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stant discharge of noxious gases from the lead-acid type of storage battery now in use on all submarines, there is a far greater source of peril from the same battery. Should the submerged craft sink and salt water come in contact with the lead-acid batteries, deadly chlorine gas would be given off. Submarine matters are considered in the strictest secrecy, but it is a true statement of fact that our own submarines have been running below the surface under apparently normal conditions when the presence of chlorine gas has been detected, and in

develop into pneumonia; the lungs seldom ever regain their previous healthy condition. Of all fears which beset the submarine volunteer chlorine gas is the greatest.

Only a year ago a foreign submarine sank with its crew, and the official statement of the disaster read:

"Sixteen bodies have been taken out of the vessel, which was full of chlorine gas. One or two had been attacked by acids from the batteries, whether before or after the accident cannot be said. In the fore compartment were found. the bodies of the commander and chief officer. In the rear compartment six men were found linked so tightly together it was very difficult to separate them.

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order to save the lives of the crew the vessel has been obliged to hurry to the surface and send a wireless call for help. Five months after an inhalation of chlorine a cold may

RIGOROUS TESTS FOR THE NEW CELL

Edison had it dropped three-quarters of an inch two million times to prove its strength.

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Other bodies were found in the extreme

forward compartment. Death in each case was due to chlorine poisoning."

All these dangers are at once done away with by the Edison submarine storage battery. It not only prevents asphyxiation, but it acts as a disinfectant because of the affinity of its solutionpotash-for carbonic acid gas. The battery which has caused all the submarine trouble is the lead-sulphuric acid type. The Edison battery is a nickel-iron-alkali type, and is composed of but four things, nickel, iron oxide, and steel in a solution of potash, and wonderful as it may seem, the potash is a preservative of all the elements entering into the combination; thus the battery elements do not destroy each other.

When a storage battery is charged, hydrogen gas forms on the negative plates and oxygen gas on the positives. These gases, in the form of minute bubbles, rise to the surface of the solution and, being lighter than air, float away. Being formed in, and subsequently pass

ing through, the electrolyte, each of these minute bubbles conveys a small quantity of whatever chemical the solution is composed of; if they are formed in a lead-sulphuric acid type battery, sulphuric acid is the cargo; if in an Edison type battery, potash.

When these bubbles rise from the surface of the electrolyte and come into contact with an object, they either remain until evaporation disintegrates them and deposits their cargo of acid or alkali, or they burst and accomplish the same result The gas vent of a lead type cell is open and the bubbles may therefore pass through freely and away. The vent of the Edison cell is a check valve. To get out, the gases must lift this valve by pressure formed within the otherwise hermetically-sealed containing can. But in the submarine type the gases are entirely rid of potash by a supplementary device. Even if all the potash bubbles were allowed to get out no harm would result. Potash is an excellent disinfectant; it preserves steel. Sulphuric acid attacks it.

As a proof of the healthfulness of the Edison battery, the fact should be considered that several thousand cells are being charged and re-charged in the West Orange works with hundreds of workmen around them. Not so with leadsulphuric acid batteries. They are manufactured as far away from the main works as possible, and powerful electric fans are used to remove the fumes. Navy specifications covering the installation of lead-acid batteries stipulate leadlined rooms to retain them, and leadlined ventilating pipes with specially constructed and installed motors, to operate the exhaust fans. In specifications covering the installation of Edison's new battery no mention need be made of leadlined rooms.

Innumerable tests were prescribed, and the battery met them all.

Cognizant of the fact that he had a battery which promised to solve the health

for three months. At the end of the first two months of rocking and dipping navy officials began to take notice, for no battery had ever stood up under such a test. At the end of three months they were convinced.

"Keep it clean and give it water," instructed Mr. Edison, "and at the end of four years it will give its full capacity."

"Four years?" they asked in wonder.

"Yes," replied Mr. Edison. "Four years, eight years; it will outwear the. submarine itself."

It was only a few weeks ago that the inventor in company with Secretary Josephus Daniels of the Navy and RearAdmiral Frank J. Fletcher, commander in chief of the Atlantic fleet, gathered in the Brooklyn Navy Yard and watched the Edison battery rock to and fro in the cradle. The movement of the cradle was increased until it was tilting at an angle of thirty-five degrees.

