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IN MEMORIAM
FLOR1AN CAJORI

LITTLE MASTERPIECES OF SCIENCE

Little Masterpieces
of Science

Edited by George lies

INVENTION AND DIS-
COVERY

Benjamin Franklin Alexander Graham Bell
Michael Faraday Count Rumford
Joseph Henry George Stephenson

e^er

NEW YORK

DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY

1902

PREFACE

To a good many of us the inventor is the true
hero for he multiplies the working value of
life. He performs an old task with new econ-
omy, as when he devises a mowing-machine to
oust the scythe ; or he creates -a service wholly
new, as when he bids a landscape depict itself on
a photographic plate. He, and his twin brother,
the discoverer, have eyes to read a lesson that
Nature has held for ages under the undiscerning
gaze of other men. Where an ordinary observer
sees, or thinks he sees, diversity, a Franklin de-
tects identity, as in the famous experiment here
recounted which proves lightning to be one and
the same with a charge of the Ley den jar. Of a
later day than Franklin, advantaged therefor
by new knowledge and better opportunities for
experiment, stood Faraday, the founder of
modern electric art. His work gave the world the
dynamo and motor, the transmission of giant
powers, almost without toll, for two hundred
miles at a bound. It is, however, in the carriage
of but trifling quantities of motion, just enough
for signals, that electricity thus far has done its
most telling work. Among the men who have
created the electric telegraph Joseph Henry has
a commanding place. A short account of what
he did, told in his own words, is here presented.
Then follows a narrative of the difficult task of

M306208

Preface

laying the first Atlantic cables, a task long
scouted as impossible: it is a story which proves
how much science may be indebted to unfaltering
courage, to faith in ultimate triumph.

To give speech the wings of electricity, to
enable friends in Denver and New York to con-
verse with one another, is a marvel which only
familiarity places beyond the pale of miracle.
Shortly after he perfected the telephone Pro-
fessor Bell described the steps which led to its
construction That recital is here reprinted.

A recent wonder of electric art is its penetration
by a photographic ray of substances until now
called opaque. Professor Ront gen's account of
how he wrought this feat forms one of the
most stirring chapters in the history of science.
Next follows an account of the telegraph as it
dispenses with metallic conductors altogether,
and trusts itself to that weightless ether which
brings to the eye the luminous wave. To this
succeeds a chapter which considers what elec-
tricity stands for as one of the supreme resources
of human wit, a resource transcending even flame
itself, bringing articulate speech and writing to
new planes of facility and usefulness. . It
is shown that the rapidity with which during
a single century electricity has been subdued for
human service, illustrates that progress has leaps
as well as deliberate steps, so that at last a gulf,
all but infinite, divides man from his next of kin.
At this point we pause to recall our debt to the
physical philosophy which underlies the calcula-
vi

Preface

tions of the modern engineer. In such, an ex-
periment as that of Count Rumford we observe
how the cornerstone was laid of the knowledge
that heat is motion, and that motion under what-
ever guise, as light, electricity, or what not, is
equally beyond creation or annihilation, however
elusively it may glide from phase to phase and
vanish from view. In the mastery of Flame for
the superseding of muscle, of breeze and wa-
ter-fall, the chief credit rests with James Watt,
the inventor of the steam engine. Beside him
stands George Stephenson, who devised the loco-
motive w^hich by abridging space has lengthened
life and added to its highest pleasures. Our
volume closes by narrating the competition
which decided that Stephenson's " Rocket"
was much superior to its rivals, and thus opened
a new chapter in the history of mankind.

GEORGE ILES.

CONTENTS

FRANKLIN, BENJAMIN

LIGHTNING IDENTIFIED WITH ELECTRICITY

Franklin explains the action of the Leyden phial or
jar. Suggests lightning-rods. Sends a kite into the
clouds during a thunderstorm; through the kite-string
obtains a spark of lightning which throws into diver-
gence the loose fibres of the string, just as an ordinary
electrical discharge would do 3

FARADAY, MICHAEL

PREPARING THE WAY FOR THE ELECTRIC
DYNAMO AND MOTOR

Notices the inductive effect in one coil when the circuit
in a concentric coil is completed or broken. Notices
similar effects when a wire bearing a current approaches
another wire or recedes from it. Rotates a galvano-
meter needle by an electric pulse. Induces currents
in coils when the magnetism* is varied in their iron
or steel cores. Observes the lines of magnetic force
as iron filings are magnetized. A magnetic bar
moved in and out of a coil of wire excites electricity
^therein, — mechanical motion is converted into elec-
tricity. Generates a current by spinning a copper
plate in a horizontal plane 7

HENRY, JOSEPH

INVENTION OF THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH.

