolidated with a capital of $300,000, under the name of the New York & New ?>ngland Union Telegraph Co., the articles of association being signed July I, 1852. On March i, 1853, the lines of the Rhode Island Telegraph Co. were purchased for $5,000, and in September, 1853, Charles F. Wood was chosen Superintendent. In i860 the American Telegraph Company acquired the ownership of the stock of the New York & New England Union Telegraph Company, and a lease was signed and afterwards executed, by which the entire property came under its jurisdiction, and was rapidly merged with its own. A few years later this company became, in turn, merged with the Western Union. The Vermont & Boston Telegraph Company was organized November 11, 1848, and in 1850 the line from Boston to Burlington was completed. It was extended a short time afterwards to White River Junc- tion, then to Springfield, Mass., and later to Rouses Point, N. Y. A connection was also secured to Mon- treal and Ogdensburg. In 1866 Thomas G. Eckert was elected superintendent of the Western Union, and in that year a lease was executed, giving control of all these lines to the Western Union. In 1848 the Maine Telegraph Company was or- ganized with lines extending throughout the State of Maine, but was absorbed by the Western Union in connection with the United States Telegraph Company in 1866, a concern which was at that time making a fight for the telegraphic supremacy. The American Telegraph Company was duly organized with a capital stock of $200,000, under the laws of the State of New York, and by absorbing the opposition lines, became a powerful concern. It had seven routes from Boston to New York, and four between New York and Phila- delphia. At the period of its reorganization in 1859 it had a capital stock of $1,700,000. Since those early days the network of the company Electrical Handbook Igi in the New England States has been steadily growing, cable connections have been acquired, and local lines have been absorbed, until now a remarkably complete system covers the territory. The centre of the New England work is the Boston office, which is very thoroughly equipped as an operating centre and in which is conducted a very large volume of telegraphic business. The Postal Telegraph-Cable Company in New England IN America the telegraph is operated by two pri- vate corporations in active competition with each other. The younger of these competitors is the Postal Telegraph-Cable Company, operating in connection with the Commercial Cable Company to Great Britain, France, and Germany; also with the Commercial Pacific Cable to the Orient; and with the Canadian Pacific Telegraphs to Canada. This system, which is popularly known as the Postal, has been in existence twenty years and reaches all sections of the country. In Boston the central station is in the India Building on State Street, nearly opposite the Stock Exchange, and there are now forty auxiliary offices about the city. The local organization comprises these departments: Receiving, Delivery, Operating, Dynamo, Bookkeep- ing, District Superintendent, Local Manager, P^lectri- cian, Maintenance of Lines, and Supply Store. The Operating and Dynamo departments are the only ones of special interest where new methods are employed, although the entire station is new. The Operating room is 72 feet long and 42 feet wide. The main feature of the room is the switch- board, mounted on an oak frame and divided into eight sections, to which are assigned wires leading to the West, the South, the North, the East, local wires, loops, etc. 800 wires are brought from the under- ground system into the fireproof terminal room in the basement, and from there led to the different sections of the main switchboard. In the rear of the switch- board is the distributing room; here are located eight vertical cable heads with a capacity of 100 wires each. 192 Electrical Handbook ipj High tension currents are intercepted by ^-^impere enclosed fuses; and lightning discharges are diverted to earth through arresters carrying mica plates 5 mils, in thickness. A system of iron frames carries hori- zontal bars fitted with terminals for 10,000 connections, which may be changed at will without disturbing the main system of wiring. All the trunk line conductors, leaders from the operating tables, repeater tables, etc., centre in this room, and find their proper connection with the several sections of the switchboard. Wherever practicable the permanent wires have been soldered to the frames, thus obviating the use of about 20,000 binding posts. By the combined use of flat and round wedges the number of wedges required in the switch- board has been very greatly reduced. One section of the switchboard is occupied by the annunciator for use in connection with the leased wire service. The board has a capacity of 50 drops. The throwing of a switch in the office of a lessee releases a drop and rings a bell, which continues to ring until the attention of the chief operator is secured. Another section is occupied by a loop board for connecting au.xiliary ofhces to quadruple.x circuits. Each section in the switchboard is provided with transfer facilities to every other section; and in addition to this there is a combining board for increasing the transfer facilities between the several sections. The room is provided with two double-deck re- peater tables, 20 feet in length, upon which are mounted 14 quadruplex and 6 duplex sets and 20 sets of single repeaters. In each local circuit a switch is placed for culling out the sounders of all sets which are repealing through, thus reducing the noise to a minimum. 