be lowered or raised out of the water; that can be moved through the water, and its course directed as easily and as effectively as can the Sims-Edison torpedo. There is no patent in designing a watertight chamber, for example, with valves electrically controlled-that can be filled or emptied of water by electrically-controlled apparatus. The Sims-Edison mechanism is, no doubt, pretty; but that it is worth £150,000 is placing an altogether imaginative value upon it. Divide that amount by 30, and you have the outside value. A quotation from the Times is given in the prospectus, in which the advantages of the application of the Sims-Edison design to lifeboats is extolled. No one with an extended knowledge of the subject could have have written the article containing the paragraph, and only one revelling in the depths of absolute ignorance can believe what it says. "The boat they have designed [not built or tried] could be sent through the surf for miles up and down the coast if necessary," etc. No, sir; no boat ever built or ever designed could be manoeuvred miles up and down the coast through the surf during a heavy storm by any electrical devices at present known, the boat being controlled through wires connected with a stationary dynamo on shore. If the company imagines that it will obtain an income from the construction of lifeboats it is woefully mistaken. David's example will be followed, and we shall continue to use the boats whose qualities and capabilities are known by long trials, and not put these away for untried concerns even to please patentees and promoters. Again, the English Government probably knows more of the capabilities of electrically-controlled torpedoes than the whole world outside, and it will be difficult to convince them that Sims-Edison has produced a better weapon of offence and defence than they already

have in the Whitehead and the Brennan. We

notice that mention of the latter torpedo is carefully left out of the prospectus. A closer examination of the words of the prospectus will show how indefinite is its language, and how easily it will be to say in the future this or that was not promised. In fact, all is surmise—thus "is believed to be"; "among the advantages claimed"; "every important port presents a field"; "the extent of the demand can readily be understood"; "on terms the directors believe to be"; "have expressed their willingness"; "a trial has been arranged to take place"; "should this company sell," and so on. A paragraph in the prospectus, evidently intended to incite investors, is to the effect that the United States Government has adopted this torpedo. That may be so, but such adoption is no benefit to the " European Sims-Edison Company," for they certainly will not supply the American market. Patents have been obtained in England, France, Belgium, Austria, Luxembourg, and Italy. Of course the company has the right to future applications for patents in Europe, India, Burmah, and British Colonies. Has application been made in Germany, and if so, has it been refused? What is the estimated value of the

Luxembourg patent? Is it added to make a more imposing list? What about Russia, Greece, Holland, Denmark, Norway and Sweden, Turkey, and Spain? These countries are given as employing torpedoboats, but not as having ratified the invention by patents. Altogether the prospectus is the most badly worded of any we have ever seen, and the whole concern seems a huge joke to see how far the public will have confidence in a sounding title and a set of taking names, rather than a keen desire to establish a paying business. Investors, remember that you pay away £3 for every £1 usefully employed by the company, and the founders' shares take the cake when there is any.

THE PROFESSION.

Mr. Cuthbert Hall in an article given elsewhere discusses from one point of view the entrance into the profession of electrical engineering. We are not quite sure that these views accord with the majority. As salaries go, £300 a year is not to be despised, nor is it usually thought that a collegetrained man is better than one who has worked his way up through the shops. We shall not, however, attempt to discuss the whole question, but only to refer to one point that is too frequently overlooked by young men. They seem to imagine that if a local authority advertises for an official to fill matters, that official is to expect the salary of a newly-created post in electrical engineering a prime minister or the manager of a London gas works. Local authorities know that in most instances the work attached to the new department will for some time to come be comparatively light, and that it will grow as years pass on, and light and sion, then, that to expect large salaries is a vain power gradually develop. We are under the impresmake up their minds to accept a small salary and expectation, and that interested parties had better hope for its increase with the growth of their work. working their way to the important and better paid Gas managers have to contemplate the gradual posts, and electrical engineers will have to follow the example thus set them.

ELECTRICAL ENGINEERS AT PLAY.