Improves the electro-magnet of Sturgeon by insulating
its wire with silk thread, and by disposing the wire

Contents

in several coils instead of one Experiments with a
large electro-magnet excited by nine distinct coils
Uses a battery so powerful that electro-magnets are
produced one hundred times more energetic than those
of Sturgeon. Arranges a telegraphic circuit more than
a mile long and at that distance sounds a bell by
means of an electro-magnet. ..•••', ... 23

ILES, GEORGE

THE FIRST ATLANTIC CABLES

Forerunners at New York and Dover. Gutta-percha
the indispensable insulator. Wire is used to sheathe
the cables. Cyrus W. Field's project for an Atlantic
cable. The first cable fails. 1858 so does the second
cable 1865. A triumph of courage, 1866. The
highway smoothed for successors. Lessons of the
cable. . . . . .' 37

BELL, ALEXANDER GRAHAM
THE INVENTION OF THE TELEPHONE

Indebted to his father's study of the vocal organs as
they form sounds. Examines the Helmholtz method
for the analysis and synthesis of vocal sounds Sug-
gests the electrical actuation of tuning-forks and the
electrical transmission of their tones Distinguishes
intermittent, pulsatory and undulatory currents.
Devises as his first articulating telephone a harp of
steel rods thrown into vibration by electro-magnetism.
Exhibits optically the vibrations of sound, using a
preparation of a human ear: is struck by the efficiency
of a slight aural membrane. Attaches a bit of clock
spring to a piece of goldbeater's skin, speaks to it, an
audible message is received at a distant and similar
device. This contrivance improved is shown at the
Centennial Exhibition, Philadelphia, 1876. At first
the same kind of instrument transmitted and delivered
a message; soon two distinct instruments were in-
X

Contents

vented for transmitting and for receiving. Extremely
small magnets suffice. A single blade of grass forms
a telephonic circuit 57

DAM, H. J. W.

PHOTOGRAPHING THE UNSEEN

Rontgen indebted to the researches of Faraday,
Clerk-Maxwell, Hertz, Lodge and Lenard The human
optic nerve is affected by a very small range in the waves
that exist in the ether. Beyond the visible spectrum
of common light are vibrations which have long been
known as heat or as photographically active Crookes
in a vacuous bulb produced soft light from high tension
electricity Lenard found that rays from a Crookes'
tube passed through substances opaque to common
light. Rontgen extended these experiments and used
the ravs photographically, taking pictures of the bones
of the hand through living flesh, and so on. .... 87

ILES, GEORGE

THE WIRELESS TELEGRAPH

What may follow upon electric induction. Telegraphy
to a moving train. The Preece induction method:
its limits. Marconi's system. His precursors, Hertz,
Onesti, Branly and Lodge. The coherer and the
vertical wire form the essence of the apparatus. Wire-
less telegraphy at sea 109

ILES, GEORGE

ELECTRICITY, WHAT ITS MASTERY MEANS:
WITH A REVIEW AND A PROSPECT

Electricity does all that fire ever did, does it better,
and performs uncounted services impossible to flame.
Its mastery means as great a forward stride as the
xi

Contents

subjugation of fire. A minor invention or discovery
simply adds to human resources." a supreme conquest
as of flame or electricity, is a multiplier and lifts art
and science to a new plane. Growth is slow, flower-
ing is rapid: progress at times is so quick of pace as
virtually to become a leap. The mastery of electricity
based on that of fire. Electricity vastly wider of range
than heat: it is energy in its most available and desirable
phase. The telegraph and the telephone contrasted
with the signal fire. Electricity as the servant
of mechanic and engineer. Household uses of the
current. Electricity as an agent of research now
examines Nature in fresh aspects. The inves-
tigator and the commercial exploiter render aid to one
another. Social benefits of electricity, in telegraphy,
iii quick travel. The current should serve every city
house 125

RUMFORD, COUNT (BENJAMIN THOMP-
SON)
HEAT AND MOTION IDENTIFIED

Observes that in boring a cannon much heat is gen-
erated: the longer the boring lasts, the more heat is
produced. He argues that since heat without limit
may be thus produced by motion, heat must be motion.iss

STEPHENSON, GEORGE

THE "ROCKET" LOCOMOTIVE AND ITS
VICTORY

Shall it be a system of stationary engines or loco-
motives? The two best practical engineers of the
day are in favour of stationary engines. A test of
locomotives is, however, proffered, and George Steph-
enson and his son, Robert, djscuss how they may best
build an engine to win the first prize. They adopt
a steam blast to stimulate the draft of the furnace,
Xli

Contents

and raise steam quickly in a boiler having twenty-
five small fire-tubes of copper. The "Rocket" with
a maximum speed of twenty-nine miles an hour dis-
tances its rivals. With its load of water its weight
was but four and a quarter tons. ...... 163

LITTLE MASTERPIECES OF SCIENCE

FRANKLIN IDENTIFIES LIGHTNING
WITH ELECTRICITY

[From Franklin's Works, edited in ten volumes by John
Bigelow, Vol. I, pages 276-281, copyright by G. P. Putnam's
Sons, New York.fl

DR. STUBER, the author of the first continua-
tion of Franklin's life, gives this account of the
electrical experiments of Franklin: —

"His observations he communicated, in a
series of letters, to his friend Collinson, the first
of which is dated March 28, 1747. In these he
shows the power of points in drawing and throw-
ing off the electrical matter, which had hitherto
escaped the notice of electricians. He also
made the grand discovery of a plus and minus,
or of a positive and negative state of electricity.
We give him the honour of this without hesita-
tion; although the English have claimed it for
their countryman, Dr. Watson. Watson's paper
is dated January 21, 1748; Franklin's July n,
1747, several months prior. Shortly after
Franklin, from his principles of the plus and
minus state, explained in a satisfactory manner
the phenomena of the Ley den phial, first ob-
served by Mr. Cuneus, or by Professor Muschen-
broeck, of Ley den, which had much perplexed
philosophers. He showed clearly that when
charged the bottle contained no more electricity
3