12 quartette and 5 sextette operating tables are provided with 78 sittings for ojjeralors; there being 60 operators employed in this department. By a simple device the tables are so arranged that such quadruplex and du- plex sets as are mounted on the repeater tables can be looped down to these operating tables, which are thus made available for duplex or single wire working. The ig4- The B si n full equipment of these tables is entirely new and of the latest type. In the Dynamo room are located three 2-k.w. Sprague motor generators delivering 385 volts for quadruples working; two 4-k.w. General Electric machines, supplying local currents, and four Crocker- Wheeler intermediate machines. The electric light current supplies a voltage of 115 volts plus and minus, for charging the single trunk lines. By an ingenious arrangement of switches the electric light current can be used to supply all needs of the system when it is desired to shut down the generators. The switch- board in this department is mounted on slate slabs, all connections on the back being made by copper straps. The dynamo leads are carried under the floor in iron pipes enclosed in sheet-iron lined ducts, to re- sistance coils covered with enamel and mounted on slate slabs on an iron frame, back of the main switch- board. These coils graduate the amount of current for long and short lines and also protect the generators, against accidental short-circuiting. Galvanometers are used for localizing faults in cables and on overhead lines. A recording apparatus with continuously-moving tape makes a siphon record of all signals passing over any of ten circuits .selected by the chief operator. This is used for correcting errors and detecting imperfect transmissions. At one end of the operating room is a distributing counter provided with filing cabinets and desk facilities for the service department, and connected by pneu- matic tubes with the receiving and delivery depart- ments on the ground floor of the adjoining building. Here is located a branch telephone exchange, with sev- eral trunk lines to the public telephone system, and also a house system connecting the various depart- ments. A master clock in the operating room con- trols dials in various parts of the plant. Some Miscella/ieous Industries No attempt will be here made to catalogue the diversified minor electrical industries of Boston, since they, for the most part, dif- fer in no essential respect from those carried on elsewhere. A considerable amount of capital is in- vested in them, and the output is of admirable quality and finds a wide sale. A few of the number are some- what conspicuous by reason of the specialized nature of the output, which has brought it to international knowledge as well as to the home market. One of the interesting smaller industries is that of the manufacture of electric heating a])paratus carried on at present by the Simplex Electric Heating Company of Cambridge. This is the successor in business of a company which had absorbed no less than fourteen heating enterprises of various magnitudes. Up to seven or eight years ago there was practically very little heating apparatus built in this country, and, indeed, it was dubious whether, aside from the manufacture of heat- ers for railway cars, it was possible to build up a mar- ket, both on account of the high price of energy, and on account of the technical difilculties of the situation. The introduction of insulating enamels has ])roved to be the key to the heating situation, although the de- velopment of apparatus has also been greatly facili- tated by the production of wires of special alloy, pe- culiarly adapted to enamel construction. After the introduction of successful enamels, enabling the tem- peratures to be carried as high as 300° to 400° Centi- grade without seriously imperilling the life of the ap- paratus, the electric heating business began to take tangible form, and at the present time the output of such goods is very considerable, both in this country and abroad. A large part of the familiar ])ro(luct of '95 /(?6 The Boston this kind is built at the Cambridge works here referred to. Electric soldering irons, glue pots, and heaters for various industrial purposes have at present found a wide use, and electrical cooking apparatus is a staple article, mostly in the smaller items of construction, although some large