delta-connected.

In the construction unusual care has been taken to avoid trees by running the lines high. Insulators and fuses are, of course, more expensive than for the usual standard of 2300 volts. This company is a consolidation of the Toledo Gas Light and Coke Company, which had the artificial gas lighting in Toledo, and the Toledo Heating and Lighting Company, which was doing an electric-lighting and Yaryan hot-water heating business. A new steam turbine condensing plant has been built two miles from the business district. All electricity will hereafter be generated at this plant. Two heating and lighting plants in the residence district will be maintained in the future as heating plants by changing the boilers into hot-water heaters. In other words, the use of exhaust steam from electric generating units for heating purposes has been abandoned, and hereafter the heating will be done directly from hot-water heaters and electricity will be generated by a large economical condensing plant. The chief reason for the abandonment of the old policy of using exhaust steam for hot-water heating purposes is the seeming impossibility of making the heating and lighting load curves correspond. Motor-driven centrifugal pumps are used for circulating the hot water.

The new generating station will have two 1000-kw Westinghouse turbo-alternator units, and one of 3000 kilowatts, with room for two more 3000-kw units. The station is about a mile and a half from the creek from which condensing water is obtained. Two interesting contracts for supplying power to large factories have been recently taken. An automobile factory will take out 400 horse-power in direct-current motors and put in 3-phase motors, so as to obtain a current supply without the use of rotary converters, and also secure some reduction in insurance rates. Another automobile factory, which has 500 horse-power in direct-current motors, will put in a rotary converter so that it can purchase power in the summer-time and run its own electric plant in the winter when exhaust steam is needed for heating.

The Toledo plant may exemplify the tendency toward higher voltages in distribution; that of the Grand Rapids-Muskegon Power Company has shown for about a year what can be done in transmission, for it operates at 66,000 volts. The 66,000-volt

transmission line from Rogers Dam with branches to Grand Rapids and to Muskegon totals about 75 miles. Power for operating the Grand Rapids, Grand Haven and Muskegon Railway and the Grand Rapids, Holland and Chicago Railway is all supplied by this company, part of it being stepped down from 66.000 volts for use in the rotary converters at substations near the ends of these lines, the remainder being stepped down to 19,000 volts for transmission over high-tension lines owned by the railway companies for transmission from their steam powerhouses before the water-power plant was built. The company has also contracted to supply electrical energy to the Grand Rapids Edison Company and several large factories. The Brunswick-Balke-Collender Company, a large manufacturer of billiardroom furniture and supplies, has moved its factory to Grand Rapids, one of the things that influenced the change being cheap electricity. It takes 800 horse-power. The Shaw Electric Crane Company takes 400 horse-power. There are many other large factories in Grand Rapids that are now or will soon be connected, these factories being now operated by their own steam plants.

Before the Illinois Electrical Association, last October, Mr. W. A. Carter, of the engineering staff of the Denver Gas and Electric Company, described the change made by that company from direct to alternating-current power distribution in territories just outside of the business district. The company had for motor service a 220 and 440-volt, 3-wire, direct-current power distribution, most of the energy being used in and near the downtown district. The lighting distribution of the whole city is by single-phase feeder lines supplied from 3-phase 'bus-bars at the power station. The direct-current motor feeders were getting so long and the distant customers so large that an excessive amount of copper was called for. For example, on one loaded feeder one and a half miles long a contract was taken for a 300-hp motor. The decision was made to change the motor service outside of the down-town district to 3-phase, and to give customers new 3-phase induction motors in place of their direct-current motors, Most of the direct-current motors were sold at good prices. The direct-current copper taken down was worth enough to reduce materially the cost of the change. One puzzling question was to decide whether to use 220 or 440-volt motors. With 220-volt

motors but one customer could usually be supplied from a bank of transformers, whereas with 440-volt motors and secondaries several in one locality could be supplied. The latter advantage was considered to be more than counterbalanced by the fact that with 220-volt motors standard lighting transformers could be used. The change was made without interrupting any customer's service. All future extensions of the power-distribution system will be polyphase. Some customers were naturally rather sceptical at first of the offer to give them a new motor in exchange for the old. They thought the new motor might be inferior or that it might be some scheme to make electricity cost them more. When it was explained to them, there was no difficulty, as the community has grown to a steadfast belief in the good faith of the corporation supplying it with electrical energy.

