All About Inventions and Discoveries
The Romance of modern scientific and mechanical Achievements

94 All About Inventions with the express purpose of usurping steam from railways, the Americans as a whole considered it more adapted for another field of transportation—tram- ways 1 Frantic search for a cheap alternative to animal traction was being made, and here, appar- ently, was the solution of the problem. The cable, though an improvement upon the horse-drawn vehicle, was far from being satisfactory. Accidents and break- downs were too numerous. But electricity offered an ideal system of propulsion. It possessed the neces- sary elements—simplicity of control, smoothness in running, high speed, rapid acceleration and de-celera- tion, and ability to handle heavy loads and upon all kinds of road. The question was the delivery of the necessary current from the generating station to the motors mounted upon the car. Hitherto, all attempts in this direction had been made with a third rail laid between the two running rails. But while such an arrangement was feasible upon a trunk railway which possessed its own right of way, and which was closed to other traffic, a street was open to one and all indiscriminately. Consequently, the third rail was out of the question, unless electrocution of every man and beast who trod upon the rail was a secondary consideration. Ultimately the question arose: Why not sling the conductor in the form of a wire through the air and above the track, collecting the current therefrom by a suitable device ? There was no technical objec- tion to this method. The only possible argument against it was upon æsthetic grounds. Would the civic and municipal authorities permit posts to be planted in the streets and wires to criss-cross the