electrical kitchens have been fitted up and, where current can be obtained at low prices, have proved to be extremely economical. One of the very interesting applications of electric cooking is the electric cracker-baking machine, baking crackers by a practically continuous process, and, cu- riously enough, at a lower price than could be reached by ovens heated in the usual manner with coal, an ad- vantage due to the much higher efficiency in the utili- zation of heat in the electric apparatus. To a certain extent electric heaters for rooms have been utilized, although this line of work is at present only at its beginning; and a thousand and one little articles of convenience in household and manufactur- ing use have been turned out, many of which are familiar on the other side of the Atlantic, and, indeed, on the Atlantic steamship lines. Another interesting Boston product which has come to be well known in electrical industry is that of the American Circular Loom Company of Chelsea. Orig- inally making tubular woven fabrics, quite devoid of any special electrical use, this company has, in later years, put out a very useful form of interior conduit having as its basis a tubular fabric. The use of interior conduits of various forms for electric light wiring and similar purposes is rapidly increasing; the old methods of wiring having proved, upon the whole, inferior to those in which the wire is carried in tubing specially fitted for insulating purposes. The special flexible product of the company just men- tioned has filled a useful niche in this scheme of wiring, and has become sufficiently well known both at home and abroad to merit special recognition here. There are, as has already been mentioned, not a few excellent electrical manufacturing establishments in and Electrical Handbook igy about Boston, turning out large quantities of switches, sockets, railway materials, fuses, small dynamos and motors, and miscellaneous goods, which have found their way into every corner of the world; but more than a mention of their active and successful existence is out of place here. It will perhaps be enough to men- tion one of the most important of the group. This is the Holtzer-Cabot Electric Company, of Brookline, which is one of the oldest electrical manufacturing houses in New England and has carried on for many years a diversified business in manufacturing a large number of electrical specialties and stock articles of such character as have from time to time been required by the development of the art. In the early days of the telephone it was one of the considerable manufac- turers of telephonic apparatus, and of late years the company has turned out a large product in small motors and dynamos, particularly those fitted for special uses. One type of motor which has been from time to time turned out by the Holtzer-Cabot Company is specially worth noting, as now and then extremely useful in the laboratory. This is a synchronous induction motor, made only in small powers, up to perhaps one-eighth of a horse-power, or a little above, but having the dis- tinguished virtue of being an absolutely synchonous machine while running purely as an induction motor. The conditions under which this unusual property of synchronous running can be obtained are such as to forbid the manufacture of large machines of this type, but for operating various apparatus required to run at synchronous speed in the laboratory or in commercial use, these little motors arc singularly convenient. A Boston product which is every year becoming more and more electrical is the blower output of the B. F. Sturtevant Co. One of the pioneers in the man- ufacture of power blowers and kindred apparatus, it has in latter years found a world-wide market for elec- trically driven blowers, and has come to be a consid- erable manufacturer of electrical ap[)aratus for its own use. Fans and pressure blowers directly driven by i(pS The Boston motors have come into very extensive use for ventila- tion and various industrial purposes, and at the present time no small part of the product bears the Boston trademark. It ranges in capacity from the tiny ma- chine requiring hardly more power than an office fan, to the immense wheels capable of coping with the huge ventilating shafts of a great modern building. Of the varied output of the factory it is hardly neces- sary here to speak; it is enough to point out its im- portance in the electrical field into which it has made so notable an excursion. One Boston enterprise in the larger electrical field may perhaps fittingly be mentioned here as of special en- gineering interest, and that is the Lombard Governor Company of Boston, manufacturer of governors for water-wheels and for steam engines, and of special hydraulic apparatus for use in connection with power plants. The problem of water-wheel governing in the electrical transmission of power from hydraulic plants has always been a serious one. The requirements of electrical service are so severe that the