LECTROLYSIS eats away the pipe that carries the water you drink; destroys the gas main that supplies your cook stove; impairs the steel skeleton of the skyscraper where you work; creates a tremendous waste in the industrial field today.

This ruinous agent, working silently and unseen, exacts from every large city, from almost every public utility corporation, and from the modern steel structure, an annual toll of millions of dollars. But its ravages have become known and preventive measures are being taken to stay the destroyer.

Electrolysis, stripped of all technicality, is the eating away of subsurface pipes, wiring and structural steel framework by stray electric currents.

Nearly every large city in America and in Europe is now warring against this sneaking force. For the last decade large public utility corporations have maintained corps of electrical engineers to study and overcome electrolysis. Large sums of money have been expended in this investigation work, but not until recently has a practicable remedy for application in this country been discovered. European countries, especially England and Germany, have partially

solved the problem under their local conditions during the last ten years.

Traction companies are the chief electrolytic offenders, although it has been demonstrated that corporations manufacturing electricity for heat and power purposes are also guilty, but in an infinitely lesser degree. Therefore, the electric street railway companies are the storm centers in the battle against electrolysis.

When electric currents leave the motors of a street car and reach the rail surfaces, they then return to their source of supply-the power house-by paths of least resistance. This is a general law of electricity. The method now used almost universally for returning these spent currents is through the rails and copper cables. The cables are connected with the rails at short intervals and form

in the water mains, gas mains, cable sheaths and other metallic structure work within the electrical feeding areas. Through them the electricity flows back toward the power house. When the energy reaches points where the positive condition of electric pressure overcomes the resistance to the main return circuit, the electric currents flow back to the regular return circuit through cross sections of the earth.

No damage is done to the pipes or cables when the electricity flows into them, but when it leaves them the current disintegrates and destroys the metal in direct proportion to the quantity of current flowing from the metallic structures. Gas pipes and water mains slowly crumble under this action. Electric currents do not distribute them

selves equally in pipes that vary in consistency. For that reason, disintegration occurs soonest at the heavily charged spots, and, many times, pipes are perforated before they are wholly destroyed. Excessive heat often accompanies the process. instances are stated to have occurred where straps of iron conducting these currents from elevated railroad structures have been heated red hot and adjoining buildings set on fire in this man

Chicago has suffered more from electrolysis, perhaps, than any other American city. During the last two years a sweeping investigation has been made by electrical experts under the direction of the commissioner of public works. The damage discovered was almost incredible. City water. mains had been damaged and destroyed by electrolytic action until they were unfit for

use. Underground leakage of water

amounted to more than 130,000,000 gallons daily in 1910-more than twenty-five per cent of all the water pumped by the city. Investigators estimated that 65,000,000 gallons of this leakage was the result of electrolytic damage. At three cents a thousand gallons for pumping, the direct loss to the city, traceable to city, traceable to electrolysis, was $1,950 daily or nearly three quar

The Chicago ordinance applies to all uninsulated, electric return-current systems. A return conductor system that that will protect all metallic work from electrolysis is required. This means that the spent energy I will be sent back to its origin in regular channels, thus materially reducing the troublesome stray currents. Daily recording charts are required charts are required in power stations to register the actual voltage conditions, thereby showing city authorities whether each power substation is complying with the ordinance. This is a means of regulation necessary for the enforcement of the measure.

ters of a million dollars for the year.

Chicago now seeks a cure for electrolysis. Legislation designed to remedy the evil was enacted by the city council on July 15, 1912. Nine months was granted the street railway companies in which to comply with the ordinance. The measure was passed after a long and bitter struggle with the traction interests. The fight was won for the city by Ray Palmer, city electrician, who had been appointed to that position after he had conducted the investigation which disclosed the great electrolytic damage. Mr. Palmer had previously studied electrolysis in Europe for three years while he was the employe of a public-utility corporation.

A series of manhole explosions began in Chicago during the first months of 1909. The police immediately charged organized labor with the "outrages." There had been some trouble between the union electrical workers and the electric company. Scores of city and private detectives were assigned to guard the manholes. But the explosions continued. No trace of the perpetrators could be discovered. No pieces of bombs or dynamite shells could be found. No person was ever seen running away from the

completely nonplussed. On April 28, 1909, James Mullen, a cab driver, was killed when a manhole blew up at 1929 South Wabash ave

nue.

"The cause of the explosion is a mystery to the police and detectives are working on the case," said a newspaper article.

"Electrical detectives are what the city needs," said Mr. Palmer. "They could solve the mystery of the explosions. Many of them are undoubtedly caused by stray electric currents leaking into manholes. Both the gas and telephone companies are using every precaution in underground cable work. They fear explosions caused by sparks from creeping cables will kill their workmen. The street railway companies know their cables are creeping; they even anchor them to stop it. When cable sheaths of different volt

ages get near to each other, a spark often results. The gas that has leaked into these manholes from mains that have been damaged by electrolysis is thus ignited and the explosion occurs.

That is why such precaution is necessary in underground cable work. It is a serious. matter and affects the reputation of the city. We receive reports of 'bomb' explosions when remedies could be applied. The railway companies can clear up these troubles."

These explosions still occur, though not nearly so frequently because a vast amount of pipe-line repair work has been done during the last two years. The leakage has been reduced to a minimum by replacing the damaged gas mains with new ones. These mains have not yet succumbed to electrolysis and recent explosions have occurred only in those parts of the city where the old mains are still in use.

-Diogenes Laertius

RE you paying thirty to forty cents a pound for porterhouse and swearing at the farmer, as though he were to blame? Are you paying fifteen to twenty-five cents for ordinary round. steak and calling the butcher a hold-up man? Cheer up, relief is in sight.

Three plans are proposed in the crusade to bring the price of beef down within the reach of the average man. These plans are as follows:

First: A law prohibiting, for the next three years, the slaughter or sale of all heifer calves under three years of age and establishing thereafter a minimum age at which they may be killed.

Second: A government appropriation of $5,000,000 for the re-seeding and resting of the now sadly over-worked public range, in order that it may accommodate double the present number of feeding cattle.

Third: A series of educational trains