The end of the summer, or the beginning of autumn, sees the commencement of the meeting season which holds sway during the long, dark evenings. Many of these meetings are intended to provide mental pabulum; others, and probably the better appreciated, provide for social intercourse. The meetings of the Electro-Harmonic are of the latter kind. They form an excuse for members of the profession to release their business manner and to meet each other as ' hail fellow well met." Music, vocal and instrumental, is the great attraction. The first meeting of the session was held on Friday evening last, when our artist was smuggled in as an electrical engineer, and has

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each 15 millimetre diameter (about No. 34 gauge), 6ft. 6in. in length, stretched between the first two poles. The whole of the 300 h.p. passes through these six thin wires. At every railway station along the line is a stout length of copper wire of V-shape inverted, hung over the three wires,

FIG. 3.-Lauffen Transformer. Sectional Elevation. which can be dropped, and so blow the fuses should necessity arise.

THE PROFESSION OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING. BY H. CUTHBERT HALL.

If a young man, or youth leaving school, wishing to become an electrical engineer, seeks advice as to what course he shall pursue in order to achieve the desired end, he is usually told that one of three courses is open to him, either of which is calculated to provide him in a greater or less degree with the equipment which he needs.

If he is pecuniarily well off, he may go to a university and study mathematics and, perhaps, the theory of electricity, and then proceed, on leaving the university, to attach himself to a firm of electrical engineers as an articled pupil, there gaining that practical knowledge of his profession which his university training will enable him to receive to the greatest advantage. Or he can, without any special theoretical training, join a firm immediately on leaving school and endeavour to acquire such theoretical knowledge as is attainable after his day's work in the factory is done The third alternative which is open to him is to join one of the numerous technical colleges which profess to combine theoretical with practical training, and to turn out efficient engineers after a one year's, two years', or three years' course.

Of these three courses the former is undoubtedly the best, as by following it a man is enabled to acquire both theoretical and practical training under the most favourable conditions. The second course probably comes next in order of merit, but the theoretical training is necessarily placed at a great disadvantage by the fact that it has to be pursued when the student is wearied with physical labour. The third course is perhaps the least advantageous of the three, as in the endeavour to simultaneously acquire practical and theoretical knowledge the student not infrequently fails in satisfactorily acquiring either the one or the other.

Whichever course, however, is ultimately decided upon and pursued, involves the expenditure of a good deal of time and money, and the person in question not unreasonably looks forward to receiving, at the end of his apprenticeship, a return in some measure proportioned to the trouble and expense which he has incurred. But in this

respect he is, in nine cases out of ten, most grievously disappointed; for some of the best firms of electrical engineers are not ashamed to offer men of exceptional education, ability, and training, salaries which would be regarded as poor by the average City clerk.

To the uninitiated it would seem incredible that in order to properly qualify for the position of electrical engineer it should be necessary to spend several years in preparation without receiving any pecuniary advantage, and to have to go to the expense of paying a premiun and college fees, and that at the end of the term of preparation a salary should be offered very little higher than would be paid to a raw youth, fresh from school, on entering a commercial house. As an instance of what frequently occurs, the career, based on actual facts, of an electrical engineer may be cited, and may, perhaps, prove not uninteresting. It is briefly summed up as follows: Preliminary education at a public school; proceeded to Cambridge; came out in the mathematical tripos a fifth wrangler; spent three years as an articled pupil at a well-known firm of electrical engineers; became, on expiration of term of articled pupilage, a member of their staff, at a salary of £100 per annum. Cost of three years at Cambridge, about £800; premium to firm of engineers, £300; salary received after six years' training, £100 per annum.

Now here is the case of a man of considerable ability, as proved by the degree which he took, laying out over £1,200 in preparation, and after six years receiving a salary of only £100 per annum. And this is no exaggerated case, but quite as good, if not better, than is the fate of nine out of every ten.

In reply, it may be urged that the profession offers many prizes, which really first-class men obtain; but this is not the case, for positions in England worth over £500 per annum are decidedly exceptional.