Masterpieces of Science

than before, but that as much was taken from
one side as thrown on the other; and that to
discharge it nothing was necessary but to pro-
duce a communication between the two sides by
which the equilibrium might be restored, and
that then no signs of electricity would remain.
He afterwards demonstrated by experiments
that the electricity did not reside in the coating
as had been supposed, but in the pores of the
glass itself. After the phial was charged he
removed the coating, and found that upon apply-
ing a new coating the shock might still be re-
ceived. In the year 1749, he first suggested
his idea of explaining the phenomena of thunder
gusts and of aurora borealis upon electric
principles. He points out many particulars in
which lightning and electricity agree; and he
adduces many facts, and reasonings from facts,
in support of his positions.

"In the same year he conceived the astonish-
ingly bold and grand idea of ascertaining the
truth of his doctrine by actually drawing down
the lightning, by means of sharp pointed iron
rods raised into the regions of the clouds. Even
in this uncertain state his passion to be useful
to mankind displayed itself in a powerful man-
ner. Admitting the identity of electricity and
lightning, and knowing the power of points in
repelling bodies charged with electricity, and in
conducting fires silently and imperceptibly, he
suggested the idea of securing houses, ships and
the like from being damaged by lightning, by
4

Franklin Identifies Lightning

erecting pointed rods that should rise some feet
above the most elevated part, and descend some
feet into the ground or water. The effect of
these he concluded would be either to prevent
a stroke by repelling the cloud beyond the strik-
ing distance or by drawing off the electrical fire
which it contained; or, if they could not effect this
they would at least conduct the electrical matter
to the earth without any injury to the building.
"It was not until the summer of 1752 that he
was enabled to complete his grand and unparal-
leled discovery by experiment. The plan which
he had originally proposed was, to erect, on some
high tower or elevated place, a sentry-box from
which should rise a pointed iron rod, insulated
by being fixed in a cake of resin. Electrified
clouds passing over this would, he conceived,
impart to it a portion of their electricity which
would be rendered evident to the senses by sparks
being emitted when a key, the knuckle, or other
conductor, was presented to it. Philadelphia
at this time afforded no opportunity of trying
an experiment of this kind. While Franklin was
waiting for the erection of a spire, it occurred to
him that he might have more ready access to the
region of clouds by means of a common kite.
He prepared one by fastening two cross sticks
to a silk handkerchief, which would not suffer
so much from the rain as paper. To the upright
stick was affixed an iron point. The string was,
as usual, of hemp, except the lower end, which
was silk. Where the hempen string terminated,
5

Masterpieces of Science

a key was fastened. With this apparatus, on
the appearance of a thundergust approaching,
he went out into the commons, accompanied by
his son, to whom alone he communicated his
intentions, well knowing the ridicule which, too
generally for the interest of science, awaits un-
successful experiments in philosophy. He placed
""himself under a shed, to avoid the rain; his kite
was raised, a thunder-cloud passed over it, no
' sign of electricity appeared. He almost de-
spaired of success, when suddenly he observed
the loose fibres of his string to move towards an
erect position. He now presented his knuckle
to the key and received a strong spark. How
exquisite must his sensations have been at this
moment ! On his experiment depended the fate
of his theory. If he succeeded, his name would
rank high among those who had improved
"science; if he failed, he must inevitably be sub-
jected to the derision of mankind, or, what is
worse, their pity, as a well-meaning man, but a
_w^eak, silly projector. The anxiety with which
he looked for the result of his experiment may
easily be conceived. Doubts and despair had
begun to prevail, when the fact was ascertained,
in so clear a manner, that even the most incredul-
ous could no longer withhold their assent. Re-
peated sparks were drawn from the key, a phial
was charged, a shock given, and all the experi-
ments made which are usually performed with
electricity. "

FARADAY'S DISCOVERIES LEADING UP

TO THE ELECTRIC DYNAMO

AND MOTOR

[Michael Faraday was for many years Professor of Natural
Philosophy at the Royal Institution, London, where his
researches did more to subdue electricity to the service of
man than those of any other physicist who ever lived. "Far-
aday as a Discoverer," by Professor John Tyndall (his suc-
cessor) depicts a mind of the rarest ability and a character
of the utmost charm. This biography is published by
D. Appleton & Co., New York: the extracts which follow
are from the third chapter .Q

IN 1831 we have Faraday at the climax of his
intellectual strength, forty years of age, stored
with knowledge and full of original power.
Through reading, lecturing, and experimenting,
he had become thoroughly familiar with electri-
cal science: he saw where light was needed and
expansion possible. The phenomena of ordinary
electric induction belonged, as it were, to the
alphabet of his knowledge : he knew that under or-
dinary circumstances the presence of an electrified
body was sufficient to excite,, by induction, an
unelectrified body. He knew that the wire
which carried an electric current was an electri-
fied body, and still that all attempts had failed
to make it excite in other wires a state similar
to its own.