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THROWING THE VOICE ACROSS THE CONTINENT

T

By

WALTER S. HIATT

HE national epoch has been reached in the telephone business.

Yesterday, New York to Denver was the utmost limit

of the telephone.

Today, New York can talk with San Francisco. A man in New York can pick up his office telephone and for sixteen dollars can get a man on the water front of the Pacific, over 3364 miles of wire, buy a shipment of oranges, and know that as he finishes talking, the first steps are already being taken for the transmission of the goods.

Long possible in theory, this problem of solving long-distance talking has for the past twenty years been growing grey hairs on the heads of telephone engineers. The first long-distance talk-over a borrowed telegraph wire-of sixteen miles, in 1876, between Boston and Cambridge, was a world wonder. The New York to Boston talk in 1880 was a greater wonder still. When Alexander Graham Bell talked in 1893 over the then new line between Chicago and New York, the final word was supposed to have been said in long-distance conversation.

Then, a little over a year ago, the Denver-New York line-2014 miles long —was thrown open to the public-three minutes talk for eleven dollars and twenty-five cents. When it was made plain that the words heard over this line were often more distinct than those in a conversation, say from Kansas City, Missouri, across the Missouri River to Kansas City, Kansas, the public began to wonder why the wired talk couldn't go wireless one better and reach under the rivers and over the mountains, across the

plains, that lie between the Atlantic and the Pacific.

Yet, there were those who doubted the possibility of talking with Denver, as in the old days men doubted Bell when he claimed he could talk over a wire. One New York newspaper editor, when the Denver line was established, attended the public demonstration offered in New York City by the telephone company and then, the next day, quietly put in a call from his office for Denver. In a short time he had his Denver party on the telephone and thereby was convinced.

When one considers seriously the doubts of this editor who was unwilling to believe that his voice could be materially carried over a wire so far, one must admit that there was reason for his doubt. To a telephone engineer, knowing all the difficulties that are encountered in transmitting the human voice clearly, it is more remarkable that a voice can be made to travel over a wire two thousand miles long than that a message can be ticked off by a wireless instrument and made to radiate in the unopposing ether to a distance of a thousand or two thousand miles.

Consider this fact: Your voice with all its intonations, starting at your New York office, travels along a wire to Buffalo, thence to Cleveland, into Chicago, with its millions of wires and opposing currents; thence out of the Chicago terminal, underground, to poles in the air, across the level country to Davenport, Iowa, to Des Moines, on, on, across the Missouri River into Omaha. The next station is North Platte, then Julesburg, Colorado. A sharp turn to Sterling, your voice climbs the mountains, and it is in

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THE TORTUOUS ROUTE ACROSS THE CONTINENT

When you, in New York, talk to your San Francisco friend, your voice follows the line drawn on this map.

the cool, bracing air of Denver's mountains.

Your voice does not stop here. It leaps past the panting mountain climbers the railway engines; it ranges along to Cheyenne, into a new State, Wyoming, is guided through Laramie, Rawlins, Evanston; next it hums through

spondent. You toss words at each other, back and forth, along this winding wire, across the whole continent of working, talking people, and you hear each other and each other only; your messages of love, of friendship, or of business exchanged, you hang up your receivers. You have not merely filed a message with

SAN FRANCISCO

NEW YORK

THE WHOLE CIRCUIT BETWEEN THE COASTS, WITHOUT THE INTERRUPTING MECHANISMS It is composed of two loaded, repeating circuits and an extra phantom circuit.

Salt Lake City, into Timpie and Wendover, State of Utah. It is now leaping through States, not cities. Nevada is next and therein it touches the towns of Wells, Elko, Winnemucca, Wadsworth, Reno.

At last California is reached and on the home-stretch your voice flies past Sacramento and is picked up at San Francisco.

Back comes the voice of your corre

a wireless man, and been handed a written answer in reply, after hours of waiting. You have yourself taken part in a truly wonderful mechanical operation.

This talk was not possible six years. ago, nor three years ago, nor six months ago. It is possible today because during the past half-dozen years telephone engineers have been spending millions of dollars overhauling the lines of the system, improving them, building new sta

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