In a paper before this same useful body-the Illinois Electrical Association-Mr. W. J. Austin, manager of the Effingham Electric Light and Power Company, gave the results of the operation of two 120-hp Diesel engines. Each of the engines is directconnected to a Fort Wayne, 2-phase, 60-cycle, 2200-volt, 85-kw generator. The guaranteed fuel consumption of the engines is 12.5 gallons of oil per 100 kilowatt-hours at from 50 per cent load to full load. In the plant at Effingham the switchboard is equipped with watt-hour meters, and readings are taken hourly. The fuel consumption is 18.5 gallons of oil per 100 kilowatt-hours on a 24-hour run with a load varying from 12 per cent to 85 per cent of full load, the average being 23 per cent. With oil at 3.4 cents per gallon this gives an average cost of 0.542 cent per kilowatt-hour. Of several tests that have been made the lowest cost of fuel obtained was on a 6-hour test at an average load of 70 per cent. On this test 11.3 gallons of oil were consumed per 100 kilowatt-hours, and the cost of the fuel was 0.384 cent per kilowatt-hour.

The two alternators are operated in parallel, and there is scarcely ever a noticeable variation in the lights. Speed regulation is maintained by a governor pump that delivers just enough oil to the cylinder to keep the speed constant. The engines are started by air, and. usually about two minutes are required for one man to start an engine. The crank cases of the engines are enclosed and are filled with oil. From 6 to 8 quarts of lubricating oil are required every 24 hours.

Regarding the space required for the engines, Mr. Austin said that the building in which the plant is enclosed measures 48 feet long, 32 feet wide and 12 feet high, and that there is room enough in the building for two more engines. The cooling water is circulated by a rotary pump driven by a single-phase motor. In winter the water is cooled by sending it through 1000 feet of 2-inch pipe placed around the walls of the building. The radiation from these pipes is sufficient to heat the building except in zero weather. The cost figures given were for fuel alone. When the company was figuring on its plant, the price quoted for a complete and up-to-date steam plant was practically the same as was the cost of the oil-engine plant.

RATES, REGULATIONS AND FRANCHISES

The past year has afforded many interesting examples of the endeavor to reconcile what are supposed to be the conflicting interests of the central-station company and of the community it serves. As a matter of fact the interests are closely identical and reciprocal, but it is often the object of the agitator or "striker" to treat them as opposed and antagonistic. Just as no legislation was ever yet equal and equitable in its incidence, so the relations between a public-utility corporation and the public can never be so exactly adjusted as to satisfy all conditions. But it is part of the problem of the day to find a fair relationship, with the aid of the courts if need be; without, if possible. A brief review is here presented of one or two of the typical controversies that are of universal interest.

At Cincinnati, Ohio, last summer, the United States Court sustained the injunction that forbade the city council of Columbus, Ohio, from forcing the Columbus Railway and Lighting Company to limit its charges for electric light and power to not more than 5 cents per kilowatt-hour. The ordinance fixing that rate was passed by the council in 1904. The company resisted the reduction, alleging that the new price would not allow any profit on its investment. It was shown by the evidence that the 5 cents per kilowatt-hour rate would require the company to furnish electricity at cost to 75 per cent of its patrons and at less than cost to most of the others. The court concurred in the opinion that this amounted practically to confiscating property

and was in violation of the Federal Constitution. While the city council had the right to fix the charge for electricity it could not put it so low as to leave no fair return on its investment to the electric company. The injunction against the city council was made permanent.

The decision of the special master, thus sustained, was: I. The court had jurisdiction of the case and power to grant the relief prayed for. 2. Meters, arc lamps and incandescent lamps are a proper part of the property account of complainant, and their repair, renewal and maintenance is a proper charge against its operating expenses. 3. The amount which complainant could have earned upon a fair valuation of its property during the year 1904, had the ordinance been in force, was not a fair compensation within the meaning of the law, and for that reason said ordinance, if enforced, would have deprived complainant of its property without due process of law. 4. The fact that 75 per cent of complainant's customers under the rate fixed by the ordinance would receive their light at cost, or less than cost, including depreciation, was in itself a violation of the constitutional rights of complainant, and deprived complainant of its property without due process of law. 5. For the reasons above stated, the ordinance of July 5, 1904, was unconstitutional in that its enforcement would deprive complainant of its property without due process of law, and deny to complainant the equal protection of the laws, and, therefore, the injunction should be made perpetual.

Another interesting case was that of the Brooklyn Edison Electric Illuminating Company in regard to lighting for the city, which should have been furnished free but for which, it was alleged, the corporation made an improper charge. The franchise of the Edison company granted in 1888 gave the city the privilege of designating locations at which it could require the company to furnish a number of free lights proportionate to the lights furnished to its commercial customers. The initiative in the matter must be taken by the city, and was in effect an option without obligation on the part of the Edison company to act other than in conformity with the city's instructions. It was claimed by some of the city authorities that the company had collected payment for such free lighting. Obviously such. "trading" contracts, while very common, are open to many objec