Show REMARKABLE LINES How Cold Storage Oil Steam Compressed Air Gas Water and Electricity Are Distributed Broadcast One of the remarkable features of modern urban development is the growing grow-ing tendency of doing away with individual indi-vidual effort in providing many of the material comforts of our nineteenth century civilization I Is coming to be more and more the case that the common com-mon necessities which every household I requires are not supplied by each family fam-ily for itself but are sent out from great central establishments which supply a district of greater or less extent ex-tent according to the nature of the commodity they handle Once each house drew all the water it reauired from its own well now in all but the smallest villages the whole water viages supply sup-ply of a town is obtained from some lake or stream and pumped out from i a single reservoir to all the inhabitants I Light and fuel have in most places been I added to the list of things supplied from some central point and in the largest cities i has been expanded to include a hundred other things that our parents or we ourselves a few years ago never dreamed of getting in this way The result of this movement has been to build up under every big modern city a second city of pipes conduits vaults and passages where many of the operations rations essential to the health and comfort of the pampered modern citi zen go on Few persons realize what progress has been made in this direc ion already but frbm present indica tons it is likely that there will be a till more rapid extension of such cen ralized activities The most recent development in the direction of centralized energy is put forward by a great freezing and warehousing ware-housing company in New York City This concern proposes in connection with its cold storage warehouses to pump refrigeration to its principal customers tomers in different parts of the city including the great markets and produce pro-duce houses To the person unfamiliar with the recent development in this line of business it would seem a difficult cult matter to transmit cold over long distances in sufficient quantities to reduce re-duce the temperature of great vaults I and packing rooms to 15 or 20 degrees below zero As a matter of fact the company anticipates hut little diffi culty in ptting its system into opera OI2DISTRIBUTING DISTRIBUTING COLD IN PIPES The ammonia system will be used and the fluid will be forced by hydraulic hydrau-lic pumps from the condensing tanks through conduits to the places where it is to be used These conduits will be laid under ground and in general will be constructed like ordinary water mains except that the outside will be surrounded by a cork jacketing which will be coated over with a tarlike preparation to prevent leaking of cold The pi ore ten of the scheme guarantee that the refrigerating pipes will not interfere with the steam ° nd other underground un-derground conduits a t sert that there will be very little I of fi zing mtender at power in passage It is first to supply only concerns requiring a large amount of refrigeration but there is no reason whv the same system sys-tem should not in time be extended to dwellings and other buildings so that every house may presently have its zero room The transmission of cold storage has already been tried in St I Louis between main and branch warehouses ware-houses so there seems to be no reason why the present more extensive undertaking under-taking should not succeed The extent to which this centralization in the supply sup-ply of ordinary necessities has gone is realized by few of those who daily profit by it and strikingly illustrates the interdependence to which urban civilization is bringing us Petroleum is pumped from the fields where it is found through pipe lines hundreds of miles in length to all the big cities Thence it is distributed in smaller pipes to the factories which use it in large 1 quantities for fuel so that in many cases the connection it complete without with-out the intervention of a single pair of hands from the oil well to the furnace fur-nace A more familiar example of the same thing is illuminating and fuel gas which is everywhere distributed direct to the consumer who merely has to turn a valve and touch a match to get hfs light and fire Electricity is beginning to work a great change in domestic economy by entering the domain of the kitchen The house of the future will have no fires in it and the kitchen range will lose its terrors Electricity will hereafter keen the oven at any desired tempera I ture J will broil the beefsteak and heat the water In the laundry it will be hitched to the flatirons and will smooth the bosom of the Sunday shirt Cooking Cook-ing and washing will be done by pressing press-ing a series of buttons and the housemaid house-maid can read her novels undisturbed rea while the electric cook stove does its work STEAM AND COMPRESSED AIR IN CONDUITS All kinds of motor power steam and compressed air are now distributed in pipes Indeed in cities like New York there are few factories which have their own power plants for it is found I to be cheaper and rather more conve U nient to lease power of the various I companies which make n business of supplying i A New York company I for example sends out 17000 horsepower horse-power from its main station the lower I low-er part of the city This is distributed through iron conduits copperjacketed I at all joints with very little loss in power or efficiency I is recognized that compressed air is today the