older types of governor, which proved amply sufficient for running steady loads, for the most part failed miserably when electrical generation was at- tempted. The necessity for improved governing of water-wheels grew soon to be very acute, and the need for better regulation was fortunately met by the pro- duction of the Lombard governors. They are, in effect, sensitive fly-ball governors, in which the moving balls are required only to shift a tiny balanced valve, throw- ing oil or water under pressure into the working cylin- ders, and opening or closing the wheel gates with a wonderful delicacy of touch. Some very ingenious auxiliary appliances are used to prevent hunting, and the upshot of the matter is that the governor actually does control the speed of a water- wheel under varying loads with substantially the same precision that can be attained in a first-class steam engine governor. So signal a success in the solution of a difiicult problem is deserving of mention on its Electrical Handbook '99 own account, the more so as the governors in question are already known the world over as highly efficient for their purpose. Space forbids enlarging further upon the electro- technical industries of the city, those mentioned here being simply worthy types of an activity which has kept Xew England in the front rank of electrical man- ufacture since the inception of the industry. 200 Electrical Handbook Itinerary of the Tour As already set forth in the circular from the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, this Institute has extended an invitation to the Institution of Electrical Engineers of Great Britain to visit the United States and to hold a joint meeting with it in St. Louis in connection with the International Electrical Congress. A general invita- tion has already been extended to various F^uropean electrical engineering societies to join with the Ameri- can Institute in a circular tour, visiting important in- dustrial centres, and including the International Elec- trical Congress at St. Louis, September 12 to 17, in- clusive. The programme of this tour is as follows: — The visiting members of the Institution of Electrical Engineers will arrive in Boston on the White Star S. S. "Republic" on September 2d, and there be met by the local reception committee and by a considerable body of visiting engineers, both foreign and American. Boston is, then, the starting point of the tour, the itinerary of which is sketched on the accom])anying map, and has been planned as follows. The entire tour will be by special train, so that tha itinerary is inde- pendent of the regular railroad schedules. BOSTON, SEPTEMBER 2d AND 3d The local reception committee will meet tlic visitors upon their arrival, and conduct them to the Hotel V'endome, Commonwealth Avenue, which will be their headquarters during their stay in the city. On the evening of Se])tember 2d an informal reception of welcome will be given at the hotel. The next morning, in accordance with lhesi>ecial entertainment programme, automobiles will be in readiness for a visit to the power 201 202 The Boston houses and other points of electrical interest in the city, and a trip through some of the suburbs and part of the park system of the city, reaching Cambridge in time for an informal reception by the corporation of Harvard University, and lunch served at the Har- vard Union. In the afternoon the party will return to Boston in time to make a brief visit to the Massachu- setts Institute of Technology and other points of local interest, and at 5.45 p.m. the party will leave by train for I-'all River, where it will meet the Fall River boat for New York. NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 4th AND 5th The party will reach New York about 7.30 on Sun- day morning, September 4th. No special headquarters has been arranged at any New York hotel, owing to the wide diversity of accommodations to be found in the city, but the local committee will take charge of the party, and on the afternoon of September 4th the visitors and all the members of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers will be the guests of ^Messrs. J. G. White & Co. on a steamboat excursion. On Monday, September 5th, the party, as guests of the New York reception committee, will make a tour of the electrical power stations of New York City and other points of technical interest. In the evening of September 5th a formal reception and dinner will be given to all the foreign visitors by the American Insti- tute of Electrical Engineers. SCHENECTADY, SEPTEMBER 6th On the morning of Tuesday, September 6th, the special train will leave the New York station of the New York Central & Hudson River Railroad, begin- ning the circular tour proper. Starting at 8.45 a.m., the train will run along the east shore of the Hudson as far as Albany, giving views of the Palisades and the famous highlands of the Hudson. About fifty miles from New York, on the west bank of the Hudson, are Electrical Handbook 20j the stately buildings of the United States Military Academy at West Point. Leaving Albany, the capital of the state, the train will pass up the Mohawk Vallev, and at 12.45 P-^- '^'ill reach Schenectady, where are the chief offices and works of the General Electric Company. Here the visitors will be entertained at luncheon by the General Electric Company, and will be shown through the works. Later in the afternoon special high-speed trolley cars will take the entire party to Saratoga, where dinner will be served at the Ui.'