Storyofelectrici 00 Munriala

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SOUTHERN BRANCH
UNIVERSITY of CALIFORNIA
LIBRARY
LOS ANGELES, CALIF.
Digitized by the Internet Archive
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A Skiagraph.
THE STORY OF
ELECTRICITY
BY
JOHN MUNRO
AUTHOR OF
ELECTRICITY AND ITS USES, PIONEERS OF ELECTRICITY, HEROES
OF THE TELEGRAPH, ETC., AND JOINT AUTHOR OF MUNRO
AND JAMIESON’S POCKET-BOOK OF ELECTRICAL
RULES AND TABLES
WITH ONE HUNDRED ILLUSTRATIONS
NEW YORK
MCMXII
38%^
Copyright, 1896, 1902,
Bv D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.
• •• I*! **! !,! ***

Printed* in the United State's of America
G? O
5^*1
\Afl Z
PUBLISHERS’ NOTE.
t*3S
For our edition of this work the terminolo¬

gy has been altered to conform with American
usage, some new matter has been added, and a
few of the cuts have been changed and some
new ones introduced, in order to adapt the book
j fully to the practical re< uirements of American
(j readers.
I
n
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. The Electricity of Friction ... 9
II. The Electricity of Chemistry ... 26
III. The Electricity of Heat .... 41
IV. The Electricity of Magnetism ... 45
V. Electrolysis.74
VI. The Telegraph and Telephone . . .81
VII. Electric Light and Heat .... no
VIII. Electric Power.124
IX. Minor Uses of Electricity .... 143
X. The Wireless Telegraph .... 174
XI. Electro-Chemistry and Electro - Metal¬
lurgy .187
XII. Electric Railways.201
List of Books.213
Appendix.215
Index.223
6
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
FIGURE PAGE FIGURE PAGE

A Skiagraph Frontispiece 24—A Thermo - electric
i—A Frictional Ma¬ Pile 44
chine 11 25—A Natural Magnet . 48
2. 12 26 . . 50
3. 13 27 • . 53
4 • • • • • 14 28 . . 54
5 • • • • 17 29 • . . 55
6 • • . • • 18 30—The Galvanoscope . 56
7 • • • • • 19 3i • . . 57
8—The Electrophorus . 20 32 . . 58
g—The Leyden Jar 22 33 • . , 59
io—A Wimshurst Ma¬ 34 • # , 60
chine 24 35 • 61
II—A Voltaic Cell . 28 36—The Induction Coil . 63
12 .... 29 37 • , , 64
13—Cells in Series . 30 38 . . . • . 65
14—Cells in Parallel 30 39 • 66
15—A Daniell Cell . 33 40—A Dynamo # 68
16—The Leclanch£ Cell . 34 41 • # # 70
17—The Bichromate Cell 35 42 . , 7i
18—The Chloride of Sil¬ 43 • # , 72
ver Cell. 35 44 • • . , 78
19—The E. C. C. Dry Cell 37 45 • # 84
20—The Voltameter 38 46—Morse Signal Alpha-
21—The E. P. S. Accu¬ bet 87
mulator 40 47—A Simple Electro
22—A Thermo - electric Magnet. 88
Couple . 41 48—Electro Magnet 89
23—Thermo-electric Cou¬ 49—The Morse Instru-
ples in Series 43 ment * 89
8 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
FIGURE
50— The Sounder . 90 75 .124
51— Sections of the 1894 76 .125
Atlantic Cable — 77— An Electric Railway 127
Actual Sizes— 78— An Electric Carriage 129
Irish Shore End 96 79— An Electric Launch. 130
Newfoundland 80— An Electric Fan 131
Shore End 97 81— An Electric Sewing
Deep Sea . 97 Machine 132
Light Interme¬ 82— An Electric Drill . 13;
diate • 97 83— An Electric Trem¬
Heavy Interme¬ bling Bell . 143
diate 97 84 . . . 144
52— The Mirror Instru¬ 85 . . . 145
ment 98 86 . . 146
53 99 87—A Magneto-Electric
54—The Siphon Recorder 100 Bell . 147
55.101 148
56— The Telephone . 102 89—The Electric “ But¬
57— The Microphone . 104 terfly ” Clock 151
58 .106 90. 152
59 .108 91— The Photophone . 153
60 .in 92— The Induction Bal¬
61— The Pilsen Lamp . 112 ance . 155
62— The Brush Lamp . 113 93— The Electric Pen 156
63— The Edison Lamp . 115 94— The Phonograph 159
64 .116 95— An Electric Gas
65 .116 Lighter . . 160
66 .118 96— An Electric Lamp
67 . r- . . .118 Lighter . . 162
68 .119 97— An Electric Fuse . 163
69— Electrical Phospho¬ 98 . . . . . 164
rescence . . 120 99 . - 165
70— The Ideal Illumi- 100—Photographing the
nant . 121 Unseen
71 . .. . 122
. 123
101—Photographing the
Skeleton
171
172
72 • • •
73 . . * • . 123 102—Marconi’s Appara¬
74 . • • . 123 tus 177
THE STORY OF ELECTRICITY.
CHAPTER I.
THE ELECTRICITY OF FRICTION.
A schoolboy who rubs a stick of sealing-wax

on the sleeve of his jacket, then holds it over
dusty shreds or bits of straw to see them fly up
and cling to the wax, repeats without knowing
it the fundamental experiment of electricity. In
rubbing the wax on his coat he has electrified it,
and the dry dust or bits of wool are attracted to it
by reason of a mysterious process which is called
“ induction.”
Electricity, like fire, was probably discovered
by some primeval savage. According to Hum¬
boldt/ the Indians of the Orinoco sometimes
amuse themselves by rubbing certain beans to
make them attract wisps of the wild cotton, and
the custom is doubtless very old. Certainly the
ancient Greeks knew that a piece of amber had
when rubbed the property of attracting light
bodies. Thales of Miletus, wisest of the Seven
Sages, and father of Greek philosophy, explained
this curious effect by the presence of a “soul ” in
the amber, whatever he meant by that. Thales
flourished 600 years before the Christian era,
while Croesus reigned in Lydia, and Cyrus the
Great, in Persia, when the renowned Solon gave
- 9
IO THE STORY OF ELECTRICITY.
his laws to Athens, and Necos, King of Egypt,

made war on Josiah, King of Judah, and after de¬
feating him at Megiddo, dedicated the corslet he
had worn during the battle to Apollo Didymaeus
in the temple of Branchidae, near Miletus.
Amber, the fossil resin of a pine tree, was
found in Sicily, the shores of the Baltic, and
other parts of Europe. It was a precious stone
then as now, and an article of trade with the
Phoenicians, those early merchants of the Medi¬
terranean. The attractive power might enhance
the value of the gem in the eyes of the supersti¬
tious ancients, but they do not seem to have in¬
vestigated it, and beyond the speculation of
Thales, they have told Us nothing more about it.
Towards the end of the sixteenth century Dr.
Gilbert of Colchester, physician to Queen Eliza¬
beth, made this property the subject of experi¬
ment, and showed that, far from being peculiar
to amber, it was possessed by sulphur, wax, glass,
and many other bodies which he called electrics,
from the Greek word elektron, signifying amber.
This great discovery was the starting-point of the
modern science of electricity. That feeble and
mysterious force which had been the wonder of
the simple and the amusement of the vain could
not be slighted any longer as a curious freak of
nature, but assuredly none dreamt that a day was
dawning in which it would transform the world.
Otto von Guericke, burgomaster of Magde¬
burg, was the first to invent a machine for excit¬
ing the electric power in larger quantities by
simply turning a ball of sulphur between the bare
hands. Improved by Sir Isaac Newton and others,
who employed glass rubbed with silk, it created
sparks several inches long. The ordinary fric-
THE ELECTRICITY OF FRICTION. 11
tional machine as now made is illustrated in fig¬

ure i, where P is a disc of plate glass mounted
on a spindle and turned by hand. Rubbers of
silk P, smeared with an amalgam of mercury and

tin, to increase their efficiency, press the rim of
the plate between them as it revolves, and a brass
conductor C, insulated on glass posts, is fitted
with points like the teeth of a comb, which, as the
electrified surface of the plate passes by, collect
the electricity and charge the conductor with posi¬
tive electricity. Machines of this sort have been
made with plates 7 feet in diameter, and yielding
sparks nearly 2 feet long.
The properties of the “ electric fire,” as it was
now called, were chiefly investigated by Dufay.
To refine on the primitive experiment let us re¬
place the shreds by a pithball hung from a sup¬
port by a silk thread, as in figure 2. If we rub
the glass rod vigorously with a silk handkerchief
and hold it near, the ball will fly toward the rod.
2 THE STORY OF ELECTRICITY.
Similarly we may rub a stick of sealing wax, a

bar of sulphur, indeed, a great variety of sub¬
stances, and by this easy test we shall find them
electrified. Glass rubbed with glass will not show
any sign of electrification, nor will wax rubbed on
wax; but when the rubber is of a different mate¬
rial to the thing rubbed, we shall find, on using
proper precautions, that electrici¬
ty is developed. In fact, the
property which was once thought
peculiar to amber is found to be¬
long to all bodies. Any substance,
when rubbed with a different sub¬
stance, becomes electrified.
The electricity thus
produced is termed fric¬
tional electricity. Of
course there are some
materials, such as am¬
ber, glass, and wax,
which display the ef¬
fect much better than
others, and hence its
original discovery.
In dry frosty weather the friction of a tortoise¬
shell comb will electrify the hair and make it cling
to the teeth. Sometimes persons emit sparks in
pulling off their flannels or silk stockings. The
fur of a cat, or even of a garment, stroked in the
dark with a warm dry hand will be seen to glow,
and perhaps heard to crackle. During winter a
person can electrify himself by shuffling in his
slippers over the carpet, and light the gas with a
spark from his finger. Glass and sealing-wax are,
however, the most convenient means for investi¬
gating the electricity of friction.
A glass rod when rubbed with a silk handker¬

chief becomes, as we have seen, highly electric,
and will attract a pithball (fig. 2).
Moreover, if we substitute the
handkerchief for the rod it will
also attract the bail (fig. 3). Clear¬
ly, then, the handkerchief which
rubbed the rod as
well as the rod it¬
self is electrified. At
first we might sup¬
pose that the hand¬
Fig. 3. kerchief had merely
rubbed off some of
the electricity from the rod, but a lit¬
tle investigation will soon show that
is not the case. If we allow the pith-
ball to touch the glass rod it will steal some of
the electricity on the rod, and we shall now find
the ball repelled by the rod, as illustrated in figure
4. Then, if we withdraw the rod and bring for¬
ward the handkerchief, we shall find the ball at¬
tracted by it. Evidently, therefore, the electricity
of the handkerchief is of a different kind from
that of the rod.
Again, if we allow the ball to touch the hand¬
kerchief and rub off some of its electricity, the
ball will be repelled by the handkerchief and at¬
tracted by the rod. Thus we arrive at the con¬
clusion that whereas the glass rod is charged with
one kind of electricity, the handkerchief which
rubbed it is charged with another kind, and, judg¬
ing by their contrary effects on the charged ball
or indicator, they are of opposite kinds. To dis¬
tinguish the two sorts, one is called positive and
the other negative electricity.
Further experiments with other substances

will show that sometimes the rod is negative
while the rubber is positive. Thus, if
we rub the glass rod with cat’s fur
instead of silk, we shall find the glass
negative and the fur positive. Again,
if we rub a stick of sealing-wax with
the silk handkerchief, we shall find
the wax negative and the silk
positive. But in every case one
is the opposite of the other, and
moreover, an equal quanti¬
ty of both sorts of electrici¬
ty is developed, one kind on
the rod and the other on the
rubber. Hence we conclude
that equal and opposite quan-
FlG‘ 4- tities of electricity are sim¬
ultaneously developed by friction.
If any two of the following materials be
rubbed together, that higher in the list becomes
positively and the other negatively electrified :—
Positive ( + ).
Cats’ fur.
Polished glass.
Wool.
Cork, at ordinary temperature.
Coarse brown paper.
Cork, heated.
White silk.
Black silk.
Shellac.
Rough glass.
Negative (—).
The list shows that quality, as well as kind,

of material affects the production of electricity.
Thus polished glass when rubbed with silk is
positive, whereas rough glass is negative. Cork
at ordinary temperature is positive when rubbed
with hot cork. Black silk is negative to white
silk, and it has been observed that the best radi¬
ator and absorber of light and heat is the most
negative. Black cloth, for instance, is a better
radiator than white, hence in the Arctic regions,
where the body is much warmer than the sur¬
rounding air, many wild animals get a white coat
in winter, and in the tropics, where the sunshine
is hotter than the body, the European dons a
white suit.
The experiments of figures 1, 2, and 3 have
also shown us that when the pithball is charged
with the positive electricity of the glass rod it is
repelled, by the like charge upon the rod, and
attracted by the negative or unlike charge on the
handkerchief. Again, when it is charged with
the negative electricity of the handkerchief it is
repelled by the like charge on the handkerchief
and attracted by the positive or unlike charge on
the rod. Therefore it is usual to say that like
electricities repel and unlike electricities attract each
other.
We have said that all bodies yield electricity
under the friction of dissimilar bodies; but this
cannot be proved for every body by simply hold¬
ing it in one hand and rubbing it with the excitor,
as may be done in the case of glass. For instance,
if we take a brass rod in the hand and apply the
rubber vigorously, it will fail to attract the pith-
ball, for there is no trace of electricity upon it.
This is because the metal differs from the glass
in another electrical property, and they must

therefore be differently treated. Brass, in fact,
is a conductor of electricity and glass is not. In
other words, electricity is conducted or led away
by brass, so that, as soon as it is generated by the
friction, it flows through the hand and body of
the experimenter, which are also conductors, and
is lost in the ground. Glass on the other hand,
is an insulator, and the electricity remains on the
surface of it. If, however, we attach a glass
handle to the rod and hold it by that whilst rub¬
bing it, the electricity cannot then escape to the
earth, and the brass rod will attract the pith-ball.
All bodies are conductors of electricity in
some degree, but they vary so enormously in
this respect that it has been found convenient
to divide them into two extreme classes—con¬
ductors and insulators. These run into each
other through an intermediate group, which are
neither good conductors nor good insulators.
The following are the chief examples of these
classes:—
Conductors.—All the metals, carbon.
Intermediate (bad conductors and bad in¬
sulators).—Water, aqueous solutions, moist
bodies; wood, cotton, hemp, and paper in
any but a dry atmosphere; liquid acids,
rarefied gases.
Insulators.—Paraffin (solid or liquid), ozo-
kerit, turpentine, silk, resin, sealing-wax or
shellac, indiarubber, gutta percha, ebonite,
ivory, dry wood, dry glass or porcelain,
mica, ice, air at ordinary pressures.
It is remarkable that the best conductors of
electricity, that is to say, the substances which
offer least resistance to its passage, for instance the

metals, are also the best conductors of heat, and
that insulators made red hot become conductors.
Air is an excellent insulator, and hence we are
able to perform
our experiments
on frictional elec¬
tricity in it. We
can also run bare
telegraph wires
through it, by taking care to insulate
them with glass or porcelain from the
wo o d e n poles which support them
above the ground. Water, on the other
hand, is a partial conductor, and a great
enemy to the storage or conveyance of
electricity, from its habit of soaking in¬
to porous metals, or depositing in a
film of dew on the cold surfaces of insu-
lators such as glass, porcelain, or ebon-
ite. The remedy is to exclude it, or
keep the insulators warm and dry, or
coat them with shellac varnish, wax, or
paraffin. Submarine telegraph wires running un¬
der the sea are usually insulated from the sur¬
rounding water by india-rubber or gutta percha.
The distinction between conductors and non¬
conductors or insulators was first observed by
Stephen Gray, a pensioner of the Charter-house.
Gray actually transmitted a charge of electricity
along a pack-thread insulated with silk, to a dis¬
tance of several hundred yards, and thus took
an important step in the direction of the electric
telegraph.
It has since been found that frictional electrici¬
ty appears only on the external surface of conductors.
This is well shown by a device of Faraday

resembling a small butterfly net insulated by a
glass handle (fig. 5). If the net be charged it is
found that the electrification is only outside, and
if it be suddenly drawn outside in, as shown by
the dotted line, the electrification is still found
outside, proving that the charge has shifted from
the inner to the outer surface. In the same way
if a hollow conductor is charged with electricity,
none is discoverable in the interior. Moreover,
its distribution on the exterior is influenced by the
shape of the outer surface. On a sphere or ball
it is evenly distributed all round, but it accu¬
mulates on sharp edges or corners, and most of
all on points, from which it is easily discharged.
A neutral body can, as we have seen (fig. 4),
be charged by contact with an electrified body:
but it can also be charged
by induction, or the influence
of the electrified body at a
distance.
Thus if we electrify a
glass rod positively (+) and
bring it near a neutral or
unelectrified brass ball, in-
. sulated on a glass support,
as in figure 6, we shall find
the side of the ball next the
rod no longer neutral but
negatively electrified (—),
and the side away from
Fig. 6. the rod positively elec¬
trified ( + ).
If we take away the rod again the ball will
return to its neutral or non-electric state, show¬
ing that the charge was temporarily induced by
the presence of the electrified rod. Again, if, as

in figure 7, we have two insulated balls touching
each other, and bring the rod up, that nearest
the rod will become negative and that farthest
from it positive. It appears from these facts
that electricity has
the power of disturb¬
ing or decomposing
the neutral state of a
neighbouringconduct-
or, and attracting the
unlike while it re¬
pels the like induced
charge. Hence, too,
it is that the electri¬
fied amber or sealing-
wax is able to attract
a light straw or pith-
ball. The effect sup¬
plies a simple way of
developing a large
amount of electricity from a small initial charge.
For if in figure 6 the positive side of the ball be
connected for a moment to earth by a conductor,
its positive charge will escape, leaving the nega¬
tive on the ball, and as there is no longer an
equal positive charge to recombine with it when
the exciting rod is withdrawn, it remains as a
negative charge on the ball. Similarly, if we
separate the two balls in figure 7, we gain two
equal charges—one positive, the other negative.
These processes have only to be repeated by a
machine in order to develop very strong charges
from a feeble source.
Faraday saw that the intervening air played a
part in this action at a distance, and proved con-
clusively that the value of the induction depended

on the nature of the medium between the induced
and the inducing charge. He showed, for exam¬
ple, that the induction through an intervening
cake of sulphur is greater than through an equal
thickness of air. This property of the medium is
termed its inductive capacity.
The Electrophorus, or carrier of electricity, is
a simple device for developing and conveying a
charge on the principle of induction. It consists,
Fig. 8.—The Electrophorus.
as shown in figure 8, of a metal plate B having

an insulating handle of glass H, and a flat cake
of resin or ebonite R. If the resin is laid on a
table and briskly rubbed with cat’s fur it becomes
negatively electrified. The brass plate is then
lifted by the handle and laid upon the cake. It
touches the electrified surface at a few points,
and takes a minute charge from these by contact..
The rest of it, however, is insulated from the

resin by the air. In the main, therefore, the
negative charge of the resin is free to induce an
opposite or positive charge on the lower surface
and a negative charge on the upper surface of
the plate. By touching this upper surface with
the finger, as shown in figure 8, the negative
charge will escape through the body to the
ground or “ earth,” as it is technically called,
and the positive charge will remain on the plate.
We can withdraw it by lifting the plate, and
prove its existence by drawing a spark from it
with the knuckle. The process can be repeated
as long as the negative charge continues on the
resin.
These tiny sparks from the electrophorus, or
the bigger discharges of an electrical machine,
can be stored in a simple apparatus called a
Leyden jar, which was discovered by accident.
One day Cuneus, a pupil of Muschenbroeck, pro¬
fessor in the University of Leyden, was trying
to charge some water in a glass bottle by con¬
necting it with a chain to the sparkling knob of
an electrical machine. Holding the bottle in one
hand, he undid the chain with the other, and
received a violent shock which cast the bottle on
the floor. Muschenbroeck, eager to verify the
phenomenon, repeated the experiment, with a
still more lively and convincing result. His
nerves were shaken for two days, and he after¬
wards protested that he would not suffer another
shock for the whole kingdom of France.
The Leyden jar is illustrated in figure 9, and
consists in general of a glass bottle partly coated
inside and out with tinfoil F, and having a brass
knob K connecting with its internal coat. When
the charged plate or conductor of the electro-

phorus touches the knob the inner foil takes a
positive charge, which induces a negative charge
Fig. g.—The Leyden Jar.
in the outer foil through the glass. The corre¬

sponding positive charge induced at the same
time escapes through the hand to the ground or
“earth.” The inner coating is now positively
and the outer coating negatively electrified, and
these two opposite charges bind or hold each
other by mutual attraction. The bottle will
therefore continue charged for a long time ; in
short, until it is purposely discharged or the two
electricities combine by leakage over the surface
of the glass.
To discharge the jar we need only connect the
two foils by a conductor, and thus allow the
separated charges to combine. This should be
done by joining the outer to the inner coat with a
stout wire, or, better still, the discharging tongs
Ty as shown in the figure. Otherwise, if the
tongs are first applied to the inner coat, the
operator will receive the charge through his
arms and chest in the manner of Cuneus and
Muschenbroeck.
Leyden jars can be connected together in
“ batteries,” so as to give very powerful effects.
One method is to join the inner coat of one to
the outer coat of the next. This is known as
connecting in “ series,” and gives a very long
spark. Another method is to join the inner coat
of one to the inner coat of the next, and similarly
all the outer coats together. This is called con¬
necting “ in parallel,” or quantity, and gives a
big, but not a long spark.
Of late years the principle of induction, which
is the secret of the Leyden jar and electrophorus,
has been applied in constructing “ influence ”
machines for generating electricity. Perhaps the
most effective of these is the Wimshurst, which
we illustrate in figure io, where PP are two
circular glass plates which rotate in opposite
directions on turning the handle. On the outer
rim of each is cemented a row of radial slips of
metal at equal intervals. The slips at opposite
ends of a diameter are connected together twice
during each revolution of the plates by wire
brushes S, and collecting combs TT serve to
charge the positive and negative conductors CC,
which yield very powerful sparks at the knobs
K above. The given theory of this machine may
be open to question, but there can be no doubt
of its wonderful performance. A small one pro¬
duces a violent spark 8 or io inches long after a
few turns of the handle.
The electricity of friction is so unmanageable
that it has not been applied in practice to any
great extent. In 1753 Mr. Charles Morrison, of

Greenock, published the first plan of an electric
telegraph in the Scots Magazine, and proposed to
charge an insulated wire at the near end so as to
Fig. 10.—A Wimshurst Machine.
make it attract printed letters of the alphabet at

the far end. Sir Francis Ronalds also invented a
telegraph actuated by this kind of electricity, but
neither of these came into use. Morrison, an
obscure genius, was before his age, and Ronalds
was politely informed by the Government of his
day that “ telegraphs of any kind were wholly

unnecessary.” Little instruments for lighting g&s
by means of the spark are, however, made, and
the noxious fumes of chemical and lead works
are condensed and laid by the discharge from the
Wimshurst machine. The electricity shed in the
air causes the dust and smoke to adhere by in¬
duction and settle in flakes upon the sides of
the flues. Perhaps the old remark that “ smuts ”
or “ blacks” falling to the ground on a sultry day
are a sign of thunder is traceable to a similar
action.
The most important practical result of the
early experiments with frictional electricity was
Benjamin Franklin’s great discovery of the iden¬
tity of lightning and the electric spark. One
day in June, 1792, he went to the common at
Philadelphia and flew a kite beneath a thunder¬
cloud, taking care to insulate his body from the
cord. After a shower had wetted the string and
made it a conductor, he was able to draw sparks
from it with a key and to charge a Leyden jar.
The man who had “robbed Jupiter of his thun¬
derbolts” became celebrated throughout the
world, and lightning rods or conductors for the
protection of life and property were soon brought
out. These, in their simplest form, are tapes or
stranded wires of iron or copper attached to the
walls of the building. The lower end of the con¬
ductor is soldered to a copper plate buried in the
moist subsoil, or, if the ground is rather dry, in a
pit containing coke. Sometimes it is merely sol¬
dered to the water mains of the house. The
upper end rises above the highest chimney, tur¬
ret, or spire of the edifice, and branches into
points tipped with incorrosive metal, such as
platinum. It is usual to connect all the outside

metal of the house, such as the gutters and finials
to the rod by means of soldered joints, so as to
form one continuous metallic network or artery
for the discharge.
When a thundercloud charged with electricity
passes over the ground, it induces a charge of an
opposite kind upon it. The cloud and earth with
air between are analogous to the charged foils of
the Leyden jar separated by the glass. The two
electricities of the jar, we know, attract each
other, and if the insulating glass is too weak
to hold them asunder, the spark will pierce it.
Similarly, if the insulating air cannot resist the
attraction between the thundercloud and the
earth, it will be ruptured by a flash of lightning.
The metal rod, however, tends to allow the two
charges of the cloud and earth to combine quietly
or to shunt the discharge past the house.
CHAPTER II.
THE ELECTRICITY OF CHEMISTRY.
A more tractable kind of electricity than that

of friction was discovered at the beginning of
the present century. The story goes that some
edible frogs were skinned to make a soup for
Madame Galvani, wife of the professor of anatomy
in the University of Bologna, who was in delicate
health. As the frogs were lying in the laboratory
of the professor they were observed to twitch
each time a spark was drawn from an electrical
machine that stood by. A similar twitching was
THE ELECTRICITY OF CHEMISTRY. 27
also noticed when the limbs were hung by copper

skewers from an iron rail. Galvani thought the
spasms were due to electricity in the animal, and
produced them at will by touching the nerve of a
limb with a rod of zinc, and the muscle with a
rod of copper in contact with the zinc. It was
proved, however, by Alessandra Volta, professor
of physics in the University of Pavia, that the
electricity was not in the animal, but generated
by the contact of the two dissimilar metals and
the moisture of the flesh. Going a step further,
in the year 1800 he invented a new source of
electricity on this principle, which is known as
“ Volta’s pile.” It consists of plates or discs of
zinc and copper separated by a wafer of cloth
moistened with acidulated water. When the zinc
and copper are joined externally by a wire, a
current of electricity is found in the wire. One
pair of plates with the liquid between makes a
“ couple ” or element; and two or more, built one
above another in the same order of zinc, copper,
zinc, copper, make the pile. The extreme zinc
and copper plates, when joined by a wire, are
found to deliver a current.
This form of the voltaic, or, as it is sometimes
called, galvanic battery, has given place to the
“cell” shown in figure 11, where the two plates
Z C are immersed in acidulated water within the
vessel, and connected outside by the wire W.
The zinc plate has a positive and the copper a
negative charge. The positive current flows from
the zinc to the copper inside the cell and from the
copper to the zinc outside the cell, as shown by
the arrows. It thus makes a complete round,
which is called the voltaic “ circuit,” and if the
circuit is broken anywhere it will not flow at all.
The positive electricity of the zinc appears to trav¬

erse the liquid to the copper, from which it flows
through the wire to the zinc.
«v The effect is that the end of the
wire attached to the copper is
positive ( + ), and called the
positive “ pole ” or electrode,
while the end attached to the
zinc is negative (—), and called
the negative pole or electrode.
“A simple and easy way to
avoid confusion as to the direc¬
tion of the current, is to remem¬
Fig. ii.
ber that the positive current flows
A Voltaic Cell. from the copper to the zinc at the
point of metallic contact.”
The generation of this current is accompanied
by chemical action in the cell. Experiment shows
that the mere contact of dissimilar materials, such
as copper and zinc, electrifies them—zinc being
positive and copper negative; but contact alone
does not yield a continuous current of electricity.
When we plunge the twro metals, still in contact,
either directly or through a wire, into water pref¬
erably acidulated, a chemical action is set up, the
water is decomposed, and the zinc is consumed.
Water, as is well known, consists of oxygen and
hydrogen. The oxygen combines with the zinc
to form oxide of zinc, and the hydrogen is set free
as gas at the surface of the copper plate. So
long as this process goes on, that is to say, as
long as there is zinc and water left, we get an
electric current in the circuit. The existence of
such a current may be proved by a very simple
experiment. Place a penny above and a dime be¬
low the tip of the tongue, then bring their edges
into contact, and you will feel an acid taste, in the

mouth.
Figure 12 illustrates the supposed chemical
action in the cell. On the left hand are the
4* -c
00
oo
B00O0OO0C >Oo<>OoO
00
QQI
Fig. 12.
zinc and copper plates {Z C) disconnected in the

liquid. The atoms of zinc are shown by small
circles; the molecules of water, that is, oxygen,
and hydrogen (H% O) by lozenges of unequal size.
On the right hand the plates are connected by a
wire outside the cell; the current starts, and the
chemical action begins. An atom of zinc unites
with an atom of oxygen, leaving two atoms of
hydrogen thus set free to combine with another
atom of oxygen, which in turn frees two atoms of
hydrogen. This interchange of atoms goes on
until the two atoms of hydrogen which are freed
last abide on the surface of the copper. The
“ contact electricity ” of the zinc and copper prob¬
ably begins the process, and the chemical action
keeps it up. Oxygen, being an “ electro-negative ”
element in chemistry, is attracted to the zinc, and
hydrogen, being “ electro-positive,” is attracted
to the copper.
The difference of electrical condition or “ po¬
tential ” between the plates by which the current
is started has been called the electromotive force, or
force which puts the electricity in motion. The
obstruction or hindrance which the electricity

overcomes in passing through its conductor is
known as the resistance. Obviously the higher
the electromotive force and the lower the resist¬
ance, the stronger will be the current in the con¬
ductor. Hence it is desirable to have a cell which
will give a high electromotive force and a low in¬
ternal resistance.
Voltaic cells are grouped together in the mode
of Leyden jars. Figure 13 shows how they are
joined “in series,” the zinc or negative pole of

one being connected by wire to the copper or
positive pole of the next. This arrangement mul-
Fig. 14.—Cells in Parallel.
tiplies alike the electromotive force and the re¬

sistance. The electromotive force of the battery
is the sum of the electromotive forces of all the
THE ELECTRICITY OF CHEMISTRY. ' 31
cells, and the resistance of the battery is the sum

of the resistances of all the cells. High electro¬
motive forces or “ pressures ” capable of over¬
coming high resistances outside the battery can
be obtained in this way.
Figure 14 shows how the zincs are joined “ in
parallel,” the zinc or negative pole of one being
connected by wire to the zinc or negative pole of
the rest, and all the copper or positive poles to¬
gether. This arrangement does not increase the
electromotive force, but diminishes the resistance.
In fact, the battery is equivalent to a single cell
having plates equal in area to the total area of all
the plates. Although unable to overcome a high
resistance, it can produce a large volume or quan¬
tity of electricity.
Numerous voltaic combinations and varieties
of cell have been found out. In general, where-
ever two metals in contact are placed in a liquid
which acts with more chemical energy on one
than on the other, as sulphuric acid does on
zinc in preference to copper, there is a develop¬
ment of electricity. Readers may have seen how
an iron fence post corrodes at its junction with
the lead that fixes it in the stone. This decay is
owing to the wet forming a voltaic couple with
the two dissimilar metals and rusting the iron.
In the following list of materials, when any two
in contact are plunged in dilute acid, that which
is higher in the order becomes the positive plate
or negative pole to that which is lower:—
Positive. Iron. Silver.
Zinc. Nickel. Gold.
Cadmium. Bismuth. Platinum.
Tin. Antimony. Graphite.
Lead. Copper. Negative.
There being no chemical union between the

hydrogen and copper in the zinc and copper
couple, that gas accumulates on the surface of
the copper plate, or is liberated in bubbles. Now,
hydrogen is positive compared with copper, hence
they tend to oppose each other in the combina¬
tion. The hydrogen diminishes the value of the
copper, the current grows weaker, and the cell is
said to polarise.” It follows that a simple water
cell is not a good arrangement for the supply of a
steady current.
The Daniell cell is one of the best, and gives a
very constant current. In this battery the copper
plate is surrounded by a solution of sulphate of
copper (Cu SOA), which the hydrogen decomposes,
2
forming sulphuric acid (H SOi), thus taking itself
out of the way, and leaving pure copper (Cu) to
be deposited as a fresh surface on the copper
plate. A further improvement is made in the
cell by surrounding the zinc plate with a solution
of sulphate of zinc (Zn SO,,), which is a good con¬
ductor. Now, when the oxide of zinc is formed
by the oxygen uniting with the zinc, the free sul¬
phuric acid combines with it, forming more sul¬
phate of zinc, and maintaining the conductivity of
the cell. It is only necessary to keep up the sup¬
ply of zinc, water, and sulphate of copper to pro¬
cure a steady current of electricity.
The Daniell cell is constructed in various
ways. In the earlier models the two plates
with their solutions were separated by a porous
jar or partition, which allowed the solutions to
meet without mixing, and the current to pass.
Sawdust moistened with the solutions is some¬
times used for this porous separator, for instance,
on board ships for laying submarine cables.
where the rolling of the waves would blend the