What was the reason of this failure ? Faraday
7

Masterpieces of Science

never could work from the experiments of others,
however clearly described. He knew well that
from every experiment issues a kind of radiation,
luminous, in different degrees to different minds,
and he hardly trusted himself to reason upon an
experiment that he had not seen. In the au-
tumn of 1831 he began to repeat the experiments
with electric currents, which, up to that time,
had produced no positive result. And here, for
the sake of younger inquirers, if not for the sake
of us all, it is worth while to dwell for a moment
on a power which Faraday possessed in an extra-
ordinary degree. He united vast strength with
perfect flexibility. His momentum was that
of a river, which combines weight and directness
with the ability to yield to the flexures of its bed.
The intentness of his vision in any direction did
not apparently diminish his power of perception
in other directions ; and when he attacked a sub-
ject, expecting results, he had the faculty of
keeping his mind alert, so that results different
from those which he expected should not escape
him through pre-occupation.

He began his experiments "on the induction
of electric currents" by composing a helix of two
insulated wires, which were wound side by side
round the same wooden cylinder. One of these
wires he connected with a voltaic battery of ten
cells, and the other with a sensitive galvanometer.
When connection with the battery was made,
and while the current flowed, no effect what-
ever was observed at the galvanometer. But

Faraday ' s Discoveries

he never accepted an experimental result, until he
had applied to it the utmost power at his com-
mand. He raised his battery from ten cells to
one hundred and twenty cells, but without avail.
The current flowed calmly through the battery
wire without producing, during its flow, any
sensible^result upon the galvanometer.

" During its flow, " and this was the time when
an effect was expected — but here Faraday's
power of lateral vision, separating, as it were
from the line of expectation, came into play —
he noticed that a feeble movement of the needle
always occurred at the moment when he made
contact with the battery; that the needle would
afterwards return to its former position and re-
main quietly there unaffected by the flowing
current. At the moment, however, when the
circuit was interrupted the needle again moved,
and in a direction opposed to that observed on
the completion of the circuit.

This result, and others of a similar kind, led
him to the conclusion "that the battery current
through the one wire did in reality induce a
similar current through the other; but that it
continued for an instant only, and partook more
of the nature of the electric wave from a common
Ley den jar than of the current from a voltaic
battery." The momentary currents thus gen-
erated were called induced currents, while the
current which generated them was called the
inducing current. It was immediately proved
that the current generated at making the circuit

Masterpieces of Science

was always opposed in direction to its generator,
while that developed on the rupture of the cir-
cuit coincided in direction with the inducing
current. It appeared as if the current on its
first rush through the primary wire sought a pur-
chase in the secondary one, and, by a kind of
kick, impelled backward through the latter an
electric wave, which subsided as soon as the
primary current was fully established.

Faraday, for a time, believed that the second-
ary wire, though quiescent when the primary
current had been once established, was not in its
natural condition, its return to that condition
being declared by the current observed at break-
ing the circuit. He called this hypothetical
state of the wire the electrotonic state: he after-
wards abandoned this hypothesis, but seemed to
return to it in after life. The term electro-tonic
is also preserved by Professor Du Bois Reymond
to express a certain electric condition of the
nerves, and Professor Clerk Maxwell has ably
denned and illustrated the hypothesis in the
Tenth Volume of the ' ' Transactions of the Cam-
bridge Philosophical Society. "

The mere approach of a wire forming a closed
curve to a second wire through which a voltaic
current flowed was then shown by Faraday to be
sufficient to arouse in the neutral wire an induced
current, opposed in direction to the inducing
current; the withdrawal of the wire also gener-
ated a current having the same direction as the
inducing current; those currents existed only
10

Faraday's Discoveries

during the time of approach or withdrawal, and
when neither the primary nor the secondary wire
was in motion, no matter how close their prox-
imity might be, no induced current was generated.
Faraday has been called a purely inductive
philosopher. A great deal of nonsense is, I fear,
uttered in this land of England about induction
and deduction. Some profess to befriend the
one, some the other, while the real vocation of
an investigator, like Faraday, consists in the in-
cessant marriage of both. He was at this time
full of the theory of Ampere, and it cannot be
doubted that numbers of his experiments were
executed merely to test his deductions from
that theory. Starting from the discovery of
Oersted, the celebrated French philosopher had
shown that all the phenomena of magnetism then
known might be reduced to the mutual attractions
and repulsions of electric currents. Magnetism
had been produced from electricity, and Faraday,
who all his life long entertained a strong belief in
such reciprocal actions, now attempted to effect
the evolution of electricity from magnetism.
Round a welded iron ring he placed two distinct
coils of covered wire, causing the coils to occupy
opposite halves of the ring. Connecting the ends
of one of the coils with a galvanometer, he found
that the moment the ring was magnetized, by
sending a current through the other coil, the gal-
vanometer needle whirled round four or five
times in succession. The action, as before, was
that of a pulse, which vanished immediately.
11

Masterpieces of Science

On interrupting the current, a whirl of the needle
in the opposite direction occurred. It was only
during the time of magnetization or demagnetiza-
tion that these effects were produced. The in-
duced currents declared a change of condition
only, and" they vanished the moment the act of
magnetization or demagnetization was complete.
The effects obtained with the welded ring were
also obtained with straight bars of iron. Whether
the bars were magnetized by the electric current,
or were excited by the contact of permanent steel
magnets, induced currents were always gener-
ated during the rise, and during the subsidence
of the magnetism. The use of iron was then
abandoned, and the same effects were obtained
by merely thrusting a permanent steel magnet
into a coil of wire. A rush of electricity through
the coil accompanied the insertion of the magnet ;
an equal rush in the opposite direction accom-
panied its withdrawal. The precision with
which Faraday describes these results, and the
completeness with which he denned the bound-
aries of his facts, are wonderful. The magnet,
for example, must not be passed quite through
the coil, but only half through, for if passed
wholly through, the needle is stopped as by a
blow, and then he shows how this blow results
from a reversal of the electric wave in the helix.
He next operated with the powerful permanent
magnet of the Royal Society, and obtained with
it, in an exalted degree, all the foregoing phe-
nomena.

