Discussion on “electrolysis,” at New York, March 1, 1907

L. B. Stillwell: The results of Mr. Hayden´s comprehensive and painstaking tests are particularly gratifying to all interested in the extensive use of electricity for railway purposes. While they show, however, that the electrolytic damage to subsurface metallic structures which alternating currents are liable to cause is practically negligible under ordinary circumstances, they illustrate also the fact that here, as elsewhere, special conditions may exist which call for the adoption of preventive measures. The method of protecting cable sheaths which Mr. Hayden suggests is ingenious and interesting. Quantitatively considered, however, his results indicate that it will rarely be necessary to adopt his plan of superimposing a continuous potential upon an alternating potential.