Insull struck the nail on the head in insisting on a very serious retrospective view of the two different systems; and I am inclined to think that the average central-station manager, if he could turn his station. over to-day into the direct-current system, would find his nights more comfortable, and his days also; particularly during thunder-storms where there are overhead wires. In many cases a mixed system will be necessary to get the best net results. For transmission, alternating current will be used; but the direct-current must always prove most desirable for distribution. Where alternating current only is practicable,—and there are conditions where a central station should use it-it goes without saying that the method outlined, or substantially that, is the one that should be taken up wherever the conditions warrant it; but I want to express my conviction very firmly that the old system. is the best one for general use in central stations.

THE PRESIDENT: I wish to know your pleasure, gentlemen; shall we continue this discussion, or adjourn to the afternoon session? It is now ten minutes to two o'clock. Mr. Wagner and Mr. Ferguson are yet to be heard from. If there is no objection, the meeting will stand adjourned until three o'clock.

Adjourned.

FOURTH SESSION

President Insull called the meeting to order at a quarter past three o'clock, and announced that the discussion on methods of distribution, which was interrupted by adjournment, would be resumed.

DISCUSSION (Continued)

MR. FAKES: I desire to state that your remarks in regard to the use of meters, and that the central station not using them would sooner or later go into the hands of a receiver, struck me very forcibly, as this is our position to-day; nevertheless, we do not blame the alternating system for it. In the first place, we installed the National incandescent some nine years ago; it proved to be a very expensive experiment. Later on we installed the Royal, which has proved to be not so expensive. Our station is small, having 1,200 lights installed. I think the peak of our load is some forty-seven amperes. We have a very few meters, of the different standard makes, but our principal rates are on the flat-rate system. The principal point that I wish to bring out is this:

Our station is operated all night with forty-two Western Electric arc lights running all night. We run seventy-nine arc lights until twelve o'clock, and then we run the forty-two city lights until morning. We also run the incandescent lights all night. About seventy-five of these run all night, or from midnight until morning. We use two tons of coal for an average run of eleven and one-half hours on our city arc circuit and thirteen and one-half hours for the incandescent circuit. We run from midnight until morning on three-fourths of a ton of coal. We have no station meter to tell us what the output is, but we know we are operating at a very low cost, so far as our fuel consumption is concerned.

So far as getting money into the treasury is concerned, we are operating at very low expense from

midnight until morning, so our system must have good regulation, running on the alternating system, because if there is so much loss in the transformer system, why would it not cost more to run from midnight until morning, with seventy-five all-night lamps? That, I think, is a point that is valuable. I want to say that, although we are in the hands of a receiver, we are making some money.

MR. DAVIS: I should like to get the experience of any station that is now using or installing alternating, inclosed arc lamps in competition with the Edison system, and to know whether they can get as much per kilowatt for current used in such inclosed arc lamps as the Edison company in the same city charges for current used in direct-current, inclosed arc lamps.

MR. STETSON: I will not answer that particular question, because we are not furnishing that particular line of light; but I will say that I represent a company that has both systems. We are running the Edison and the alternating systems, and I am sure I do not know which one we could spare; we want them both; I think it is a very good combination. We extend our light into a neighboring community, running four or five miles. We certainly could not do that on the Edison system; and whether it is a matter of the greatest economy or the difference in economy, it is the getting your money after you have a station established. The cost of a few more lights is generally the cost of the coal; that is, your interest and labor is a fixed amount; and if you can add outlying districts by any system, it seems to me that it is a good idea to be able to use that system. We find that it helps us in our income to take on this load of a neigh

boring town, which would be entirely out of our reach with any other system than the alternating on account of the small service required and the prohibitory factor of supplying that amount with an extensive output of copper; so that I do not know that a man makes a mistake if he has both.

I understand perfectly well that if a man were establishing a plant for a new enterprise, then the serious question would come in as to what he should do. But most of the gentlemen here have inherited their plants as they are; their predecessors handed them down to them, and there are not many of them whose stockholders will allow them to throw them away; they must get along with what they have. I suppose that the majority of this convention is made up of what these emperors of the situation, such as do business in New York or Chicago, would call small installations; and the conditions in each installation and each community have to be met.

I was pleased with the remark of our president this morning when he recommended that the alternating interests should establish themselves in some large community and prove their statements. If he will give us a record of any large community, like New York, Chicago or Boston, where the Edison company has not already obtained all there is in it, I presume the other people will be glad to go there and put up a plant.

But my advice to those people is to keep out of those positions if the other fellow is there. There is no question but that the simplicity and the fixed conditions of the Edison system, where the service is compact enough, make it a beautifully simple and elastic system. Whether it would be possible in the future to meet the advance of the alternating system,