liquids.
In the “ gravity ” Daniell the solutions are
kept apart by their specific gravities, yet mingle
by slow diffusion. Figure 15 illustrates this com¬
mon type of cell, where
Z is the zinc plate in a
solution of sulphate of
zinc, and C is the copper w
plate in a solution of sul¬
phate of copper, fed by
crystals of the “blue vit¬
riol.” The wires to con¬
nect the plates are shown
at IV W. It should be no¬
ticed that the zinc is cast
like a wheel to expose a
larger surface to oxida¬
tion, and to reduce the
resistance of the cell,
thus increasing the yield
of current. The extent
of surface is not so important in the case of the
copper plate, which is not acted on, and in this case
is merely a spiral of wire, helping to keep the solu¬
tions apart and the crystals down. The Daniell
cell is much employed in telegraphy. The Bunsen
cell consists of a zinc plate in sulphuric acid, and a
carbon plate in nitric acid, with a porous separator
between the liquids. During the action of the cell,
hydrogen, which is liberated at the carbon plate,
is removed by combining with the nitric acid.
The Grove cell is a modification of the Bunsen,
with platinum instead of carbon. The Smee cell
is a zinc plate side by side with a “platinised”
silver plate in dilute sulphuric acid. The silver
3
is coated with rough platinum to increase the sur¬

face and help to dislodge the hydrogen as bub¬
bles and keep it from polarising the cell. The
Bunsen, Grove, and Smee batteries are, however,
more used in the laboratory than elsewhere.
The Leclanche is a fairly constant cell, which
requires little attention. It “ polarises ” in action
but soon regains its normal strength when allowed
to rest, and hence it is useful for working electric
bells and telephones. As shown in figure 16, it
consists of a zinc rod with its connecting wire Z,
and a carbon plate C with its binding screw, be¬
tween two cakes M M of
a mixture of black oxide
of manganese, sulphur,
and carbon, plunged in a
solution of sal ammoniac.
The oxide of manganese
relieves the carbon plate
of its hydrogen. The
strength of the solution
is maintained by spare
crystals of sal ammoniac
lying on the bottom of
the cell, which is closed
to prevent evaporation,
Fig. 16.—The Leclanche Cell, but has a venthole for
the escape of gas.
The Bichromate of Potash cell polarises more
than the Leclanche, but yields a more powerful
current for a short time. It consists, as shown
in figure 17, of a zinc plate Z between two carbon
plates C C immersed in a solution of bichromate
of potash, sulphuric acid (vitriol), and water. The
zinc is always lifted out of the solution when the
cell is not in use. The gas which collects in the
THE ELECTRICITY OF CHEMISTRY.
35
carbons, and weakens the cell, can be set free by
raising the plates out of the liquid when the cell
is not wanted. Stirring the solution has a similar
effect, and sometimes the constancy of the cell is
maintained by a circulation of the liquid. In
Fuller’s bichromate cell the zinc is amalgamated
with mercury, which is kept in a pool beside it
by means of a porous pot.
De la Rue’s chloride of silver cell (fig. 18)
is, from its
constancy and
small size, well »
adapted for
medical and test¬
ing purposes. The
“ plates ’’are a little
rod or pencil of zinc
Z, and a strip or wire
of silver S, coated
with chloride of sil¬
ver and sheathed
in parchment paper.
They are plunged
in a solution of Fig. 18.
Fig. 17.—The The Chloride of
Bichromate Cell. ammonium chloride Silver Cell.
A, contained in a
glass phial or beaker, which is closed to sup¬
press evaporation. A tray form of the cell is
also made by laying a sheet of silver foil on
the bottom of the shallow jar, and strewing it
with dry chloride of silver, on which is laid
a jelly to support the zinc plate. The jelly is
prepared by mixing a solution of chloride of am¬
monium with “agar-agar,” or Ceylon moss. This
type permits the use of larger plates, and adapts
the battery for lighting small electric lamps.
3<> THE STORY OF ELECTRICITY.
Skrivanoff has modified the De la Rue cell by

substituting a solution of caustic potash for the
ammonium chloride, and his battery has been
used for “ star ” lights, that is to say, the tiny
electric lamps of the ballet. The Schanschieff
battery, consisting of zinc and carbon plates in
a solution of basic sulphate of mercury, is suit¬
able for reading, mining, and other portable
lamps.
The Latimer Clark “ standard ” cell is used by
electricians in testing, as a constant electromotive
force. It consists of a pure zinc plate separated
from a pool of mercury by a paste of mercurous
proto-sulphate and saturated solution of sulphate
of zinc. Platinum wires connect with the zinc
and mercury and form the poles of the battery,
and the mouth of the glass cell is plugged with
solid paraffin. As it is apt to polarise, the cell
must not be employed to yield a current, and
otherwise much care should be taken of it.
Dry cells are more cleanly and portable than
wet, they require little or no attention, and are
well suited for household or medical purposes.
The zinc plate forms the vessel containing the
carbon plate and chemical reagents. Figure 19
represents a section of the “ E. C. C.” variety,
where Z is the zinc standing on an insulating
sole /, and fitted with a connecting wire or
terminal T ( —), which is the negative pole. The
carbon C is embedded in black paste M, chiefly
composed of manganese dioxide, and has a bind¬
ing screw or terminal T (-}-), which is the posi¬
tive pole. The black paste is surrounded by a
white paste Z, consisting mainly of lime and sal-
ammoniac. There is a layer of silicate cotton
S C above the paste, and the mouth is sealed with
black pitch P, through which a waste-tube IV T

allows the gas to escape.
The Hellesen dry cell is like the “ E. C. C.,”
but contains a
hollow carbon,
and is packed p
with sawdust
in a millboard
case. The Le-
clanche-Barbier
dry cell is a
modification of
the Leclanch6
wet cell, having
a paste of sal-
ammoniac in¬
stead of a so¬
lution.
All the fore¬
going cells are
called “ prima¬
ry,” because
they are gener¬
ators of electri¬
city. There are, however, batteries known as “ sec¬
ondary,” which store the Current as the Leyden
jar stores up the discharge from an electrical
machine.
In the action of a primary cell, as we have
seen, water is split into its constituent gases,
oxygen and hydrogen. Moreover, it was dis¬
covered by Carlisle and Nicholson in the year
1800 that the current of a battery could de¬
compose water in the outer part of the circuit.
Their experiment is usually performed by the
apparatus shown in figure 20, which is termed a
voltameter, and consists of a glass vessel V, con¬

taining water acidulated with a little sulphuric
acid to render it a better conductor, and two glass
test-tubes OH inverted over two platinum strips
or electrodes, which rise up from the bottom of
the vessel and are connected underneath it to
wires from the positive and negative poles of the
battery C Z. It will be understood that the cur-
Fig. 20.—The Voltameter.
rent enters the water by the positive electrode,

and leaves it by the negative electrode.
When the power of the battery is sufficient the
water in the vessel is decomposed, and oxygen
being the negative element, collects at the posi¬
tive foil or electrode, which is covered by the
tube O. The hydrogen, on the other hand, being
positive, collects at the negative foil under the
tube H. These facts can be proved by dipping
a red-hot wick or taper into the gas of the tube
O and seeing it blaze in presence of the oxygen
which feeds the combustion, then dipping the
lighted taper into the gas of the tube H and

watching it burn with the blue flame of hydro- •
gen. The volume of gas at the cathode or nega¬
tive electrode is always twice that at the anode or
positive electrode, as it should be according to
the known composition of water.
Now, if we disconnect the battery and join the
two platinum electrodes of the voltameter by a
wire, we shall find a current flowing out of the
voltameter as though it were a battery, but in
the reverse direction to the original current which
decomposed the water. This “ secondary ” or re¬
acting current is evidently due to the polar¬
isation ” of the foils—that is to say, the electro¬
positive and electro-negative gases collected on
them.
Professor Groves constructed a gas battery
on this principle, the plates being of platinum
and the two gases surrounding them oxygen and
hydrogen, but the most useful development of it
is the accumulator or storage battery.
The first practicable secondary battery of
Gaston Plante was made of sheet lead plates
or electrodes, kept apart by linen cloth soaked
in dilute sulphuric acid, after the manner of
Volta’s pile. It was “ charged ” by connecting
the plates to a primary battery, and peroxide of
lead (Pb Os) was formed on one plate and spongy
lead (Pb) on the other. When the charging cur¬
rent was cut off the peroxide plate became the
positive and the spongy plate the negative pole
of the secondary cell.
Faure improved the Plants cell by adding a
paste of red lead or minium (Pb2 O4) and dilute
sulphuric acid (H2 SO4), by which a large quan¬
tity of peroxide and spongy lead could be formed
4° THE STORY OF ELECTRICITY.
on the plates. Sellon and Volckmar increased

♦its efficiency by putting the paste into holes cast
in the lead. The “ E. P. S.” accumulator of the
Electrical Power Storage Company is illustrated
in figure 21, and consists of a glass or teak box
Fig. ax.—The E. P. S. Accumulator.
containing two sets of leaden grids perforated

with holes, which are primed with the paste and
steeped in dilute sulphuric acid. Alternate grids
are joined to the poles of a charging battery or
generator, those connected to the positive pole
being converted into peroxide of lead and the
others into spongy lead. The terminal of the
peroxide plates, being the positive pole of the
accumulator, is painted red, and that of the
spongy plates or negative pole black. Accumu¬
lators of this kind are highly useful as reservoirs
of electricity for maintaining the electric light, or
working electric motors in tramcars, boats, and
other carriages.
THE ELECTRICITY OF HEAT. 41
CHAPTER HI.
THE ELECTRICITY OF HEAT.
In the year 1821 Professor Seebeck, of Ber¬

lin, discovered a third source of electricity. Volta
had found that two dissimilar metals in contact
will produce a current by chemical action, and
Seebeck showed that heat might take the place
of chemical action. Thus, if a bar of antimony
A (fig. 22) and a bar of bismuth B are in contact
at one end, and the junc¬
tion is heated by a spirit B
lamp to a higher tempera¬
ture than the rest of the
bars, a difference in their
electric state or potential
will be set up, and if the
other ends are joined by a
wire W, a current will flow Fig. 22.
through the wire. The di¬ A Thermo-electric Couple.
rection of the current, in¬
dicated by the arrow, is from the bismuth to the
antimony across the joint, and from the antimony
to the bismuth through the external wire. This
combination, which is called a “ thermo-electric
couple,” is clearly analogous to the voltaic couple,
with heat in place of chemical affinity. The direc¬
tion of the current within and without the couple
shows that the bismuth is positive to the antimony.
This property of generating a current of elec¬
tricity by contact under the influence of heat is
not confined to bismuth and antimony, or even
to the metals, but is common to all dissimilar
substances in their degree. In the following list
of bodies each is positive to those beneath it,
negative to those above it, and the further apart

any two are in the scale the greater the effect.
Thus bismuth and antimony give a much stronger
current with the same heating than copper and
iron. Bismuth and selenium produce the best
result, but selenium is expensive and not easy to
manipulate. Copper and German silver will make
a cheap experimental couple:—
Positive.
Bismuth.
Cobalt.
Potassium.
Nickel.
Sodium.
Lead.
Tin.
Copper.
Platinum.
Silver.
Zinc.
Cadmium.
Arsenic.
Iron.
Red phosphorus.
Antimony.
Tellurium.
Selenium.
Negative.
Other things being equal, the hotter the joint
in comparison with the free ends of the bars the
stronger the current of electricity. Within cer¬
tain limits the current is, in fact, proportional to
this difference of temperature. It always flows
in the same direction if the joint is not over¬
heated, or, in other words, raised above a certain
temperature.
The electromotive force and current of a

thermo-electric couple is very much smaller than
that given by an ordinary voltaic cell. We can,
however, multiply the effect by connecting a
number of pairs together, and so forming a pile
or battery. Thus figure 23 shows three couples
joined “ in series,” the positive pole of one being
connected to the negative pole of the next. Now,
if all the junctions on the left are hot and those
on the right are cool, we will get the united effect
of the whole, and the total
current will flow through
the wire W, joining the ex¬
treme bars or positive and
negative poles of the bat¬
tery. It must be borne in
mind that although the bis¬
muth and antimony of this
thermo-electric battery, like
the zinc and copper of
Fig. 23.—Thermo-electric
the voltaic or chemico- Couples in Series.
electric battery, are re¬
spectively positive and negative to each other,
the poles or wires attached to these metals are,
on the contrary, negative and positive. This
peculiarity arises from the current starting be¬
tween the bismuth and antimony at the heated
junction.
The internal resistance of a “ thermo-electric
pile” is, of course, very slight, the metals being
good conductors, and this fact gives it a certain
advantage over the voltaic battery. Moreover,
it is cleaner and less troublesome than the chemi¬
cal battery, for it is only necessary to keep up
the required difference of temperature between
the hot and cold junctions in order to get a
44 THE story of electricity.
steady current. No solutions or salts are re¬

quired, and there appears to be little or no waste
of the metals. It is important, however, to avoid
sudden heating and cooling of the joints, as this
tends to destroy them.
Clammond, Giilcher, and others have con¬
structed useful thermo-piles for practical pur¬
poses. Figure 24 illus¬
trates a Clammond ther¬
mo-pile of 75 couples or
elements. The metals
forming these pairs are
an alloy of bismuth and
antimony for one and
iron for the other.
Prisms of the alloy are
cast on strips of iron
to form the junctions.
They are bent in rings,
Fig. 24. the junctions in a series
A Thermo-electric Pile. making a zig-zag round
the circle. The rings
are built one over the other in a cylinder of
couples, and the inner junctions are heated by
a Bunsen gas-burner in the hollow core of the
battery. A gas-pipe seen in front leads to the
burner, and the wires WIV connected to the ex¬
treme bars or poles are the electrodes of the pile.
Thermo-piles are interesting from a scientific
point of view as a direct means of transforming
heat into electricity. A sensitive pile is also a
delicate detector of heat by virtue of the current
set up, which can be measured with a galvan¬
ometer or current meter. Piles of antimony and
bismuth are made which can indicate the heat
of a lighted match at a distance of several
yards, and even the radiation from certain of the

stars.
Thermo-batteries have been used in France
for working telegraphs, and they are capable of
supplying small installations of the electric light
or electric motors for domestic purposes.
The action of the thermo-pile, like that of a
voltaic cell, can be reversed. By sending a cur¬
rent through the couple from the antimony to the
bismuth we shall find the junction cooled. This
“ Peltier effect,” as it is termed, after its dis¬
coverer, has been known to freeze water, but no
practical application has been made of it.
A very feeble thermo-electric effect can be
produced by heating the junction of two different
pieces of the same substance, or even by making
one part of the same conductor hotter than
another. Thus a sensitive galvanometer will
show a weak current if a copper wire connected
in circuit with it be warmed at one point. More¬
over, it has been found by Lord Kelvin that if an
iron wire is heated at any point, and an electric
current be passed through it, the hot point will
shift along the wire in a direction contrary to
that of the current.
CHAPTER IV.
THE ELECTRICITY OF MAGNETISM.
We have already seen how electricity was first

produced by the simple method of rubbing one
body on another, then by the less obvious means
of chemical union, and next by the finer agency
of heat. In all these, it will be observed, a sub¬

stantial contact is necessary. We have now to
consider a still more subtle process of generation,
not requiring actual contact, which, as might be
expected, was discovered later, that, mainly
through the medium of magnetism.
The curious mineral which has the property
of attracting iron was known to the Chinese
several thousand years ago, and certainly to the
Greeks in the times of Thales, who, as in the
case of the rubbed amber, ascribed the property
to its possession of a soul.
Lodestone, a magnetic oxide of iron [Fe3 OP),
is found in various parts of China, especially at
T’szchou in Southern Chihli, which was formerly
known as the “ City of the Magnet.” It was
called by the Chinese the love-stone or thsu-chy,
and the stone that snatches iron or ny-thy-chy,
and perchance its property of pointing out the
north and south direction was discovered by drop¬
ping a light piece of the stone, if not a sewing
needle made of it, on the surface of still water.
At all events, we read in Pere Du Halde’s Descrip¬
tion de la Chine, that sometime in or about the year
2635 b. c. the great Emperor Hoang-ti, having lost
his way in a fog whilst pursuing the rebellious
Prince Tchiyeou on the plains of Tchou-lou, con¬
structed a chariot which showed the cardinal
points, thus enabling him to overtake and put the
prince to death.
A magnetic car preceded the Emperors of
China in ceremonies of state during the fourth
century of our era. It contained a genius in a
feather dress who pointed to the south, and was
doubtless moved by a magnet floating in water
or turning on a pivot. This rude appliance was
THE ELECTRICITY OF MAGNETISM. 47
afterwards refined into the needle compass for

guiding mariners on the sea, and assisting the
professors of feng-shui or geomancy in their
magic rites.
Magnetite was also found at Heraclea in
Lydia, and at Magnesium on the Meander or
Magnesium at Sipylos, all in Asia Minor. It was
called the “Heraclean Stone” by the people, but
came at length to bear the name of “ Magnet ”
after the city of Magnesia or the mythical shep¬
herd Magnes, who. was said to have discovered it
by the attraction of his iron crook.
The ancients knew that it had the power of
communicating its attractive property to iron, for
we read in Plato’s “ Ion ” that a number of iron
rings can be supported in a chain by the Hera¬
clean Stone. Lucretius also describes an experi¬
ment in which iron filings are made to rise up
and “ rave ” in a brass basin by a magnet held
underneath. We are told by other writers that
images of the gods and goddesses were suspended
in the air by lodestone in the ceilings of the
temples of Diana of Ephesus, of Serapis at Alex¬
andria, and others. It is surprising, however,
that neither the Greeks nor Romans, with all
their philosophy, would seem to have discovered
its directive property.
During the dark ages pieces of lodestone
mounted as magnets were employed in the “black
arts.” A small natural magnet of this kind is
shown in figure 25, where L is the stone shod
with two iron “ pole-pieces,” which are joined by
a “ keeper ” A or separable bridge of iron carry¬
ing a hook for supporting weights.
Apparently it was not until the twelfth cen¬
tury that the compass found its way into Europe
from the East. In the Landnammabok of Ari

Frode, the Norse historian, vve read that Flocke
Vildergersen, a renowned viking, sailed from
Norway to discover Iceland in the year 868, and
took with him two ravens as guides, for in those
days the “ seamen had no lodestone (that is, no
lidar stein, or leading stone) in the northern
countries.” The Bible, a poem of Guiot de Pro-
vins, minstrel at the court of Barbarossa, which
was written in or about the year 1190, contains
the first mention of the magnet in the West.
Guiot relates how mariners have an “ art which
cannot deceive” of finding the position of the
polestar, that does not move.
After touching a needle with
the magnet, “ an ugly brown
stone which draws iron to
itself,” he says they put the
needle on a straw and float it
on water so that its point
turns to the hidden star, and
enables them to keep their
course. Arab traders had
probably borrowed the -float¬
ing needle from the Chinese,
for Bailak Kibdjaki, author
of the Merchant's Treasuref
written in the thirteenth cen¬
Fig. 25.
tury, speaks of its use in the
A Natural Magnet. Syrian sea. The first Cru¬
saders were probably instru¬
mental in bringing it to France, at all events
Jacobus de Vitry (1204-15) and Vincent de Beau¬
vais (1250) mention its use, De Beauvais calling
the poles of the needle by the Arab words aphron
and zohron.
Ere long the needle was mounted on a pivot

and provided with a moving card showing the
principal directions. The variation of the needle
from the true north and south was certainly
known in China during the twelfth, and in Europe
during the thirteenth century. Columbus also
found that the variation changed its value as he
sailed towards America on his memorable voyage
of 1492. Moreover, in 1576, Norman, a compass
maker in London, showed that the north-seeking
end of the needle dipped below the horizontal.
In these early days it was supposed that lode-
stone in the pole-star, that is to say, the “ lode¬
star ” of the poets or in mountains of the far
north, attracted the trembling needle ; but in the
year 1600, Dr. Gilbert, the founder of electric
science, demonstrated beyond a doubt that the
whole earth was a great magnet. A magnet, as is
well known, has, like an electric battery, always
two poles or centres of attraction, which are situ¬
ated near its extremities. Sometimes, indeed,
when the magnet is imperfect, there are “ conse¬
quent poles ” of weaker force between them.
One of the poles is called the “ north,” and the
other the “ south,” because if the magnet were
freely pivotted like a compass needle, the former
would turn to the north and the latter to the
south.
Either pole will attract iron, but soft or an¬
nealed iron does not retain the magnetism nearly
so well as steel. Hence a boy’s test for the steel
of his knife is only efficacious when the blade
itself becomes magnetic after being touched with
the magnet. A piece of steel is readily magnet¬
ised by stroking it from end to end in one direc¬
tion with the pole of a magnet, and in this way
4
compass needles and powerful bar magnets can

be made.
The poles attract iron at a distance by “in¬
duction,” just as a charge of electricity, be it
positive or negative, will attract
a neutral pith ball; and Dr. Gil¬
bert showed that a north pole
always repels another north pole
and attracts a south pole, while,
on the other hand,
a south pole always
repels a south pole
and attracts a north
pole. This can be
proved by suspend¬
ing a magnetic nee¬
dle like a pithball,
and approaching an¬
other towards it, as
Fig. 26. illustrated in figure
26, where the north
pole N attracts the south S. Obviously there
are two opposite kinds of magnetic poles, as
of electricity, which always appear together, and
like magnetic poles repel, unlike magnetic poles at¬
tract each other.
It follows that the magnetic pole of the
compass needle which turns to the north must
be unlike the north and like the south magnetic
pole of the earth. Instead of calling it the
“ north,” it would be less confusing to call it
the “north-seeking” pole of the needle.
Gilbert made a “ terella,” or miniature of the
earth, as a magnet, and not -only demonstrated
how the compass needle sets along the lines
joining the north and south magnetic poles, but
. THE ELECTRICITY OF MAGNETISM. 5*
explained the variation and the dip. He im¬

agined that the magnetic poles coincided with
the geographical poles, but, as a matter of fact,
they do not, and, moreover, they are slowly
moving round the geographical poles, hence the
declination of the needle, that is to say its angle
of divergence from the true meridian or north
and south line, is gradually changing. The
north magnetic pole of the earth was actually
discovered by Sir John Ross north of British
America, on the coast of Boothia (latitude 70° 5'
N., longitude 96° 46' W.), where, as foreseen, the
needle entirely lost its directive property and
stood upright, or, so to speak, on its head. The
south magnetic pole lies in the Prince Albert
range of Victoria Land, and was almost reached
by Sir James Clark Ross.
The magnetism of the earth is such as might
be produced by a powerful magnet inside, but its
origin is unknown, although there is reason to
believe that masses of lodestone or magnetic iron
exist in the crust. Coulomb found that not only
iron, but all substances are more or less magnetic,
and Faraday showed in 1845 that while some are
attracted by a magnet others are repelled. The
former he called paramagnetic and the latter dia-
magnetic bodies.
The following is a list of these :—
Paramagnetic. Diamagnetic.
Iron. Bismuth.
Phosphorus.
Nickel. Antimony.
Cobalt. Zinc.
Mercury.
Aluminium. Lead.
Manganese. Silver.
Copper.
Chromium.
Gold.
Cerium. Water.
Titanium. Alcohol.
Platinum. Tellurium.
Many ores and Selenium.
Sulphur.
salts of the
Thallium.
above metals. Hydrogen.
Oxygen. Air.
We have theories of magnetism that reduce

it to a phenomenon of electricity, though we are
ignorant of the real nature of both. If we take
a thin bar magnet and break it in two, we find
that we have now two shorter magnets, each with
its “north” and “ south ” poles, that is to say,
poles of the same kind as the south and north
magnetic poles of the earth. If we break each of
these again, we get four smaller magnets, and we
can repeat the process as often as we like. It is
supposed, therefore, that every atom of the bar is
a little magnet in itself having its two opposite
poles, and that in magnetising the bar we have
merely partially turned all these atoms in one
direction, that is to say, with their north poles
pointing one way and their south poles the other
way, as shown in figure 27. The polarity of the
bar only shows itself at the ends, where the molec¬
ular poles are, so to speak, free.
There are many experiments which support
this view. For example, if we heat a magnet
red hot it loses its magnetism, perhaps because
the heat has disarranged the particles and set
the molecular poles in all directions. Again, if
we magnetise a piece of soft iron we can destroy

its magnetism by striking it so as to agitate its
atoms and throw them out of line. In steel,
which is iron with a small admixture of carbon,
the atoms are not so free as in soft iron, and
hence, while iron easily loses its magnetism, steel
jn iiiinrnnrr ifiiirM'nrnrrmiiirriTTiimr
mm r~imn i ititu i mm nrnn < tnim mm i nrn
S N Fio. 27. S N
retains it, even under a shock, but not under a

cherry red-heat. Nevertheless, if we put the
atoms of soft iron under a strain by bending it,
we shall find it retain its magnetism more like a
bit of steel.
It has been found, too, that the atoms show
an indisposition to be moved by the magnetising
force which is known as hysteresis. They have a
certain inertia, which can be overcome by a slight
shock, as though they had a difficulty of tyrning
in the ranks to take up their new positions.
Even if this molecular theory is true, however,
it does not help us to explain why a molecule of
matter is a tiny magnet. We have only pushed
the mystery back to the atom. Something more
is wanted, and electricians look for it in the con¬
stitution of the atom, and in the luminiferous
ether which is believed to surround the atoms of
matter, and to propagate not merely the waves
of light, but induction from one electrified body
to another.
We know in proof of this ethereal action that
the space around a magnet is magnetic. Thus,
if we lay a horse-shoe magnet on a table and
54
sprinkle iron filings round it, they will arrange

themselves in curving lines between the poles as
shown in figure 28. Each filing has become a
little magnet, and these
set themselves end to
end as the molecules in
the metal are supposed
to do. The “ field ”
about the magnet is re¬
plete with these lines,
which follow certain
curves depending on the
arrangement of the poles.
In the horse-shoe magnet,
as seen, they chiefly issue
from one pole and sweep
round to the other.
They are never broken,
and apparently they are
lines of stress in the
circumambient ether. A
pivoted magnet tends to
range itself along these
Fig. 28. lines, and thus the com¬
pass guides the sailor on
the ocean by keeping itself in the line between
the north and south magnetic poles of the earth.
Faraday called them lines of magnetic force, and
said that ^he stronger the magnet the more of
these lines pass through a given space. Along
them ‘‘ magnetic induction ” is supposed to be
propagated, and a magnet is thus enabled to attract
iron or any other magnetic substance. The pole
induces an opposite pole to itself in the nearest
part of the induced body and a like pole in the
remote part. Consequently, as unlike poles at-
THE ELECTRICITY OF MAGNETISM.
55
tract and like repel, the soft iron is attracted by
the inducing pole much as a pithball is attracted
by an electric charge.
The resemblances of electricity and magnet¬
ism did not escape attention, and the derangement
of the compass needle by the lightning flash, for¬
merly so disastrous at sea, pointed to an intimate
connection between them, which was ultimately
disclosed by Professor Oersted, of Copenhagen,
in the year 1820. Oersted was on the outlook
for the required clue, and a happy chance is said
to have rewarded him. His experiment is shown
in figure 29, where a wire conveying a current of
electricity flowing in the direction of the arrow

is held over a pivoted magnetic needle so that
the current flows from south to north. The
needle will tend to set itself at right angles to
the wire, its north or north-seeking pole moving
towards the west. If the direction of the current
is reversed, the needle is deflected in the opposite
direction, its north pole moving towards the east.

Further, if the wire is held below the needle, in
the first place, the north pole will turn towards
the east, and if the current be reversed it will
move towards the west.
The direction of a current can thus be told
with the aid of a compass needle. When the wire
is wound many times round the needle on a bob¬
bin, the whole forms what is called a galvano-
scope, as shown in figure 30, where N is the
Fig. 30.—The Galvanoscope.
needle and B the bobbin. When a proper scale

is added to the needle by which its deflections
can be accurately read, the instrument becomes a
current measurer or galvanometer, for within cer¬
tain limits the deflection of the needle is propor¬
tional to the strength of the current in the wire.
A rule commonly given for remembering the
movement of the needle is as follows :—Imagine
yourself laid along the wire so that the current
flows from your feet to your head; then if you
face the needle you will see its north pole go to
the left and its south pole to the right. I find it
simpler to recollect that if the current flows from
your head to your feet a north pole will move
round you from left to right in front. Or, again,
if a current flows from north to south, a north
pole will move round it like the sun round the
earth.
The influence of the current on the needle
implies a magnetic action, and if we dust iron
filings around the wire we shall find they cling to
it in concentric layers, showing that circular lines
of magnetic force enclose it like the water waves
caused by a stone dropped into a pond. Figure
31 represents the section of a wire carrying a
current, with the iron filings
arranged in circles round it.
Since a magnetic pole tends to
move in the direction of the
lines of force, we now see why
a north or south pole tends to
move round a current, and why Fig. 31.
a compass needle tries to set
itself at right angles to a current, as in the original
experiment of Oersted. The needle, having two
opposite poles, is pulled in opposite directions by
the lines, and being pivoted, sets itself tangenti-
cally to them. Were it free and flexible, it would
curve itself along one of the lines. Did it consist
of a single pole, it would revolve round the wire.
Action and re-action are equal and opposite,
hence if the needle is fixed and the wire free the
current will move round the magnet; and if
both are free they will circle round each other.
Applying the above rule we shall find that when
the north pole moves from left to right the cur¬
rent moves from right to left. Ampere of Paris,
following Oersted, promptly showed that two
parallel wires carrying currents attracted each
other when the currents flowed in the same direc¬
tion, and repelled each other when they flowed in
opposite directions. Thus, in figure 32, if A and
B are the two parallel wires, and A is mounted

on pivots and free to move in liquid “ contacts ”
of mercury, it will be attracted or repelled by B
according as the two currents flow in the same or
in opposite directions. If the wires cross each
other at right angles there is no attraction or re¬
pulsion. If they cross at an acute angle, they
will tend to become parallel like two compass
Fig. 32.
needles, when the currents are in one direction,

and to open to a right angle and close up the
other way when the currents are in opposite
directions, always tending to arrange themselves
parallel and flowing in the same direction. These
effects arise from the circular lines of force
around the wire. When the currents are similar
the lines act as unlike magnetic poles and attract,
but when the currents are dissimilar the lines act
as like magnetic poles and repel each other.
Another important discovery of Ampere is
that a circular current behaves like a magnet;
and it has been suggested by him that the atoms
are magnets because each has a circular current
flowing round it. A series of circular currents,
such as the spiral .5 in figure 33 gives, when con¬
nected to a battery C Z, is in fact a skeleton
Fig. 33.
electro-magnet having its north and south poles at

the extremities. If a rod or core of soft iron /
be suspended by fibres from a support, it will be
sucked towards the middle of the coil as into a
vortex, by the circular magnetic lines of every
spire or turn of the coil. Such a combination is
sometimes called a solenoid, and is useful in
practice.
6o THE STORY OR ELECTRICITY.
When the core gains the interior of the coil it

becomes a veritable electromagnet, as found by
Arago, having a north pole at one end and a
south pole at the other. Figure 34 illustrates a
common poker magnetised in the same way, and
supporting nails at both ends. The poker has
Fig. 34.
become the core of the electromagnet. On re¬

versing the direction of the current through the
spiral we reverse the poles of the core, for the
poker being of soft or wrought iron, does not
retain its magnetism like steel. If we stop the
current altogether it ceases to be a magnet, and
the nails will drop away from it.
Ampere’s experiment in figure 32 has shown us
that two currents, more or less parallel, influence
each other; but in 1831 Professor Faraday of the
Royal Institution, London, also found that when
a current is started and stopped in a wire, it in¬
duces a momentary and opposite current in a
parallel wire. Thus, if a current is started in the
wire B (fig. 32) in direction of the arrow, it will
induce or give rise to a momentary current in
the wire A, flowing in a contrary direction to
itself. Again, if the current in B be stopped, a
momentary current is set up in the wire A in a
direction the same as that of the exciting current
in B. While the current in B is quietly flowing

there is no induced current in A ; and it is only
at the start or the stoppage of the inducing or
primary current that the induced or secondary cur¬
rent is set up. Here again we have the influence
of the magnetic field around the wire conveying
a current.
This is the principle of the “ induction coil ”
so much employed in medical electricity, and of
the “ transformer ” or “ converter ” used in electric
illumination. It consists essentially, as shown in
figure 35, of two coils of wire, one enclosing the
other, and both parallel or concentric. The inner
or primary coil P C is of short thick wire of low

resistance, and is traversed by the inducing cur¬
rent of a battery B. To increase its inductive
effect a core of soft iron I C occupies its middle.
The outer or secondary coil S C is of long thin
wire terminating in two discharging points DXD%.
An interruptor or hammer “key” interrupts or
“makes and breaks” the circuit of the primary
coil very rapidly, so as to excite a great many

