Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 45.djvu/634

 that was to be developed would admit of considerable subdivision, not only of the units of power production (each unit consisting of a turbine and generator), but also of the ways in which the electrical power would best be sent out to consumers.

As already mentioned, a number of manufacturing establishments are locating themselves on the property owned by the Cataract Construction Company, and to these it would at first sight seem natural and best to deliver electrical power straight from the power-house generators to their motors, seeing that this could easily be done without much loss of voltage on the carrying line; and, on the other hand, for distant work, as at Buffalo and Rochester,



to use a high potential on the line with transformers at the consuming end or at both ends. It has, however, been decided not to thus take advantage of the mechanical subdivision of the plant to use different types of generators for different kinds of work, but to adopt as a standard one good form of machine and use it throughout, at least until the plant is increased.

Perhaps the most remarkable consequence of this step will be that the Pittsburg Reduction Company, which manufactures metallic aluminum by the action of electricity upon certain compounds of that metal in a state of fusion, and which expects to use some thousands of electrical horse power when established at the falls, will receive it in the form of an alternating current.