These corrugated tubes enclosed in cheap glass, and
surrounded with oil, were laid in properly prepared conduits of vitrified
fire-clay sewer pipes. Without the intervention of the steam engine, by
a surprisingly simple process, electrical force was liberated chemically
at the mines and transferred for multiple uses at the steel plant.
Expensive coal-freights were thus saved. All the slack coal was utilized,
and instead of the waste of nine-tenths of the stored energy of the coal,
only one tenth was now lost. To husband properly the fruits of so great a
discovery, it was decided not to patent this latter invention, which if
disclosed would give too great publicity to the details.
The electrical works at the mines were constructed of safe-steel walls
and roof, and so built that the operations of generating electricity
directly from coal were conducted in secret in several separate
apartments, so that no single operator without the knowledge of all the
initiated employees would be able to successfully work the inventions.
The dozen initiated employees had made life long contracts with the
company in consideration of liberal and satisfactory rewards. The
Harris-Ingram Steel Co.
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