induced currents in the secondary coil per second,
and produce energetic sparks between the ter¬
minals £>i Z>2. The interruptor is actuated auto¬
matically by the magnetism of the iron core / C,
for the hammer H has a soft iron head which is
attracted by the core when the latter is magnet¬
ised, and being thus drawn away from the con¬
tact screw C S the circuit of the primary is
broken, and the current is stopped. The iron
core then ceases to be a magnet, the hammer H
springs back to the contact screw, and the cur¬
rent again flows in the primary circuit only to be
interrupted again as before. In this way the
current in the primary coil is rapidly started and
stopped many times a second, and this, as we
know, induces corresponding currents in the sec¬
ondary which appear as sparks at the discharging
points. The effect of the apparatus is enhanced
by interpolating a “ condenser” C C in the pri¬
mary circuit. A condenser is a form of Leyden
jar, suitable for current electricity, and consists
of layers of tinfoil separated from each other by
sheets of paraffin paper, mica, or some other con¬
venient insulator, and alternate foils are con¬
nected together. The wires joining each set of
plates are the poles of the condenser, and when
these are connected in the circuit of a current
the condenser is charged. It can be discharged
by joining its two poles with a wire, and letting
the two opposite electricities on its plates rush
together. Now, the sudden discharge of the con¬
denser C C through the primary coil P C enhances
the inductive effect of the current. The battery
P, here shown by the conventional symbol “ 11 ”
where the thick dash is the negative and the thin
dash the positive pole, is connected between the

terminals Tx Ts, and a commutator or pole-changer
R, turned with a handle, permits the direction of
the current to be reversed at will.
Figure 36 represents the exterior of an ordi¬
nary induction coil of the Ruhmkorff pattern,
Fig. 36.—The Induction Coil.
with its two coils, one over the other C, its com¬
mutator R, and its sparkling points Dx Ds, the
whole being mounted on a mahogany base, which
holds the condenser.
The intermittent, or rather alternating, cur¬
rents from the secondary coil are often applied
to the body in certain nervous disorders. When
sent through glass tubes filled with rarefied gases,
sometimes called “ Geissler tubes,” they elicit
glows of many colours, vieing in beauty with the
fleeting tints of the aurora polaris, which, indeed,
is probably a similar effect of electrical discharges
in the atmosphere.
The action of the induction is reversible. We
can not only send a current of low “ pressure ”
from a generator of weak electromotive force
through the primary coil, and thus excite a cur¬
rent of high pressure in the secondary coil, but
we can send a current of high pressure through

the secondary coil and provoke a current of low
pressure in the primary coil. The transformer
or converter, a modified induction coil used in dis¬
tributing electricity to electric lamps and motors.
can not only transform a

low pressure current into a
high, but a high pressure
current into a low. As the
high pressure currents are
best able to overcome the
resistance of the wire conveying them, it is cus¬
tomary to transmit high pressure currents from
the generator to the distant place where they
are wanted by means of small wires, and there
transform them into currents of the pressure
required to light the lamps or drive the motors.
We come now. to another consequence of Oer¬
sted’s great discovery, which is doubtless the
most important of all, namely, the generation of
electricity from magnetism, or, as it is usually
called, magneto-electric induction. In the year
1831 the illustrious Michael Faraday further suc¬
ceeded in demonstrating that when a magnet M
is thrust into a hollow coil of wire C, as shown in
figure 37, a current of electricity is set up in the
coil whilst the motion lasts. When the magnet is
withdrawn again another current is induced in
the reverse direction to the first. If the coil be

closed through a small galvanometer G the move¬
ments of the needle to one side or the other will
indicate these temporary currents. It follows
from the principle of action and reaction that if
the magnet is kept still and the coil thrust over it
similar currents will be induced in the coil. All
that is necessary is for the wires to cut the lines
of magnetic force around the magnet, or, in other
words, the lines of force in a magnetic field. We
have seen already that a wire conveying a current
can move a magnetic pole, and we are therefore
prepared to find that a magnetic pole moved near
a wire can excite a current in it.
Figure 38 illustrates the conditions of this re¬
markable effect, where N and S are two magnetic
poles with lines of force
between them, and W is
a wire crossing these
lines at right angles,
which is the best posi¬
tion. If, now, this wire
be moved so as to sink
bodily through the pa¬
per away from the read¬
er, an electric current
flowing in the direction
of the arrow will be in¬
duced in it. If, on the contrary, the wire be
moved across the lines of force towards the read¬
er, the induced current will flow oppositely to the
arrow. Moreover, if the poles of the magnet N
and S exchange places, the directions of the in¬
duced currents will also be reversed. This is the
fundamental principle of the well-known dynamo-
electric machine, popularly called a dynamo.
5
Again, if we send a current from some external

source through the wire W in the direction of the
arrow, the wire will move of itself across the lines
of force away from the reader, that is to say, in
the direction it would need to be moved in order
to excite such a current; and if, on the other
hand, the current be sent through it in the re¬
verse direction to the arrow, it will move towards
the reader. This is the principle of the equally
well-known electric motor. Figure 39 shows a
simple method of remembering these directions.
Let the right hand rest
on the north pole of a
magnet and the fore¬
finger be extended in
the direction of the
lines of force, then
the outstretched thumb
will indicate the direc¬
tion in which the wire
or conductor moves
and the bent middle
finger the direction of
the current. These
three digits, as will be noticed, are all at
right angles to each other, and this relation is
the best for inducing the strongest current in a
dynamo or the most energetic movement of the
conductor in an electric motor.
Of course in a dynamo-electric generator
the stronger the magnetic field, the less the
resistance of the conductor, and the faster it
is moved across the lines of force, that is
to say, the more lines it cuts in a second the
stronger is the current produced. Similarly
in an electric motor, the stronger the current
arid magnetic field the faster will the conductor

move.
The most convenient motion to give the con¬
ductor in practice is one of rotation, and hence
the dynamo usually consists of a coil or series of
coils of insulated wire termed the “ armature,"
which is mounted on a spindle and rapidly ro¬
tated in a strong magnetic field between the
poles of powerful magnets. Currents are gener¬
ated in the coils, now in one direction then in
another, as they revolve or cross different parts
of the field ; and, by means of a device termed a
commutator, these currents can be collected or
sifted at will, and led away by wires to an electric
lamp, an accumulator, or an electric motor, as
desired. The character of the electricity is pre¬
cisely the same as that generated in the voltaic
battery.
The commutator may only collect the currents
as they are generated, and supply what is called
an alternating current, that is to say, a current
which alternates or changes its direction several
hundred times a second, or it may sift the cur¬
rents as they are produced and supply what is
termed a continuous current, that is, a current
always in the same direction, like that of a
voltaic battery. Some machines are triad e to
supply alternating currents, others continuous
currents. Either class of current will do for
electric lamps, but only continuous currents are
used for electo-plating, or, in general, for electric
motors. •
In the “magneto-electric” machine tht. field
magnets are simply steel bars permanently rnhg-
netised, but in the ordinary dynamo ’ the field
magnets are electro-magnets excited to a high
pitch by means of the current generated in the

moving conductor or armature. In the “series-
wound ” machine the whole of the current gener¬
ated in the armature also goes through the
coils of the field magnets. Such a machine is
sketched in figure 40, where A is the armature,
consisting of an iron core surrounded by coils
of wire and rotating in the field of a powerful
electro-magnet NS in the direction of the arrows.
For the sake of simplicity only twelve coils are
represented. They are all in circuit one with

another, and a wire connects the ends of each
coil to corresponding metal bars on the commu¬
tator c. These bars are insulated from each other
on the spindle X of the armature. Now, as each
coil passes through the magnetic field in turn,
a current is excited in it. Each coil therefore
resembles an individual cell of a voltaic battery,
connectecf in series. The current is drawn off
from the ring by two copper “ brushes ” b, b',
which rub upon the bars of the commutator at

opposite ends of a diameter, as shown. One
brush is the positive pole of the dynamo, the
other is the negative, and the current will flow
through any wire or external circuit which may
be connected with these, whether electric lamps,
motors, accumulators, electro-plating baths, or
other device. The small arrows show the move¬
ments of the current throughout the machine,
and the terminals are marked ( + ) positive and
(—) negative.
It will be observed that the current excited in
the armature also flows through the coils of the
electro-magnets, and thus keeps up their strength.
When the machine is first started the current is
feeble, because the field of the magnets in which
the armature revolves is merely that due to the
dregs or “ residual magnetism ” left in the soft
iron cores of the magnet since the last time the
machine was used. But this feeble current exalts
the strength of the field-magnets, producing a
stronger field, which in turn excites a still
stronger current in the armature, and this pro¬
cess of give and take goes on until the full
strength or “saturation” of the magnets is at¬
tained.
Such is the “ series ” dynamo, of which the
well-known Gramme machine is a type. Figure
41 illustrates this machine as it is actually made,
A being the armature revolving between the
poles NS of the field-magnets MM, M' M', on a
spindle which is driven by means of a belt on
the pulley P from a separate engine. The brushes
b b’ of the cqmmutator C collect the current,
which in this case is continuous, or constant in
its direction.
The current of the series machine varies with

the resistance of the external or working circuit,
because that is included in the circuit of the field
magnets and the armature. Thus, if we vary the
number of electric lamps fed by the machine, we
shall vary the current it is capable of yielding.
With arc lamps in series, by adding to the number
in circuit we increase the resistance of the outer
Fig. 41.
circuit, and therefore diminish the strength of

the current yielded by the machine, because the
current, weakened by the increase of resistance,
fails to excite the field magnets as strongly as
before. On the other hand, with glow lamps
arranged in parallel, the reverse is the case, and
putting more lamps in circuit increases the power
of the machine, by diminishing the resistance of

the outer circuit in providing more cross-cuts for
the current. This, of course, is a drawback to the
series machine in places where the number of
lamps to be lighted varies from time to time.
In the “shunt-wound” machine the field magnets
are excited by diverting a small portion of the
main current from the armature through them,
by means of a “ shunt ” or loop circuit. Thus in
figure 42 where C is the
commutator and b b' the
M
brushes, M is a shunt nr^nnsinr\
circuit through the mag¬
nets, and E is the exter¬
nal or working circuit of
the machine.
The small arrows in¬
dicate the directions of
+ r
the currents. With this
arrangement the addition iyvvvAy\/\Aj
of more glow lamps to E
the external circuit E di¬ Fig. 42.
minishes the current, be¬
cause the portion of it which flows through the
by-path M, and excites the magnets, is less now
that the alternative route for the current through
E is of lower resistance than before. When fewer
glow lamps are in the external circuit E, and its
resistance therefore higher, the current in the shunt
circuit M is greater than before, the magnets be¬
come stronger, and the electromotive force of the
armature is increased. The Edison machine is of
this type, and is illustrated in figure 43, where
MM' are the field magnets with their poles NS,
between which the armature A is revolved by
means of the belt B, and a pulley seen behind.
The leading wires W IV convey the current from

the brushes of the commutator to the external
Fig. 43.
circuit. In this machine the conductors of the

armature are not coils of wire, but separate bars
of copper.
In shunt machines the variation of current due
to a varying number of lamps in use occasions a

rise and fall in the brightness of the lamps which
is undesirable, and hence a third class of dynamo
has been devised, which combines the principles
of both the series and shunt machines. This is
the “ compound-wound ” machine, in which the
magnets are wound partly in shunt and partly in
series with the armature, in such a manner that
the strength of the field-magnets and the electro¬
motive force of the current do not vary much,
whatever be the number of lamps in circuit. In
alternate current machines the electromotive force
keeps constant, as the field-magnets are excited
by a separate machine, giving a continuous cur¬
rent.
We have already seen that the action of the
dynamo is reversible, and that just as a wire
moved across a magnetic field supplies an electric
current, so a wire at rest, but conducting a cur¬
rent across a magnetic field, will move. The
electric motor is therefore essentially a dynamo,
which on being traversed by an electric current
from an external source puts itself in motion.
Thus, if a current be sent through the armature
of the Gramme machine, shown in figure 41, the
armature will revolve, and the spindle, by means
of a belt on the pulley P, can communicate its
energy to another machine.
Hence the electric motor can be employed to
work lathes, hoists, lifts, drive the screws of boats
or the wheels of carriages, and for many other
purposes. There are numerous types of electric
motor as of the dynamo in use, but they are all
modifications of the simple continuous or alter¬
nating current dynamo.
Obviously, since mechanical power can be
74 THE stqry of electricity.
converted into electricity by the dynamo, and re¬

converted into mechanical power by the motor, it
is sufficient to connect a dynamo and motor to¬
gether by insulated wire in order to transmit me¬
chanical power, whether it be derived from wind,
water, or fuel, to any reasonable distance.
CHAPTER V.
ELECTROLYSIS.
Having seen how electricity can be generated

and stored in considerable quantity, let us now
turn to its practical uses. Of these by far the
most important are based on its property of de¬
veloping light and heat as in the electric spark,
chemical action as in the voltameter, and magnet¬
ism as in the electromagnet.
The words “ current,” “ pressure,” and so on
point to a certain analogy between electricity and
water, which helps the imagination to figure what
can neither be seen nor handled, though it must
not be traced too far. Water, for example, runs
by the force of gravity from a place of higher to
a place of lower level. The pressure of the
stream is greater the more the difference of level
or “ head of water.” The strength of the current
or quantity of water flowing per second is greater
the higher the pressure, and the less the resist¬
ance -of its channel. The power of the water or
its rate of doing mechanical work is greater the
higher the pressure and the stronger the current.
So, too, electricity flows by the electromotive
force from a place of higher to a place of lower
ELECTROLYSIS. 75
electric level or potential. The electric pressure

is greater the more the difference of potential or
electromotive force. The strength of the electric
current or quantity of electricity flowing per sec¬
ond is greater the higher the pressure or electro¬
motive force and the less the resistance of the
circuit. The power of the electricity or its rate
of doing work is greater the higher the electro¬
motive force and the stronger the current.
It follows that a small quantity of water or
electricity at a high pressure will give us the
same amount of energy as a large quantity at a
low pressure, and our choice of one or the other
will depend on the purpose we have in view. As
a rule, however, a large current at a compara¬
tively low or moderate pressure is found the more
convenient in practice.
The electricity of friction belongs to the
former category, and the electricity of chemistry,
heat, and magnetism to the latter. The spark of
a frictional or influence machine can be compared
to a highland cataract of lofty height but small
volume, which is more picturesque than useful,
and the current from a voltaic battery, a thermo¬
pile, or a dynamo to a lowland river which can
be dammed to turn a mill. It is the difference
between a skittish gelding and a tame cart¬
horse.
Not the spark from an induction coil or Ley¬
den jar, but a strong and steady current at a low
pressure, is adapted for electrolysis or electro-de¬
position, and hence the voltaic battery or a special
form of dynamo is usually employed in this work.
A flash of lightning is the very symbol of terrific
power, and yet, according to the illustrious Fara¬
day, it contains a smaller amount of electricity
than the feeble current required to decompose a

single drop of rain.
In our simile of the mill dam and the battery
or dynamo, the dam corresponds to the positive
pole and >the river or sea below the mill to the
negative pole. The mill-race will stand for the
wire joining the poles, that is to say, the external
circuit, and the mill-wheel for the work to be done
in the circuit, whether it be a chemical for decom¬
position, a telegraph instrument, an electric lamp,
or any other appliance. As the current in the
race depends on the “ head of water,” or differ¬
ence of level between the dam and the sea as well
as on the resistance of the channel, so the cur¬
rent in the circuit depends on the “ electromotive
force,” or difference of potential between the posi¬
tive and negative poles, as well as on the resist¬
ance of the circuit. The relation between these
is expressed by the well-known law of Ohm, which
runs: A current of electricity is directly proportional
to the electromotive force and inversely proportional
to the resistance of the circuit.
In practice electricity is measured by various
units or standards named after celebrated elec¬
tricians. Thus the unit of quantity is the coulomb,
the unit of current or quantity flowing per second
is the ampere. the unit of electromotive force is
the volt, and the unit of resistance is the ohm.
The quantity of water or any other “electro¬
lyte ” decomposed by electricity is proportional
to the strength of the current. One ampere de¬
composes .00009324 gramme of water per second,
liberating .000010384 gramme of hydrogen and
.00008286 gramme of oxygen.
The quantity in grammes of any other chemi¬
cal element or ion which is liberated from an elec-
ELECTROLYSIS. 77
trolyte or body capable of electro-chemical de¬

composition in a second by a current of one
ampere is given by what is called the electro¬
chemical equivalent of the ion. This is found by
multiplying its ordinary chemical equivalent or
combining weight by .000010384, which is the elec¬
tro-chemical equivalent of hydrogen. Thus the
weight of metal deposited from a solution of any
of its salts by a current of so many amperes in so
many seconds is equal to the number of amperes
multiplied by the number of seconds, and by the
electro-chemical equivalent of the metal.
The deposition of a metal from a solution of
its salt is very easily shown in the case of cop¬
per. In fact, we have already seen that in the
Daniell cell the current decomposes a solution of
sulphate of copper and deposits the pure metal
on the copper plate. If we simply make a solu¬
tion of blue vitriol in a glass beaker and dip the
wires from a voltaic cell into it, we shall find the
wire from the negative pole become freshly coated
with particles of new copper. The sulphate has
been broken up, and the liberated metal, being
positive, gathers on the negative electrode.
Moreover, if we examine the positive electrode
we shall find it slightly eaten away, because the
sulphuric acid set free from the sulphate has
combined with the particles of that wire to make
new sulphate. Thus the copper is deposited on
one electrode, namely, the cathode, by which the
current leaves the bath, and at the expense of
the other electrode, that is to say, the anode, by
which the current enters the bath.
The fact that the weight of metal deposited in
this way from its salts is proportional to the
current, has been utilised for measuring the
strength of currents with a fine degree of ac¬

curacy. If, for example, the tubes of the vol¬
tameter described on page 38 were graduated,
the volume of gas evolved would be a measure
of the current. Usually, however, it is the
weight of silver or copper deposited from their
salts in a certain time which gives the current in
amperes.
Electro-plating is the principal application of
this chemical process. In 1805 Brugnatelli took
a silver medal and coated it with gold by making
it the cathode in a solution of a salt of gold, and
using a plate of gold for the anode. The shops
of our jewellers are now bright with teapots, salt
cellars, spoons, and other articles of the table
made of inferior metals, but beautified and pre¬
served from rust in this way.
Figure 44 illustrates an electro-plating bath
Fig. 44.
in which a number of spoons are being plated.

A portion of the vat V is cut away to show the
interior, which contains a solution A of the double
cyanide of gold and potassium when gold is to be
ELECTROLYSIS. 79
laid, and the double cyanide of silver and potas¬

sium when silver is to be deposited. The elec¬
trodes are hung from metal rods, the anode A
being a plate of gold or silver G, as the case may
be, and the cathode C the spoons in question.
When the current of the battery or dynamo
passes through the bath from the anode to the
cathode, gold or silver is deposited on the spoons,
and the bath recuperates its strength by consum¬
ing the gold or silver plate.
Enormous quantities of copper are now de¬
posited in a similar way, sulphate of copper being
the solution and a copper plate the anode. Large
articles of iron, such as the parts of ordnance, are
sometimes copper-plated to preserve them from
the action of the atmosphere. Seamless copper
pipes for conveying steam, and wires of pure cop¬
per for conducting electricity, are also deposited,
and it is not unlikely that the kettle of the future
will be made by electrolysis.
Nickel-plating is another extensive branch of
the industry, the white nickel forming a cloak
for metals more subject to corrosion. Nickel is
found to deposit best from a solution of the
double sulphate of nickel and ammonia. Alu¬
minium, however, has not yet been successfully
deposited by electricity.
In 1836 De la Rue observed that copper laid
in this manner on another surface took on its
under side an accurate impression of that surface,
even to the scratches on it, and three years later
Jacobi, of St. Petersburg, and Jordan, of London,
applied the method to making copies or replicas
of medals and woodcuts. Even non-metallic sur¬
faces could be reproduced in copper by taking a
cast of them in wax and lining the mould with
8o THE STORY OF ELECTRICITY.
fine plumbago, which, being a conductor, served

as a cathode to receive the layer of metal. It is
by the process of electrotyping or galvano-plastics
that the copper faces for printing woodcuts are
prepared, and copies made of seals or medals.
Natural objects, such as flowers, ferns, leaves,
feathers, insects, and lizards, can be prettily
coated with bronze or copper, not to speak of
gold and silver, by a similar process. They are
too delicate to be coated with black lead in order
to receive the skin of metal, but they can be
dipped in solutions, leaving a film which can be
reduced to gold or silver. For instance, they may
be soaked in an alcoholic solution of nitrate of
silver, made by shaking 2 parts of the crystals in
100 parts of alcohol in a stoppered bottle. When
dry, the object should be suspended under a glass
shade and exposed to a stream of sulphuretted
hydrogen gas; or it may be immersed in a solu¬
tion of 1 part of phosphorus in 15 parts of bisul¬
phide of carbon, 1 part of bees-wax, 1 part of
spirits of turpentine, 1 part of asphaltum, and x/s
part of caoutchouc dissolved in bisulphide of car¬
bon. This leaves a superficial film which is
metallised by dipping in a solution of 20 grains
of nitrate of silver to a pint of water. On this
metallic film a thicker layer of gold and silver in
different shades can be deposited by the current,
and the silver surface may also be “ oxidised ”
by washing it in a weak solution of platinum
chloride.
Electrolysis is also used to some extent in
reducing metals from their ores, in bleaching
fibre, in manufacturing hydrogen and oxygen
from water, and in the chemical treatment of
sewage.
THE TELEGRAPH AND TELEPHONE. 8l
CHAPTER VI.
THE TELEGRAPH AND TELEPHONE.
Like the “philosopher’s stone,” the “elixir of

youth,” and “ perpetual motion,” the telegraph
was long a dream of the imagination. In the
sixteenth century, if not before, it was believed
that two magnetic needles could be made sym¬
pathetic, so that when one was moved the other
would likewise move, however far apart they
were, and thus enable two distant friends to com¬
municate their minds to one another.
The idea was prophetic, although the means
of giving effect to it were mistaken. It became
practicable, however, when Oersted discovered
that a magnetic needle could be swung to one
side or the other by an electric current passing
near it.
The illustrious Laplace was the first to suggest
a telegraph on this principle. A wire connecting
the two poles of a battery is traversed, as we
know, by an electric current, which makes the
round of the circuit, and only flows when that
circuit is complete. However long the wire may
be, however far it may run between the poles,
the current will follow all its windings, and finish
its course from pole to pole of the battery. You
may lead the wire across the ocean and back, or
round the world if you will, and the current will
travel through it.
The moment you break the wire or circuit,
however, the current will stop. By its electro¬
motive force it can overcome the resistance of
the many miles of conductor; but unless it be
6
unusually strong it cannot leap across even a

minute gap of air, which is one of the best in¬
sulators.
If, then, we have a simple device easily manip¬
ulated by which we can interrupt the circuit of
the battery, in accordance with a given code, we
shall be able to send a series of currents through
the wire and make sensible signals wherever we
choose. These signs can be produced by the
deviation of a magnetic needle, as Laplace pointed
out, or by causing an electro-magnet to attract
soft iron, or by chemical decomposition, or any
other sensible effect of the current.
Ampere developed the idea of Laplace into a
definite plan, and in 1830 or thereabout Ritchie,
in London, and Baron Schilling, in St. Petersburg,
exhibited experimental models. In 1833 and
afterwards Professors Gauss and Weber installed
a private telegraph between the observatory and
the physical cabinet of the University of Got¬
tingen. Moreover, in 1836 William Fothergill
Cooke, a retired surgeon of the Madras army,
attending lectures on anatomy at the University
of Heidelberg, saw an experimental telegraph of
Professor Moncke, which turned all his thoughts
to the subject. On returning to London he made
the acquaintance of Professor Wheatstone, of
King’s College, who was also experimenting in
this direction, and in 1836 they took out a
patent for a needle telegraph. It was tried
successfully between the Euston terminus and
the Camden Town station of the London and
North-Western Railway on the evening of July
25th, 1837, in presence of Mr. Robert Stephen¬
son, and other eminent engineers. Wheatstone,
sitting in a small room near the booking-office at
THE TELEGRAPH AND TELEPHONE. 83
Euston, sent the first message to Cooke at Cam¬

den Town, who at once replied. “ Never,” said
Wheatstone, “did I feel such a tumultuous sensa¬
tion before, as when, all alone in the still room, I
heard the needles click, and as I spelled the
words I felt all the magnitude of the invention
pronounced to be practicable without cavil or
dispute.”
The importance of the telegraph in working
railways was manifest, and yet the directors of
the company were so purblind as to order the
removal of the apparatus, and it was not until
two years later that the Great Western Railway
Company adopted it on their line from Padding¬
ton to West Drayton, and subsequently to Slough.
This was the first telegraph for public use, not
merely in England, but the world. The charge
for a message was only a shilling, nevertheless
few persons availed themselves of the new inven¬
tion, and it was not until its fame was spread
abroad by the clever capture of a murderer
named Tawell that it began to prosper. Tawell
had killed a woman at Slough, and on leaving his
victim took the train for Paddington. The police,
apprised of the murder, telegraphed a description
of him to London. The original “ five needle
instrument,” now in the museum of the Post
Office, had a dial in the shape of a diamond, on
which were marked the letters of the alphabet,
and each letter of a word was pointed out by the
movements of a pair of needles. The dial had
no letter “ q,” and as the man was described as
a quaker the word was sent “ kwaker.” When
the train arrived at Paddington he was shadowed
by detectives, and to his utter astonishment was
quietly arrested in a tavern near Cannon Street.
In Cooke and Wheatstone’s early telegraph

the wire travelled the whole round of the circuit,
but it was soon found that a “ return ” wire in
the circuit was unnecessary, since the earth itself
could take the place of it. One wire from the
sending station to the receiving station was
sufficient, provided the apparatus at each end
were properly connected to the ground. This
use of the earth not only saved the expense of a
return wire, but diminished the resistance of the
circuit, because the earth offered practically no
resistance.
Figure 45 is a diagram of the connections in a
L t
Fig. 45.
simple telegraph circuit. At each of the stations

there is a battery B B', an interruptor or sending
key K K' to make and break the continuity of the
circuit, a receiving instrument R R' to indicate
the signal currents by their sensible effects, and
connections with ground or “ earth plates ” EE'
to engage the earth as a return wire. These
are usually copper plates buried in the moist
subsoil or the water pipes of a city. The line
wire is commonly of iron supported on poles,
but insulated from them by earthenware “cups”
or insulators.
At the station on the left the key is in the act
of sending a message, and at the post on the right

it is conformably in the position for receiving the
message. The key is so constructed that when it
is at rest it puts the line in connection with the
earth through the receiving instrument and the
earth plate.
The key K consists essentially of a spring-
lever, with two platinum contacts, so placed that
when the lever is pressed down by the hand of
the telegraphist it breaks contact with the re¬
ceiver R, and puts the line-wire L in connection
with the earth E through the battery B, as shown
on the left. A current then flows into the line
and traverses the receiver R' at the distant sta¬
tion, returning or seeming to return to the send¬
ing battery by way of the earth plate E' on the
right and the intermediate ground.
The duration of the current is at the will of
the operator who works the sending-key, and it is
plain that signals can be made by currents of
various lengths. In the “ Morse code ” of sig¬
nals, which is now universal, only two lengths of
current are employed—namely, a short, momen¬
tary pulse, produced by instant contact of the
key, and a jet given by a contact about three
times longer. These two signals are called
“ dot ” and “ dash,” and the code is merely a suit¬
able combination of them to signify the several
letters of the alphabet. Thus e, the commonest
letter in English, is telegraphed by a single “ dot,”
and the letter t by a single “dash,” while the let¬
ter a is indicated by a “ dot ” followed after a brief
interval or “ space ” by a dash.
Obviously, if two kinds of current are used,
that is to say, if the poles of the battery are
reversed by the sending-key, and the direction
of the current is consequently reversed in the

circuit, there is no need to alter the length of the
signal currents, because a momentary current
sent in one direction will stand for a “dot” and
in the other direction for a “ dash.” As a matter
of fact, the code is used in both ways, according
to the nature of the line and receiving instru¬
ment. On submarine cables and with needle
and “ mirror ” instruments, the signals are made
by reversing currents of equal duration, but on
land lines worked by “ Morse ” instruments and
“ sounders,” they are produced by short and long
currents.
The Morse code is also used in the army for
signalling by waving flags or flashing lights, and
may also be serviceable in private life. Tele¬
graph clerks have been known to “ speak ” with
each other in company by winking the right
and left eye, or tapping with their teaspoon on
a cup and saucer. Any two distinct signs, how¬
ever made, can be employed as a telegraph by
means of the Morse code, which runs as shown
in figure 46.
1
The receiving instruments R R may consist
of a magnetic needle pivotted on its centre and
surrounded by a coil of wire, through which the
current passes and deflects the needle to one side
or the other, according to the direction in which
it flows. Such was the pioneer instrument of
Cooke and Wheatstone, which is still employed
in England in a simplified form as the “ single ”
and “ double ” needle-instrument on some of the
local lines and in railway telegraphs. The signals
are made by sending momentary currents in oppo¬
site directions by a “ double current ” key, which
(unlike the key K in figure 45) reverses the poles
Needle and Needle and

Morse Instrument. Mirror Morse Instrument. Mirror
Instrument. Instrument.
A v/ J//
Me) JJ /J
B Av* \/x\
C AA //
D Ax /x
E \ ///
F xx/x //A
6 //x y/x
H /A/
1 xA
S •
x////
T - /
xx///
U xx/
xxx//
«(ue). xx//
xxxy
V xxx/
\\\\\
w y/ Axw
X A/ //xxx
Y /x//
///xx
z /A ///A
Ch //// /////
Fig. 46.—Morse Signal Alphabet.
of the battery, in putting the line to one or the

other, and thus making the “dot” signal with
the “ positive ’ and the “ dash ” signal with the
negative pole. It follows that if the “ dot ” is
indicated by a throw of the needle to the right
side, a “ dash ” will be given by a throw to the
left.
Most of the telegraph instruments for land
lines are based on the principle of the electro-
magnet. We have already seen (page 59) how

