Edison, Thomas A. (Thomas Alva), 1847-1931; Inventors -- United States -- Biography
About the same time that southern Europe was thus opened up to the
new system, South America came into line, and the first Edison central
station there was installed at Santiago, Chile, in the summer of 1883,
under the supervision of Mr. W. N. Stewart. This was the result of the
success obtained with small isolated plants, leading to the formation of
an Edison company. It can readily be conceived that at such an extreme
distance from the source of supply of apparatus the plant was subject to
many peculiar difficulties from the outset, of which Mr. Stewart speaks
as follows: "I made an exhibition of the 'Jumbo' in the theatre
at Santiago, and on the first evening, when it was filled with the
aristocracy of the city, I discovered to my horror that the binding wire
around the armature was slowly stripping off and going to pieces. We had
no means of boring out the field magnets, and we cut grooves in them.
I think the machine is still running (1907). The station went into
operation soon after with an equipment of eight Edison 'K' dynamos with
certain conditions inimical to efficiency, but which have not hindered
the splendid expansion of the local system. With those eight dynamos we
had four belts between each engine and the dynamo. The steam pressure
was limited to seventy-five pounds per square inch. We had two-wire
underground feeders, sent without any plans or specifications for their
installation. The station had neither voltmeter nor ammeter. The current
pressure was regulated by a galvanometer. We were using coal costing $12
a ton, and were paid for our light in currency worth fifty cents on the
dollar. The only thing I can be proud of in connection with the plant is
the fact that I did not design it, that once in a while we made out to
pay its operating expenses, and that occasionally we could run it for
three months without a total breakdown."
It was not until 1885 that the first Edison station in Germany was
established; but the art was still very young, and the plant represented
pioneer lighting practice in the Empire. The station at Berlin comprised
five boilers, and six vertical steam-engines driving by belts twelve
Edison dynamos, each of about fifty-five horse-power capacity. A model
of this station is preserved in the Deutschen Museum at Munich. In the
bulletin of the Berlin Electricity Works for May, 1908, it is said with
regard to the events that led up to the creation of the system, as noted
already at the Rathenau celebration: "The year 1881 was a mile-stone
in the history of the Allgemeine Elektricitaets Gesellschaft. The
International Electrical Exposition at Paris was intended to place
before the eyes of the civilized world the achievements of the
century. Among the exhibits of that Exposition was the Edison system
of incandescent lighting. IT BECAME THE BASIS OF MODERN HEAVY
CURRENT TECHNICS." The last phrase is italicized as being a happy and
authoritative description, as well as a tribute.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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