.ed States hotel. Resuming then the special train, the party will leave at 10.30 p.m. over the Delaware & Hudson Route, along Lake Champlain, and will arrive at Montreal at 7.30 the next evening. MONTREAL, SEPTEMBER 7th AND 8th The party will breakfast at the Windsor Hotel, which will be the headquarters at Montreal, and the day will be spent in visiting local power plants and McGill University, at which a reception will be given in the afternoon. Li the evening the party will dine as the guests of the Montreal local reception committee, and the next day will start for the many points of interest about Montreal. At eight o'clock in the even- ing the special train will leave Montreal for Niagara Falls. NIAGARA FALLS, SEPTEMBER 9th This point will be reached at nine o'clock in the morning, breakfast being served on the train from 7 o'clock A.M. on. The forenoon will be spent in visit- ing the Falls and in a trip down the gorge to view the famous Whirlpool of the rapids below the Falls. The party will be the guests at luncheon of the Niagara local committee, and a visit will then be made to the power houses of the Niagara Falls Power Company, the Niagara Falls Hydraulic Power Company, and some of the remarkable electro-chemical works to which jjower is supplied by those companies. At 6 p.m. the 204 The Boston train will leave Niagara by the Michigan Central Railway, dinner being served on the dining cars en route. This line passes through Canada, and passes into the United States again at Detroit, Michigan. CHICAGO, SEPTEMBER 10th Chicago will be reached at 7.30 a.m., September loth, and during the day the party will be the guests of the Chicago local reception committee, and will visit the power stations and park system and other places of interest. Leaving Chicago by the Illinois Central Railway at 11.45 p.m., the next stop will be Springfield, Illinois, at 7.30 a.m., September nth. Here breakfast will be served at the Leland Hotel on the arrival of the train, and a trip in the trolley cars will be made to the tomb of Abraham Lincoln. Resuming the special train, St. Louis will be reached at noon, September nth. ST. LOUIS, SEPTEMBER 11th TO 17th On arrival in the city the party will be taken to the Jefferson Hotel, which will be the general headquarters during the stay in St. Louis. An informal reception will be held at this hotel during the evening, and at 9.30 A.M., Monday, September 12th, the International Electrical Congress will open. Its meetings will con- tinue until Saturday, September 17th. At 8 p.m. on this day the special train will leave St. Louis, taking the party to Pittsburg over the Vandalia Route. PITTSBURG, SEPTEMBER 18th AND 19th Reaching Pittsburg at 3 p.m., the party will go to the Shenley Hotel which will be the local headquarters. On Monday, September 19th, special trolley cars will be provided for a visit to the Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company at East Pittsburg. After a tour of the works the party will be entertained at lunch by the Company, and in the afternoon a visit will be made to the foundries of the Westinghouse Electrical Handbook 20^ Airbrake Company. At 9.30 p.m., the special train will leave Pittsburg, and will proceed over the lines of the Pennsylvania Railroad to Washington, where it will arrive at 7.30 \.m., September 20th. WASHINGTON, SEPTEMBER 20th Breakfast will be served at the new Willard Hotel, and a visit will then be made to the offices and labora- tories of the United States Bureau of Standards, which will on this occasion be formally dedicated. The party will be entertained at luncheon by the Wash- ington local reception committee, and a visit will then be made to the White House and other points of in- terest. Leaving Washington at 8 p.m., September 20th, the train will reach Philadelphia at 11 o'clock p.m., where the party will have its headquarters at the Belle- vue-Stratford Hotel. PHILADELPHIA, SEPTEMBER 21st During the morning, visits will be paid to the power houses in the city, and to Independence Hall, and other points of historical interest. The party will be the guests at luncheon of the Philadelphia local reception committee, and a special train will leave Philadelphia that afternoon at 3.30, arriving at New York at 5.30 p.m., and thus concluding the tour, after a journey of more than 3,000 miles. 1 1 95 BIAS THE LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Santa Barbara THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW. Series 9482