Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 October 1895 — Freaks of Electricity. [ARTICLE]

Freaks of Electricity.

There are a great many phenomena in ordinary electrical work which electricians find it hard to explain, but nu entirely novel class of electrical demonstrations has been observed in the practice of transmitting currents over long distances at high voltages. On the circuits of the San Antonio canon transmission, California, where a current is sent about fifteen miles to Pomona and about thirty miles to San Bernardino, the line has been found, during hot, dry and cloudless weather, to be heav lly charged by the mere wind, and the rate in which the line was electrified in tills way was actually governed by the speed at which the wind was blowing. It was also noted that the substances blown agninst the wires at such times, such as dust, etc., gave up their charges to it also. When the high - tension current reaches the distributing stations at Fomona and San Bernardino its 10,000 volts are passed through a transformer and reduced to such a pressure as can be safely passed along the town circuits for lighting and power purposes. In effecting tills change the transformers give forth a continuous hum, which depends for its intensity on the number of alternations of the current. This forms an excellent Indicator for the attendant, whose attention is Instantly called to any change In the running conditions of the plant by the resulting change of tone. This variation in the sound from the transformers not only marks changes that are taking place, and that can be detected on the voltmeter, but also gives notice of coining changes before there is any other Indication of them. One afternoon a painful shock • was received on touching the lino at the canon end, drifting clouds and a strong wind being noticed in the valley. Again, while the engineer was using the telephone, he heard In it a report which was so sharp as to cause momeratary deafness. Later, after a moderate wind had been blowing for some time, loud reports were noticed on the telephone at long intervals. As the wind rose the reports came oftener. It was evident there was a discharge from the lines through the telephone, which was on n metallic circuit, and that it depended on the rate the wind blew.—Chicago Record.