great rival of electricity and it is peculiarly adapted to transmission trans-mission from a central power station since it can be stored without loss and supplied to any point in variable quantities quan-tities as desired more easily than electricity elec-tricity The compressed air plant which operates the engine recently put into service on the Manhattan elevated road gets the steam to operate its compressors from one of the big steam supply companies Its apparatus consists con-sists of two tanks holding about 1KOOO gallons of water The water is circulated circu-lated between the tanks in iron pipes which sprav it throush small holes thereby cooling it The air is drawn over these cooling tanks through win I dowlike openings to a small room which is connected by a conduit with the lowpressure cylinder I passes through four cylinders and is cooled in the course of each journey and in I these the pressure is increased respectively I respect-ively to 55 pounds 60 pounds 7SO pounds and 2500 pounds It will be seen that the production of compressed air is n comtiarativelv simnle nrocess and that its use especially i for traction purposes is likely to become general gen-eral l PNEUMATIC TRANSPORTATION Those who are living on the edge of the future see many other ways in which modern invention is changing cty life along similar lines One Direction Direc-tion in which there is likely to be a marked development is in the transmission trans-mission of all kinds of articles through pneumatic tubes by compressed airMail air-Mail is already sent between the New York postoflice and some of its branches I branch-es At the trial of the part of the post office system first installed which took place a short time ago a great variety I of articles were sent a distance of nearly near-ly a mile and back making the roundtrip round-trip in f9ur minutes The test was made by Dr Chauncey Depew in the presence of General Shallenberger of the postofflce department and other prominent men Among the articles that were sent through the tubes were a copy of the Bible an American flag I l JI iP 5 5 S II Je 7 I e I I PCNVVlv rIA PftV i llfil v M44 Jj 4SiT7 rq j d5t ii m I I Central Stations For Distrirotttion some fruit bricabrac a pair of shoes a bottle of wine and a live kitten kiten This opens a wonderfulvista of possibilities pos-sibilities said Mr Depew after the test The department store can deliver de-liver its goods to branch stations the I markets can serve their customers newspapers can be delivered and possibly pos-sibly in time human freight can be shot from office to home with a rapidity that almost annihilates distance EDISONS SCHEME Though the enthusiast who suggested the piping of wheat from Chicago to New York through pneumatic tubes may be some years ahead of his time it is true that Thomas A Edison was considering a plan scarcely less elaborate elabor-ate in connection with his gigantic scheme of magnetic ore extraction which he is putting into effect among the New Jersey mountains at Edison I first considered the plan of piping the sand to a place more convenient for market by means of pneumatic tubes said Mr Edison in discussing his great project The thing that deterred de-terred me from attempting it was the discovery that sand and especially this sand would cut the pipe to pieces acting on them as a sand blast whIch when operated by compressed air is I found so effective in cutting into iron and other hard substances I In his New Jersey mine the inventor I has a central station oil distributing I plant The oil is pumped from this central cen-tral depot all over the establishment lubricating dynamos engines and crushers and getting rid of friction generally Having performed its good office it returns to the starting point to be used all over again Some time ago i was suggested that New York could be sufficiently served with milk by pumping it through property prop-erty constructed pipes and one of the great brewing companies actually considered con-sidered the plan of supplying their branch bottling establishments and some of their principal customers in this manner In both these cases i was the objections of customers rather than any practical mechanical objections objec-tions that prevented the carrying out of the susrirestions A glance into the near future shows I I that the one tendency to which attention I atten-tion has been called will bring about I I some remarkable changes in the appearance ap-pearance of our big cities The city of I the future will be much more quiet than the existing town for the roar of overhead over-head locomotives and the clatter of surface I sur-face cars will give place to the noiseless noise-less progress of the compressed air or electric motor It Will be much cleaner too Horses will be banished from the street except where used for pleasure driving and heavy trucks as well as cabs will be driven the same way as time cars Dust and ashes will not rouse the ire of every housekeeper for electricity will have driven out the coal lire anti ashes wiU be taken only from the few V rower generating stations r The streets will be less crowded for many things now conveyed in wagons will be shot through pneumatic tubes to all parts of the city Life will be easier for every house will have heat and cold light and power pure air and ordinary drinks on tap The only danger to civilization then will be that the Inhabitants in-habitants mayget nervous prostration from the mental effort of remembering which particular button to press for each thing that they may happen to want |