[D8937AAK], Letter from William Dennis Marks to Thomas Alva Edison, May 3rd, 1889
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Title
[D8937AAK], Letter from William Dennis Marks to Thomas Alva Edison, May 3rd, 1889
Editor's Notes
My dear sir, I have today been with two committees of the City Council for some hours and I feel that matters are in good shape for one and perhaps 2 more stations & districts--if we do not ---- the ---- others will -et before presenting these matters to my Board I desire to consult with you concerning an idea I have for Phila--####You are aware that the ultimate capacity of our Station is 120,000 lamps at once or say 600,000 cubic feet of gas per hour--That the [maximum?] average [burning?] is say --- or say $400,000 c ft of gas per day.####If now I can establish 5 storage stations at proper points I can get six times the output from our machinery that I now do and add greatly to the certainty of light at all times as the storage statures being fed from, could come to the rescue of the main station you see also that I could obtain 6 x 2400000=144000000 cubic feet of gas from one station per diem--The storage stations would require 2 experts and a few laborers each to attend them--This is greater than the whole gas capacity of Phila at present.####I contemplate only plain lead plates of large d-------- handled by ------- lift & small travelling cranes, and the d------ recovery of the lead after plates are worn out I need not go into details with you but if the idea impresses you favorably will ----- estimate of storage station & submit to Board of Directors [TAE marg: in the present state of the art the loss in [powering?] through the battery & the depreciation, and the interest of the investment in batteries would more than pay 15 per cent on the stations which would render them unnecessary. Taking interest depreciation & loss as data I have never in any case been able to figure out a single instance where direct system wouldn't beat the best storage assuming storage was as good as claimed"]
Author
Recipient
Date
1889-05-03
Type
Folder/Volume ID
D8937-F
Microfilm ID
126:367
Document ID
D8937AAK
Publisher
Thomas A. Edison Papers, School of Arts and Sciences, Rutgers University