Ampere found that a spiral of wire with a cur¬
rent flowing in it behaved like a magnet and was
able to suck a piece of soft iron into it. If the
iron is allowed to remain there as a core, the
combination of coil and core becomes an electro¬
magnet, that is to say, a magnet which is only a
magnet so long as the current passes. Figure
47 represents a simple “ horse-shoe ” electro¬
magnet as invented by
Sturgeon. A U-shaped
core of soft iron is
wound with insulated
wire W, and when a
current is sent through
the wire, the core is
found to become mag¬
netic with a “ north ”
pole in one end and a
“south” pole in the
other. These poles
are therefore able to
attract a separate piece
of soft iron or armature A. When the cur¬
rent is stopped, however, the core ceases to be
a magnet and the armature drops away. In prac¬
tice the electromagnet usually takes the form
shown in figure 48, where the poles are two bob¬
bins or solenoids of wire S having straight cores
of iron which are united by an iron bar B, and A
is the armature.
Such an electromagnet is a more powerful
device than a swinging needle, and better able to
actuate a mechanism. It became the foundation
of the recording instrument of Samuel Morse, the
father of the telegraph in America. The Morse,
THE TELEGRAPH AND TELEPHONE. , 89
or, rather, Morse and Vail instrument, actually

marks the signals in “ dots ” and “ dashes ” on a
ribbon of moving paper. Figure 49 represents
the Morse instrument, in which an electromagnet
M attracts an iron armature A when a current
passes through its bobbins, and by means of a
lever L connected with the armature raises the
edge of a small disc out
of an ink-pot 7 against
the surface of a travelling
slip of paper P, and marks
a dot or dash upon it as
the case may be. The
rest of the apparatus con¬
sists of details and ac¬ ^ B
cessories for its action Fig. 48.—Electro Magnet.
and adjustment, together
with the sending-key K, which is used in asking
for repetitions of the words, if necessary.
A permanent record of the message is of
Fig. 49.
course convenient, nevertheless the operators

prefer to “ read ” the signals by the ear, rather
than the eye, and, to the annoyance of Morse,
9o THE STORY OF ELECTRICITY.
would listen to the click of the marking disc

rather than decipher the marks on the paper.
Consequently Alfred Vail, the collaborator of
Morse, who really invented the Morse code, pro¬
duced a modification of the recording instrument
working solely for the ear. The “ sounder," as
it is called, has largely driven the “ printer ”
from the field. This neat little instrument is
shown in figure 50, where M is the electromag¬
net, and A is the armature which chatters up and
Fig. 50.
down between two metal stops, as the current is

made and broken by the sending-key, and the
operator listening to the sounds interprets the
message letter by letter and word by word.
The motion of the armature in both of these
instruments takes a sensible time, but Alexander
Bain, of Thurso, by trade a watchmaker, and by
nature a genius, invented a chemical telegraph
which was capable of a prodigious activity. The
instrument of Bain resembled the Morse in mark¬
ing the signals on a tape of moving paper, but
this was done by electrolysis or electro-chemical

decomposition. The paper was soaked in a solu¬
tion of iodide of potassium in starch and water,
and the signal currents were passed through it
by a marking stylus or pencil of iron. The elec¬
tricity decomposed the solution in its passage and
left a blue stain on the paper, which corresponded
to the dot and dash of the Morse apparatus.
The Bain telegraph can record over 1000 words
a minute as against 40 to 50 by the Morse or
sounder, nevertheless it has fallen into disuse,
perhaps because the solution was troublesome.
It is stated that a certain blind operator could
read the signals by the smell of the chemical ac¬
tion ; and we can well believe it. In fact, the
telegraph appeals to every sense, for a deaf clerk
can feel the movements of a sounder, and the
signals of the current can be told without any
instrument by the mere taste of the wires inserted
in the mouth.
A skilful telegraphist can transmit twenty-five
words a minute with the single-current key, and
nearly twice as many by the double-current key,
and if we remember that an average English
word requires fifteen separate signals, the num¬
ber will seem remarkable; but by means of
Wheatstone’s automatic sender 150 words or
more can be sent in a minute.
Among telegraphs designed to print the mes¬
sage in Roman type, that of Professor David
Edward Hughes is doubtless the fittest, since it
is now in general use on the Continent, and con¬
veys our Continental news. In this apparatus
the electromagnet, on attracting its armature,
presses the paper against a revolving type wheel
and receives the print of a type, so that the mes-
sage can be read by a novice. To this effect the

type wheel at the receiving station has to keep in
perfect time as it revolves, so that the right letter
shall be above the paper when the current passes.
Small varieties of the type-printer are employed
for the distribution of news and prices in most of
the large towns, being located in hotels, restau¬
rants, saloons, and other public places, and re¬
porting prices of stocks and bonds, horse races,
and sporting and general news. The “ duplex
system,” whereby two messages, one in either
direction, can be sent over one wire simultane¬
ously without interfering, and the quadruplex
system, whereby four messages, two in either
direction, are also sent at once, have come into
use where the traffic over the lines is very great.
Both of these systems and their modifications
depend on an ingenious arrangement of the ap¬
paratus at each end of the line, by which the
signal currents sent out from one station do not
influence the receivers there, but leave them free
to indicate the currents from the distant station.
When the Wheatstone Automatic Sender is em¬
ployed with these systems about 500 words per
minute can be sent through the line. Press news
is generally sent by night, and it is on record,
that during a great debate in Parliament, as many
as half a million words poured out of the Central
Telegraph Station at St. Martin’s-le-Grand in a
single night to all parts of the country.
Errors occur now and then through bad pen¬
manship or the similarity of certain signals, and
amusing telegrams have been sent out, as when
the nomination of Mr. Brand for the Speakership
of the Commons took the form of “ Proposed to
brand Speaker ” ; and an excursion party assured
their friends at home of their security by the

message, “ Arrived all tight.”
Telegraphs, in the literal sense of the word,
which actually write the message as with a pen,
and make a copy or facsimile of the original,
have been invented from time to time. Such are
the “telegraphic pen ” of Mr. E. A. Cowper, and
the “ telautographs ” of Mr. J. H. Robertson and
Mr. Elisha Gray. The first two are based on a
method of varying the strength of the current
in accordance with the curves of the handwriting,
and making the varied current actuate by means
of magnetism a writing pen or stylus at the
distant station. The instrument of Gray, which
is the most successful, works by intermittent
currents or electrical impulses, that excite
electro-magnets and move the stylus at the far
end of the line. They are too complicated for
description here, and are not of much practical
importance.
Telegraphs for transmitting sketches and draw¬
ings have also been devised by D’Ablincourt and
others, but they have not come into general use.
Of late another step forward has been taken by
Mr. Amstutz, who has invented an apparatus for
transmitting photographic pictures to a distance
by means of electricity. The system may be
described as a combination of the photograph
and telegraph. An ordinary negative picture is
taken, and then impressed on a gelatine plate
sensitised with bichromate of potash. The parts
of the gelatine in light become insoluble, while
the parts in shade can be washed away by water.
In this way a relief or engraving of the picture
is obtained on the gelatine, and a cross section
through the plate would, if looked at edgeways,
appear serrated, or up and down, like a section

of country or the trace of the stylus in the record
of a phonograph. The gelatine plate thus carved
by the action of light and water is wrapped round
a revolving drum or barrel, and a spring stylus or
point is caused to pass over it as the barrel re¬
volves, after the manner of a phonographic cylin¬
der. In doing so the stylus rises and falls over
the projections in the plate and works a lever
against a set of telegraph keys, which open elec¬
tric contacts and break the connections of an
electric battery which is joined between the keys
and the earth. There are four keys, and when
they are untouched the current splits up through
four by-paths or bobbins of wire before it enters
the line wire and passes to the distant station.
When any of the keys are touched, however, the
corresponding by-path or bobbin is cut out of
circuit. The suppression of a by-path or channel
for the current has the effect of adding to the “ re¬
sistance ” of the line, and therefore of diminishing
the strength of the current. When all the keys
are untouched the resistance is least and the cur¬
rent strongest. On the other hand, when all the
keys but the last are touched, the resistance is
greatest and the current weakest. By this device
it is easy to see that as the stylus or tracer sinks
into a hollow of the gelatine, or rises over a
height, the current in the line becomes stronger
or weaker. At the distant station the current
passes through a solenoid or hollow coil of wire
connected to the earth and magnetises it, so as
to pull the soft iron plug or “ core ” with greater
or less force into its hollow interior. The up and
down movement of the plug actuates a graving
stylus or point through a lever, and engraves a
copy of the original gelatine trace on the surface

of a wax or gelatine plate overlying another
barrel or drum, which revolves at a rate corre¬
sponding to that of the barrel at the transmitting
station. In this way a facsimile of the gelatine
picture is produced at the distant station, and an
electrotype or clicht of it can be made for printing
purposes. The method is, in fact, a species of
electric line graving, and Mr. Amstutz hopes to
apply it to engraving on gold, silver, or any soft
metal, not necessarily at a distance.
We know that an electric current in one wire
can induce a transient current in a neighbouring
wire, and the fact has been utilised in the United
States by Phelps and others to send messages
from moving trains. The signal currents are
intermittent, and when they are passed through a
conductor on the train they excite corresponding
currents in a wire run along the track, which can
be interpreted by the hum they make in a tele¬
phone. Experiments recently made by Mr. W. H.
Preece for the Post Office show that with currents
of sufficient strength and proper apparatus mes¬
sages can be sent through the air for five miles
or more by this method of induction. _
We come now to the submarine telegraph,
which differs in many respects from the overland
telegraph. Obviously, since water and moist
earth is a conductor, a wire to convey an electric
current must be insulated if it is intended to lie
at the bottom of the sea or buried underground.
The best materials for the purpose yet discovered
are gutta-percha and india-rubber, which are both
flexible and very good insulators.
The first submarine cable was laid across the
Channel from Dover to Calais in 1851, and con-
96
sisted of a copper strand, coated with gutta¬

percha, and protected from injury by an outer
sheath of hemp and iron wire. It is the general
type of all the submarine cables which have been
deposited since then in every part of the world.
As a rule, the armour or sheathing is made
heavier for shore water than it is for the deep
sea, but the electrical portion, or “ core,” that
Irish Shore End.
Fig. si.—Section of the 1894 Atlantic Cable—Actual Size.
is to say, the insulated conductor, is the same

throughout.
The first Atlantic cable was laid in 1858 by
Cyrus VV. Field and a company of British capital¬
ists, but it broke down, and it was not until 1866
that a new and successful cable was laid to re-
place it. Figure 51 represents various cross-
sections of an Atlantic cable deposited in 1894.
Heavy Intermediate.
Sections of the 1894 Atlantic Cable—Actual Sizes—
continued.
The inner star of twelve copper wires is the con¬

ductor, and the black circle round it is the gutta-
7
percha or insulator which keeps the electricity

from escaping into the water. The core in shallow
water is protected from the bites of teredoes by a
brass tape, and the envelope or armour consists of
hemp and iron wire preserved from corrosion by
a covering of tape and a compound of mineral
pitch and sand.
The circuit of a submarine line is essentially
the same as that of a land line, except that the
earth connection is usually the iron sheathing of
the cable in lieu of an earth-plate. On a cable,
however, at least a long cable, the instruments for
sending and receiving the messages are different
from those employed on a land line. A cable is
virtually a Leyden jar or condenser, and the signal
currents in the wire induce opposite currents in
the water or earth. As these charges hold each
Fig. 52.
other the signals are retarded in their progress,

and altered from sharp sudden jets to lagging un¬
dulations or waves, which tend to run together or
coalesce. The result is that the separate signal
currents which enter a long cable issue from it at
the other end in one continuous current, with pul¬
sations at every signal, that is to say, in a lapsing
stream, like a jet of water flowing from a con¬
stricted spout. The receiving instrument must
THE TELEGRAPH AND TELEPHONE.
99
be sufficiently delicate to manifest every pulsation

of the current. Its indicator, in fact, must re¬
spond to every rise and fall of the current, as a
float rides on the ripples of a stream.
Such an instrument is the beautiful “mirror”
galvanometer of Lord Kelvin, Ex-President of the
Royal Society, which we illustrate in figure 52,
where C is a coil of wire with a small magnetic
needle suspended in its heart, and D is a steel
magnet supported over it. The needle (M figure
53) is made of watch spring cemented to the back
of a tiny mirror the size of a half-dime
which is hung by a single fibre of floss
silk inside an air cell or chamber with a
glass lens G in front, and the coil C sur-
rounds it. A ray of light from a lamp Ipiyir
L (figure 52) falls on the mirror, and is
reflected back to a scale S, on which it
makes a bright spot. Now, when the fig. 53.
coil C is connected between the end of
the cable and the earth, the signal current passing
through it causes the tiny magnet to swing from
side to side, and the mirror moving with it throws
the beam up and down the scale. The operator
sitting by watches the spot of light as it flits and
flickers like a fire-fly in the darkness, and spells
out the mysterious message.
A condenser joined in the circuit between the
cable and the receiver, or between the receiver
and the earth, has the effect of sharpening the
waves of the current, and consequently of the
signals. The double-current key, which reverses
the poles of the battery and allows the signal
currents to be of one length, that is to say, all
“dots,” is employed to send the message.
Another receiving instrument employed on
most of the longer cables is the

siphon recorder of Lord Kelvin,
shown in figure 54, which marks
or writes the message on a slip
of travelling paper. Essentially
it is the inverse of the mir¬
ror instrument, and con
sists of a light coil of wire
^suspended
in the field
between the
poles of a
strong mag¬
net M. The
coil is at¬
tached to
a fine siphon (/*)
filled with ink, and
sometimes kept in K
vibration by an in¬
duction coil so as
to shake the ink
in fine drops upon
a slip of mov¬
ing paper. The
coil is connected
between the cable
and the earth, and,
as the signal
current passes
through, it swings
to one side or the
other, pulling the
siphon with it. Fig. 54.
The ink, therefore,
marks a wavy line on the paper, which is in fact
THE TELEGRAPH AND TELEPHONE. IOI
delineation of the rise and fall of the signal current

and a record of the message. The dots in this
case are represented by the waves above, and the
“ dashes ” by the waves below the middle line, as
may be seen in the following alphabet, which is a
Fig. ss.
copy of one actually written by the recorder on a

long submarine cable.
Owing to induction, the speed of signalling on
long cables is much slower than on land lines of
the same length, and only reaches from 25 to 45
words a minute on the Atlantic cables, or 30 to
50 words with an automatic sending-key; but this
rate is practically doubled by employing the Muir-
head duplex system of sending two messages, one
from each end, at the same time.
The relation of the telegraph to the telephone
is analogous to that of the lower animals and
man. In a telegraph circuit, with its clicking key
at one end and its chattering sounder at the other,
we have, in fact, an apish forerunner of the ex¬
quisite telephone, with its mysterious microphone
and oracular plate. Nevertheless, the telephone
descended from the telegraph in a very indirect
manner, if at all, and certainly not through the
sounder. The first practical suggestion of an

electric telephone was made by M. Charles Bour-
seul, a French telegraphist, in 1854, but to all ap¬
pearance nothing came of it. In i860, however,
Philipp Reis, a German schoolmaster, constructed
a rudimentary telephone, by which music and a
few spoken words were sent. Finally, in 1876,
Mr. Alexander Graham Bell, a Scotchman, residing
in Canada, and subsequently in the United States,
exhibited a capable speaking telephone of his in¬
vention at the Centennial Exhibition, Philadel¬
phia.
Figure 56 represents an outside view and sec¬
tion of the Bell telephone as it is now made, where
M is a bar magnet having
a small bobbin or coil of
fine insulated wire C gir¬
dling one pole. In front
of this coil there is a cir¬
cular plate of soft iron
capable of vibrating like a
diaphragm or the drum of
the ear. A cover shaped
like a mouthpiece O fixes
the diaphragm all round,
and the wires W W serve
to connect the coil in the
circuit.
The soft iron diaphragm
is, of course, magnetised
Fig. 56. by the induction of the
pole, and would be at¬
tracted bodily to the pole were it not fixed by
the rim, so that only its middle is free to move.
Now, when a person speaks into the mouthpiece
the sonorous waves impinge on the diaphragm
and make it vibrate in sympathy with them. Be¬

ing magnetic, the movement of the diaphragm
to and from the bobbin excites corresponding
waves of electricity in the coil, after the famous
experiment of Faraday (page 64). If this undula-
tory current is passed through the coil of a similar
telephone at the far end of the line, it will, by a
reverse action, set the diaphragm in vibration and
reproduce the original sonorous waves. The re¬
sult is, that when another person listens at the
mouthpiece of the receiving telephone, he will
hear a faithful imitation of the original speech.
The Bell telephone is virtually a small mag¬
neto-electric generator of electricity, and when
two are joined in circuit we have a system for the
transmission of energy. As the voice is the mo¬
tive power, its talk, though distinct, is compara¬
tively feeble, and further improvements were
made before the telephone became as serviceable
as it is now.
Edison, in 1877, was the first to invent a work¬
ing telephone, which, instead of generating the
current, merely controlled the strength of it, as
the sluice of a mill-dam regulates the flow of water
in the lead. Du Moncel had observed that powder
of carbon altered in electrical resistance under
pressure, and Edison found that lamp-black was so
sensitive as to change in resistance under the im¬
pact of the sonorous waves. His transmitter con¬
sisted of a button or wafer of lamp-black behind
a diaphragm, and connected in the circuit. On
speaking to the diaphragm the sonorous waves
pressed it against the button, and so varied the
strength of the current in a sympathetic manner.
The receiver of Edison was equally ingenious,
and consisted of a cylinder of orepared chalk kept
in rotation and a brass stylus rubbing on it.

When the undulatory current passed from the
stylus to the chalk, the stylus slipped on the sur¬
face, and, being connected to a diaphragm, made
it vibrate and repeat the original sounds. This
“ electro-motograph ” receiver was, however,
given up, and a combination of the Edison trans¬
mitter and the Bell receiver came into use.
At the end of 1877 Professor D. E. Hughes, a
distinguished Welshman, inventor of the printing
telegraph, discovered that any loose contact be¬
tween two conductors had the property of trans¬
mitting sounds by varying the strength of an
electric current passing through it. Two pieces
of metal—for instance, two nails or ends of wire
—when brought into a loose or crazy contact
under a slight pressure, and traversed by a cur¬
rent, will transmit speech. Two pieces of hard
carbon are still better than metals, and if prop¬
erly adjusted will make the tread of a fly quite
audible in a telephone connected with them.
Such is the famous “ mi¬
crophone,” by which a
faint sound can be
magnified to the ||>—/
ear.
Figure 57 represents M
what is known as the “pen- B@
cil ” microphone, in which M
is a pointed rod of hard car¬
bon, delicately poised be¬
tween two brackets of carbon, Fig. 57.
which are connected in cir¬
cuit with a battery B and a Bell telephone T. The
joints of rod and bracket are so sensitive that the
current flowing across them is affected in strength
by the slightest vibration, even the walking of an

insect. If, therefore, we speak near this micro¬
phone, the sonorous waves, causing the pencil to
vibrate, will so vary the current in accordance
with them as to reproduce the sounds of the voice
in the telephone.
The true nature of the microphone is not yet
known, but it is evident that the air or ether be¬
tween the surfaces in contact plays an important
part in varying the resistance, and, therefore,
the current. In fact, a small “ voltaic arc,” not
luminous, but dark, seems to be formed between
the points, and the vibrations probably alter its
length, and, consequently, its resistance. The
fact that a microphone is reversible and can act
as a receiver, though a poor one, tends to confirm
this theory. Moreover, it is not unlikely that the
slipping of the stylus in the electromotograph is
due to a similar cause. Be this as it may, there
can be no doubt that carbon powder and the
lamp-black of the Edison button are essentially a
cluster of microphones.
Many varieties of the Hughes microphone un¬
der different names are now employed as transmit¬
ters in connection with the Bell telephone. Figure
58 represents a simple micro-telephone circuit,
where M is the Hughes microphone transmitter,
T the Bell telephone receiver, B the battery, and
E E the earth-plates ; but sometimes a return
wire is used in place of the “ earth.”
The line wire is usually of copper and its
alloys, which are more suitable than iron, especi¬
ally for long distances. Just as the signal cur¬
rents in a submarine cable induce corresponding
currents in the sea water which retard them, so
the currents in a land wire induce corresponding
currents in the earth, but in aerial lines the earth

is generally so far away that the consequent re¬
tardation is negligible except in fast working on
long lines. The Bell telephone, however, is ex¬
tremely sensitive, and this induction affects it so
much that a conversation through one wire can

be overheard on a neighbouring wire. Moreover,
there is such a thing as “ self-induction ” in a wire
—that is to say, a current in a wire tends to in¬
duce an opposite current in the same wire, which
is practically equivalent to an increase of resist¬
ance in the wire. It is particularly observed at
the starting and stopping of a current, and gives
rise to what is called the “ extra-spark ” seen in
breaking the circuit of an induction coil. It is
also active in the vibratory currents of the tele¬
phone, and, like ordinary induction, tends to
retard their passage. Copper being less suscep¬
tible of self-induction than iron, is preferred for
trunk lines. The disturbing effect of ordinary
induction is avoided by using a return wire or
loop circuit, and crossing the going and coming
wires so as to make them exchange places at
intervals. Moreover, it is found that an indue-
tion coil in the telephone circuit, like a condenser

in the cable circuit, improves the working, and
hence it is usual to join the battery and trans¬
mitter with the primary wire, and the secondary
wire with the line and the receiver.
The longest telephone line as yet made is that
from New York to Chicago, a distance of 950
miles. It is made of thick copper wire, erected
on cedar poles 35 feet above the ground.
Induction is so strong on submarine cables of
50 or 100 miles in length that the delicate waves
of the telephone current are smoothed away, and
the speech is either muffled or entirely stifled.
Nevertheless, a telephone cable 20 miles long
was laid between Dover and Calais in 1891, and
another between Stranraer and Donaghadee more
recently, thus placing Great Britain on speaking
terms with France and other parts of the Con¬
tinent.
Figure 59 shows a form of telephone appara¬
tus employed in the United Kingdom. In it the
transmitter and receiver, together with a call-bell,
which are required at each end of the line, are
neatly combined. The transmitter is a Blake
microphone, in which the loose joint is a contact
of platinum on hard carbon. It is fitted up in¬
side the box, together with an induction coil,
and M is the mouthpiece for speaking to it. The
receiver is a pair of Bell telephones T T, which
are detached from their hooks and held to the
ear. A call-bell B serves to “ ring up ” the cor¬
respondent at the other end of the line.
Excepting private lines, the telephone is
worked on the “ exchange system ”—that is to
say, the wires running to different persons con¬
verge in a central exchange, where, by means of
an apparatus called a “ switch-board,” they are

connected together for the purpose of conversa¬
tion.
A telephone exchange would make an excel-
Fig. 59.
lent subject for the artist. He delights to paint

us a row of Venetian bead-stringers or a band of
Sevillian cigarette-makers, but why does he shirk
a bevy of industrious girls working a telephone
exchange ? Let us peep into one of these retired
haunts, where the modern Fates are cutting and
joining the lines of electric speech between man

and man in a great city.
The scene is a long, handsome room or gal¬
lery, with a singular piece of furniture in the
shape of an L occupying the middle. This is the
switchboard, in which the wires from the offices
and homes of the subscribers are concentrated
like the nerves in a ganglion. It is known as the
“ multiple switchboard,” an American invention,
and is divided into sections, over which the oper¬
ators preside. The lines of all the subscribers
are brought to each section, so that the operator
can cross-connect any two lines in the whole sys¬
tem without leaving her chair. Each section of
the board is, in fact, an epitome of the whole, but
it is physically impossible for a single operator to
make all the connections of a large exchange, and
the work is distributed amongst them. A multi¬
plicity of wires is therefore needed to connect,
say, two thousand subscribers. These are all
concealed, however, at the back of the board,
and in charge of the electricians. The young
lady operators have nothing to do with these,
and so much the better for them, as it would
puzzle their minds a good deal worse than a rav¬
elled skein of thread. Theii; duty is to sit in
front of the board in comfortable seats at a long
table and make the needful connections. The
call-signal of a subscriber is given by the drop of
a disc bearing his number. The operator then
asks the subscriber by telephone what he wants,
and on hearing the number of the other sub¬
scriber he wishes to speak with, she takes up a
pair of brass plugs coupled by a flexible con¬
ductor and joins the lines of the subscribers on
the switchboard by simply thrusting the plugs
no THE STORY OF ELECTRICITY.
into holes corresponding to the wires. The sub¬

scribers are then free to talk with each other
undisturbed, and the end of the conversation is
signalled to the operator. Every instant the call
discs are dropping, the connecting plugs are
thrust into the holes, and the girls are asking,
“Hullo! hullo!” “Are you there?” “Who are
you ? ” “ Have you finished ? ” Yet all this con¬
stant activity goes on quietly, deftly—we might
say elegantly—and in comparative silence, for the
low tones of the girlish voices are soft and pleas¬
ing, and the harsher sounds of the subscriber are
unheard in the room by all save the operator who
attends to him.
CHAPTER VII.
ELECTRIC LIGHT AND HEAT.
The electric spark was, of course, familiar to

the early experimenters with electricity, but the
electric light, as we know it, was first discovered
by Sir Humphrey Davy, the Cornish philosopher,
in the year 1811 or thereabout. With the magic
of his genius Davy transformed the spark into a
brilliant glow by passing it between two points of
carbon instead of metal. If, as in figure 60, we
twist the wires (+ and —) which come from a
voltaic battery, say of 20 cells, about two carbon
pencils, and bring their tips together in order to
start the current, then draw them a little apart,
we shall produce an artificial or mimic star. A
sheet of dazzling light, which is called the elec¬
tric arc, is seen to bridge the gap. It is not a
ELECTRIC LIGHT AND HEAT. Ill
true flame, for there is little combustion, but

rather a nebulous blaze of silvery lustre in a
bluish veil of heated air.
The points of carbon are
white-hot, and the positive
is eaten away into a hol¬
low or crater by the cur-
rent, which violently tears
its particles from their seat ji yL
and whirls them into the M WL
fierce vortex of the arc. W
The negative remains /y
pointed, but it is also worn «v /
away about half as fast as fig. 6o.
the positive. This wasting
of the carbons tends to widen the arc too much
and break the current, hence in arc lamps meant
to yield the light for hours the sticks are made of
a good length, and a self-acting mechanism feeds
them forward to the arc as they are slowly con¬
sumed, thus maintaining the splendour of the
illumination.
Many ingenious lamps have been devised by
Serrin, Dubosq, Siemens, Brockie, and others,
some regulating the arc by clockwork and elec¬
tro-magnetism, or by thermal and other effects of
the current. They are chiefly used for lighting
halls and railway stations, streets and open spaces,
search-lights and lighthouses. They are some¬
times naked, but as a rule their brightness is tem¬
pered by globes of ground or opal glass. In
search-lights a parabolic mirror projects all the
rays in any one direction, and in lighthouses the
arc is placed in the focus of the condensing lenses,
and the beam is visible for at least twenty or
thirty miles on clear nights. Very powerful arc
lights, equivalent to hundreds of thousands of

candles, can be seen for ioo or 150 miles.
Figure 61 illustrates the Pilsen lamp, in which
the positive carbon G runs on rollers rr through
the hollow interior of two solenoids or coils of
wire MM' and carries at its middle a spindle-

shaped piece of soft iron C. The current flows
through the solenoid M on its way to the arc, but
a branch or shunted portion of it flows through
the solenoid M', and as both of these solenoids
act as electromagnets on the soft iron C, each
tending to suck it into its interior, the iron rests
between them when their powers are balanced.
When, however, the arc grows too wide, and the
current therefore becomes too weak, the shunt
solenoid M' gains a purchase over the main sole¬
noid M, and, pulling the iron core towards it,
feeds the positive carbon to the arc. In this way
the balance of the solenoids is readjusted, the
current regains its normal strength, the arc its
proper width, and the light its brilliancy.
Figure 62 is a diagrammatic representation of
the Brush arc lamp. X and Y are the line ter¬
minals connecting the lamp in circuit. On the
ELECTRIC LIGHT AND HEAT.
one hand, the current splits and passes around

the hollow spools H H', thence to the rod N
through the carbon K, the arc, the carbon K\ and

thence through the lamp frame to Y. On the
other hand, it runs in a resistance fine-wire coil
around the magnet T, thence to Y. The opera¬
1
tion of the lamp is as follows: K and K being
in contact, a strong current starts through the
lamp energising H and H\ which suck in their
core pieces N and S, lifting C, and by it the
“ washer-clutch ” IVand the rod iV'and carbon K,
establishing the arc. A^is lifted until the increas¬
ing resistance of the lengthening arc weakens the
current in HH' and a balance is established. As
the carbons burn away, C gradually lowers until
a stop under W holds it horizontal and allows N
to drop through W, and the lamp starts anew. If
for any reason the resistance of the lamp becomes
too great, or the circuit is broken, the increased

current through T draws up its armature, closing
the contacts M, thus short-circuiting the lamp
through a thick, heavy wire coil on T, which then
keeps M closed, and prevents the dead lamp from
interfering with the others on its line. Numer¬
ous modifications of this lamp are in very gen¬
eral use.
Davy also found that a continuous wire or
stick of carbon could be made white-hot by send¬
ing a sufficient current through it, and this fact is
the basis of the incandescent lamp now so common
in our homes.
Wires of platinum, iridium, and other inoxi-
disable metals raised to incandescence by the
current are useful in firing mines, but they are
not quite suitable for yielding a light, because at
a very high temperature they begin to melt.
Every solid body becomes red-hot—that is to say,
emits rays of red light, at a temperature of about
iooo° Fahrenheit, yellow rays at 1300°, blue rays
at 1500°, and white light at 2000°. It is found,
however, that as the temperature of a wire is
pushed beyond this figure the light emitted be¬
comes far more brilliant than the increase of
temperature would seem to warrant. It there¬
fore pays to elevate the temperature of the fila¬
ment as high as possible. Unfortunately the
most refractory metals, such as platinum and al¬
loys of platinum with iridium, fuse at a tempera¬
ture of about 3450° Fahrenheit. Electricians have
therefore forsaken metals, and fallen back on
carbon for producing a light. In 1845 Mr. Staite
devised an incandescent lamp consisting of a fine
rod or stick of carbon rendered white-hot by the
current, and to preserve the carbon from burning
ELECTRIC LIGHT AND HEAT. 115
in the atmosphere, he enclosed it in a glass bulb,

from which the air was exhausted by an air pump.
Edison and Swan, in 1878, and subsequently, went
a step further, and substituted a filament or fine
thread of carbon for the rod. The new lamp
united the advantages of wire in point of form
with those of carbon as a material. The Edison
filament was made by cutting thin slips of bam¬
boo and charring them, the Swan by carbonising
linen fibre with sulphuric acid. It was subse¬
quently found that a hard skin could be given to
the filament by “ flashing ” it—that is to say, heat¬
ing it to incandescence by
the current in an atmosphere &
of hydro-carbon gas. The
filament thus treated becomes
dense and resilient.
Figure 63 represents an
ordinary glow lamp of the
Edison-Swan type, where E
is the filament, moulded into
a loop, and cemented to two
platinum wires or electrodes
P penetrating the glass bulb
B, which is exhausted of air.
Platinum is chosen be¬
cause it expands and con¬
tracts with temperature about
the same as glass, and hence Fig. 63.
there is little chance of the
glass ciacking through unequal stress. The vac¬
uum in the bulb is made by a mercurial air pump
of the Sprengel sort, and the pressure of air in it
is only about one-millionth of an atmosphere.
The bulb is fastened with a holder like that
shown in figure 64, where two little hooks H con-
i6 THE STORY OF ELECTRICITY.
nected to screw terminals T T are provided to

make contact with the platinum terminals of the
lamp (P, figure 63), and the spiral
spring, by pressing on the bulb, en¬
sures a good contact.
Fig. 65 is a cut of the ordinary
Edison lamp and socket. One end
of the filament is connected to the
metal screw ferule at the base.
The other end is attached to the
metal button in the centre of the
extreme bottom of the base.
Fig. 64. Screwing the lamp
into the socket au¬
tomatically connects the filament
on one end to the screw, on the
other to an insulated plate at the
bottom of the socket.
The resistance of such a fila¬
ment hot is about 200 ohms, and
to produce a good light from it
the battery or dynamo ought to
give an electromotive force of at
least 100 volts. Few voltaic
cells or accumulators have an
electromotive force of more than
2 volts, therefore we require a
battery of 50 cells joined in se¬
ries, each cell giving 2 volts, and
the whole set 100 volts. The
strength of current in the circuit
must also be taken into account.
To yield a good light such a
lamp requires or “ takes ” about
£ an ampere. Hence the cells
must be chosen with regard to fig. 65.
their size and internal resistance as well as to

their kind, so that when the battery, in series, is
connected to the lamp, the resistance of the whole
circuit, including the filament or lamp, the battery
itself, and the connecting wires shall give by
Ohm’s law a current of \ an ampere. It will be un¬
derstood that the current has the same strength
in every part of the circuit, no matter how it is
made up. Thus, if \ of an ampere is flowing in
the lamp, it is also flowing in the battery and
wires. An Edison-Swan lamp of this model gives
a light of about 15 candles, and is well-adapted
for illuminating the interior of houses. The tem¬
perature of the carbon filament is about 3450°
Fahr.—that is to say, the temperature at which
platinum melts. Similar lamps of various sizes
and shapes are also made, some equivalent to as
many as 100 candles, and fitted for large halls
or streets, others emitting a tiny beam like the
spark of a glow-worm, and designed for medical
examinations, or lighting flowers, jewels, and
dresses in theatres or ball-rooms.
The electric incandescent lamp is pure and
healthy, since it neither burns nor pollutes the
air. It is also cool and safe, for it produces
little heat, and cannot ignite any inflammable
stuffs near it. Hence its peculiar merit as a
light for colliers working in fiery mines. Inde¬
pendent of air, it acts equally well under water,
and is therefore used by divers. Moreover, it
can be fixed wherever a wire can be run, does
not tarnish gilding, and lends itself to the most
artistic decoration.
Electric lamps are usually connected in circuit
on the series, parallel, and three-wire system.
The series system is shown in figure 66, where
Il8 THE STORY OF ELECTRICITY.
the lamps L L follow each other in a row like

beads on a string. It is commonly reserved for
L t-
the arc lamp, which has a resistance so low that

a moderate electromotive force can overcome the
added resistance of the lamps, but, of course, if
>
Fig. 67.
the circuit breaks at any point all the lamps go

out.
The parallel system is illustrated in figure 67,
where the lamps are connected between two main
conductors cross-wise, like the steps of a ladder.
The current is thus divided into cross channels,
like water used for irrigating fields, and it is ob¬
vious that, although the circuit is broken at one
point, say by the rupture of a filament, all the
lamps do not go out.
ELECTRIC LIGHT AND HEAT. II9
Fig. 68 exhibits the Edison three-wire system,
in which two batteries or dynamos are connected
<5 ) <s ) <s )

V
V
<s ) £) <s
>
Fig. 68.
together in series, and a third or central main

conductor is run from their middle poles. The plan
saves a return wire, for if two generators had
been used separately, four mains would have been
necessary.
The parallel and three-wire systems in various
groups, with or without accumulators as local
reservoirs, are chiefly employed for incandescent
lamps.
The main conductors conveying the current
from the dynamos are commonly of stout copper
insulated with air like telegraph wires, or cables
coated with india-rubber or gutta-percha, and
buried underground or suspended overhead.
The branch and lamp conductors or “leads ” are
finer wires of copper, insulated with india-rubber
or silk.
The current of an installation or section of
one is made and broken at will by means of a
“ switch ” or key turned by hand. It is simply a
120 THE STORY OF El ECTRICITY.
series of metal contacts insulated from each other

and connected to the conductors, with a sliding
contact connected to the dynamo which travels
over them. To guard against an excess of cur¬
rent on the lamps, “ cut-outs,” or safety-fuses, are
inserted between the switch and the conductors,
or at other leading points in the circuit. They
are usually made of short slips of metal foil or
wire, which melt or deflagrate when the current
is too strong, and thus interrupt the circuit.
Fig. 69.—Electrical Phosphorescence.
There is some prospect of the luminosity ex¬

cited in a vacuum tube by the alternating currents
from a dynamo or an induction coil becoming
an illuminant. Crookes has obtained exquisitely
beautiful glows by the phosphorescence of gems
and other minerals in a vacuum bulb like that

shown in figure 69, where A and B are the metal
electrodes on the outside of the glass. A heap of
diamonds from various countries emit red, orange,
yellow, green, and blue rays. Ruby, sapphire,
and emerald give a deep red, crimson, or lilac
phosphorescence, and sulphate of zinc a magnifi¬
cent green glow. Tesla has also shown that
vacuum bulbs can be lit inside without any out¬
side connection with the current, by means of an
apparatus like that shown in figure 70, where D
is an alternating dynamo, C a condenser, P S the
primary and secondary coils of a sparking trans¬
former, T T two metal sheets or plates, and B B
the exhausted bulbs. The alternating or see-saw
c PS
T B AT
Fig. 70.—The Ideal Illuminant
current in this case charges the condenser and

excites the primary coil P, while the induced cur¬
rent in the secondary coil 6" charges the terminal
plates T T. So long as the bulbs or tubes are
kept within the space between the plates, they
are filled with a soft radiance, and it is easy to
see that if these plates covered the opposite walls

of a room, the vacuum lamps would yield a light
in any part of it.
Electric heating bids fair to become almost as
important as electric illumination. When the arc
was first discovered it was noticed that platinum,
gold, quartz, ruby, and diamond—in fine, the
most refractory minerals—were melted in it, and
ran like wax. Ores and salts of the metals were
also vapourised, and it was clear that a powerful
engine of research had been placed in the hands
of the chemist. As a matter of fact, the tempera¬
ture of the carbons
in the arc is com¬
parable to that of
the Sun. It meas¬
ures 5000 to 10,000°
Fahrenheit, and is
the highest artifi¬
cial heat known. Sir
William Siemens was
fr * among the first to
make an electric fur¬
Fig. 71. nace heated by the
arc, which fused and
vapourised metallic ores, so that the metal could
be extracted from them. Aluminium, chromium,
and other valuable metals are now smelted by its
means, and rough brilliants such as those found
in diamond mines and meteoric stones have been
crystallised from the fumes of carbon, like hoar
frost in a cold mist.
The electric arc is also applied to the welding
of wires, boiler plates, rails, and other metal work,
by heating the parts to be joined and fusing them
together.
Cooking and heating by electricity are coming

more and more into favour, owing to their clean-
Fig. 72. Fig. 73.
liness and convenience. Kitchen ranges, includ¬

ing ovens and grills, entirely heated by the elec¬
tric current, are finding
their way into the best
houses and hotels. Most
of these are based
on the principle
of incandescence,
the current heat¬
ing a fine wire or
other conductor
of high resist¬
ance in passing
through it. Fig¬
ure 71 represents an elec¬
tric kettle of this sort,
which requires no out¬
side fire to boil it, since
the current flows through
fine wires of platinum or
some highly resisting
metal embedded in fire¬
Fig. 74. proof insulating cement
in its bottom. Figures
72 and 73 are a sauce-pan and a flat-iron heated
in the same way. Figure 74 is a cigar-lighter for

smoking rooms, the fusee F consisting of short
platinum wires, which be¬
come red-hot when it is
unhooked, and at the same
time the lamp L is auto¬
matically lit. Figure 75 is
an electric radiator for
heating rooms and passa¬
ges, after the manner of
stoves and hot water pipes.
Quilts for beds, warmed
by fine wires inside;
have also been brought
out, a constant temper¬
ature being maintained
by a simple regulate.,
and it is not unlikely Fig. 75.
that personal clothing
of the kind will soon be at the service of invalids
and chilly mortals, more especially to make them
comfortable on their travels.
An ingenious device places an electric heater
inside a hot water bag, thus keeping it at a uni¬
form temperature for sick-room and hospital use.
CHAPTER VIII.
ELECTRIC POWER.
On the discovery of electromagnetism (Chap.