Faraday's Discoveries

And now he turned the light of these discover-
ies upon the darkest physical phenomenon of
that day. Arago had discovered in 1824, that
a disk of non-magnetic metal had the power of
bringing a vibrating magnetic needle suspended
over it rapidly to rest; and that on causing the
disk to rotate the magnetic needle rotated along
with it. When both were quiescent, there was
not the slightest measurable attraction or re-
pulsion exerted between the needle and the disk ;
still when in motion the disk was competent
to drag after it, not only a light needle, but a
heavy magnet. The question had been probed
and investigated with admirable skill by both
Arago and Ampere, and Poisson had published a
theoretic memoir on the subject; but no cause
could be assigned for so extraordinary -an action.
It had also been examined in this country by
two celebrated men, Mr. Babbage and Sir John
Herschel; but it still remained a mystery. Fara-
day always recommended the suspension of
judgment in cases of doubt. "I have always
admired," he says, "the prudence and philo-
sophical reserve shown by M. Arago in resisting
the temptations to give a theory of the effect he
had discovered, so long as he could not devise one
which was perfect in its application, and in re-
fusing to assent to the imperfect theories of
others." Now, however, the time for theory
had come. Faraday saw mentally the rotating
disk, under the operation of the magnet, flooded
with his induced currents, and from the known
13

Masterpieces of Science

laws of interaction between currents and mag-
nets he hoped to deduce the motion observed by
Arago. That hope he realized, showing by
actual experiment that when his disk rotated
currents passed through it, their position and
direction being such as must, in accordance with
the established laws of electro-magnetic action,
produce the observed rotation.

Introducing the edge of his disk between the
poles of the large horseshoe magnet of the Royal
Society, and connecting the axis and the edge
of the disk, each by a wire with a galvanometer,
he obtained, when the disk was turned round,
a constant flow of electricity. The direction of
the current was determined by the direction of
the motion, the current being reversed when the
rotation was reversed. He now states the law
which rules the production of currents in both
disks and wires, and in so doing uses, for the
first time, a phrase which has since become
famous. When iron filings are scattered over a
magnet, the particles of iron arrange themselves
in certain determined lines called magnetic curves.
In 1831, Faraday for the first time called these
curves "lines of magnetic force; " and he showed
that to produce induced currents neither approach
to nor withdrawal from a magnetic source, or
centre, or pole, was essential, but that it was
only necessary to cut appropriately the lines of
magnetic force. Faraday's first paper on
Magneto-electric Induction, which I have
here endeavoured to condense, was read
14

Faraday's Discoveries

before the Royal Society on the 24th of
November, 1831.

On January 12, 1832, he communicated to the
Royal Society a second paper on "Terrestrial
Magneto-electric Induction," which was chosen
as the Bakerian Lecture for the year. He placed
a bar of iron in a coil of wire, and lifting the bar
into the direction of the dipping needle, he ex-
cited by this action a current in the coil. On
reversing the bar, a current in the opposite direc-
tion rushed through the wire. The same effect
was produced, when, on holding the helix in the
line of dip, a bar of iron was thrust into it. Here,
however, the earth acted on the coil through
the intermediation of the bar of iron. He
abandoned the bar and simply set a copper-plate
spinning in a horizontal plane ; he knew that the
earth's lines of magnetic force then crossed the
plate at an angle of about 70°. When the plate
spun round, the lines of force were intersected
and induced currents generated, which produced (
their proper effect when carried from the plate to
the galvanometer. "When the plate was in the
magnetic meridian, or in any other plane coincid-
ing with the magnetic dip, then its rotation pro-
duced no effect upon the galvanometer. ' '

At the suggestion of a mind fruitful in sugges-
tions of a profound and philosophic character —
1 mean that of Sir John Herschel — Mr. Barlow,
of Woolwich, had experimented with a rotating
iron shell. Mr. Christie had also performed an
elaborate series of experiments on a rotating
15

Masterpieces of Science

iron disk. Both of them had found that when
in rotation the body exercised a peculiar action
upon the magnetic needle, deflecting it in a man-
ner which was not observed during quiescence;
but neither of them was aware at the time of the
agent which produced this extraordinary deflec-
tion. They ascribed it to some change in the
magnetism of the iron shell and disk.

