Page:Incandescent electric lighting- A practical description of the Edison system.djvu/13

, which is rapidly placing—even a general knowledge, of the means by which the electric current is generated and distributed beyond the reach of all but those actually connected with it as a business, or the student who proposes to follow it as a profession; this is the tendency to centralize electric lighting and to substitute large central stations, where the machinery for generating the current is located and whence the wires are run for distributing the same, for the numerous small plants now scattered over the country.

While these central stations cheapen the production of the light, and bring it within the reach of those who otherwise could not afford it, it does away with the large number of isolated plants, which formerly afforded the curious an opportunity to inspect the generation, distribution and utilization in light, of this form of energy.

While the opportunities to become informed upon this subject are rapidly growing less, the electric light as