boilers were fired by wood, as the economical transportation of coal was
a physical impossibility. For a six-hour run of the plant one-quarter of
a cord of wood was required, at a cost of twenty-five cents per cord.

The first theatre in the United States to be lighted by an Edison
isolated plant was the Bijou Theatre, Boston. The installation of
boilers, engines, dynamos, wiring, switches, fixtures, three stage
regulators, and six hundred and fifty lamps, was completed in eleven
days after receipt of the order, and the plant was successfully operated
at the opening of the theatre, on December 12, 1882.

The first plant to be placed on a United States steamship was the
one consisting of an Edison "Z" dynamo and one hundred and twenty
eight-candle lamps installed on the Fish Commission's steamer Albatross
in 1883. The most interesting feature of this installation was the
employment of special deep-sea lamps, supplied with current through a
cable nine hundred and forty feet in length, for the purpose of alluring
fish. By means of the brilliancy of the lamps marine animals in the
lower depths were attracted and then easily ensnared.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE ELECTRIC RAILWAY

EDISON had no sooner designed his dynamo in 1879 than he adopted the
same form of machine for use as a motor. The two are shown in the
Scientific American of October 18, 1879, and are alike, except that
the dynamo is vertical and the motor lies in a horizontal position,
the article remarking: "Its construction differs but slightly from the
electric generator." This was but an evidence of his early appreciation
of the importance of electricity as a motive power; but it will probably
surprise many people to know that he was the inventor of an electric
motor before he perfected his incandescent lamp. His interest in the
subject went back to his connection with General Lefferts in the days of
the evolution of the stock ticker. While Edison was carrying on his shop
at Newark, New Jersey, there was considerable excitement in electrical
circles over the Payne motor, in regard to the alleged performance of
which Governor Cornell of New York and other wealthy capitalists were
quite enthusiastic. Payne had a shop in Newark, and in one small room
was the motor, weighing perhaps six hundred pounds. It was of circular
form, incased in iron, with the ends of several small magnets sticking
through the floor. A pulley and belt, connected to a circular saw larger
t