But Faraday at once saw that his induced
currents must come into play here, and he imme-
diately obtained them from an iron disk. With
a hollow brass ball, moreover, he produced the
effects obtained by Mr. Barlow. Iron was in no
way necessary: the only condition of success was
that the rotating body should be of a character
to admit of the formation of currents in its sub-
stance: it must, in other words, be a conductor
of electricity The higher the conducting power
the more copious were the currents. He now
passes from his little brass globe to the globe of
the earth He plays like a magician with the
earth's magnetism. He sees the invisible lines
along which its magnetic action is exerted and
sweeping his wand across these lines evokes this
new power. Placing a simple loop of wire round
a magnetic needle he bends its upper portion to
the west: the north pole of the needle immedi-
ately swerves to the east: he bends his loop to
the east, and the north poles moves to the west.
Suspending a common bar magnet in a vertical
position, he causes it to spin round its own axis.
Its pole being connected with one end of a gal-
16

Faraday's Discoveries

variometer wire, and its equator with the other
end, electricity rushes round the galvanometer
from the rotating magnet. He remarks upon
the "singular independence" of the magnetism
and the body of the magnet which carries it.
The steel behaves as if it were isolated from its
own magnetism.

And then his thoughts suddenly widen, and
he asks himself whether the rotating earth does
not generate induced currents as it turns round
its axis from west to east. In his experiment
with the twirling magnet the galvanometer wire
remained at rest; one portion of the circuit was
in motion relatively to another portion. But in
the case of the twirling planet the galvanometer
wire would necessarily be carried along with the
earth; there would be no relative motion. What
must be the consequence ? Take the case of a
telegraph wire with its two terminal plates
dipped into the earth, and suppose the wire to lie
in the magnetic meridian. The ground under-
neath the wire is influenced like the wire itself by
the earth's rotation; if a current from south to
north be generated in the wire, a similar current
from south to north would be generated in the
earth under the wire; these currents would run
against the same terminal plates, and thus neu-
tralize each other.

This inference appears inevitable, but his
profound vision perceived its possible invalidity.
He saw that it was at least possible that the dif-
ference of conducting power between the earth
17

Masterpieces of Science

and the wire might give one an advantage over
the other, and that thus a residual or differential
current might be obtained. He combined wires
of different materials, and caused them to act in
opposition to each other, but found the combina-
tion ineffectual. The more copious flow in the
better conductor was exactly counterbalanced
by the resistance of the worst. Still, though
experiment was thus emphatic, he would clear
his mind of all discomfort by operating on the
earth itself. He went to the round lake near
Kensington Palace, and stretched four hundred
and eighty feet of copper wire, north and south,
over the lake, causing plates soldered to the wire
at its ends to dip into the water. The copper
wire was severed at the middle, and the severed
ends connected with a galvanometer. No
effect whatever was observed. But though
quiescent water gave no effect, moving water
might. He therefore worked at London Bridge
for three days during the ebb and flow of the
tide, but without any satisfactory result. Still
he urges, "Theoretically it seems a necessary con-
sequence, that where water is flowing there elec-
tric currents should be formed. If a line be imr
agined passing from Dover to Calais through the
sea, and returning through the land, beneath the
water, to Dover, it traces out a circuit of con-
ducting matter one part of which, when the
water moves up or down the channel, is cutting
the magnetic curves of the earth, while the other
is relatively at rest. . . . There is every
18

Faraday ' s D isco veries

reason to believe that currents do run in the
general direction of the circuit described, either
one way or the other, according as the passage of
the waters is up or down the channel." This
was written before the submarine cable was
thought of, and he once informed me that actual
observation upon that cable had been found to be
in accordance with his theoretic deduction.

Three years subsequent to the publication
of these researches, that is to say on January 29,
1835, Faraday read before the Royal Society a
paper "On the influence by induction of an elec-
tric current upon itself. ' ' A shock and spark
of a peculiar character had been observed by a
young man named William Jenkin, who must
have been a youth of some scientific promise, but
who, as Faraday once informed me, was dis-
suaded by his own father from having anything
to do with science. The investigation of the
fact noticed by Mr. Jenkin led Faraday to the
discovery of the extra current, or the current
induced in the primary wire itself at the moments
of making and breaking contact, the phenomena
of which he described and illustrated in the
beautiful and exhaustive paper referred to.

Seven and thirty years have passed since the
discovery of magneto-electricity; but, if we
except the extra current, until quite recently
nothing of moment was added to the subject.
Faraday entertained the opinion that the dis-
coverer of a great law or principle had a right to
the ' ' spoils ' ' — this was his term — arising from its
19

Masterpieces of Science

illustration; and guided by the principle he had
discovered, his wonderful mind, aided by his
wonderful ten fingers, overran in a single autumn
this vast domain, and hardly left behind him the
shred of a fact to be gathered by his successors.
And here the question may arise in some minds,
What is the use of it all ? The answer is, that if
man's intellectual nature thirsts for knowledge
then knowledge is useful because it satisfies this
thirst. If you demand practical ends, you must,
I think, expand your definition of the term prac-
tical, and make it include all that elevates and
enlightens the intellect, as well as all that minis-
ters to the bodily health and comfort of men.
Still, if needed, an answer of another kind might
be given to the question "what is its use?"
As far as electricity has been applied for medical
purposes, it has been almost exclusively Fara-
day's electricity. You have noticed those lines
of wire which cross the streets of London. It is
Faraday's currents that speed from place to
place through these wires. Approaching the
point of Dungeness, the mariner sees an unusually
brilliant light, and from the noble lighthouse
of La Heve the same light flashes across the sea.
These are Faraday's sparks exalted by suitable
machinery to sun-like splendour. At the present
moment the Board of Trade and the Brethren
of the Trinity House, as well as the Commissioners
of Northern Lights, are contemplating the in-
troduction of the Magneto-electric Light at
numerous points upon our coasts; and future
20

Faraday's Discoveries

generations will be able to refer to those guiding
stars in answer to the question, what has been
the practical use of the labours of Faraday ? But
I would again emphatically say, that his work
needs no justification, and that if he had allowed
his vision to be disturbed by considerations re-
garding the practical use of his discoveries, those
discoveries would never have been made by him.
"I have rather," he writes in 1831, "been de-
sirous of discovering new facts and new relations
dependent on magneto-electric induction, than
of exalting the force of those already obtained;
being assured that the latter would find their
full development hereafter."

