Fourth: In rural districts, or wherever no property is liable to electrolytic corrosion, the uninsulated rails may be used per se for the return current.

THE PRESIDENT: Gentlemen, are there any remarks? MR. MILLER: If Mr. Brownell is present, it interesting to hear what he has to say about this report.

may be

THE PRESIDENT: It is stated, Mr. Miller, that he has left the city. Are there any further remarks?

MR. A. S. MILLER: Mr. Chairman, as is well known, there is a very radical difference of opinion as to the best method of handling the currents on gas mains. I am very much interested in the subject, and hope I will hear something from some of the people present who are of the same opinion as the writers of that report on Electrolysis. A great deal has been said about the bad effect of taking the return current from the pipes by wires, but nothing has been offered us in its place. I stand here as the champion, or rather as the representative, of those who have tried to make the best of a bad job by taking the current from the pipes by wires after it has gotten on. While, in a measure, I am in accord with the members of this committee in the view that it is not a good practice, but, so far as I can find out, it is a great deal better than to leave the current on. I would like very much to hear from some of the members of the Institute whose ideas are different from mine. I would like to know why they have the currents on the pipe and let them find their way off, when, as a matter of fact, we all know that you cannot keep the current off the pipe in the beginning. As I understand the substance of the report,

it is that you ought not to let the current get on the pipe. I quite agree that we ought not to allow it to get on the pipe, and the question has been, of course, how to prevent that. have yet to find out how we can keep it from the pipe.

MR. EGNER: I would like to ask Mr. Miller how he deals with the current to keep it off the pipe with wire.

MR. D. McDONALD: Mr. President, I would like to ask if any of the members of this Institute have tried the plan of suing the electric railway company for the damage done to the gas pipes. This is a subject in which I am vitally interested, and I want all the information I can get. I do not want to bring an injunction if it is not going to amount to anything, and I am not going to sue them for damage done to service pipes unless I know pretty well where I stand. I would like to know if any of the members that have had trouble of this kind have succeeded in making the railways pay for it. If they have, and that could be made. generally known, I believe that that would be one of the best means for stopping this trouble with electrolysis.

THE PRESIDENT : Mr. Egner asks for information as to the method which Mr. Miller has used.

MR. A. S. MILLER: Mr. President, we found that there were certain centers in our territory where there was a decided difference in the voltage between our pipes and the tracks, and at this point we attached our mains, and the water mains and underground cables to copper returns, which in turn were carried back to the negative side, or the ground side of the rotaries of the electric railway company. The railway company has worked with us, has furnished copper returns, and has been entirely reasonable and fair with us in everything that we have asked them to do. The result has been that we believe we have substantially stopped the electrolysis in the sections where we are connected up in that way without increasing the difference in the voltage between our pipes and the railway tracks at any other point. By connecting in the water mains and underground cables we are carrying such a small amount of current on our pipe that it is almost impossible to measure

the drop around the joints or on any short length of pipe, including the joint. I would like to know what disadvantage there is in that method.

MR. WALTON FORSTALL: Mr. President, as bearing upon the point that Mr. Miller has just described as to the action of the trolley company in Baltimore, it might be interesting for me to state here, that in Philadelphia some examples of the effect of electrolysis were brought to the attention of the trolley company, and we presented a bill to the trolley people for the damage, and they apparently were very glad to settle it. The attitude that they seemed to take was, that it is a disgrace to a trolley company if they allow their current to escape, and they were willing to pay the bill. It may be said that the roadway construction there is of the very best. In other words, their rails are of very large section, well bonded and in many cases encased in concrete. In addition, about every three or four hundred feet, a copper wire is bonded to the rail, run into a manhole and returned through a conduit system to the power house. So that there is very little chance for the current to escape to the mains. On about 1,300 of mains we have had only one or two cases which afforded us any ground for complaint.

miles

In

MR. D. McDONALD: Mr. Chairman, I am very much obliged indeed to Mr. Forstall for that statement. the town where I am located the electric railway company denies it is their current. They say that it may come from the telephone, and it may come from lightning, and that it is for me to prove it is their current. I think the attitude of the company which Mr. Forstall has just described is very progressive, and when all the railway companies take that attitude the difficulties of the gas people with electrolysis will be pretty largely done away with, but as long as our mains are used for the passage of the return electric current, and as long railway companies continue to have their own way about it, the result will continue to be that we will have trouble one way or the other, and the people that make the trouble are the ones that ought to pay for it.

THE PRESIDENT:

as the

I would like to hear an answer to Mr..

Miller's inquiry as to whether the method he described is not a correct method. I would like to know something about that myself.

MR. STONE: Mr. Chairman, while I was not going to answer Mr. Miller exactly, I was going to say that we have been troubled somewhat by electrolysis, and I was a little bit in doubt about the best method of handling it. I had an examination made of the property by two experts, or by two gentlemen who thought they were experts in that line, and one gave an entirely opposite opinion to the other as to the proper way to handle it. One of them said to bond the pipe, and the other one said to insulate the pipe. I am just as far ahead now as I was before I asked them what to do. I think anyone who looks into the subject will find themselves in just that position. There does not seem to be any hard and fast rule laid down as yet to be pursued in this matter.

In regard to what Mr. McDonald has said, I think it is all right to send a bill to the traction company for the damage, provided you know who to send the bill to, but when you have two or three interurban companies operating in a town together with the local company, and each one of them says it is the current from the other company that is making the trouble it is pretty hard to prove it is not.

THE PRESIDENT: What did you finally do?

MR. STONE: We finally insulated the pipe, and we have had very good success. At least we have got the amount of electricity that we are carrying down to a point where I think we will have very little trouble. We have had no success at all in making any of the traction companies admit that it was their current which was damaging the pipe. They all fought shy. In a case where two or three companies are operating in a town, and especially where the power is supplied from different stations, there are different times in the day when you will get the current from one company, and at some other times of the day you will get the current from the other company. It is a hard proposition.

MR. G. S. CARSON: Mr. President, in regard to Mr. Miller's statement as to putting in copper returns from the gas pipe to the street railway station, I would like to ask if, as a matter of fact, it would not act as a path for any surplus current that might come over the wire. In other words, if there was resistance build up at any point on the rails, the current would take the easier path, and come by the gas pipe and water pipe around through the copper wire for a part of the distance. The fact that there was no difference in voltage would not seem to me to be positive proof that there was no current flowing. I would like to ask some electrician here who has made that a study if that would not be the fact.

MR. A. S. MILLER: It is quite true that if there is an increased resistance along the rails, there will more current flow through the pipe, and connections of that kind should be made with great caution, and should be very frequently inspected. The connections that we have made are made so that we can put ammeters on to the line, or rather onto the return wires at frequent intervals, and test the amount of current flowing. That is done every few weeks. We test the current to see whether the railway company is keeping up its part of the agreement. We have found at times that the bonds get broken. Our apparatus is arranged with switches, so that in case the current gets too heavy at any time we can open up the switch and therefore increase the resistance on our line.

MR. D. McDONALD: Mr. President, if I may speak on the subject again, I should like to say that I have read very carefully the report prepared by the Committee of the American Gas Light Association in regard to the prevention of electrolysis, and I feel, as I think a great many gas men are coming to feel, that it is decidedly bad policy on the part of gas companies, as a general thing, to allow the impression to get out that they have got to take care of the electric current, or that it is their business to take care of any part of the electric current coming from a street railway system. There is a tendency among all of the electrical