IV.), Faraday, Barlow, and others devised ex¬
perimental apparatus for producing rotary motion
from the electric current, and in 1831, Joseph
ELECTRIC POWER.
125
Henry, the famous American electrician, invented

a small electromagnetic engine or motor. These
early machines were actuated by the current from
a voltaic battery, but in the middle of the century
Jacobi found that a dynamo-electric generator
can also work as a motor, and that by coupling
two dynamos in circuit—one as a generator, the
other as a motor—it was possible to transmit me¬
chanical power to any distance by means of elec¬
tricity. Figure 76 is a diagram of a simple cir¬
cuit for the transmission of power, where JD is the
■*—m.
Fig. 76.
technical symbol for a dynamo as a generator,

having its poles (+ and —) connected by wire to
the poles of M, the distant dynamo, as a motor.
The generator D is driven by mechanical energy
from any convenient source, and transforms it
into electric energy, which flows through the cir¬
cuit in the direction of the arrows, and, in trav¬
ersing the motor M, is re-transformed into me¬
chanical energy. There is, of course, a certain
waste of energy in the process, but with good
machines and conductors, it is not more than 10
to 25 per cent., or the “efficiency ” of the instal¬
lation is from 75 to 90 per cent.—that is to say,
for every 100 horse-power put into the generator,
from 75 to 90 horse-power are given out again by
the motor.
It was not until 1870, when Gramme had im¬
proved the dynamo, that power was practically
transmitted in this way, and applied to pumping

water, and other work. Since then great progress
has been made, and electricity is now recognised,
not only as a rival of steam, but as the best
means of distributing steam, wind, water, or any
other power to a distance, and bringing it to bear
on the proper point.
The first electric railway, or, rather, tramway,
was built by Dr. Werner von Siemens at Berlin in
1879, and was soon followed by many others.
The wheels of the car were driven by an electric
motor drawing its electricity from the rails, which
were insulated from the ground, and being con¬
nected to the generator, served as conductors. It
was found very difficult to insulate the rails, and
keep the electricity from leaking to the ground,
however, and at the Paris Electrical Exhibition
of 1881, von Siemens made a short tramway in
which the current was drawn from a bare copper
conductor running on poles, like a telegraph wire,
along the line.
The system will be understood from figure 77,
where L is the overhead conductor joined to the
positive pole of the dynamo or generator in the
power house, and C is a rolling contact or trolley
wheel travelling with the car and connected by
the wire W to an electric motor M under the car,
and geared to the axles. After passing through
the motor the current escapes to the rail R by a
brush or sliding contact C', and so returns to the
negative pole of the generator. A very general
way is to allow the return current to escape to
the rails through the wheels. Many tramways,
covering thousands of miles, are now worked
on this plan in the United States. At Bangor,
Maine, a modification of it is in use whereby the
ELECTRIC POWER. 27
conductor is divided into sections, alternately

connected to the positive and negative poles of
two generators, coupled together as in the “ three-
wire system” of electric lighting (page 119),
their middle poles being joined to the earth—that

is to say, the rails. It enables two cars to be run
on the same line at once, and with a considerable
saving of copper.
To make the car independent of the conductor
L for a short time, as in switching, a battery of
accumulators B may be added and charged from
the conductor, so that when the motor is discon¬
nected from the conductor, the discharge from the
accumulator may still work it and drive the wheels.
Attempts have been made to run tramcars
with the electricity supplied by accumulators
alone, but the system is not economical owing to
the dead weight of the cells, and the periodical
trouble of recharging them at the generating sta¬
tion.
On heavy railroads worked by electricity the

overhead conductor is replaced by a third rail
along the middle of the track, and insulated from
the ground. In another system the middle con¬
ductor is buried underground, and the current is
tapped at intervals by the motor connecting with
it for a moment by means of spring contacts as
the car travels. In each case, however, the outer
rails serve as the return conductors.
Another system puts one or both the conduc¬
tors in a conduit underground, the trolley pole
entering through a narrow slot similar to that
used on cable roads.
The first electric carriages for ordinary roads
were constructed in 1889 by Mr. Magnus Volk of
Brighton. Figure 78 represents one of these
made for the Sultan of Turkey, and propelled by
a one-horse-power Immisch electric motor, geared
to one of the hind wheels by means of a chain.
The current for the motor was supplied by thirty
“ E. P. S.” accumulators stowed in the body of the
vehicle, and of sufficient power to give a speed of
ten miles an hour. The driver steers with a hand
lever as shown, and controls the speed by a switch
in front of him.
Vans, bath chairs, and tricycles are also driven
by. electric motors, but the weight of the battery
is a drawback to their use.
In or about the year 1839, Jacobi sailed an
electric boat on the Neva, with the help of an
electromagnetic engine of one horse-power, fed
by the current from a battery of Grove cells, and
in 1882 a screw launch, carrying several passen¬
gers, and propelled by an electric motor of three
horse-power, worked by forty-five accumulators,
was tried on the Thames. Being silent and
ELECTRIC POWER. 129
smokeless in its action, the electric boat soon

came into favour, and there is now quite a flotilla
Fig. 78.—An Electric Carriage.
on the river, with power stations for charging

the accumulators at various points along the
banks.
Figure 79 illustrates the interior of a hand¬
some electric launch, the Lady Cooper, built for
the “ E. P. S.,” or Electric Power Storage Com¬
pany. An electric motor in the after part of the
hull is coupled directly to the shaft of the screw
propeller, and fed by “ E. P. S.” accumulators in
teak boxes lodged under the deck amidships.
The screw is controlled by a switch, and the
rudder by an ordinary helm. The cabin is seven
feet long, and lighted by electric lamps. Alarm
9
i3o THE STORY OF ELECTRICITY.
signals are given by an electric gong, and a

search-light can be brought into operation when¬
ever it is desirable. The speed attained by the
Lady Cooper is from ten to fifteen knots.
M. Goubet, a Frenchman, has constructed a
submarine boat for discharging torpedoes and
Fig. 79.—An Electric Launch.
exploring the sea bottom, which is propelled by

a screw and an electric motor fed by accumula¬
tors. It can travel entirely under water, below
the agitation of the waves, where sea-sickness is
impossible, and the inventor hopes that vessels
of the kind will yet carry passengers across the
Channel.
The screw propeller of the Edison and Sim’s
torpedo is also driven by an electric motor. In
this case the current is conveyed from the ship
or fort which discharges the torpedo by an in¬
sulated conductor running off a reel carried by
the torpedo, the “ earth ” or return half of the
circuit being the sea-water.
All sorts of machinery are now worked by the
electric motor—for instance, cranes, elevators,
capstans, rivetters, lathes, pumps, chaff-cutters,
and saws. Of domestic appliances, figure 80
shows an air propeller or ventilation fan, where
F is a screw-like fan attached to the spindle of
the motor M, and revolving with its armature.
Figure 81 represents a Trouv£ motor working a
sewing-machine, where JV is the motor which gears
ELECTRIC POWER.
13
with P the driving axle of the machine. Figure

82 represents a fine drill actuated by a Griscom
motor. The motor M is sus¬
pended from a bracket ABC
by the tackle BE, and trans¬
mits the rotation of its arm¬
ature by a flexible shaft 6" T
to the terminal
drill O, which can
be applied at any
point, and is use¬
ful in boring teeth.
Now that elec¬
tricity is manufac¬
tured and distrib¬
uted in towns and
villages for the
electric light, it is
more and more employed for
driving the lighter machine¬
ry. Steam, however, is more
economical on a large scale,
Fig. 80.—An Electric Fan. and still continues to be used
in great factories for the
heavier machinery. Nevertheless a day is coming
when coal, instead of being carried by rail to dis¬
tant works and cities, will be burned at the pit
mouth, and its heat transformed by means of en¬
gines and dynamos into electricity for distribution
to the surrounding country. I have shown else¬
where that peat can be utilised in a similar man¬
ner, and how the great Bog of Allen is virtually a
neglected gold field in the heart of Ireland.* The
sunshine of deserts, and perhaps the' electricity of
the atmosphere, but at all events the power of
* The Nineteenth Century for December 1894.
winds, waves, and waterfalls are also destined to

whirl the dynamo, and yield us light, heat, or mo¬
tion. Much has already been done in this direc¬
tion. In 1891 the power of turbines driven by the
Fig. 81.—An Electric Sewing Machine.
Falls of Neckar at Lauffen was transformed into

electricity, and transmitted by a small wire to the
Electrical Exhibition of Frankfort-on-the-Main,
117 miles away. The city of Rome is now lighted
from the Falls of Tivoli, 16 miles distant. The
finest cataract in Great Britain, the Falls of Foyers,
in the Highlands, which persons of taste and cul¬
ture wished to preserve for the nation, is being
sacrificed to the spirit of trade, and deprived of
its waters for the purpose of generating electricity
to reduce aluminium from its ores.
The great scheme recently completed for util¬
izing the power of Niagara Falls by means of
electricity is a triumph of human enterprise which
ELECTRIC POWER. 33
outrivals some of the bold creations of Jules

Verne.
When in 1678 the French missionaries La Salle
and Hennepin discovered the stupendous cataract
on the Niagara River
between Lake Onta- .
rio and Lake Erie,
the science of elec¬
tricity was in its ear¬
ly infancy, and little
more was known
about the mysterious
force which is per¬
forming miracles in
our day than its man¬
ifestation on rubbed
amber, sealing-wax,
glass, and other bod¬
ies. Nearly a hun¬
dred years had still
to pass ere Franklin fig. 82.—An Electric Drill,
should demonstrate
the identity of the electric fire with lightning, and
nearly another hundred before Faraday should
reveal a mode of generating it from mechanical
power. Assuredly, neither La Salle nor his con¬
temporaries ever dreamed of a time when the
water-power of the Falls would be distributed by
means of electricity to produce light or heat and
serve all manner of industries in the surrounding
district. The awestruck Iroquois Indians had
named the cataract “ Oniagahra,” or Thunder of
the Waters, and believed it the dwelling-place of
the Spirit of Thunder. This poetical name is
none the less appropriate now that the modern
electrician is preparing to draw his lightnings from
its waters and compel the genius loci to become

his willing bondsman.
The Falls of Niagara are situated about
twenty-one miles from Lake Erie, and fourteen
miles from Lake Ontario. At this point the Ni¬
agara River, nearly a mile broad, flowing between
level banks, and parted by several islands, is sud¬
denly shot over a precipice 170 feet high, and
making a sharp bend to the north, pursues its
course through a narrow gorge towards Lake On¬
tario. The Falls are divided at the brink by Goat
Island, whose primeval woods are still thriving in
their spray. The Horseshoe Fall on the Canadian
side is 812 yards, and the American Falls on the
south side are 325 yards wide. For a consider¬
able distance both above and below the Falls the
river is turbulent with rapids.
The water-power of the cataract has been em¬
ployed from olden times. The French fur-traders
placed a mill beside the upper rapids, and the
early British settlers built another to saw the tim¬
ber used in their stockades. By-and-by, the
Stedman and Porter mills were established below
the Falls; and subsequently, others which derived
their water-supply from the lower rapids by means
of raceways or leads. Eventually, an open hy¬
draulic canal, three-fourths of a mile long, was
cut across the elbow of land on the American
side, through the town of Niagara Falls, between
the rapids above and the verge of the chasm below
the Falls, where, since 1874, a cluster of factories
has arisen, which discharge their spent water over
the cliff in a series of cascades almost rivalling
Niagara itself. This canal, which only taps a
mere drop from the ocean of power that is run¬
ning to waste, has been utilised to the full; and
ELECTRIC POWER. 15
the decrease of water-privileges in the New Eng¬

land States, owing to the clearing of the forests
and settlement of the country, together with the
growth of the electrical industries, have led to a
further demand on the resources of Niagara.
With the example of Minneapolis, which draws
the power for its many mills from the Falls of St.
Anthony, in the Mississippi River, before them, a
group of far-seeing and enterprising citizens of
Niagara Falls resolved to satisfy this requirement
by the foundation of an industrial city in the
neighbourhood of the Falls. They perceived that
a better site could nowhere be found on the
American Continent. Apart from its healthy air
and attractive scenery, Niagara is a kind of half¬
way house between the East and West, the con¬
suming and the producing States. By the Erie
Canal at Tonawanda it commands the great water¬
way of the Lakes and the St. Lawrence. A sys¬
tem of trunk railways from different parts of the
States and Canada are focussed there, and cross
the river by the Cantilever and Suspension bridges
below the Falls. The New York Central and
Hudson River, the Lehigh Valley, the Buffalo,
Rochester, and Pittsburgh, the Michigan Central,
and the Grand Trunk of Canada, are some of these
lines. Draining as it does the great lakes of the
interior, which have a total area of 92,000 square
miles, with an aggregate basin of 290,000 square
miles, the volume of water in the Niagara River
passing over the cataract every second is some¬
thing like 300,000 cubic feet; and this, with a fall
of 276 feet from the head of the upper rapids to
the whirlpool rapids below, is equivalent to about
nine million, or, allowing for waste in the turbines,
say, seven million horse-power. Moreover, the
great lakes discharging into each other form a

chain of immense reservoirs, and the level of the
river being little affected by flood or drought, the
supply of pure water is practically constant all
the year round. Mr. R. C. Reid has shown that
a rainfall of three inches in twenty-four hours
over the basin of Lake Superior would take
ninety days to run off into Lake Huron, which,
with Lake Michigan, would take as long to over¬
flow into Lake Erie; and, therefore, six months
would elapse before the full effect of the flood
was expended at the Falls.
The first outcome of the movement was the
Niagara River Hydraulic Power and Sewer Com¬
pany, incorporated in 1886, and succeeded by the
Niagara Falls Power Company. The old plan of
utilising the water by means of an open canal was
unsuited to the circumstances, and the company
adopted that of the late Mr. Thomas Evershed,
divisional engineer of the New York State Canals.
Like the other, it consists in tapping the river
above the Falls, and using the pressure of the
water to drive the number of turbines, then re¬
storing the water to the river below the Falls;
but instead of a surface canal, the tail-race is a
hydraulic tunnel or underground conduit. To this
end some fifteen hundred acres of spare land,
having a frontage just above the upper rapids, was
quietly secured at the low price of three hundred
dollars an acre; and we believe its rise in value
owing to the progress of the works is such that
a yearly rental of two hundred dollars an acre can
even now be got for it. This land has been laid
out as an industrial city, with a residential quar¬
ter for the operatives, wharves along the river,
and sidings or short lines to connect with the
ELECTRIC POWER. 137
trunk railways. In carrying out their purpose

the company has budded and branched into other
companies—one for the purchase of the land ;
another for making the railways; and a third,
the Cataract Construction Company, which is
charged with the carrying out of the engineer¬
ing works, for the utilisation of the water-power,
and is therefore the most important of all. A
subsidiary company has also been formed to
transmit by electricity a portion of the available
power to the city of Buffalo, at the head of the
Niagara River, on Lake Erie, some twenty miles
distant. All these affiliated bodies are, however,
under the directorate of the Cataract Construc¬
tion Company; and amongst those who have
taken the most active part in the work we may
mention the president, Mr. E. D. Adams; Pro¬
fessor Coleman Sellers, the consulting engineer;
and Professor George Forbes, F. R. S., the con¬
sulting electrical engineer, a son of the late Prin¬
cipal Forbes of Edinburgh.
In securing the necessary right of way for the
hydraulic tunnel or in the acquisition of land,
the Company has shown consummate tact. A
few proprietors declined to accept its terms, and
the Company selected a parallel route. Having
obtained the right of way for the latter, it in¬
formed the refractory owners on the first line of
their success, and intimated that the Company
could now dispense with that. On this the
sticklers professed their willingness to accept
the original terms, and the bargain was con¬
cluded, thus leaving the Company in possession
of the rights of way for two tunnels, both of
which they propose to utilise.
The liberal policy of the directors is deserving
of the highest commendation. They have risen

above mere “ chauvinism,” and instead of nar¬
rowly confining the work to American engineers,
they have availed themselves of the best scientific
counsel which the entire world could afford. The
great question as to the best means of distribut¬
ing and applying the power at their command
had to be settled ; and in 1890, after Mr. Adams
and Dr. Sellers had made a visit of inspection
to Europe, an International Commission was ap¬
pointed to consider the various methods sub¬
mitted to them, and award prizes to the success¬
ful competitors. Lord Kelvin (then Sir William
Thomson) was the president, and Professor W.
C. Unwin, the well-known expert in hydraulic
engineering, the secretary, while other members
were Professor Mascart of the Institute, a lead¬
ing French electrician; Colonel Turretini of
Geneva, and Dr. Sellers. A large number of
schemes were sent in, and many distinguished
engineers gave evidence before the Commission.
The relative merits of compressed air and elec¬
tricity as a means of distributing the power were
discussed, and on the whole the balance of opinion
was in favour of electricity. Prizes of two hun¬
dred and two hundred and fifty pounds were
awarded to a number of firms who had submitted
plans, but none of these were taken up by the
Company. The impulse turbines of Messrs.
Faesch & Piccard, of Geneva, who gained a prize
of two hundred and fifty pounds, have, however,
been adopted since. It is another proof of the
determination of the Company to procure the
best information on the subject, regardless of
cost, that Professor Fcrbes had carte blanche to
go to any part of the world and make a report
ELECTRIC POWER. 139
on any system of electrical distribution which he

might think fit.
With the selection of electricity another ques¬
tion arose as to the expediency of employing
continuous or alternating currents. At that time
continuous currents were chiefly in vogue, and it
speaks well for the sagacity and prescience of
Professor Forbes that he boldly advocated the
adoption of alternating currents, more especially
for the transmission of power to Buffalo. His
proposals encountered strong opposition, even in
the highest quarters; but since then, partly
owing to the striking success of the Lauffen to
Frankfort experiment in transmitting power by
alternating currents over a bare wire on poles
a distance of more than a hundred miles, the
directors and engineers have come round to his
view of the matter, and alternating currents have
been employed, at all events for the Buffalo line,
and also for the chief supply of the industrial
city. Continuous currents, flowing always in the
same direction, like the current of a battery, can,
it is true, be stored in accumulators, but they
cannot be converted to higher or lower pressure
in a transformer. Alternating currents, on the
other hand, which see-saw in direction many
times a second, cannot be stored in accumulators,
but they can be sent at high pressure along a very
fine wire, and then converted to higher or lower
pressures where they are wanted, and even to con¬
tinuous currents. Each kind, therefore, has its
peculiar advantages, and both will be employed
to some extent.
With regard to the engineering works, the
hydraulic tunnel starts from the bank of the
river where it is navigable, at a point a mile and
a half above the Falls, and after keeping by the

shore, it cuts across the bend beneath the city of
Niagara Falls, and terminates below the Suspen¬
sion Bridge under the Falls at the level of the
water. It is 6700 yards long, and of a horseshoe
section, 19 feet wide by 21 feet high. It has been
cut 160 feet below the surface through the lime¬
stone and shale, but is arched with brick, having
rubble above, and at the outfall is lined on the
invert or under side with iron. The gradient is
36 feet in the mile, and the total fall is 205 feet, of
which 140 feet are available for use. The capac¬
ity of the tunnel is 100,000 horse-power. In the
lands of the company it is 400 feet from the mar¬
gin of the river, to which it is connected by a
canal, which is over 1500 feet long, 500 feet wide
at the mouth, and 12 feet deep.
Out of this canal, head-races fitted with sluices
conduct the water to a number of wheel-pits 160
feet deep, which have been dug near the edge of
the canal, and communicate below with the tun¬
nel. At the bottom of each wheel-pit a 5000
horse-power Girard double turbine is mounted on
a vertical shaft, which drives a propeller shaft
rising to the surface of the ground ; a dynamo of
5000 horse-power is fixed on the top of this shaft,
and so driven by it. The upward pressure of the
water is ingeniously contrived to relieve the
foundation of the weight of the turbine shaft and
dynamo. Twenty of these turbines, which are
made by the I. P. Morris Company of Philadel¬
phia, from the designs of Messrs. Faesch and
Piccard, will be required to utilize the full capac¬
ity of the tunnel.
The company possesses a strip of land extend¬
ing two miles along the shore; and in excavating
ELECTRIC POWER. 14I
the tunnel a coffer-dam was made with the ex¬

tracted rock, to keep the river from flooding the
works. This dam now forms part of a system by
which a tract of land has been reclaimed from the
river. Part of it has already been acquired by
the Niagara Paper Pulp Company, which is build¬
ing gigantic factories, and will employ the tail-
race or tunnel of the Cataract Construction Com¬
pany. Wharfs for the use of ships and canal
boats will also be constructed on this frontage.
By land and water the raw materials of the West
will be conveyed to the industrial town which is
now coming into existence ; grain from the prai¬
ries of Illinois and Dakota; timber from the for¬
ests of Michigan and Wisconsin ; coal and copper
from the mines of Lake Superior; and what not.
It is expected that one industry having a seat
there will attract others. Thus, the pulp mills
will bring the makers of paper wheels and bar¬
rels; the smelting of iron will draw foundries
and engine works; the electrical refining of cop¬
per will lead to the establishment of wire-works,
cable factories, dynamo shops, and so on. Alu¬
minum, too, promises to create an important in¬
dustry in the future. In the meantime, the Cata¬
ract Construction Company is about to start an
electrical factory of its own, which will give em¬
ployment to a large number of men. It has also
undertaken the water supply of the adjacent city
of Niagara Falls. The Cataract Electric Com¬
pany of Buffalo has obtained the exclusive right
to use the electricity transmitted to that city,
and the line will be run in a subway. This
underground line will be more expensive to make
than an overhead line, but it will not require to
be renewed every eight to fifteen years, and it
will not be liable to interruption from the heavy

gales that sweep across the lakes, or the weight
of frozen sleet: moreover, it will be more easily
inspected, and quite safe for the public. We
should also add that, in addition to the contem¬
plated duplicate tunnel of 100,000 horse-power,
the Cataract Construction Company owns a con¬
cession for utilising 250,000 horse-power from the
Horseshoe Falls on the Canadian side in the same
manner. It has thus a virtual monopoly of the
available water-power of Niagara, and the pro¬
moters have not the least doubt that the enter¬
prise will be a great financial success. Already
the Pittsburg Reduction Company have begun to
use the electricity in reducing aluminum from
the mineral known as bauxite, an oxide of the
metal, by means of the electric furnace.
Another portion of the power is to be used to
produce carbide of calcium for the manufacture
of acetylene gas. At a recent electrical exhibition
held in New York city a model of the Niagara
plant was operated by an electric current brought
from Niagara, 450 miles distant; and a collection
of telephones were so connected that the spec¬
tator could hear the roar of the real cataract.
Thanks to the foresight of New York State
and Canada, the scenery of the Falls has been
preserved by the institution of public parks, and
the works in question will do nothing to spoil it,
especially as they will be free from smoke. Mr.
Bogarts, State Engineer of New York, estimates
that the water drawn from the river will only
lower the mean depth of the Falls about two
inches, and will therefore make no appreciable
difference in the view. Altogether, the enter¬
prise is something new in the history of the
MINOR USES OF ELECTRICITY.
43
world. It is not only the grandest application of

electrical power, but one of the most remarkable
feats in an age when romance has become science,
and science has become romance.
CHAPTER IX.
The electric “ trembling bell,” now in common

use, was first invented by John Mirand in 1850.
Figure 83 shows the scheme of the circuit, where
B is a small battery, say two or three “ dry ” or

Leclanche cells, joined by insulated wire to Py
a press-button or contact key, and G an electro¬
magnetic gong or bell. On pressing the button
B, a spring contact is made, and the current
flowing through the circuit strikes the bell. The
action of the contact key will be understood
from figure 84, where P is the press-button
removed to show the underlying mechanism,
which is merely a metal spring A over a metal
plate B. The spring is connected by wire to a

pole of the battery, and the plate to a terminal
or binding screw of the bell, or vice versd. When
Fig. 84.
the button P is pressed by the finger the spring

is forced against the plate, the circuit is made,
and the bell rings. On releasing the button it
springs back, the circuit is broken, and the bell
stops.
Figure 85 shows the inner mechanism of the
bell, which consists of a double-poled electro¬
magnet M, having a soft iron armature A hinged
on a straight spring or tongue S, with one end
fixed, and the other resting against a screw con¬
tact T. The hammer H projects from the arma¬
ture beside the edge of the gong E.
In passing through the instrument the current
proceeds from one terminal, say that on the right,
by the wire IVto the screw contact T, and thence
by the spring ^ through the bobbins of the elec¬
tromagnet to the other terminal. The electro¬
magnet attracts the armature A, and the hammer
H strikes the gong; but in the act the spring S
is drawn from the contact T, and the circuit is
broken. Consequently the electromagnet, no
MINOR USES OF ELECTRICITY. r45
longer excited, lets the armature go, and the

spring leaps back against the contact T, with¬
drawing the hammer from the gong. But the in¬

strument is now as it was at first, the current again
flows, and the hammer strikes the gong, only to
fly back a second time. In this way, as long as
the button is pressed by the operator, the hammer
will continue to tap the bell and give a ringing
sound. Press-buttons are of various patterns, and
either affixed to the wall or inserted in the handle
of an ordinary bell-pull, as shown in figure 86.
10
1*6 THE STORY OF ELECTRICITY.
The ordinary electric bell actuated by a bat¬

tery is liable to get out of order owing to the
battery spending its force, or to the
contacts becoming dirty. Magneto-
electric bells hare, therefore, been
introduced of late years. With these
no battery or interrupting contacts
are required, since the bell-pull or
press-button is made in the form of
a small dynamo which generates the
current when it is pulled or pushed.
Figure 87 illustrates a form of this
apparatus, where M P vs the bell-
pull and B the bell, these being con¬
nected by a double wire fVt to con-
rev the current. The bell-pull con¬
sists of a horseshoe magnet M, har¬
ing a bobbin of insulated wire be¬
tween its poles, and mounted on a
spindle. When the key P is turned
round by the hand, the bobbin mores
in the magnetic field between the
poles of the magnet, and the current
thus generated circulates in the wires
IV, and passing through an electro¬
magnet under the bell, attracts its armature, and
strikes the hammer on the belt Of course the
bell may be placed at any distance from the gen¬
erator. In other types the current is generated
and the bell rung by the act of pulling, as in a
common house-bell.
Electric bells in large houses and hotels are
usually fitted up with indicators, as shown in
figure 88, which tell the room from which the
call proceeds. They are serviceable as instan¬
taneous signals, annunciators, and alarms in many
MINOR USES OF ELECTRICITY. *47
different ways. An outbreak of fire can be an¬
nounced by causing the undue rise of tempera-
Fte.
ture to melt a piece of tallow or fusible metal,

and thus release a weight, which falls on a press-
button, and closes the circuit of an electric bell.
Or, the rising temperature may expand the mer¬
cury in a tube like that of a thermometer until it
connects two platinum wires fused through the
glass and in circuit with a bell. Some employ a
curving bi-metallic spring to make the necessary
contact. The spring is made by soldering strips
of brass and iron back to back, and as these
metals expand unequally when heated, the spring
is deformed, and touches the contact which is
connected in the circuit, thus permitting the cur-
rent to ring the bell. A still better device, how¬

ever, is a small box containing a thin metallic
diaphragm, which
expands with the
heat, and sagging
in the centre, touch¬
es a contact screw,
thus completing the
circuit, and allow¬
ing the current to
pass.
These automatic
or self-acting fire-
alarms can, of
course, be con¬
nected in the cir¬
cuit of the ordinary
street fire - alarms,
which are usually
worked by pulling
a handle to make
the necessary con¬
tact.
Fig. 88. From what has
been said, it will be
■easy to understand how the stealthy entrance of
burglars into a house can be announced by an
electric bell or warning lamp. If press-buttons or
contact-keys are placed on the sashes of the win¬
dows, the posts of the door, or the treads of the
stair, so that when the window or door is opened,
or the tread bends under the footstep, an electric
circuit is closed, the alarm will be given. Of
course, the connections need only be arranged
when the device is wanted. Shops and offices
can be guarded by making the current show a
MINOR USES OF ELECTRICITY. 149
red light from a lamp hung in front of the prem¬

ises, so that the night watchman can see it on
his beat. This can readily be done by adjusting
an electromagnet to drop a screen of red glass
before the flame of the lamp. Safes and show¬
cases forcibly opened can be made to signal the
fact, and recently in the United States a thief was
photographed by a flashlight kindled in this way,
and afterwards captured through the likeness.
The level of water in cisterns and reservoirs
can be told in a similar manner by causing a
float to rise with the water and make the re¬
quired contact. The degree of frost in a con¬
servatory can also be announced by means of
the mercury “ thermostat,” already described,
or some equivalent device. There are, indeed,
many actual or possible applications of a similar
kind.
The Massey log is an instrument for telling
the speed of a ship by the revolutions of a “ fly ”
as it is towed through the water, and by making
the fly complete a circuit as it revolves the num¬
ber of turns a second can be struck by a bell on
board. In one form of the “ electric log,” the
current is generated by the chemical action of
zinc and copper plates attached to the log, and
immersed in the sea water, and in others pro¬
vided by a battery on the ship.
Captain M’Evoy has invented an alarm for
torpedoes and torpedo boats, which is a veritable
watchdog of the sea. It consists of an iron bell-
jar inverted in the water, and moored at a depth
below the agitation of the waves. In the upper
part of the jar, where the pressure of the air
keeps back the water, there is a delicate needle
contact in circuit with a battery and an electric
bell or lamp, as the case may be, on the shore.