In 1817, when lecturing before a private so-
ciety in London on the element chlorine, Faraday
thus expresses himself with reference to this
question of utility. "Before leaving this sub-
ject, I will point out the history of this substance
as an answer to those who are in the habit of
saying to every new fact, 'What is its use ?' Dr.
Franklin says to such, 'What is the use of an in-
fant ? ' The answer of the experimentalist is,
'Endeavour to make it useful. ' When Scheele
discovered this substance, it appeared to have no
use; it was in its infancy and useless state, but
having grown up to maturity, witness its powers,
and see what endeavours to make it useful have
done. "

PROFESSOR JOSEPH HENRY'S INVEN-
TION OF THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH

[In 1855 the Regents of the Smithsonian Institution,
Washington, D. C., at the instance of their secretary, Pro-
fessor Joseph Henry, took evidence with respect to his
claims as inventor of the electric telegraph. The essential
paragraphs of Professor Henry's statement are taken from
the Proceedings of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian
Institution, Washington, 18573

THERE are several forms of the electric tele-
graph; first, that in which fractional electricity
has been proposed to produce sparks and motion
of pith balls at a distance.

Second, that in which galvanism has been em-
ployed to produce signals by means of bubbles
of gas from the decomposition of water.

Third, that in which electro-magnetism is the
motive power to produce motion at a distance;
and again, of the latter there are two kinds of
telegraphs, those in which the intelligence is in-
dicated by the motion of a magnetic needle, and
those in which sounds and permanent signs are
made by the attraction of an electro-magnet.
The latter is the class to which Mr. Morse's in-
vention belongs. The following is a brief ex-
position of the several steps which led to this
form of the telegraph.

The first essential fact which rendered the
electro-magnetic telegraph possible was dis-
23

Masterpieces of Science

covered by Oersted, in the winter of 1819-' 20.
It is illustrated by figure i, in which the mag-
netic needle is deflected by the action of a cur-
rent of galvanism transmitted through the wire
A B.

— B

Fig. i

The second fact of importance, discovered in
1820, by Arago and Davy, is illustrated in Fig. 2.
It consists in this, that while a current of gal-
vanism is passing through a copper wire A B, it
is magnetic, it attracts iron filings and not those
of copper or brass, and is capable of developing
magnetism in soft iron.

Fig.

The next important discovery, also made in

1820, by Ampere, was that two wires through

which galvanic currents are passing in the same

direction attract, and in the opposite direction,

Professor Joseph Henry's Invention

repel, each other. On this fact Ampere founded
his celebrated theory, that magnetism consists
merely in the attraction of electrical currents
revolving at right angles to the line joining the
two poles of the magnet. The magnetization of
a bar of steel or iron, according to this theory
consists in establishing within the metal by in-
duction a series of electrical currents, all revolv-
ing in the same direction at right angles to the
axis or length of the bar.

It was this theory which led Arago, as he
states, to adopt the method of magnetizing
sewing needles and pieces of steel wire, shown in
Fig. 3. This method consists in transmitting

Fig. 3

a current of electricity through a helix surround-
ing the needle or wire to be magnetized. For
the purpose of insulation the needle was enclosed
in a glass tube, and the several turns of the helix
were at a distance from each other to insure the
passage of electricity through the whole length
of the wire, or, in other words, to prevent it from
seeking a shorter passage by cutting across from
one spire to another. The helix employed by
Arago obviously approximates the arrangement
required by the theory of Ampere, in order to
develop by induction the magnetism of the iron.
25

Masterpieces of Science

By an attentive perusal of the original account
of the experiments of Arago, it will be seen that,
properly speaking, he made no electro-magnet,
as has been asserted by Morse and others; his
experiments were confined to the magnetism of
iron filings, to sewing needles and pieces of steel
wire of the diameter of a millimetre, or of about
the thickness of a small knitting needle.

Mr. Sturgeon, in 1825, made an important

Fig. 4

step in advance of the experiments of Arago, and
produced what is properly known as the electro-
magnet. He bent a piece of iron wire into the
form of a horseshoe, covered it with varnish to
insulate it, and surrounded it with a helix, of
which the spires were at a distance. When a
current of galvanism was passed through the helix
from a small battery of a single cup the iron wire
became magnetic, and continued so during the
passage of the current. When the current was
interrupted the magnetism disappeared, and
26

Professor Joseph Henry's Invention

thus was produced the first temporary soft iron
magnet.