A short time ago an important town in the West of England advertised for an electrical engineer to take charge of the central lighting station there, and in order to obtain so important a position a man would certainly have had to have been able to claim a considerable experience of this class of work, nor would it have been of much use for a very young man to offer himself for the post; yet for this important position the paltry salary of £300 per annum was offered. A director of several large electric lighting schemes recently admitted in conversation that he was surprised to find for what low salaries really efficient men could be obtained, and the enumeration of instances might be multiplied of men holding important positions in connection with electric lighting schemes and firms of electrical engineers, at a remuneration which would be considered insufficient for a responsible man engaged in a branch of commerce which required no technical training or education above that afforded by the Board schools.

In the case of electric lighting schemes some slight excuse may be offered for the payment of such low salaries, because in so many instances no dividend has been earned, but where a firm of electrical engineers and contractors is in question it is notorious that large fortunes have been made of late years, and similar excuses cannot therefore be offered by them for the underpaying of their employés which so frequently exists.

The reasons for the exceptionally bad position of electrical engineers, as compared even with other classes of employés, are several in number, and, perhaps, even a cursory inspection of them may suggest at any rate a partial cure.

The profession has undoubtedly many advantages. The immunity which it offers from the drudgery of the desk is a great attraction to many, and the fact that applied electricity, as a science, is comparatively in its infancy, induces many to join the ranks of electrical engineering who would feel little interest in more beaten tracks. But in one sense this very attractiveness is a bane of the engineer, for many men are, at any rate, partially reconciled to receiving insufficient salaries because of their fondness for the work. But the primary cause of the low salaries which are paid is undoubtedly to be found in the fact that no test is imposed by any responsible body on those who wish to enter the profession. In fact, anyone can call himself an "electrician," from the local ironmonger upwards. The consequence is that the profession is crowded with a number of incapables, whom

a very elementary examination would probably be the means of weeding out. Of course these men do not often obtain responsible positions, but the fact of the supply, although of an inferior quality, being so large, seriously detriments those who are really competent to hold positions of trust. Ignorance and inexperience in an electrical engineer are productive of results quite as disastrous as would be the display of similar qualities in many professions which are now privileged. To be a really first-class electrical engineer demands much patient work and more than average ability, and it is quite time that some duly accredited body took in hand the task of putting the profession of electrical engineering on a footing better befitting its dignity and importance.

SOME DETAILS OF THE CARE AND MANAGEMENT OF AN ARC LIGHTING SYSTEM AS PRACTISED IN THE MUNICIPAL OF ST. LOUIS.*

BY JAMES I. AYER.

As central station men, it seems to me that we should demand of each other as much knowledge of the practice and experience as it is practicable to give. In fact, if this association is to be useful, our meetings should be largely "experience meetings," and the practical experience of those engaged in the development of the lighting and kindred industries, if given liberally at each meeting, would be followed closely by those interested in the production of electrical apparatus and supplies, and would do much to advance the business and improve appliances. Believing that we are here, as central station managers, for mutual improvement and for the free interchange of ideas and experience, I have presumed to present you with a limited, though doubtless dry, outline of the practice which obtains in the central station under the writer's charge.

The station, as designed, has a working capacity of 6,000 arc lights, and is now operating daily 3,500, and about 200 constant-current motors. Two thousand of these lights are distributed over an area of 60 square miles, suspended between and from poles 50ft. and 65ft. in length, at a height of from 35ft. to 50ft. above the roadway, an average distance apart of about 900ft., and used for street lighting. The motors and about 1,500 lamps are operated for the usual varied service of private consumers. Sixty-nine circuits supply the lamps and motors, containing about 1,200 miles of wire and supported on 12,000 poles.

For generating the current, we have six 600-h.p. Corliss engines, which drive 300ft. of shafting, from which are driven 65 60-light, and 12 80-light 2,000-c.p. arc dynamos. The arrangement of the dynamos is such that we have ample room for the care of 85 machines on a floor space of about 100ft. by 45ft., and are able to operate a large number of dynamos with a very limited amount of help. Four boys, and one young man of very limited experience, care for all the machines during the night, in an entirely satisfactory manner; while a suitable man, with three assistants, give the necessary care to the dynamos during the day.