Waves of sound passing through the water from
the screw propeller of the torpedo, or, indeed, any
ship, make and break the sensitive contact, and
ring the bell or light the lamp. The apparatus
is intended to alarm a fleet lying at anchor or a
port in time of war.
Electricity has also been employed to register
the movements of weathercocks and anemometers.
A few years ago it was applied successfully to
telegraph the course marked by a steering com¬
pass to the navigating officer on the bridge.
This was done without impeding the motion of
the compass card by causing an electric spark to
jump from a light pointer on the card to a series
of metal plates round the bowl of the compass,
and actuate an electric alarm.
The “ Domestic Telegraph,” an American de¬
vice, is a little dial apparatus by which a citizen
can signal for a policeman, doctor, messenger, or
carriage, as well as a fire engine, by the simple act
of setting a hand on the dial.
Alexander Bain was the first to drive a clock
with electricity instead of weights, by employing
a pendulum having an iron bob. w'hich was at¬
tracted to one side and the other by an electro¬
magnet, but as its rate depends on the constancy
of the current, which is not easy to maintain, the
invention has not come into general use. The
“ butterfly clock ” of Lemoine, which we illustrate
in figure 89, is an improved type, in which the bob
of soft iron P swings to and fro over the poles
of a double electro magnet M in circuit with a
battery and contact key. When the rate is too
slow the key is closed, and a current passing
through the electromagnet pulls on the pendu-
*5i
lum, thus correcting the clock. This is done by

the ingenious device of Hipp, shown in figure
90, where M is the electromagnet, P the iron
bob, from which projects a wire bearing a light
vane B of mica in the shape
of a butterfly. As the bob
swings the wire drags over
the hump of the metal spring
S, and when the bob is going
too slowly the wire thrusts
the spring into contact with
another spring T below, thus
closing the circuit, and send¬
ing a current through the
magnet M, which attracts the
bob and gives a fillip to the
pendulum.
Local clocks controlled
from a standard clock by elec¬
tricity have been more suc¬
cessful in practice, and are
employed in several towns—
for example, Glasgow. Be¬
Fig. 89.—The Electric
hind local dials are electro¬ “ Butterfly ” Clock.
magnets which, by means of
an armature working a frame and ratchet wheel,
move the hands forward every minute or half¬
minute as the current is sent from the standard
clock.
The electrical chronograph is an instrument
for measuring minute intervals of time by means
of a stylus tracing a line on a band of travelling
paper or a revolving barrel of smoked glass. The
current, by exciting an electromagnet, jerks the
stylus, and the interval between two jerks is
found from the length of the trace between them
152 the story of electricity.
and the speed of the paper or smoked surface.

Retarded clocks are sometimes employed as
electric meters for registering the consumption
of electricity. In these the current to be mea¬
sured flows through a coil beneath the bob of the
pendulum, which is a magnet, and thus affects the
Fig. go.
rate. In other meters the current passes through

a species of galvanometer called an ampere meter,
and controls a clockwork counter. In a third
kind of meter the chemical effect of the current
is brought into play—that of Edison, for example,
decomposing sulphate of copper, or more com¬
monly of zinc.
The electric light is now used for signalling
and advertising by night in a variety of ways.
Incandescent lamps inside a translucent balloon,
and their light controlled by a current key, as in
MINOR USES OF ELECTRICITY. 153;
a telegraph circuit, so as to give long and'short

flashes, according to the Morse code, are em¬
ployed in the army. Signals at sea are also'
made by a set of red and white glow-lamps,
which are combined according to the code in use.
The powerful arc lamp is extremely useful as a
“ search light,” especially on men-of-war and
fortifications, and it has also been tried in sig¬
nalling by projecting the beam on the clouds by
way of a screen, and eclipsing it according to a
given code.
In 1879, Professor Graham Bell, the inventor
of the speaking telephone, and Mr. Summer
Tainter, brought out an ingenious apparatus-
called the photophone, by which music and
speech were sent along a beam of light for
several hundred yards. The action of the photo¬
phone is based on the peculiar fact observed in
1873 by Mr. J. E. Mayhew, thatN;he electrical re¬
sistance of crystalline selenium diminishes when
a ray of light falls upon it. Figure 91 shows
Fig. 91.—The Photophone.
how Bell and Tainter utilised this property in the

telephone. A beam of sun or electric light, con¬
centrated by a lens Z, is reflected by a thin mirror
M, and after traversing another lens Z, travels
to the parabolic reflector R, in the focus of
which there is a selenium resistance in circuit

with a battery B and two telephones T T'. Now,
when a person speaks into the tube at the back
of the mirror M, the light is caused to vibrate
with the sounds, and a wavering beam falls on the
selenium, changing its resistance to the cur¬
rent. The strength of the current is thus varied
with the sonorous waves, and the words spoken
by the transmitter are heard in the telephones 1
by the receiver. The photophone is, however,
more of a scientific toy than a practical instru¬
ment.
Becquerel, the French chemist, found that
two plates of silver freshly coated with silver
from a solution of chloride of silver and plunged
into water, form a voltaic cell which is sensitive
to light. This can be seen by connecting the
plates through a galvanometer, and allowing a
ray of light to fall upon them. Other combina¬
tions of the kind have been discovered, and
Professor Minchin, the Irish physicist, has used
one of these cells to measure the intensity of
starlight.
The “ induction balance ” of Professor Hughes
is founded on the well-known fact that a current
passing in one wire can induce a sympathetic
current in a neighbouring wire. The arrange¬
ment will be understood from figure 92, where P
and Px are two similar coils or bobbins of thick
wire in circuit with a battery B and a micro¬
phone M, while S and Sx are two similar coils or
bobbins of fine wire in circuit with a telephone
T. It need hardly be said that when the micro¬
phone M is disturbed by a sound, the current in
the primary coils P Px will induce a correspond¬
ing current in the secondary coils .5 Sx; but the
155
coils S St are so wound that the induction of P
on S neutralises the induction of Px on Slt and
no current passes in the secondary circuit, hence
no sound is heard in the telephone. When, how¬
ever, this balance of induction is upset by bring¬

ing a piece of metal—say, a coin—near one or
other of the coils S .Su a sound will be heard in
the telephone.
The induction balance has been used as a
“ Sonometer ” for measuring the sense of hear¬
ing, and also for telling base coins. The writer
devised a form of it for “ divining ” the presence
of gold and metallic ores which has been applied
by Captain M’Evoy in his “ submarine detector ”
for exploring the sea bottom for lost anchors and
sunken treasure. When President Garfield was
shot, the position of the bullet was ascertained
by a similar arrangement.
The microphone as a means of magnifying
feeble sounds has been employed for localising
the leaks in water pipes and in medical examina¬
tions. Some years ago it saved a Russian lady
from premature burial by rendering the faint beat¬
ing of her heart audible.
Edison’s electric pen is useful in copying let¬

ters. It works by puncturing a row of minute
holes along the lines of the writing, and thus pro¬
ducing a stencil plate, which, when placed over a
clean sheet of paper and brushed with ink, gives
a duplicate of the writing by the ink penetrating
the holes to the paper below. It is illustrated in
figure 93, where P is the pen, consisting of a hol¬
low stem in which a fine needle actuated by the

armature of a small electromagnet plies rapidly
up and down and pierces the paper. The current
is derived from a small battery B, and an inking
roller like that used in printing serves to apply
the ink.
In 1878 Mr. Edison announced his invention
of a machine for the storage and reproduction of
speech, and the announcement was received with
a good deal of incredulity, notwithstanding the
partial success of Faber and others in devising
mechanical articulators. The simplicity of Edison’s
invention when it was seen and heard elicited much
admiration, and although his first instrument was
obviously imperfect, it was nevertheless regarded
as the germ of something better. If the words
spoken into the instrument were heard in the first
place, the likeness of the reproduction was found
to be unmistakable. Indeed, so faithful was the
replica, that a member of the Academy of Sci¬
ences, Paris, stoutly maintained that it was due to
ventriloquism or some other trickery. It was evi¬
dent, however, that before the phonograph could
become a practical instrument, further improve¬
ments in the nicety of its articulation were re¬
quired. The introduction of the electric light di¬
verted Mr. Edison from the task of improving it,
although he does not seem to have lost faith in
his pet invention. During the next ten years he
accumulated a large fortune, and was the princi¬
pal means of introducing both electric light and
power to the world at large. This done, how¬
ever, he returned to his earlier love, and has at
length succeeded in perfecting it so as to redeem
his past promises and fulfil his hopes regard¬
ing it.
The old instrument consisted, as is well known,
of a vibrating tympan or drum, from the centre
of which projected a steel point or stylus, in such
a manner that on speaking to the tympan its
vibrations would urge the stylus to dig into a
sheet of tinfoil moving past its point. The foil
was supported on a grooved barrel, so that the
hollow of the groove behind it permitted the foil
to give under the point of the stylus, and take a
corrugated or wavy surface corresponding to the
vibrations of the speech. Thus recorded on a
yielding but somewhat stiff material, these undu¬
lations could be preserved, and at a future time
made to deflect the point of a similar stylus, and
set a corresponding diaphragm or tympan into vi¬
bration, so as to give out the original sounds, or
an imitation of them.
Tinfoil, however, is not a very satisfactory

material on which to receive the vibrations in the
first place. It does not precisely respond to the
movements of the marking stylus in taking the
impression, and does not guide the receiving sty¬
lus sufficiently well in reproducing sounds. Mr.
Edison has therefore adopted wax in preference
to it; and instead of tinfoil spread on a grooved
support, he now employs a cylinder of wax to
take the print of the vibrations. Moreover, he
no longer uses the same kind of diaphragm to
print and receive the sounds, but employs a more
delicate one for receiving them. The marking
cylinder is now kept in motion by an electric
motor, instead of by hand-turning, as in the earlier
instrument.
The new phonograph, which we illustrate in
figure 94, is about the size of an ordinary sewing
machine, and is of exquisite workmanship, the
performance depending to a great extent on the
perfection and fitness of the mechanism. It con¬
sists of a horizontal spindle S, carrying at one
end-jthe wax cylinder C, on which the sonorous
vibratloft^ are to be imprinted. Over the cylin¬
der is supported a diaphragm or tympan T, pro¬
vided with a conical mouthpiece M for speaking
into. Under the tympan there is a delicate needle
or stylus, with its point projecting from the centre
of the tympan downwards to the surface of the
wax cylinder, so that when a person speaks into
the mouthpiece, the voice vibrates the tympan
and drives the point of the stylus down into the
wax, making an imprint more or less deep in ac¬
cordance with the vibrations of the voice. The
cylinder is kept revolving in a spiral path, at a
uniform speed, by means of an electric motor E.
159
fitted with a sensitive regulator and situated at
the base of the machine. The result is that a deli-
Fig. 94.—The Phonograph.
cate and ridgy trace is cut in the surface of wax

along a spiral line. This is the sound record, and
by substituting a finer tympan for the one used in
producing it, the ridges and inequalities of the trace
can be made to agitate a light stylus resting on
them, and cause it to set the delicate tympan into
vibrations corresponding very accurately to those
of the original sounds. The tympan employed
for receiving is made of gold-beater’s skin, having
a stud at its centre and a springy stylus of steel
wire. The sounds emitted by this device are
almost a whisper as compared to the original ones,
but they are faithful in articulation, which is the
main object, and they are conveyed to the ear by
means of flexible hearing-tubes.
These tympans are interchangeable at will,
and the arm which carries them is also provided

with a turning tool for smoothing the wax cylin¬
der prior to its receiving the print. The cylinders
are made of different sizes, from i to 8 inches
long and 4 inches in diameter. The former has a
storage capacity of 200 words. The next in size
has twice that, or 400 words, and so on. Mr.
Edison states that four of the large 8-inch cylin¬
ders can record all “ Nicholas Nickleby,” which
could therefore be automatically read to a private
invalid or to a number of patients in a hospi¬
tal simultaneously, by
means of a bunch of
hearing - tubes. The
cylinders can be read¬
ily posted like letters,
and made to deliver
their contents vivd voce in a du¬
plicate phonograph, every tone
and expression of the writer be¬
ing rendered with more or less
fidelity. The phonograph has
proved serviceable in recording
the languages and dialects of van¬
ishing races, as well as in teaching
pronunciation.
The dimensions, form, and con¬
sequent appearance of the present
commercial American phonograph
are quite different from that above
described, but the underlying principles and op¬
erations are identical.
A device for lighting gas by the electric spark
is shown in figure 95, where A is a flat vulcanite
box, containing the apparatus which generates
the electricity, and a stem or pointer £, which
applies the spark to the gas jet. The generator

consists of a small “influence” machine, which is
started by pressing the thumb-key C on the side
of the box. The rotation of a disc inside the box
produces a supply of static electricity, which
passes in a stream of sparks between two contact-
points in the open end of the stem D. The latter
is tubular, and contains a wire insulated from the
metal of the tube, and forming with the tube the
circuit for the electric discharge. The handle
enables the contrivance to be readily applied.
The apparatus is one of the few successful prac¬
tical applications of static electricity.
Other electric gas-lighters consist of metal
points placed on the burner, so that the electric
spark from a small induction coil or dynamo
kindles the jet.
A platinum wire made white-hot by the pas¬
sage of a current is sometimes used to light
lamps, as shown in figure 96, where W is a small
spiral of platinum connected in circuit with a
generator by the terminals T T. When the lamp
L is pressed against the button B the wire glows
and lights it.
Explosives, such as gunpowder and guncotton,
are also ignited by the electric spark from an in¬
duction coil or the incandescence of a wire.' Fig¬
ure 97 shows the interior of an ordinary electric
fuse for blasting or exploding underground mines.
It consists of a box of wood or metal primed
with gunpowder or other explosive, and a plat¬
inum wire P soldered to a pair of stout copper
wires Wj insulated with guttapercha. When the
current is sent along these wires, the platinum
glows and ignites the explosive. Detonating
fuses are primed with fulminate of mercury.
11
Springs for watches and other purposes are

tempered by heating them with the current and
quenching them in a bath of oil.
Fig. 96.—An Electric Lamp Lighter.
Electrical cautery is performed with an in¬

candescent platinum wire in lieu of the knife,
especially for such operations as the removal of
the tongue or a tumour.
It was known to the ancients that a fish called
a torpedo existed in the Mediterranean which
was capable of administering a shock to persons
and benumbing them. The torpedo, or “ electric
ray,” is found in the Atlantic as well as the Med¬
iterranean, and is allied to the skate. It has an
electric organ composed of 800 or 1000 polygonal
cells in its head, and the discharge, which ap¬

pears to be a vibratory current, passes from the
Fig. 97.—An Electric Fuse.
back or positive pole to the belly or negative pole

through the water. The gymotus, or Surinam eel,
which attains a length of five or six feet, has an
electric organ from head to tail, and can give a
shock sufficient to kill a man. Humboldt has
left a vivid picture of the frantic struggles of wild
horses driven by the Indians of Venezuela into the
ponds of the savannahs infested by these eels, in
order to make them discharge their thunderbolts
and be readily caught.
Other fishes—the silurus, malapterurus, and so
on—are likewise endowed with electric batteries
for stunning and capturing their prey. The ac¬
tion of the organs is still a mystery, as, indeed, is
the whole subject of animal electricity. Nobili
and Matteucci discovered that feeble currents
are generated by the excitation of the nerves and
the contraction of the muscles in the human sub¬
ject.
Electricity promises to become a valuable
remedy, and currents—continuous, intermittent,
or alternating—are applied to the body in nerv¬
ous and muscular affections with good effect;
but this should only be done under medical ad¬
vice, and with proper apparatus.
In many cases of severe electric shock or
lightning stroke, death is merely apparent, and
the person may be brought back to life by the

method of artificial respiration and rhythmic trac¬
tion of the tongue, as applied to the victims of
drowning or dead faint.
A good lightning conductor should not have
a higher electrical resistance than 10 ohms from
the point to the ground, including the “earth”
contact. Exceptionally good conductors have
only about 5 ohms. A high resistance in the rod
is due either to a flaw in the conductor or a bad
earth connection, and in such a case the rod may
be a source of danger instead of security, since
the discharge is apt to find its way through some
part of the building to the ground, rather than
entirely by the rod. It is, therefore, important to
test lightning conductors from time to time, and
the magneto-electric tester of Siemens, which we
illustrate in figures 98 and 99, is very serviceable
for the purpose, and requires no battery. The

apparatus consists of a magneto-electric machine
M, which generates the testing current by turn¬
ing a handle, and a Wheatstone bridge. The
latter comprises a ring of German silver wire,

forming two branches. A contact lever P moves
over the ring, and is used as a battery key. A
small galvanometer G shows the indications of
the testing current. A brass sliding piece S puts

the galvanometer needle in and out of action.
There are also several connecting terminals, b b\
/, &c., and a comparison resistance R (figure 98).
A small key K is fixed to the terminal / (figure
99), and used to put the current on the lightning-
rod, or take it off at will. A leather bag A at
one side of the wooden case (figure 99) holds a
double conductor leading wire, which is used for
connecting the magneto-electric machine to the
bridge. On turning the handle of M the current
is generated, and on closing the key K it circu¬
lates from the terminals of the machine through
the bridge and the lightning-rod joined with the
latter. The needle of the galvanometer is de¬
flected by it, until the resistance in the box R is
adjusted to balance that in the rod. When this
is so, the galvanometer needle remains at rest.

In this way the resistance of the rod is told, and
any change in it noted. In order to effect the
test, it is necessary to have two earth plates, Ex
and E2, one (E1) that of the rod, and the other
(Es) that for connecting to the testing apparatus
by the terminal bx (figure 99). The whole instru¬
ment only weighs about 9 lbs. In order to test
the “ earth ” alone, a copper wire should be sol¬
dered to the rod at a convenient height above the
ground, and terminal screws fitted to it, as shown
at T (figure 99), so that instead of joining the
whole rod in circuit with the apparatus, only that
part from T downwards is connected. The Hon.
R. Abercrombie has recently drawn attention to
the fact that there are three types of thunder¬
storm in Great Britain. The first, or squall
thunderstorms, are squalls associated with thun¬
der and lightning. They form on the sides of
primary cyclones. The second, or commonest
thunderstorms, are associated with secondary cy
clones, and are rarely accompanied by squalls.
The third, or line thunderstorms, take the form
of narrow bands of rain and thunder—for ex¬
ample, 100 miles long by 5 to 10 miles broad.
They cross the country rapidly, and nearly broad¬
side on. These are usually preceded by a violent
squall, like that which capsized the Eurydice.
The gloom of January, 1896, with its war and
rumours of war, was, at all events, relieved by a
single bright spot. Electricity has surprised the
world with a new marvel, which confirms her
title to be regarded as the most miraculous of all
the sciences. Within the past twenty years she
has given us the telephone of Bell, enabling Lon¬
don to speak with Paris, and Chicago with New
York; the microphone of Hughes, which makes

the tread of a fly sound like the “tramp of an
elephant,” as Lord Kelvin has said; the phono¬
graph of Edison, in which we can hear again the
voices of the dead ; the electric light which glows
without air and under water, electric heat without
fire, electric power without fuel, and a great deal
more beside. To these triumphs we must now
add a means of photographing unseen objects,
such as the bony skeletons in the living body,
and so revealing the invisible.
Whether it be that the press and general pub¬
lic are growing more enlightened in matters of
science, or that Professor Rontgen’s discovery
appeals in a peculiar way to the popular imagina¬
tion, it has certainly evoked a livelier and more
sudden interest than either the telephone, micro¬
phone, or phonograph. I was present when Lord
Kelvin first announced the invention of the tele¬
phone to a British audience, and showed the in¬
strument itself, but the intelligence was received
so apathetically that I suspect its importance was
hardly realised. It fell to my own lot, a few
years afterwards, to publish the first account of
the phonograph in this country, and I remember
that, between incredulity on the one hand, and
perhaps lack of scientific interest on the other, a
considerable time elapsed before the public at
large were really impressed by the invention.
Perhaps the uncanny and mysterious results of
Rontgen’s discovery, which seem to link it with
the “ black arts,” have something to do with
the quickness of its reception by all manner of
people.
Like most, if not all, discoveries and inven¬
tions, it is the outcome of work already done by
i68 THE STORY OF ELECTRICITY.
other men. In the early days of electricity it

was found that when an electric spark from a
frictional machine was sent through a glass bulb
from which the air had been sucked by an air
pump, a cloudy light filled the bulb, which was
therefore called an “ electric egg.” Hittorf and
others improved on this effect by employing the
spark from an induction coil and large tubes,
highly exhausted of air, or containing a rare in¬
fusion of other gases, such as hydrogen. By this
means beautiful glows of various colours, resem¬
bling the tender hues of the tropical sky, or the
fleeting tints of the aurora borealis, were pro¬
duced, and have become familiar to us in the
well-known Geissler tubes.
Crookes, the celebrated English chemist, went
still further, and by exhausting the bulbs with
an improved Sprengel air-pump, obtained an
extremely high vacuum, which gave remarkable
effects (page 120). The diffused glow or cloudy
light of the tube now shrank into a single stream,
which joined the sparking points inserted through
the ends of the tube as with a luminous thread.
A magnet held near the tube bent the streamer
from its course; and there was a dark space or
gap in it near the negative point or cathode, from
which proceeded invisible rays, having the prop¬
erty of impressing a photographic plate, and of
rendering matter in general on which they im¬
pinged phosphorescent, and, in course of time,
red-hot. Where they strike on the glass of the
tube it is seen to glow with a green or bluish
phosphorescence, and it will ultimately soften
with heat.
These are the famous “ cathode rays ” of which
we have recently heard so much. Apparently
they cannot be produced except in a very high

vacuum, where the pressure of the air is about
i-iooth millionth of an atmosphere, or that which
it is some 90 or 100 miles above the earth. Mr.
Crookes regards them as a stream of airy particles
electrified by contact with the cathode or nega¬
tive discharging point, and repelled from it in
straight lines. The rarity of the air in the tube
enables these particles to keep their line without
being jostled by the other particles of air in
the tube. A molecular bombardment from the
cathode is, in his opinion, going on, and when
the shots, that is to' say, the molecules of air,
strike the wall of the tube, or any other body
within the tube, the shock gives rise to phos¬
phorescence or fluorescence and to heat. This,
in brief, is the celebrated hypothesis of “ radiant
matter,” which has been supported in the United
Kingdom by champions such as Lord Kelvin, Sir
Gabriel Stokes, and Professor Fitzgerald, but
questioned abroad by Goldstein, Jaumann, Wiede¬
mann, Ebert, and others.
Lenard, a young Hungarian, pupil of the illus¬
trious Heinrich Hertz, was the first to inflict a
serious blow on the hypothesis, by showing that
the cathode rays could exist outside the tube in
air at ordinary pressure. Hertz had found that a
thin foil of aluminium was penetrated by the rays,
and Lenard made a tube having a “ window ” of
aluminium, through which the rays darted into
the open air. Their path could be traced by the
bluish phosphorescence which they excited in the
air, and he succeeded in getting them to pene¬
trate a thin metal box and take a photograph in¬
side it. But if the rays are a stream of radiant
matter which can only exist in a high vacuum,
how can they survive in air at ordinary pressure ?

Lenard’s experiments certainly favour the hy¬
pothesis of their being waves in the luminiferous
ether.
Professor Rontgen, of Wurzburg, profiting by
Lenard’s results, accidentally discovered that the
rays coming from a Crookes tube, through the
glass itself, could photograph the bones in the
living hand, coins inside a purse, and other ob¬
jects covered up or hid in the dark. Some bodies,
such as flesh, paper, wood, ebonite, or vulcanised
fibre, thin sheets of metal, and so on, are more or
less transparent, and others, such as bones, car¬
bon, quartz, thick plates of metal, are more or
less opaque to the rays. The human hand, for
example, consisting of flesh and bones, allows
the rays to pass easily through the flesh, but not
through the bones. Consequently, when it is in¬
terposed between the rays and a photographic
plate, the skeleton inside is photographed on the
plate. A lead pencil photographed in this way
shows only the black lead, and a razor with a
horn handle only the blade.
Thanks to the courtesy of Mr. A. A. Camp¬
bell Swinton, of the firm of Swinton & Stanton,
the well-known electrical engineers, of Victoria
Street, Westminster, a skilful experimentalist,
who was the first to turn to the subject in Eng¬
land, I have witnessed the taking of these
“ shadow photographs,” as they are called, some¬
what erroneously, for “ radiographs ” or “crypto¬
graphs ” would be a better word, and shall briefly
describe his method. Rontgen employs an induc¬
tion coil insulated in oil to excite the Crookes
tube and yield the rays, but Mr. Swinton uses a
“ high frequency current,” obtained from appara-
IfloUcjlof/ColL*
Fig. ioo.—Photographing the Unseen.

tus similar to that of Tesla, and shown in figure

ioo, namely, a high frequency induction coil in¬
sulated by means of oil and excited by the con¬
tinuous discharge of twelve half-gallon Leyden
jars charged by an alternating current at a pres¬
sure of 20,000 volts produced by an ordinary
large induction coil sparking across its high pres¬
sure terminals.
A vacuum bulb connected between the dis¬
charge terminals of the high frequency coil, as
Fig. ioi.—Photographing the Skeleton.
shown in figure ioi, was illuminated with a pink

glow, which streamed from the negative to the
positive pole—that is to say, the cathode to the
anode, and the glass became luminous with bluish
phosphorescence and greenish fluorescence. Im¬
mediately under the bulb was placed my naked
hand resting on a photographic slide containing
a sensitive bromide plate covered with a plate
of vulcanised fibre. An exposure of five or ten
minutes is sufficient to give a good picture of the
bones, as will be seen from the frontispiece.
173
The term “ shadow ” photograph requires a
word of explanation. The bones do not appear
as flat shadows, but rounded like solid bodies, as
though the active rays passed through their sub¬
stance. According to Rontgen, these “ x ” rays,
as he calls them, are not true cathode rays, partly
because they are not deflected by a magnet, but
cathode rays transformed by the glass of the
tube; and they are probably not ultra-violet
rays, because they are not refracted by water or
reflected from surfaces. He thinks they are the
missing “ longitudinal ” rays of light whose ex¬
istence has been conjectured by Lord Kelvin and
others—that is to say, waves in which the ether
sways to and fro along the direction of the ray,
as in the case of sound vibrations, and not from
side to side across it as in ordinary light.
Be this as it may, his discovery has opened
up a new field of research and invention. It has
been found that the immediate source of the rays
is the fluorescence and phosphorescence of the
glass, and they are more effective when the fluor¬
escence is greenish-yellow or canary colour. Cer¬
tain salts—for example, the sulphates of zinc and
of calcium, barium platino-cyanide, tungstate of
calcium, and the double sulphate of uranyle and
potassium—are more active than glass, and even
emit the rays after exposure to ordinary light, if
not also in the dark. Salvioni of Perugia has
invented a “ cryptoscope,” which enables us to
see the hidden object without the aid of photog¬
raphy by allowing the rays to fall on a plate
coated with one of these phosphorescent sub¬
stances. Already the new method has been
applied by doctors in examining malformations
and diseases of the bones or internal organs, and
in localising and extracting bullets, needles, or

other foreign matters in the body. There is little
doubt that it will be very useful as an adjunct to
hospitals, especially in warfare, and, if the appa¬
ratus can be reduced in size, it will be employed
by ordinary practitioners. It has also been used
to photograph the skeleton of a mummy, and to
detect true from artificial gems. However, one
cannot now easily predict its future value, and
applications will be found out one after another
as time goes on.
CHAPTER X.
THE WIRELESS TELEGRAPH.
Magnetic waves generated in the ether (see

pp. 53-95) by an electric current flowing in a
conductor are not the only waves which can be
set up in it by aid of electricity. A merely station¬
ary or “ static ” charge of electricity on a body,
say a brass ball, can also disturb the ether; and if
the strength of the charge is varied, ether oscilla¬
tions or waves are excited. A simple way of pro¬
ducing these “ electric waves ” in the ether is to
vary the strength of charge by drawing sparks
from the charged body. Of course this can be
done according to the Morse code; and as the
waves after travelling through the ether with the
speed of light are capable of influencing conduc¬
tors at a distance, it is easy to see that signals
can be sent in this way. The first to do so in a
practical manner was Signor Marconi, a young
Italian hitherto unknown to fame. In carrying
175
out his invention, Marconi made use of facts well
known to theoretical electricians, one of whom,
Dr. Oliver J. Lodge, had even sent signals with
them in 1894; but it often happens in science as
in literature that the recognised professors, the
men who seem to have everything in their favour
—knowledge, even talent—the men whom most
people would expect to give us an original dis¬
covery or invention, are beaten by an outsider
whom nobody heard of, who had neither learn¬
ing, leisure, nor apparatus, but what he could pick
up for himself.
Marconi produces his waves in the ether by
electric sparks passing between four brass balls,
a device of Professor Righi, following the classical
experiments of Heinrich Hertz. The balls are
electrified by connecting them to the well-known
instrument called an induction coil, sometimes
used by physicians to administer gentle shocks to
invalids ; and as the working of the coil is started
and stopped by an ordinary telegraph key for in¬
terrupting the electric current, the sparking can
be controlled according to the Morse code. In
our diagram, which explains the apparatus, the
four balls are seen at D, the inner and larger pair
being partly immersed in vaseline oil, the outer
and smaller pair being connected to the secondary
or induced circuit of the induction coil C, which
is represented by a wavy line. The primary or
inducing circuit of the coil is connected to a
battery B through a telegraph signalling key K,
so that when this key is opened and closed by
the telegraphist according to the Morse code, the
induction coil is excited for a longer or shorter
time by the current from the battery, in agree¬
ment with the longer and shorter signals of the
message. At the same time longer or shorter

series of sparks corresponding to these signals
pass across the gaps between the four balls, and
give rise to longer or shorter series of etheric
waves represented by the dotted line. So much
for the “Transmitter.” But how does Marconi
transform these invisible waves into visible or
audible signals at the distant place ? He does
this by virtue of a property discovered by Mr. S.
A. Varley as far back as 1866, and investigated by
Mr. E. Branly in 1889. They found that powder
of metals, carbon, and other conductors, while
offering a great resistance to the passage of an
electric current when in a loose state, coheres to¬
gether when electric waves act upon it, and op¬
poses much less resistance to the electric current.
It follows that if a Morse telegraph instrument at
the distant place be connected in circuit with a
battery and some loose metal dust, it can be
adjusted to work when the etheric waves pass
through the dust, and only then. In the diagram
R is this Morse “ Receiver ” joined in circuit with
a battery B1; and a thin layer of nickel and silver
dust, mixed with a trace of mercury, is placed be¬
tween two cylindrical knobs or “electrodes” of
silver fused into the glass tube d, which is ex¬
hausted of air like an electric glow lamp. Now,
when the etheric waves proceeding from the trans¬
mitting station traverse the glass of the tube and
act upon the metal dust, the current of the battery
B1 works the Morse receiver, and marks the sig¬
nals in ink on a strip of travelling paper. Inas¬
much as the dust tends to stick together after a
wave passes through it, however, it requires to be
shaken loose after each signal, and this is done by
a small round hammer head seen on the right.
THE WIRELESS TELEGRAPH. 177
which gives a slight tap to the tube. The ham¬

mer is worked by a small electromagnet E, con¬
nected to the Morse instrument, and another
battery b in what is called a “relay” circuit;
v'
TRANSMITTING STATION RECEIVING STATION
FlS. 102.—Marconi’s Apparatus.
so that after the Morse instrument marks a sig¬

nal, the hammer makes a tap on the tube. As
this tap has a bell-like sound, the telegraphist can
also read the signals of the message by his ear.
Two “self-induction bobbins,” L L1, a well-
known device of electricians for opposing resist¬
ance to electric waves, are included in the circuit
of the Morse instrument the better to confine the
action of the waves to the powder in the tube.
Further, the tube d is connected to two metal
conductors V V1, which may be compared to reso¬
nators in music. They can be adjusted or attuned
co the electric waves as a string or pipe is to
sonorous waves. In this way the receiver can be
made to work only when electric waves of a cer¬
tain rate are passing through the tube, just as a
tuning-fork resounds to a certain note; it being
12
understood that the length of the waves can

be regulated by adjusting the balls of the trans¬
mitter. As the etheric waves produced by the
sparks, like ripples of water caused by dropping
a stone into a pool, travel in all directions from
the balls, a single transmitter can work a number
of receivers at different stations, provided these
are “ tuned ” by adjusting the conductors V V1 to
the length of the waves.
This indeed was the condition of affairs at the
time when the young Italian transmitted messages
from France to England in March, 1899, and it is
a method that since has been found useful over
limited distances. But to the inventor there seemed
no reason why wireless telegraphy should be limited
by any such distances. Accordingly he immediate¬
ly developed his method and his apparatus, having
in mind the transmission of signals over consider¬
able intervals. The first question that arose was
the effect of the curvature of the .Earth and whether
the waves follow.the surface of the Earth or were
propagated in straight lines, which would require
the erection of aerial towers and wires of consider¬
able height. Then there was the question of the
amount of power involved and whether generators
or other devices could be used to furnish waves of
sufficient intensity to traverse considerable dis¬
tances.
Little by little progress was made and in Janu¬
ary, 1901, wireless communication was established
between the Isle of Wight and Lizard in Cornwall,
a distance of 186 miles with towers less than 300
feet in height, so that it was demonstrated that
the curvature of the Earth did not seriously affect
the transmission of the waves, as towers at least a
mile high would have been required in case the
waves were so cut off. This was a source of con¬

