or some time subsequent to the fire, but increasing demands
in the mean time having led to the construction of other stations, the
mains of the First District were soon afterward connected to another
plant, the Pearl Street station was dismantled, and the building was
sold in 1895.

The prophetic insight into the magnitude of central-station lighting
that Edison had when he was still experimenting on the incandescent lamp
over thirty years ago is a little less than astounding, when it is so
amply verified in the operations of the New York Edison Company (the
successor of the Edison Electric Illuminating Company of New York) and
many others. At the end of 1909 the New York Edison Company alone was
operating twenty-eight stations and substations, having a total capacity
of 159,500 kilowatts. Connected with its lines were approximately 85,000
customers wired for 3,813,899 incandescent lamps and nearly 225,000
horse-power through industrial electric motors connected with the
underground service. A large quantity of electrical energy is also
supplied for heating and cooking, charging automobiles, chemical and
plating work, and various other uses.

CHAPTER XVII

OTHER EARLY STATIONS--THE METER

WE have now seen the Edison lighting system given a complete, convincing
demonstration in Paris, London, and New York; and have noted steps taken
for its introduction elsewhere on both sides of the Atlantic. The Paris
plant, like that at the Crystal Palace, was a temporary exhibit. The
London plant was less temporary, but not permanent, supplying before
it was torn out no fewer than three thousand lamps in hotels, churches,
stores, and dwellings in the vicinity of Holborn Viaduct. There Messrs.
Johnson and Hammer put into practice many of the ideas now standard in
the art, and secured much useful data for the work in New York, of which
the story has just been told.

As a matter of fact the first Edison commercial station to be operated
in this country was that at Appleton, Wisconsin, but its only serious
claim to notice is that it was the initial one of the system driven by
water-power. It went into service August 15, 1882, about three weeks
before the Pearl Street station. It consisted of one small dynamo of
a capacity of two hundred and eighty lights of 10 c.p. each, and was
housed in an unpretentious wooden shed. The dynamo-electric machine,
though small, was robust, for under all the varying speeds of
water-power, and the