Thirty-one trimmers, with horses and carts, travel about 500 miles a day to renew the carbons in the street lamps. The average number of lamps to each of these trimmers is 68. Sixteen trimmers care for the 1,500 commercial lamps. Five inspectors, or troublemen, with carts and horses, care for the lines night and day, answer fire-alarms, locate faults and correct minor troubles on the lines. Two day and two night inspectors care for the commercial arc and 2,500 incandescent lamps. A stable of 20 horses, in addition to the 40 horses owned by the trimmers and inspectors, is required. The maintenance of 60 vehicles justifies a blacksmith and waggon shop, which, with the stable, require the service of eight men. Two men care for the shafting and three engineers and four oilers for the engine

room.

In the boiler-house, where there are 19 300-h.p. boilers, there are two pump men, with two assistants, 12 stokers, one boiler cleaner, and six coal shovelers. These, together with an average force of 35 line and ground men, foremen, chief trimmer, chief inspector, superintendent of lines, storekeeper, repair shop employés, carpenters, clerks,

etc., constitute a force of about 170 men. A very large percentage of these men are called upon to perform duties which are simple, yet, because of their extreme newness, are not thoroughly comprehended by them. To get the best results, each man requires clearly written rules, as few of them as possible and their rigid enforcement. In all practice this is the wise way to put it; but it is absolutely necessary that it be so with a large force, where many of the men do their work independently and free from the constant supervision of a foreman.

In the room used as an office at the station by the inspectors and foremen are city maps, mounted on boards, where the locations of the lamps are indicated by tacks and the circuits by strings. For the central part of the city, where there are many circuits on the same line of poles, each circuit is shown on a separate map of that section. A number of printed slips, which represent a pole with crossarms, indicate the location of the wires on the poles on the different streets traversed by the different circuits. Any change of circuits is noted on a separate blank when the work is ordered, and when completed the maps are corrected to correspond. It takes but a few days for a man to become quite familiar with the circuits, by keeping them so conspicuously placed. In large stations this method of indicating circuits is almost indispensable, and will prove of great value if used in smaller ones.

For testing purposes we have a portable tachometer for indicating speeds, two Thomson indicators for the engines, a recording steam gauge, two standard ammeters and a voltmeter reading to 5,000 volts for the dynamo-room; on each circuit a spring socket for attaching ammeters and a current indicator for indicating the direction the current is flowing through the circuit; near the lightning arresters on the upper floor, a switchboard specially arranged for testing only; a Wheatstone bridge, magneto bells, etc. The engines are indicated once each day.

Evaporation boiler tests are made every month to see that the quality of coal is maintained at the standard. All the circuits are tested four times each day. All live circuits during the day are tested for grounds, and all others for apparent open circuits as well. In addition to this, all circuits are tested while alive by taking volt and ammeter readings simultaneously. The number of miles of wire and number of lamps being known, any material increase in the energy consumed gives evidence of a fault not always easily discovered by other methods. In testing for grounds on circuits not alive a strong magneto bell is used. For all other testing a battery current of from 30 to 50 volts is used, and the circuit is required to pass at least one ampere to operate an ordinary call bell. When this bell is placed in series with a circuit which has more resistance than will pass this current at the pressure, the circuit is at once inspected and the fault located. In locating the trouble, one side of the bell circuit is connected to the line and the other to earth. The inspector or troubleman carries a similar bell with him, which he connects in series with the earth and line at various points, until the fault is located. The value of circuit testing with low voltage is keenly appreciated by those who have practised it. When the circuits are alive, ammeter readings are recorded every two hours, and all readings are from the same instruments. These instruments are arranged so as to be read singly or in series, and one is used to check on the other.

The stopping and starting of engines and boilers, pumps, dynamos, circuits, etc., are all recorded on reports made by those in charge of the different departments. Each inspector, trimmer, line foreman, storekeeper, and all heads of depart ments make daily reports of work done, and time and material used by them. Each trimmer is charged with a certain number of demerits for each fault on his route, such as defective or dirty lamps, broken or dirty globes, carbons used in excess of the required number, etc., and each month prizes are awarded to those having the best records.

The advantage of using vehicles for trimmers for all streetlighting work is being recognised. Provide a man with proper appliances and your service will improve. He cannot carry all that he should and walk long distances, nor will he take the same care when he is worn out with tramping that he otherwise would. We find it desirable for the trimmer