siderable encouragement to Marconi, and his appar¬
atus was further improved so that the resonance of
the circuit and the variation of the capacity of the
primary circuit of the oscillation transformer made
for increased efficiency. The coherer was still re¬
tained and by the end of 1900 enough had been
accomplished to warrant Marconi in arranging for
trans-Atlantic experiments between Poldhu, Corn¬
wall and the United States, stations being located
on Cape Cod and in Newfoundland. The trans-
Atlantic transmission of signals was quite a different
matter from working over 100 miles or so in Great
Britain. The single aerial wire was supplanted by
a set of fifty almost vertical wires, supported at the
top by a horizontal wire stretched between two
masts 1572 feet high and 52^ feet apart, converging
together at the lower end in the shape of a large
fan. The capacity of the condenser was increased
and instead of the. battery a small generator was
employed so that a spark 1J inches in length would
be discharged between spheres 3 inches in diameter.
At the end of the year 1901 temporary stations
at Newfoundland were established and experiments
were carried on with aerial wires raised in the air by
means of kites. It was here realized that various
refinements in the receiving apparatus were neces¬
sary, and instead of the coherer a telephone was
inserted in the secondary circuit of the oscillation
transformer, and with this device on February 12th
the first signals to be transmitted across the Atlantic
were heard. These early experiments were seriously
affected by the fact that the antennae or aerial wires
were constantly varying in height with the move¬
ment of the kites, and it was found that a perma¬
nent arrangement of receiving wires, independent
j g0 THE STORY OF ELECTRICITY.
of kites or balloons, was essential. Yet it was dem¬

onstrated at this time that the transmission of
electric waves and their detection over distances
of 2000 miles was distinctly possible.
A more systematic and thorough test occurred
in February, 1902, when a receiving station was in¬
stalled on the steamship Philadelphia, proceeding
from Southampton to New York. The receiving
aerial was rigged to the mainmast, the top of which
was 197 feet above the level of the sea, and a syn¬
tonic receiver was employed, enabling the signals to
be recorded on the tape of an ordinary Morse
recorder. On this voyage readable messages were
received from Poldhu up to a distance of 1551
miles, and test letters were received as far as 2099
miles. It was on this voyage that Marconi made
the interesting discovery of the effect of sunlight
on the propagation of electric waves over great dis¬
tances. He found that the waves were absorbed
during the daytime much more than at night and
he eventually reached the conclusion that the ultra¬
violet light from the sun ionized the gaseous mole¬
cules of the air, and ionized air absorbs the
energy of the electric waves, so that the fact was
established that clear sunlight and blue skies, though
transparent to light, serve as a fog to the powerful
Hertzian waves of wireless telegraphy. For that
reason the transmission of messages is carried on
with greater facility on the shores of England and
Newfoundland across the North Atlantic than in
the clearer atmosphere of lower latitudes. But
atmospheric conditions do not affect all forms of
waves the same, and long waves with small ampli¬
tudes are far less subject to the effect of daylight
than those of large amplitude and short wave
length, and generators and circuits were arranged
to produce the former. But the difficulty did not

prove insuperable, as Marconi found that increasing
the energy of the transmitting station during the
daytime would more than make up for the loss of
range.
The experiments begun at Newfoundland were
transferred to Nova Scotia, and at Glace Bay in
1902 was established a station from which messages
were transmitted and experimental work carried on
until its work was temporarily interrupted by fire in
1909. Here four wooden lattice towers, each 210
feet in height, were built at the corner of a square
200 feet on a side, and a conical arrangement of
400 copper wires supported on stays between the
tops of the towers and connected in the middle at
the generating station was built. Additional ma¬
chinery was installed and at the same time a station
at Cape Cod for commercial work was built. In
December, 1902, regular communication was estab¬
lished between Glace Bay and Poidhu, but it was
only satisfactory from Canada to England as the
apparatus at the Poidhu station was less powerful
and efficient than that installed in Canada. The
transmission of a message from President Roose¬
velt to King Edward marked the practical beginning
of trans-Atlantic wireless telegraphy. By this time
a new device for the detection of messages was em¬
ployed, as the coherer we have described even in
its improved forms was found to possess its limita¬
tions of sensitiveness and did not respond satisfac¬
torily to long distance signals. A magnetic detector
was devised by Marconi while other inventors had
contrived electrolytic, mercurial, thermal, and other
forms of detector, used for the most part with a
telephone receiver in order to detect minute varia¬
tions in the current caused by the reception of the
!82 THE STORY OF ELECTRICITY.
electro-magnetic waves. With one of Marconi’s

magnetic detectors signals from Cape Cod were
read at Poldhu.
In 1903 wireless telegraphy had reached such a
development that the transmission of news messages
was attempted in March and April of that year.
But the service was suspended, owing to defects
which manifested themselves in the apparatus, and
in the meantime a new station in Ireland was
erected. But there was no cessation of the practical
experiments carried on, and in 1903 the Cunard
steamship Lucania received, during her entire voy¬
age across from New York to Liverpool, news
transmitted direct from shore to shore. In the
meantime intercommunication between ships had
been developed and the use of wireless in naval
operations was recognized as a necessity.
Various improvements from time to time were
made in the aerial wires, and in 1905 a number of
horizontal wires were connected to an aerial of the
inverted cone type previously used. The directional
aerial with the horizontal wires was tried at Glace
Bay, and adopted for all the long distance stations,
affording considerable strengthening of the received
signals at Poldhu stations. Likewise improvements
in the apparatus were effected at both trans-Atlantic
stations, consisting of the adoption of air con¬
densers composed of insulated metallic plate sus¬
pended in the air, which were found much better
than the condensers where glass was previously used
to separate the plates. For producing the energy
employed for transmitting the signals a high tension
continuous current dynamo is used. An oscillatory
current of high potential is produced in a circuit
which consists of rapidly rotating disks in connec¬
tion with the dynamo and suitable condensers.
183
The production of electric oscillations can be
accomplished in several ways and waves of the
desired frequency and amplitude produced. Thus
in 1903 it was found by Poulsen, elaborating on a
principle first discovered by Duddell, that an oscil¬
latory current may be derived from an electric arc
maintained under certain conditions and that un¬
damped high frequency waves so produced were
suitable for wireless telegraphy. This discovery
was of importance, as it was found that the waves
so generated were undamped, that is, capable of
proceeding to their destination without loss of
amplitude. On this account they were especially
suitable for wireless telephony where they were
early applied, as it was found possible so to
arrange a circuit with an ordinary microphone
transmitter that the amplitude of the waves would
be varied in harmony with the vibrations of the
human voice. These waves so modulated could be
received by some form of sensitive wave detector at
a distant station and reproduced in the form of
sound with an ordinary telephone receiver. With
undamped waves from the arc and from special
forms of generators wireless telephony over distances
as great as 200 miles has been accomplished and
over shorter distances, especially at sea and for
sea to shore, communication has found consider¬
able application. It is, however, an art that is just
at the beginning of its usefulness, standing in much
the same relation to wireless telegraphy that the
ordinary telephone does to the familiar system em¬
ploying metallic conductors.
On the spark and arc systems various methods
of wireless telegraphy have been developed and im¬
proved so that Marconi no longer has any monopoly
of methods or instruments. Various companies and
government officials have devised or modified sys¬

tems so that to-day wireless is practically universal
and is governed by an international convention to
which leading nations of the world subscribe.
One of the recent features of wireless telegraphy
of interest is the success of various directional de¬
vices. As we have seen, various schemes were tried
by Marconi ranging from metallic reflectors used
by Hertz in his early experiments with the electric
waves to the more successful arrangement of aerial
conductors. In Europe Bellini and Tosi have de¬
veloped a method for obtaining directed aerial
waves which promises to be of considerable utility,
enabling them to be projected in a single direction
just as a searchlight beam and thus restrict the
number of points at which the signals could be in¬
tercepted and read. Likewise an arrangement was
perfected which enabled a station to determine the
direction in which the waves were being projected
and consequently the bearing of another vessel or
lighthouse or other station. The fundamental prin¬
ciple was the arrangement of the antennae, two tri¬
angular systems being provided on the same mast,
but in one the current is brought down in a per¬
pendicular direction. The action depends upon
the difference of the current in the two triangles.
Wireless telegraph apparatus is found installed in
almost every seagoing passenger vessel of large size
engaged in regular traffic, and as a means of safety
as well as a convenience its usefulness has been dem¬
onstrated. Thus on the North Atlantic the largest
liners are never out of touch with land on one side
of the ocean or the other, and news is supplied for
daily papers which are published on shipboard.
Every ship in this part of the ocean equipped with
the Marconi system, for example, is in communica-
tion on an average with four vessels supplied with

instruments of the same system every twenty-four
hours. In case of danger or disaster signals going
out over the sea speedily can bring succour, as
clearly was demonstrated in the case of the collision
between the White Star steamship Republic and the
steamship Florida on January 26, 1909. Here
wireless danger messages were sent out as long
as the Republic was afloat and its wireless ap¬
paratus working. These brought aid from various
steamers in the vicinity and a large revenue cutter,
by whom the signals were received, and the pas¬
sengers were speedily transferred from the sinking
Republic and rescued from a serious peril. In
other marine disasters wireless has stood the vessel
calling assistance in good stead, so that to-day as a
safety measure it is recognized as essential to all
passenger vessels, so much so that statutes making
it compulsory for certain classes and sizes of vessels
have been proposed.
In naval operations wireless has been developed
to a high point of efficiency in all the leading navies,
and powerful plants are installed on all modern
battleships, which not only serve for fleet com¬
munication but are sufficient to keep the vessel in
touch with a base or naval station. Thus when the
Prince of Wales was on his way to the Quebec Ter¬
centenary Celebration in 1908 on H.M.S. Indom¬
itable., wireless communication with land was con¬
tinually maintained and the obvious tactical value
of long-distance communication demonstrated In
naval experiments as well as in commercial work
attempts have been made to secure absolute secrecy
between stations and these while partially success¬
ful have not entirely solved the problem which,
however, is not so serious as it might appear. For
in the navy practically all important messages are

sent in code or cipher under all conditions while
in commercial work the tapping of land wires or
the stealing of messages while illegal is physically
possible for the evil disposed yet has never proved
in practice a serious evil. The problem of inter¬
ference, however, seems to have been fairly solved
by the large systems though the activity of amateurs
is often a serious disturbance for government and
other stations.
Despite the progress of wireless telegraphy it has
not yet supplanted the submarine cable and the
land wire, and in conservative opinion it will be
many years before it will do so. In fact, since
Marconi’s work there has been no diminution in
the number or amount of cables laid and the busi¬
ness handled, nor is there prospect of such for
years to come. While the cable has answered ad¬
mirably for telegraphic purposes yet for telephony
over considerable distances it has failed entirely so
that wireless telephony over oceans starts with a
more than favorable outlook. But wireless teleg¬
raphy to a large extent has made its own field and
here its work has been greatly successful. Thus
when Peary’s message announcing his discovery of
the North Pole came out of the Frozen North, it
was by way of the wireless station on the distant
Labrador coast that it reached an anxious and in¬
terested civilization. It is this same wireless that
watches the progress of the fishing fleets at stations
where commercial considerations would render im¬
possible the maintenance of a submarine cable. It
is the wireless telegraph that maintains communica¬
tion in the interior of Alaska and between islands
in the Pacific and elsewhere where conditions of
development do not permit of the more expensive
ELECTRO-CHEMISTRY AND METALLURGY. 187
installation of submarine cable or climatic or other

conditions render impossible overland lines. At
sea its advantages are obvious. Everywhere the
ether responds to the impulses of the crackling
sparks, and even from the airship we soon may ex¬
pect wireless messages as the few untrodden regions
of our globe are explored.
CHAPTER XI.
ELECTRO-CHEMISTRY AND ELECTRO-METALLURGY.
In no department of the application of electricity

to practical work has there been a greater develop¬
ment than in electro-metallurgy and electro-chem¬
istry. To-day there are vast industries depending
upon electrical processes and the developments of
a quarter of a century have been truly remarkable.
Already more than one-haif of the copper used in
the arts is derived by electrolytic refining. The
production of aluminum depends entirely on elec¬
tricity, the electric furnace as a possible rival to the
blast furnace for the production of iron and steel is
being seriously considered, and many other metal¬
lurgical processes are being undertaken on a large
scale. We have seen in our chapter on Electrolysis
how a metal may be deposited from a solution of
its salt and how this process could be used for de¬
riving a pure metal or for plating or coating with
the desired metal the surface of another metal or
one covered with graphite. In the following pages
it is intended to take up some of the more notable
accomplishments in this field achieved by elec¬
tricity, which have been developed to a state of
commercial importance.
The electric arc not only supplies light, but heat

of great intensity which the electrical engineer as
well as the pure scientist has found so valuable for
many practical operations. It is of course obvious
that for most chemical operations, and especially
in the field of metallurgy, heat is required for the
separation of combinations of various elements, for
their purification, as well as for the combination
with other elements into alloys or compounds of
direct utility. The usual method of generating
heat is by the combustion of some fuel, such as
coal, coke, gas or oil, and this has been utilized for
hundreds of years in smelting metals and ores and
in refining the material from a crude state. Now
it may happen that a nation or region may be rich
in metalliferous ores, but possess few, if any, coal
deposits. Accordingly the ore must be mined and
transported considerable distances for treatment
and the advantages of manufacturing industries are
lost to the neighborhood of its original production.
But if water power is available, as it is in many
mountainous countries where various ores are found,
then this power can be transformed into electricity
which is available as power not only in various
manufacturing operations, but for primary metal¬
lurgical work in smelting the ores and obtaining the
metal therefrom. A striking instance of this is the
kingdom of Sweden, which contains but little coal,
yet is rich in minerals and in water power, so that
its waterfalls have been picturesquely alluded to as
the country’s “white coal.” Likewise, at Niagara
Falls a portion- of the vast water power developed
there has been used in the manufacture of alumi¬
num, calcium carbide, carborundum, and other ma¬
terials, while at other points in the United States
and Canada, not to mention Europe, large indus-
tries where electricity is used for metallurgical or

chemical work are carried on and the erection of
new plants is contemplated.
The application of electricity to metallurgical
and chemical work has been, in nearly all cases, the
result of scientific research, and elaborate experi¬
mental laboratories are maintained by the various
corporations interested in the present or future use
of electrical processes. It is recognized by many
of the older workers in this field that electrical
developments are bound to come in the near future,
and while they have not installed such appliances
in their works yet they are keeping close watch of
present developments, and in many cases experi¬
mental investigation and research is being carried
on where electrical methods have not yet been in¬
troduced generally into the plant.
Prior to 1886 the refining of copper was the
only electro-metallurgical industry and at that time
it was carried on on a very limited scale. To-day
the production of electrolytic copper as an industry
is second in importance only to the actual produc¬
tion of that metal. From the small refinery started
by James Elkington at Pembury in South Wales, a
vast industry has developed in which there has been
a change in the size of operations and in the details
of methods rather than in the fundamental process.
For a solution of copper sulphate is employed as
the electrolyte, blocks of raw copper as the anodes,
and thin sheets of pure copper as the cathodes.
The passage of the electric current, as we have seen
on page 79, in the chapter on Electrolysis, is able to
decompose the copper in the electrolyte and to pre¬
cipitate chemically pure copper on the cathode, the
copper of the solution being replenished from the
raw material used as the anode by which the cur-
rent is passed into the bath. At this Welsh factory

250 tons yearly were produced, and small earthen¬
ware pots sufficed for the electrolyte. Thirty years
later one American factory alone was able to produce
at least 350 tons of electrolytic copper in twenty-
four hours, and over 400,000 tons is the aggregate
output of the refineries of the world, which is about
53 per cent, of the total raw copper production. Of
this amount 85 per cent, comes from American re¬
fineries, whose output has more than doubled since
1900.
The chief reason for this increased output of
electrolytic copper has been the great demand for
its use in the electrical industries where not only a
vast amount is consumed, but where copper of high
purity, to give the maximum conductivity required
by the electrical engineer, is demanded. When it
is realized that every dynamo is wound with copper
wire and that the same material is used for the trol¬
ley wire and for the distribution wires in electric
lighting, it will be apparent how the demand for
copper has increased in the last quarter of a century.
Electrolytic methods not only supply a purer article
and are economical to operate, especially if there is
water power in the vicinity, but the copper ores
contain varying amounts of silver and gold which
can be recovered from the slimes obtained in the
electrolytic process. Wherever possible machinery
has been substituted for hand labor, the raw copper
anodes have been cast, and the charging and dis¬
charging of the vats is carried on by the most
modern mechanical methods in which efficiency and
economy are secured. On the chemical side of the
process attempts have been made to improve the
electrolyte, notably by the addition of a small
amount of hydrochloric acid to prevent the loss of
silver in the slimes, and this part of the work is

watched with quite as much care as the other stages.
Electric furnaces have also been constructed for
smelting copper ores, but these have not found wide
application, and the problem is one of the future.
For the most part the copper electrically refined is
produced in an ordinary smelter. The mints of the
United States are now all equipped with electrolytic
refining plants to produce the pure metal needed
for coinage and they have proved most satisfactory
and economical.
As the electrolytic production of copper is an
industry of great present importance, so the produc¬
tion of iron and steel by electricity promises to be
of the greatest future importance. Electric furnaces
for making steel are now maintained, and the in¬
dustry has passed beyond an experimental condition.
But it has not reached the point where it is com¬
peting with the Bessemer or the open hearth process
of the manufacture of steel, while for the smelting
of iron ores the electric furnace has not yet been
found practical from an economic standpoint. Be¬
fore 1880 Sir William. Siemens showed that an
electric arc could be used to melt iron or steel in a
crucible, and he patented an electric crucible fur¬
nace which was the first attempt to use electricity in
iron and steel manufacture. He stated that the
process would not be too costly and that it had a
great future before it. This was an application of
the intense heat of the arc, which supplies a higher
temperature than any source known except that of
the sun. This heat is used to melt the metal, in
which condition various impurities can be removed
and necessary ingredients added. Siemens’ furnace
did not find extensive application, largely on account
of the great metallurgical developments then taking
place in the iron industry and the thorough know¬

ledge of metallurgical processes as carried on, pos¬
sessed by metallurgical engineers. But the idea by
no means languished, and in 1899 Paul Heroult and
other electro-metallurgists were active in developing
a practical electric furnace for iron and steel work.
The Swedish engineer, F. A. Kjellin, was also active
and as the result of the efforts of these and other
workers, by 1909 electric furnaces were employed,
not only in the manufacture of special steels whose
composition and making were attended with special
care, but for rails and structural material. There
were reported to be between thirty and forty electric
steel plants in various countries, and the outlook
for the future was distinctly bright. The applica¬
tion of electro-metallurgy at this time was confined
to the manufacture of steel, as the smelting of iron
had not emerged from the experimental stage of its
development, though extensive trials on a large
scale of various furnaces have been undertaken in
Europe and by the Canadian government at Sault
Ste. Marie, where the Heroult furnace, soon to be
described, was employed. Electro-metallurgy of
steel, as in all utilization of electrical power, de¬
pends upon obtaining electricity at a reasonable
cost, and then utilizing the heat of the arc or of the
current in the most practical and economical form.
One of the pioneer furnaces for this purpose
which has seen considerable development and prac¬
tical application is the Heroult furnace, which is a
tilting furnace of the crucible type, whose opera¬
tion depends upon both the heat of the arc and on
the heat produced by the resistance of the molten
material. In the Heroult process the impurities of
the molten iron are washed out by treatment with
suitable slags. The furnace consists of a crucible
in the form of a closed shallow iron tank, thickly

lined with dolomite and magnazite brick, with a
hearth of crushed dolomite. The electric current
enters the crucible through two massive electrodes
of solid carbon, 70 inches in length and 14 inches
in diameter, so mounted that they can be moved
either vertically or horizontally by the electrician
in charge. These electrodes are water-jacketed to
reduce the rate of consumption. The furnace con¬
tains an inlet for an air blast and openings in its
covering for charging the material and for the
escape of the gases. The actual process of steel¬
making consists of charging the crucible with steel
scrap, pig iron, iron ore, and lime of the proper
quality and in the right proportions, placing this
material on the hearth of the furnace. Combined
arc and resistance heating is applied to raise the
charge to the melting point. The current is of 120
volts or the same as that used in an ordinary in¬
candescent lighting circuit, but is alternating and
of 4,000 amperes. This is for a three-ton furnace.
As the material melts the lime and silicates form a
slag which fuses rapidly and covers the iron and
steel in the crucible, so that the molten bath is
protected from the action of the gases which are
liberated and the oxygen in the atmosphere. The
next step in the process is to lower the electrodes
until they just touch beneath the surface of the
molten slag so that subsequent heating is due not
to the effect of the arc but to the resistance which
the bath offers to the passage of the current.
Air from an air blast is introduced into the
crucible to oxidize the impurities of the metal, par¬
ticularly the sulphur and the phosphorus which
are carried into the slag and this is removed by the
tilting of the furnace. Fresh quantities of lime,
13
etc., are added, and the operation is repeated until

a comparatively pure metal remains, when an alloy
high in carbon is added and whatever other con¬
stituents are desired for the finished steel. The
charge is then tipped into the casting ladle and the
part of the electric furnace is finished. For three
tons of steel eight to ten hours are required in the
Heroult crucible furnace.
Furnaces of an altogether different type are
those employing an alternating current, such as the
Kjellin and Rochling furnaces, where the metal to
be heated really forms the secondary circuit of a
large and novel form of transformer which in prin¬
ciple is analogous to the familiar transformer seen
to step down the potential of alternating current as
for house lighting. For such a transformer the
primary coil is formed of heavy wire and the sec¬
ondary circuit is the molten metal which is con¬
tained in an annular channel. The current ob¬
tained in the metal is of considerable intensity, but
at lower potential than that in the primary coil,
and roughly is equal to that of the primary multi¬
plied by the number of turns in the coil. The con¬
dition is similar to that in the ordinary induction
coil where the current from a battery at low poten¬
tial flows around a coil of a few turns and is sur¬
rounded by a second coil with a large number of
turns of fine wire in which current of small in¬
tensity but of high potential is generated. In the
induction furnace the reverse takes place and the
current flowing in the metal derived from that of
the heavy coil in the primary is of great intensity.
For this type of furnace molten metal is required
and the furnace is never entirely emptied, so that
its process is continuous. The temperature at¬
tained is not as high as in the arc furnace, so that
ELECTRO-CHEMISTRY AND METALLURGY- 195
the raw materials used have to be of a high degree

of purity, and this has proved a restriction of the
field of usefulness of this type of furnace in many
cases. It, however, has been improved recently
and two rings of molten metal employed instead of
one so that a wide centre trough is obtained in
which the metal is subjected to ordinary resistance
heat by direct or alternating currents. This fur¬
nace permits of various metallurgical operations
and the elimination of impurities as in the Heroult
type.
A third type of furnace that is meeting with
some extensive use is the Giroud, which, like the
Heroult furnace, is based on the arc and resistance
in principle, but in its construction has a number
of different features. As the current passes hori¬
zontally from the upper electrodes through the slag
and molten metal in the furnace chamber to the
base electrodes of the furnace, it permits of the
easy regulation of the arcs and the use of lower
electromotive force, while there is only one arc in
the path of the current instead of two as in the
Heroult type.
Sufficient quantities of steel have been made in
electric furnaces to permit of the determination of
the quality of the product as well as the economy
of the process. It has been found in Germany that
rail steel made in the induction furnace has a much
higher bending and breaking limit than ordinary
Bessemer or Thomas rail steel, and in Germany in
1908 rails so made commanded a considerably
higher price per ton than those of ordinary rail steel.
After trial orders had proved satisfactory, in 1908
5,000 tons of rails were ordered for the Italian
and Swiss governments at a German works, where
furnaces of eight tons capacity had been installed.
In the United States only a few electric steel fur¬

naces are in operation, and these, for the most part,
for purposes of demonstration and experiment. But
in Europe the industry is well established, and while
at present small, is constantly growing and pos¬
sesses an assured future.
In addition to the manufacture of steel, the ap¬
plication of the electric furnace for producing what
are known as ferro-alloys, or alloys of iron, silicon,
chromium, manganese, tungsten and vanadium, is
now a large and important industry. Special steels
have their uses in different mechanical applications
and the advantage of alloying them with the rarer
metals has been demonstrated for several important
purposes, as for example, the use of chrome steel
for armor plate, and steel containing vanadium for
parts of motor cars. These industries for the most
part contain electric arc furnaces and have, as their
object, the manufacture of ferro-alloys, which are
introduced into the steel, it having been found ad¬
vantageous to use the rare metals in this form rather
than in their crude state.
There is one electro-metallurgical process that
has made possible the production in commercial
form and for ordinary use of a metal that once was
little more than a chemical curiosity. In 1885
there were produced 3.12 tons of aluminum, and its
value was roughly estimated at about $12 a pound.
By 1908 America alone produced over 9,000 tons
valued at over $500,000,000, while European manu¬
facturers were also large producers. In 1888 the
electrolytic manufacture of aluminum was com¬
menced in America and in the following year it was
begun in Switzerland. Aluminum is formed by the
electrolysis of the aluminum oxide in a fused bath
of cryolite and fluorspar. The aluminum may be
obtained in the form of bauxite, and is produced in

large rectangular iron pots with a thick carbon
lining. The pot itself is the cathode, while large
graphite rods suspended in the bath serve as the
anodes. After the arc is formed and the heat of the
bath rises to a sufficient degree the material is de¬
composed and the metal is separated out so that it
can be removed by ladling or with a siphon. The
application of heat to obtain this metal previous to
the invention of the electric furnace could only be
considered a laboratory problem and the expense
involved did not permit of commercial application.
Now, however, aluminum is universally available
and with the expiration of certain patents, the ma¬
terial has sold as low as 25 cents a pound.
Electrolytic methods serve also for the refining
of nickel and for the production of lead, and as in
other fields of metallurgy, these processes are at¬
tracting the attention of chemists and of engineers.
While tin as yet has not yielded to electrolytic or
electro-thermal methods with any success, the re¬
moval of tin from tin scraps and cuttings has been
carried on with considerable success. With zinc
the electrolytic and electro-thermal processes have
not been able yet to compete with the older metal¬
lurgical method of distillation, but an important
industry is electro-galvanizing, where a solution of
zinc sulphate is deposited on iron and gives a pro¬
tective coating. Experimental methods with the
use of electricity in extracting zinc from its ores
are being tested at various European plants, but the
matter has not yet reached a commercial scale.
One of the earliest notable uses of the electric
furnace in a large electro-chemical industry was for
the production of carborundum, a carbide of silicon,
which is remarkably useful as an abrasive, being
available in the manufacture of grinding stones and

other like purposes to replace emery and corundum.
It is produced by the use of a simple electric furnace
of the resistance type, where coke, sand, and saw¬
dust are heated to a temperature of between 2000°
and 3000° C. The chemical reaction involves the
production of carbon monoxide, and gives a carbide
of silicon, a crystalline solid which has the excellent
abrasive properties mentioned. The manufacture
was first started by its inventor, E. G. Acheson,
about 1891 on a small scale, and in the following
year 1,000 pounds of the material were produced
at the Niagara Falls works. Within fifteen years
its output had increased to well over six million
pounds.
The electric furnaces at Niagara Falls have sup¬
plied many interesting electro-chemical processes.
After making a carbide in the electric furnace it
was found possible to decompose it by further in¬
creasing the heat to a point where the second ele¬
ment is volatilized and the pure carbon in the form
of artificial graphite remains. In more recent work
the carbide containing the silicon has been done
away with and ordinary anthracite coal used as a
charge from which the pure graphite is obtained.
This graphite has been found especially useful in
electrical work as for electrodes, while a more recent
process enables a soft variety of graphite to be ob¬
tained which becomes a competitor of the natural
material.
One of the most interesting of the many electro¬
chemical processes is the heating of lime and coke
in the electric furnace so as to obtain a product in
the form of calcium carbide, which, on solution in
water, forms acetylene gas, a useful and valuable
illuminant. This process dates from 1893 when
T. L. Willson in the United States first started its

manufacture on a large scale, and the great electro¬
chemist, Henri Moissin, about the same time in¬
dependently invented a similar process as a result
of his notable work with the electric furnace. The
process involves merely a transformation at a high
temperature, a portion of the carbon in the form of
coke, uniting with pulverized lime to give the cal¬
cium carbide or CaC2. Now this material, when
water is added to it, decomposes, and acetylene or
C2H2 is formed, which is a gas of high illuminating
value as the carbon separates and glows brightly
after being heated to incandescence in the flame,
The electric furnace at Niagara Falls has been
able to produce still another combination in the
form of siloxicon by heating carbon and silicon to a
temperature slightly below that required to produce
carborundum. This product is a highly refractory
material and is valuable for the manufacture of
crucibles, muffles, bricks, etc., for work where ex¬
treme temperatures are employed. The electric
furnace enables various elements to be isolated, such
as silicon, sodium, and phosphorus, and when ob¬
tained in their pure state they find wide application.
The most important electro-chemical work of
the future is to devise some means of obtaining
nitrogen from the air. It is stated by scientists
that the nitrogen of the soil is being exhausted and
that at some future time the Earth may not be able
to bear crops sufficient for the sustenance of man,
unless some artificial means be found to replenish
the nitrogen. Unlimited supplies of nitrogen exist
in the air, but to fix it with other materials in such
form that it will be useful as a fertilizer has been
one of the problems to which the electro-chemists
have recently devoted much attention. By the use
of the electric arc and passing air through a furnace,

various substances have been tried to take up the
nitrogen of the air. Thus when calcium carbide is
heated and brought into contact with nitrogen one
atom of carbon is given up and two atoms of nitro¬
gen take its place, resulting in the production of
cyanamide.
Other important electro-chemical processes are
involved in the electrolysis of the various alkaline
salts to obtain metallic sodium and such products
as chlorates. Thus by the electrolysis of sodium
chloride metallic sodium and chlorine is obtained.
From the metallic sodium solid caustic soda is then
derived by a secondary reaction, while the chlorine
is combined with lime to form chloride of lime or
bleaching powder. In some processes the electrol¬
ysis affords directly an alkaline hypochlorite or a
chlorate, the former being of wide commercial use
as a bleaching agent in textile works and in the
paper industry. The same process employed in the
electrolysis of sodium salts is used in the case of
magnesium and calcium.
Electrolysis is also made use of in the manufac¬
ture of chloroform and iodoform, as the chlorine or
iodine which is produced in the electrolytic cell is
allowed to act upon the alcohol or acetone under
such conditions that chloroform or iodoform is
produced.
Electro-chemistry plays an important part in
many other industries whose omission from our
description must not be considered as indicating
any lack of their importance. New processes con¬
stantly are being discovered which may range all
the way from the production of artificial gems to
the wholesale production of the most common
chemicals used in the arts. In many branches of
ELECTRIC RAILWAYS. 201
chemical industry manufacturing processes have

been completely changed, and from the research
laboratories, which all large progressive manufac¬
turers now maintain, as well as from workers in
universities and scientific schools, new methods and
discoveries are constantly forthcoming.
CHAPTER XII.
ELECTRIC RAILWAYS.
The electric railway of Dr. Werner von Siemens

constructed at Berlin in 1879 was the forerunner of
a number of systems which have had the effect of
changing materially the problems of transportation
in all parts of the world. The electric railway not
only was found suitable as a substitute for the
tramway with its horse-drawn car, but far more
economical than the cable cars, which were installed
to meet the transportation problems of large cities
with heavy traffic, or, as in the case of certain cities
on the Pacific slope, where heavy grades made
transportation a serious problem. Furthermore, the
electric railway was found serviceable for rural lines
where small steam engines or “dummies” were
operated with limited success, and then only under
exceptional conditions. As a result, practically
every country of the world where the density of
population and the state of civilization has war¬
ranted, is traversed by a network of electric rail¬
ways, securing the most complete intercommunica¬
tion between the various localities and handling
local transportation in a manner impossible for a
railway line employing steam locomotives.
The great advance in electric transportation,

aside from its meeting an economic need, has been
due to the development of systems of generating
and transmitting power economically over long dis¬
tances. If water power is available, turbines and
electric generators can be installed and power pro¬
duced and transmitted over long distances, as, for
example, from Niagara Falls to Buffalo, or even to
much greater distances as in the case of power
plants on the Pacific coast where mountain streams
and lakes are employed for this purpose with con¬
siderable efficiency. A high tension alternating
current thus can be transmitted over considerable
distances and then transformed into direct current
which flows along the trolley wires and is utilized
in the motors. This transformation is usually ac¬
complished by means of a rotary converter, that is,
an alternating current motor which carries with it
the essential elements of a direct current dynamo
and receiving the alternating current of high poten¬
tial turns it out in the form of direct current at a
lower and standard potential. The alternating cur¬
rent at high potential can be transmitted over long
distances with a minimum of loss, while the direct
current at lower potential is more suitable for the
motor and can be used with greater advantage, yet
its potential or pressure decreases rapidly over long
lengths of line, so that it is more economical to use
sub-stations to convert the alternating current from
the power plant. It must not be inferred, however,
that all electric railways employ direct current
machinery. In Europe alternating current has been
used with great success and also in the United
States where a number of lines have been equipped
with this form of power. But the greater number
of installations employ the direct current at about
500—600 volts and this is now the usual practice.

