With cable, if 1 horse power of work is all that is required on the track, the engine may be doing 25 horse power to get that amount there through the gears and cable. With heavier loads this is somewhat diminished, but about the very best figure that can be put forth is but 35 per cent. recovery, with 65 per cent. loss—the exact converse of electricity under heavy loads.—Street Railway Journal.
ELECTRICAL ALARM FOR PHARMACIES.
Fig. 1.
To avoid the errors which sometimes occur in a pharmacy or in a laboratory, where one bottle is taken for another, especially in the case of those containing highly poisonous or dangerous substances, a simple arrangement, shown in the cuts, has been proposed. The apparatus, in principle, is a species of electrical alarm, in circuit with an ordinary house telegraph line. It consists essentially, as shown in Fig. 1, of a battery, bell, and pedestal, provided with an electric contact on which the flask rests. Fig. 2 shows this contact or break piece. On a series of pedestals thus arranged and intercalated in the same circuit the flasks containing poisonous or dangerous substances, whose inadvertent handling might cause trouble, are placed. In removing one of these flasks the circuit is closed, and the electric bell notifies the pharmacist of the danger attendant on the use of the substances contained in the flask referred to, thus guarding against the errors due to carelessness, and quite too frequent, especially in pharmacies.—Chronica Cientifica.
Fig. 2.