Whether it will continue so in the future or not is
perhaps an open question.
The electric car, as we have seen, employs a
motor which is geared to the axle of the driving
trucks, and the current is derived from the trolley
wire by the familiar pole and wheel and after flow¬
ing through the controller to the motor returns by
the rail. The speed of the car is regulated by the
amount of current which the motorman allows to
pass through the motor and the circuits through
which it flows in order to produce different effects
in the magnetic attraction of the magnet and the
armature. In the ordinary electric car for urban or
suburban uses there has been a constant increase
in the power of the motor and size of the cars, as it
has been found that even large cars can be handled
with the required facility necessary in crowded
streets and that they are correspondingly more
economical to maintain and operate.
The success of electric traction in large cities had
been demonstrated but a few years when it was
appreciated that the overhead wires of the trolley
were unsightly and dangerous, especially in the case
of fire or the breaking of the wires or supports.
Accordingly a system was developed where the cur¬
rent was obtained from conductors laid in a conduit
on insulated supports through a slot in the centre
of the track between the rails. A plow suspended
from the bottom of the car was in contact with the
conductors which were steel rails mounted on in¬
sulated supports, and through them the current
passed by suitable conductors to the controller and
motors. This system found an immediate vogue in
American cities, and though more costly to install
than the overhead trolley, was far more satisfactory
in its results and appearance. In certain cities,

Washington, D. C., for example, the conduit is used
in the built-up portion of the town and when the
suburbs are reached the plow is removed and the
motors are connected with the trolley wire by the
usual pole and wheel.
Perhaps the most important feature of the elec¬
tric railway in the United States has been the
development and increase of its efficiency. Wher¬
ever possible traffic conditions warranted, it was
comparatively easy to secure the right of way along
country highways with little, if any, expense, and
the construction of track and poles for such work
was not a particularly heavy outlay. It was found,
as we have seen, that the current could be trans¬
mitted over considerable distances so that the
opportunity was afforded to supply transportation
between two towns at some small distance where
the local business at the time of the construction of
the road would not warrant the outlay. This led
to the systems of interurban lines, small at first, but
as their success was demonstrated, gradually ex¬
tending and uniting so that not only two important
towns were connected, but eventually a large territory
was supplied with adequate transportation facilities
and even mail, express, and light freight could be
handled.
Again the success of such enterprises made it
feasible for the electric railways to forsake the pub¬
lic highway and to secure a right of way of their
own, and gradually to develop express and through
service, often in direct competition with the local
service of the steam railways in the same territory.
Here larger cars were required and power stations
of the most modern and efficient type in order to
secure proper economy of operation. The general
character of machinery, both generators and motors,

was preserved even for these long distance lines,
and their operation became simply an engineering
problem to secure the maximum efficiency with a
minimum expenditure.
With the success of electric railways in cities
and for suburban and interurban service naturally
arose the question, why electric power whose avail¬
ability and economy had been shown in so many
circumstances could not be used for the great trunk
lines where steam locomotives have been developed
and employed for so many years? The question is
not entirely one of engineering unless as part of the
engineering problem we consider the various eco¬
nomic elements that enter into the question, and their
investigation is the important task of the twentieth
century engineer. For he must answer the question
not only is a method possible mechanically, but is it
profitable from a practical and economic standpoint ?
And it is here that the question of the electrification
of trunk lines now rests. The steam locomotive
has been developed to a point perhaps of almost
maximum efficiency where the greatest speed and
power have been secured that are possible on ma¬
chines limited by the standard gauge of the track,
4 ft. 8| in., and the curves which present railway
lines and conditions of construction demand. Now,
withal, the steam locomotive mechanically consid¬
ered is inefficient, as it must take with it a large
weight of fuel and water which must be transformed
into steam under fixed conditions. If for example,
we have one train a day working over a certain line,
there would be no question of the economy of a
steam locomotive, but with a number, we are simply
maintaining isolated units for the production of
power which could be developed to far greater ad-
206 the story of electricity.
vantage in a central plant. Just as the factory is

more economical than a number of workers engaged
at their homes, and the large establishment of the
trust still more economical in production than a
number of factories, so the central power station
producing electricity which can be transmitted
along a line and used as required is obviously
more advantageous than separate units producing
power on the spot with various losses inherent in
small machines.
But even if the central station is theoretically
superior and more economical it does not imply
that it is either good policy or economy to electrify
at once all the trunk lines of a country such as the
United States and to send to the scrap heap thou¬
sands of good locomotives at the sacrifice of millions
of dollars and the outlay of millions more for elec¬
trical equipment. In other words, unless the finan¬
cial returns will warrant it, there is no good and
positive reason for the electrification of our great
trans-continental lines and even shorter railroads.
That is the situation to-day, but to-morrow is an¬
other question, and the far-seeing railroad man
must be ready with his answer and with his prepara¬
tions. To-day terminal services in large cities can
better be performed by electricity, and not only is
there economy in their operation, but the absence
of dirt, smoke and noise is in accord with public
sentiment if not positively demanded by statute or
ordinance. Suburban service can be worked much
more economically and effectively by trains of motor
cars, and time table and schedule are not limited by
the number of available locomotives on a line so
equipped. On mountain grades, where auxiliary
power or engines of extreme capacity are required,
electricity generated by water power from melting
snow or mountain lakes or streams in the vicinity

may be availed of. Under such conditions power-
ful motors can be used on mountain divisions, not
only with economy, but with increased comfort to
passengers, especially where there are long tunnels.
All this and more the railway man of to-day real¬
izes, and electrification to this extent has been ac¬
complished or is in course of construction. For
each one of the services mentioned typical installa¬
tions can be given as examples, and to accomplish
the various ends, there is not only one system but
several systems of electrical working, which have
been devised by electrical engineers to meet the
difficulties.
To summarize then, electric working of a trunk
line results in increased economy over steam loco¬
motives by concentration of the power and espe¬
cially by the use of water power where possible.
Thus economy is secured to the greatest extent by
a complete electrical service and not by a mixed
service of electric and steam locomotives. Electri¬
fication gives an increase in capacity both in the
haulage by a locomotive, an electric locomotive
being capable of more work than a steam locomo¬
tive, and in schedule and rate of speed, as motor car
trains and electric terminal facilities make possible
augmented traffic, and an increased use of dead
parts of the system such as track and roadbed.
There is a great gain in time of acceleration and
for stopping, and for the Boston terminal it was
estimated that with electricity 50 per cent, more
traffic could be handled, as the headway could be
reduced from three to two minutes. The modern
tendency of electrification deals either with special
conditions or where the traffic is comparatively
dense. From such a beginning it is inevitable that
2o8 THE STORY OF ELECTRICITY.
electric working should be extended and that is the

tendency in all modern installations, as for example,
at the New York terminal of the New York Central
and Hudson River Railroad where the electric
zone, first installed within little more than station
limits, is gradually being extended. As examples
of density of traffic suitable for electrification, yet
at the same time possessing problems of their own,
are the great terminals such as the Grand Central
Station of the New York Central and Hudson River
Railroad in New York City, the new Pennsylvania
Station in the same city, and that of the Illinois
Central Station in the city of Chicago. Not only is
there density here but the varied character of the
service rendered, such as express, local, suburban,
and freight, involves the prompt and efficient hand¬
ling of trains and cars. Now, with suburban trains
made up of motor cars, a certain number of locomo¬
tives otherwise employed are released; for these cars
can be operated or shifted by their own power.
Such terminal stations are often combined with
tunnel sections, as in the case of the great Pennsyl¬
vania terminal, where the tunnel begins at Bergen,
New Jersey, and extends under the Hudson River,
beneath Manhattan Island and under the East
River to Long Island City. It is here that electric
working is essential for the comfort of passengers as
well as for efficient operation. But there are tunnel
sections not connected with such vast terminals, as
in the case of the St. Clair tunnel under the Detroit
River.
While the field and future direction of electrifi¬
cation is fairly well outlined and its future is assured,
yet this future will be one of steady progress rather
than one of sudden upheaval for the economic
reasons before stated. To-day there are no final
standards either of systems or of motors and the

field is open for the final evolution of the most effi¬
cient methods. Notwithstanding the extraordinary
progress that has been made many further develop¬
ments are not only possible now but will be de¬
manded with the progress of the art.
The great problem of the electric railway is the
transmission of energy, and w’hile power may be
economically generated at the central station, yet,
as Mr. Frank J. Sprague, one of the pioneers and
foremost workers in the electrical engineering of
railways has so aptly said, it is still at that central
station and it will suffer a certain diminution in be¬
ing carried to the point of utilization as well as in
being transformed into power to move locomotives,
so that these two considerations lie at the bottom of
the electric railway and on them depend the choice
of the system and the design and construction of the
motor. The two fundamental systems for electric
railways, as in other power problems, are the direct
current and the alternating current. In the former
we have the familiar trolley wire, fed perhaps
by auxiliary conductors carried on the supporting
poles or the underground trolley in the conduit, or
the third rail laid at the side of the track. All of
these have become standard practice and are oper¬
ated at the usual voltage of from 500 to 600 volts.
The current on lines of any considerable length is
alternating current, supplied from large central gen¬
erating stations and transformed to direct as occa¬
sion may demand at suitable sub-stations. Recently
there has been a tendency to employ high voltage
direct current systems where the advantages of the
use of direct current motors are combined with the
economies of high voltage transmission, chief of
which are the avoiding of power losses in transmis-
14
sion and the economy in the first cost of copper.

These high voltage direct current lines were first
used in Europe, and during the year 1907 experi¬
mental lines on the Vienna railway were tested. In
Germany and Switzerland tests were made of direct
current system of 2,000 and 3,000 volts and in 1908
there was completed the first section of a 1,200-
volt direct current line between Indianapolis and
Louisville, which marked the first use of high tension
direct current in the United States, and this was
followed by other successful installations.
With alternating current there can be used the
various forms of single phase or polyphase current
familiar in power work, but the latter is now pre¬
ferred, and in Europe and in the United States in
the latter part of 1908 the number of single phase
lines was estimated at 27 and 28 respectively, with
a total mileage of 782 and 967 miles. A trolley
wire or suspended conductor is used. To employ a
single phase current, motors of either the repulsion
type or of the series type are used and are of heavier
weight than the direct current motors, as they must
combine the functions of a transformer and a motor.
It is for this reason that we often see two electric
locomotives at the head of a single train on lines
where the single phase system is employed, while on
neighboring lines using direct current, one locomo¬
tive of hardly larger size suffices. With the poly¬
phase current a motor with a rotating field is used,
and they have considerable efficiency as regards
weight when compared with the single phase and
with the direct current motor. The polyphase
motor, however, is open to the objection that it
does not lend itself to regulations as well as the di¬
rect current form, and with ingenious devices in¬
volving the arrangement of the magnetic field and
the combination of motors, various running speeds

can be had. The usual voltage for these motors is
3,000 volts, but in the polyphase plant designed for
the Cascade Tunnel 6,000 volts are to be used.
They possess many advantages, especially their
ability to run at overload, and consequently a loco¬
motive with polyphase motor will run up grade
without serious loss of speed. The single phase
system has been carried on on Swiss and Italian
railroads, notably on the Simplon Tunnel and the
Baltelina lines with great success, and the distribu¬
tion problems are reduced to a minimum. In the
United States a notable installation has been on the
New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad, where
the section between Stamford and New York has
been worked by electricity exclusively since July 1,
1908. Here the single phase motors use direct
current while running over the tracks of the New
York Central from Woodlawn to the Grand Central
Terminal. On both the New York, New Haven
& Hartford and the New York Central locomotives
the armature is formed directly on the axle of the
driving wheels, so consequently much interest at¬
taches to the new design adopted for the Pennsyl¬
vania tunnels, where the armatures of the direct
current motors are connected with the driving
wheels by connecting rods somewhat after the
fashion of the steam locomotive, and following in
this respect some successful European practice.
4
LIST OF BOOKS.
Thomson’s Elementary Lessons in Electricity and Magnetism.

Macmillan.
Thomson’s Translation of Guillemin’s Electricity and Mag¬
netism. Macmillan.
Foster and Atkinson’s Adaptation of Joubert’s Elementary
Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism. Longmans.
Mendenhall’s Century of Electricity! Macmillan.
Jamieson’s Elementary Manual of Electricity and Magnetism.
Griffin.
Burch’s Manual of Electric Science. Methuen.
Bottone’s Electricity and Magnetism. Whittaker.
Stewart’s Text-book of Magnetism and Electricity. Clive.
Pope and Brackett's Electricity in Daily Life. Kegan Paul.
Trevert’s Electricity and its Recent Applications. Alabaster &
Gatehouse.
Trevert’s Everybody's Handbook of Electricity. Alabaster &
Gatehouse.
Electrical Apparatus for Amateurs. Ward & Lock.
Gillett’s Phonograph, and How to Construct it. Spon.
Ayrton’s Practical Electricity. Cassells.
Fleming’s Short Lectures to Electrical Artisans. Spon.
Slingo and Brooker’s Electrical Engineering. Longmans.
Preece and Sievewright’s Telegraphy. Longmans.
Preece and Stubbs’ Manual of Telephony. Whittaker.
Poole’s Practical Telephone Handbook. Whittaker.
Bottone’s Dynamo : How Made and How Used. Sonnen-
schein.
Bottone’s Electro-motors : How Made and How Used. Whit¬
taker.
Wallis and Hawkin’s Dynamos. Whittaker.
Allsop’s Induction Coils. Spon.
Allsop’s Practical Electric Lighting. Whittaker.
Bax’s Popular Electric Lighting. Biggs.
2I3
214 LIST OF BOOKS.
Bottone’s Guide to Electric Lighting for Householders. Whit¬

taker.
Gordon’s Decorative Electricity. Low.
Reckenzaum’s Electric Traction. Biggs.
Gore’s Electro-C hemistry. Electrician Co.
Benjamin’s Voltaic Cell. Wiley, of New York.
Niblett’s Secondary Batteries. Biggs.
Sloane’s Standard Electrical Dictionary. Lockwood.
Maycock’s Practical Electrical Notes and Definitions. Spon.
Trevert’s Electrical Measurements for Amateurs. Alabaster
& Gatehouse.
Southam’s Electrical Engineering as a Profession. Whit¬
taker.
Field’s Story of the Atlantic Cable. Gay & Bird.
APPENDIX.
UNITS OF MEASUREMENT.
(From Munro and Jamieson's Pocket-book of Elec¬
trical Rules and Tables').
I. Fundamental Units. — The electrical

units are derived from the following mechanical
units:—
The Centimetre as a unit of length j
The Gramme as a unit of mass ;
The Second as a unit of time.
The Centimetre is equal to 0.3937 inch in
length, and nominally represents one thousand-
millionth part, or i0o6*o(>o,fioo of a quadrant of
the earth.
The Gramme is equal to 15.432 grains, and
represents the mass of a cubic centimetre of wa¬
ter at 40 C. Mass is the quantity of matter in
a body.
The Second is the time of one swing of a pen¬
dulum making 86,164.09 swings in a sidereal day,
or ^-,£07 part of a mean solar day.
II. Derived Mechanical Units.—

Area.—The unit of area is the square centi¬
metre.
215
2l6 APPENDIX
Volume.—The unit of volume is the cubic centi¬

metre.
Velocity is rate of change of position. It in¬
volves the idea of direction as well as that of
magnitude. Velocity is uniforjn when equal spaces
are traversed in equal intervals of time. The
unit of velocity is the velocity of a body which
moves through unit distance in unit time, or the
velocity of one centimetre per second.
Momentum is the quantity of motion in a body,
and is measured by mass x velocity.
Acceleration is the rate of change of velocity,
whether that change take place in the direction
of motion or not. The unit of acceleration is
the acceleration of a body which undergoes unit
change of velocity in unit time, or an acceleration
of one centimetre-per-second per second. The
acceleration due to gravity is considerably greater
than this, for the velocity imparted by gravity to
falling bodies in one second is about 981 centi¬
metres per second (or about 32.2 feet per second).
The value differs slightly in different latitudes.
At Greenwich the value of the acceleration due to
gravity is g= 981.17 ; at the Equator g= 978.1;
at the North Pole^= 983.1.
Force is that which tends to alter a body’s
natural state of rest or of uniform motion in a
straight line.
Force is measured by the acceleration which
it imparts to mass — i. e., mass X accelera¬
tion.
The Unit of Force, or Dyne, is that force which,
acting for one second on a mass of one gramme,
gives to it a velocity of one centimetre per
second. The force with which the earth attracts
any mass is usually called the “weight” of that
APPENDIX. 217
mass, and its value obviously differs at different

points of the earth’s surface. The force with
which a body gravitates — i.e., its weight (in
dynes), is found by multiplying its mass (in
grammes) by the value of g at the particular
place where the force is exerted.
Work is the product of a force and a distance
through which it acts. The unit of work is the
work done in overcoming unit force through
unit distance—i. e., in pushing a body through a
distance of one centimetre against a forch of one
dyne. It is called the Erg. Since the “ weight ”
of one gramme is 1 X 981 or 981 dynes, the work
of raising one gramme through the height of one
centimetre against the force of gravity is 981
ergs or g ergs. One kilogramme-metre = 100,000
(g) ergs = 9.81 X io7 ergs. One foot-pound =
13,825 (g) ergs, = 1.356 X 1 o7 ergs.
Energy is that property which, possessed by a body, gives
it the capability of doing work. Kinetic energy is the work a
body can do in virtue of its motion. Potential energy is the
work a body can do in virtue of its position. The unit of
energy is the Erg.
Pou<eror Activity is the rate of work; the prac¬

tical unit is called the Watt = io1 ergs per second.
A Horse-power = 33,000 ft.-lbs. per minute =
550 ft.-lbs. per second; but as seen above under
Work, 1 ft.-lb. = 1.356 X io7 ergs, and under
Power, 1 Watt = io7 ergs per sec. .\ a Horse¬
power = 550 X 1.356 X io7 ergs = 746 Watts;
EC C2R E8 tt p
or, - = - =-— = Jtl.r.
746 746 746 R
where E = volts, C = amperes, and R = ohms.
The French “ force de cheval” =75 kilogramme
metres per sec. = 736 Watts = 542.48 ft.-lbs. per
2l8 APPENDIX.
sec. = ‘9863 H.P.; or one H.P. = 1.01385 “force

de cheval.”
Derived Electrical Units—There are two sys¬
tems of electrical units derived from the funda¬
mental “ C.G.S.” units, one set being based upon
the force exerted between two quantities of elec¬
tricity, and the other upon the force exerted be¬
tween two magnetic poles. The former set are
termed electro-static units, the latter electro-magnetic
units.
III. Electrostatic Units.—

Unit quantity of electricity is that which repels
an equal and similar quantity at unit distance
with unit force in air.
Unit current is that which conveys unit quan¬
tity of electricity along a conductor in a second.
Unit electromotive force, or unit difference of
potential exists between two points when the unit
quantity of electricity in passing from one to the
other will do the unit amount of work.
Unit resistance is that of a conductor through
which unit electromotive force between its ends
can send a unit current.
Unit capacity is that of a condenser which con¬
tains unit quantity when charged to unit differ¬
ence of potential.
IV. Magnetic Units.—

Unit magnetic pole is that which repels an equal
and similar pole at unit distance with unit force
in air.
Strength of Magnetic Field at any point is
measured by the force which would act on a unit
magnetic pole placed at that point.
APPENDIX. 219
Unit Intensity of Field is that intensity of field

which acts on a unit pole with unit force.
Moment of a Magnet is the strength of either
pole multiplied by the distance between the poles.
Intensity of Magnetisation is the magnetic mo¬
ment of a magnet divided by its volume.
Magnetic Potential.—The potential at a point
due to a magnet is the work that must be done in
removing a unit pole from that point to an in¬
finite distance against the magnetic attraction, or
in bringing up a unit pole from an infinite dis¬
tance to that point against the magnetic repul¬
sion.
Unit Difference of Magnetic Potential.—Unit
difference of magnetic potential exists between
two points when it requires the expenditure of
one erg of work to bring an (N. or S.) unit mag¬
netic pole from one point to the other against the
magnetic forces.
V. Electro-Magnetic Units.—
Unit current is that which in a wire of unit

length, bent so as to form an arc of a circle of
unit radius, would act upon a unit pole at the
centre of the circle with unit force.
Unit quantity of electricity is that which a unit
current conveys in unit time.
Unit electro-motive force or difference of potential
is that which is produced in a conductor moving
through a magnetic field at such a rate as to cut
one unit line per second.
Unit resistance is that of a conductor in which
unit current is produced by unit electro-motive
force between its ends.
Unit capacity is that of a condenser which will
220 APPENDIX.
be at unit difference of potential when charged

with unit quantity.
Electric and magnetic force varies inversely as the square
of the distance.
PRACTICAL UNITS OF ELECTRICITY.
Resistance—R.—The Ohm is the resistance

of a column of mercury 106.3 centimetres long,
1 square millimetre in cross-section, weighing
14.4521 grammes, and at a temperature of o°
centigrade. Standards of wire are used for prac¬
tical purposes. The ohm is equal to a thou¬
sand million, io9, electromagnetic or Centimetre-
Gramme-Second (“ C. G. S.”) units of resistance.
The megohm is one million ohms.
The microhm is one millionth of an ohm.
Electromotive Force—E.—The Volt is that
electromotive force which maintains a current of
one ampere in a conductor having a resistance of
one ohm. The electromotive force of a Clark
standard cell at a temperature of 150 centigrade
is 1.434 volts. The volt is equal to a hundred
million, io8, C. G. S. units of electromotive force.
Current—C.—The Ampere is that current which
will decompose 0.09324 milligramme of water
(H80) per second or deposit 1.118 milli¬
grammes of silver per second. It is equal to
one-tenth of a C. G. S. unit of current.
The milliamplre is one thousandth of an ampere.
Quantity—Q.—The Coulomb is the quantity of
electricity conveyed by an amp&re in a sec¬
ond. It is equal to one-tenth of a C. G. S.
unit of quantity.
The micro-coulomb is one millionth of a coulomb.
Capacity—K.—The Farad is that capacity of a
APPENDIX. 221
body, say a Leyden jar or condenser, which

a coulomb of electricity will charge to the
potential of a volt. It is equal to one thou¬
sand-millionth of a C. G. S. unit of capacity.
The micro-farad is one millionth of a Farad.
By Ohm’s Law, Current = Electromotive Force -f-
Resistance,
-C-J
“""'•-Si
Hence when we know any two of these quan¬
tities, we can find the third. For example, if
we know the electromotive force or differ¬
ence of potential in volts and the resistance
in ohms of an electric circuit, we can easily
find the current in amperes.
Power—P.—The Watt is the power conveyed by
a current of one amp&re through a conductor
whose ends differ in potential by one volt, or,
in other words, the rate of doing work when
an ampere passes through an ohm. It is
equal to ten million, io7, C. G. S. units of
power or ergs per second, that is to say, to a
Joule
per second, or -i- of a horse-power.
746
A Watt = volt X ampere, and a Horse-power =
Watts -7- 746.
Heat or Work—W.—The Joule is the work done
or heat generated by a Watt in a second, that
is, the work done or heat generated in a sec¬
ond by an ampSre flowing through the resist¬
ance of an ohm. It is equal to ten million,
io7, C. G. S. units of work or ergs. Assum-
222 APPENDIX.
ing “Joule’s equivalent” of heat and me¬

chanical energy to be 41,600,000, it is the
heat required to raise .24 gramme of water i°
centigrade. A Joule = Volt X ampere X sec¬
ond. Since 1 horse-power = 550 foot pounds
of work per second,
W = ^^E.Q. = .7373 E.Q. foot pounds.
746
Heat Units.
The British Unit is the amount of heat required

to raise one pound of water from 6o° to 6i°
Fahrenheit. It is 251.9 times greater than
the metric unit, therm or calorie, which is the
amount of heat required to raise one gramme
of water from 40 to 50 centigrade.
Joule's Equivalent—J.—is the amount of energy
equivalent to a therm or calorie, the metric
unit of heat. It is equal to 41,600,000 ergs.
The heat in therms generated in a wire by a
current = Volt X ampere X time in seconds
X 0.24.
Light Units
The British Unit is the light of a spermaceti

candle 7/8-inch in diameter, burning 120 grains
per hour (six candles to the pound). They
sometimes vary as much as 10 per cent, from
the standard. Mr. Vernon Harcourt’s stand¬
ard flame is equal to an average standard
candle.
The French Unit is the light of a Carcel lamp,
and is equivalent to 9% British units.
INDEX.
Dynamos, compound, 73.

Amber, 9. Gramme, 69.
Ampere, 76, 220. magneto-electric, 67.
Accumulator, 39. reversibility of, 65, 73.
E. P. S., 40. series, 70.
Faure, 39. shunt, 71.
Grove gas, 39.
Plante, 39.
Sellon-Volckmar, 40.
Appendix, 215. Electric alarms, 146.
Arc, electric, no, 122. burglar, 148.
fire, 147.
frost, 149.
torpedo, 149.
water, 149.
Books, list of, 213. Electric arc, no.
arc lamps, in.
C. bell, 143.
boat, 128.
Capacity, 220. carriage, 128.
Coal, electricity from, 131. chronograph, 151.
Code, Morse telegraph, 87, 101. circuits, 118.
Compass, mariners, 46. city, 132.
Condenser, 62. clocks, 150.
Conduction, 16. compass, 150.
ionductors, 16. cooking, 123.
Coulomb, 76, 220. CUt-OUtS, 120.
Current, electric, 57. divining rod, 155.
attraction of, 57. drill, 133.
electromotive force of, 74. fishes, 163.
Ohm’s law for, 76. forces, n.
potential of, 75. furnace, 122, 191.
pressure of, 74. fuse, 163.
Currents, electric, resistance of, gaslighter, 160.
heat, 122.
rufes for direction of, 56, 65, incandescent lamps, 123.
66. induction glows, 120.
lamp-lighter, 162.
D. light signals, 152.
log, 149.
Diamagnetism, 51. meters, 152.
Dynamos, 67, motor, 73.
223
INDEX.
224
Electric pen, 156.

power, 124.
power, transmission of, 125. Induction, 18.
quilt, 124. balance, 154.
radiator, 124. Induction coil, 61.
railway, 126, 205. magneto electric, 154.
search light, 153. magneto, direction of current,
sewing machine, 132. 56, 66.
shock, treatment for, 163. Inductive capacity, 20.
silhouettes, 167. Insulation, 16.
torpedo, 130. Insulators, 16.
traction, 203. Ion, 76.
tramway, 126.
tricycle, 128. J.
ventilator, 130. oule, 221.
weather vane, 150. oule’s equivalent, 222.
welding, 122.
Electricity, chemistry and, 26. L.
coal and, 131.
friction and, 9. Leyden jar, 21.
heat and, 41. Light, unit, 222.
magnetism and, 45. Lightning, nature of, 23.
Niagara and, 132. rods, 25.
origin of the science, 10. rod testing, 164.
peat and, 131. shock, treatment for, 163.
scale of bodies producing, 14. Lodestone, 46.
surface, 17.
Electro-cautery, 162. M.
Electro-chemical equivalent, 77.
Electro-chemistry, 26, 187. Magnet, horse-shoe, 54.
Electro-deposition of metals, 77. natural, 47.
Magnetic compass, origin of, 46.
Electrolysis, 74.
Magnetic lines of force, 54, 57.
Electromagnet, 60.
Magnetism, 45.
Electromagnetism, 59.
connection with electricity, 55.
Electromedicine, 163.
earth’s, 49.
Electro-metallurgy, 187.
earth’s forces of, 50.
Electromotive force, 29, 74.
earth’s theory of, 52.
Electrophorus, 20.
Magnetite, 46.
Electroplating, 78.
Measurement, units of, 215.
Electrotyping, 80.
Microphone, Hughes’, 104.
Energy, 217.
Morse code, 87.
telegraph, 88.
F. Motor, electric, 73.
Farad, 220.
N.
G.
Niagara, electricity from, 132,
Galvanism, discovery of, 26. 187, 198.
Galvanometer, 56.
Galvanoscope, 56. O.
Geissler tubes, 63, 168. Ohm, 76, 220.
Ohm’s law, 76, 221.
H.
P.
Heat, 41, 222.
unit, 218. Paramagnetism, 51.
Hysteresis, magnetic, 53. 1 Peat, electricity from, 131.
INDEX.
225
Peltier effect, 45. Telegraph, Veil, go.

Phonograph, 156. wireless, 174.
Photo-electric cell, 154. Telephone, Bell, 102.
Photophone, 153. cable, 107.
Power, 217. Chicago to New York, 107.
Pressure of a current, 74. Edison, 103.
Primary cells, 37. exchange, 107.
coils, 61. instrument of Blake, 107.
current, 61. switchboard, 108.
Thermo-electricity, 41.
Thermo-electric couple, 41,
R. in series, 43.
piles, 44.
Resistance, 30.
scale, 42.
S. U.
Secondary cells, 37. Units, 215.
coils, 61.
currents, 61.
Shocks, electric, 163. V.
Sonometer, 155.
Volt, 76, 220.
Sounder, 90.
Voltaic cell, 27.
Storage cell, 37.
action of, 28.
Submarine cable, 95.
bichromate, 28.
Atlantic, 96. Bunsen, 33.
circuit, 98.
Chloride of silver, 35.
mirror instrument, 99. Clark Standard, 36.
signal alphabet, 101. Coupling, 31.
siphon recorder, 100. Darnell, 32.
speed of messages, 101.
Dry “ E. C. C.,” 36.
detector, 155. Grove, 33.
Grove gas, 39.
Hellesen, 37.
Leclanche, 34.
Telautograph, 93. Leclanche-Barbier, 37.
Telegrams, errors in, 92. Schanschieff, 36.
Telegraph, automatic sender, Skrivanoff, 36.
92.
chemical, 90.
circuit, 84.
C. M.’s, 24. Voltameter, 38.
Cooke and Wheatstone, 82.
domestic, 150.
duplex system, 92.
Hughes, 91. Water, decomposition of, 37.
Kelvin, 99. Watt, 221.
Morse, 88. Wheatstone bridge, 164.
origin of, 81. Wireless telegraph, 174.
Ronald’s 24. Work, 183, 221.
THE END. (12)

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-'* i« DUE on tbe last Hqf» st-—-

WITH ONE HUNDRED ILLUSTRATIONS

• •• I*! **! !,! ***

For our edition of this work the terminolo¬

FIGURE PAGE FIGURE PAGE

THE ELECTRICITY OF FRICTION.

A schoolboy who rubs a stick of sealing-wax

his laws to Athens, and Necos, King of Egypt,

tional machine as now made is illustrated in fig¬

silk P, smeared with an amalgam of mercury and

Similarly we may rub a stick of sealing wax, a

A glass rod when rubbed with a silk handker¬

Further experiments with other substances

The list shows that quality, as well as kind,

in another electrical property, and they must

offer least resistance to its passage, for instance the

This is well shown by a device of Faraday

the presence of the electrified rod. Again, if, as

clusively that the value of the induction depended

Fig. 8.—The Electrophorus.

as shown in figure 8, of a metal plate B having

The rest of it, however, is insulated from the

the charged plate or conductor of the electro-

Fig. g.—The Leyden Jar.

in the outer foil through the glass. The corre¬

great extent. In 1753 Mr. Charles Morrison, of

Fig. 10.—A Wimshurst Machine.

make it attract printed letters of the alphabet at

day that “ telegraphs of any kind were wholly

platinum. It is usual to connect all the outside

THE ELECTRICITY OF CHEMISTRY.

A more tractable kind of electricity than that

also noticed when the limbs were hung by copper

The positive electricity of the zinc appears to trav¬

into contact, and you will feel an acid taste, in the

zinc and copper plates {Z C) disconnected in the

obstruction or hindrance which the electricity

joined “in series,” the zinc or negative pole of

Fig. 14.—Cells in Parallel.

tiplies alike the electromotive force and the re¬

cells, and the resistance of the battery is the sum

There being no chemical union between the

where the rolling of the waves would blend the

is coated with rough platinum to increase the sur¬

Skrivanoff has modified the De la Rue cell by

black pitch P, through which a waste-tube IV T

voltameter, and consists of a glass vessel V, con¬

Fig. 20.—The Voltameter.

rent enters the water by the positive electrode,

lighted taper into the gas of the tube H and

on the plates. Sellon and Volckmar increased

Fig. ax.—The E. P. S. Accumulator.

containing two sets of leaden grids perforated

THE ELECTRICITY OF HEAT.

In the year 1821 Professor Seebeck, of Ber¬

negative to those above it, and the further apart

The electromotive force and current of a

steady current. No solutions or salts are re¬

yards, and even the radiation from certain of the

• •• I! ! !,!