The electro-magnet of Sturgeon is shown in
Fig. 4. By comparing Figs. 3 and 4 it will be
seen that the helix employed by Sturgeon was
of the same kind as that used by Arago ; instead
however, of a straight steel wire inclosed in a tube
of glass, the former employed a bent wire of soft
iron. The difference in
the arrangement at first
sight might appear to
be small, but the differ-
ence in the results pro-
duced was important,
since the temporary mag-
netism developed in the
arrangement of Sturgeon
was sufficient to support
a weight of several

pounds, and an instrument was thus produced
of value in future research.

The next improvement was made by myself.
After reading an account of the galvanometer of
Schweigger, the idea occurred to me that a
much nearer approximation to the requirements
of the theory of Ampere could be attained by
insulating the conducting wire itself, instead of
the rod to be magnetized, and by covering the
whole surface of the iron with a series of coils
in close contact. This was effected by insulating
a long wire with silk thread, and winding this
around the rod of iron in close coils from one end
27

Masterpieces of Science

to the other. The same principle was extended
by employing a still longer insulated wire, and
winding several strata of this over the first, care
being taken to insure the insulation between
each stratum by a covering of silk ribbon. By
this arrangement the rod was surrounded by a
compound helix formed of a long wire of many
coils, instead of a single helix of a few coils,
(Fig. 5)-

In the arrangement of Arago and Sturgeon the
several turns of wire were not precisely at right
angles to the axis of the rod, as they should be,
to produce the effect required by the theory,
but slightly oblique, and therefore each tended
to develop a separate magnetism not coincident
with the axis of the bar. But in winding the wire
over itself, the obliquity of the several turns
compensated each other, and the resultant action
was at right angles to the bar. The arrange-
ment then introduced by myself was superior to
those of Arago and Sturgeon, first in the greater
multiplicity of turns of wire, and second in the
better application of these turns to the develop-
ment of magnetism. The power of the instru-
ment with the same amount of galvanic force,
was by this arrangement several times increased.

The maximum effect, however, with this ar-
rangement and a single battery was not yet ob-
tained. After a certain length of wire had been
coiled upon the iron, the power diminished with
a further increase of the number of turns. This
was due to the increased resistance which the
28

Professor Joseph Henry's Invention

longer wire offered to the conduction of electricit}7".
Two methods of improvement therefore sug-
gested themselves. The first consisted, not in
increasing the length of the coil, but in using a
number of separate coils on the same piece of
iron. By this arrangement the resistance to the
conduction of the electricity was diminished and
a greater quantity made to circulate around the
iron from the same bat-
tery. The second
method of producing a
similar result consisted
in increasing the num-
ber of elements of the
battery, or, in other
words, the projectile
force of the electricity,
which enabled it to pass
through an increased
number of turns of wire,
and thus, by increasing the length of the wire,
to develop the maximum power of the iron.

To test these principles oil a larger scale, the
experimental magnet was constructed, which is
shown in Fig. 6. In this a number of compound
helices were placed on the same bar, their ends
left projecting, and so numbered that they could
be all united into one long helix, or variously
combined in sets of lesser length.

From a series of experiments with this and
other magnets it was proved that, in order to
produce the greatest amount of magnetism from
29

Masterpieces of Science

a battery of a single cup, a number of helices is
required; but when a compound battery is used,
then one long wire must be employed, making
many turns around the iron, the length of wire
and consequently the number of turns being
commensurate with the projectile power of the
battery.

In describing the results of my experiments,
the terms intensity and quantity magnets were
introduced to avoid circumlocution, and were
intended to be used merely in a technical sense.
By the intensity magnet I designated a piece of
soft iron, so surrounded with wire that its mag-
netic power could be called into operation by an
intensity battery, and by a quantity magnet, a
piece of iron so surrounded by a number of sepa-
rate coils, that its magnetism could be fully de-
veloped by a quantity battery.

I was the first to point out this connection of
the two kinds of the battery with the two forms
of the magnet, in my paper in Silliman's Journal,
January, 1831, and clearly to state that when
magnetism was to be developed by means of a
compound battery, one long coil was to be im-
ployed, and when the maximum effect was to
be produced by a single battery, a number of
single strands were to be used.

These steps in the advance of electro-magnet-
ism, though small, were such as to interest and
astonish the scientific world. With the same
battery used by Mr. Sturgeon, at least a hundred
times more magnetism was produced than could
30

Professor Joseph Henry's Invention

have been obtained by his experiment. The
developments were considered at the time of
much importance in a scientific point of view,
and they subsequenty furnished the means by
which magneto-electricity, the phenomena of
dia-magnetism, and the magnetic effects on
polarized light were discovered. They gave rise
to the various forms of electro-magnetic machines
which have since exercised the ingenuity of in-
ventors in every part of the world, and were of
immediate applicability in the introduction of
the magnet to telegraphic purposes. Neither
the electro-magnet of Sturgeon nor any electro-
magnet ever made previous to my investiga-
tions was applicable to transmitting power to a
distance.

The principles I have developed were properly
appreciated by the scientific mind of Dr. Gale,
and applied by him to operate Mr. Morse's
machine at a distance.

Previous to my investigations the means of
developing magnetism in soft iron were imper-
fectly understood. The electro-magnet made
by Sturgeon, and copied by Dana, of New York,
was an imperfect quantity magnet, the feeble
power of which was developed by a single battery.
It was entirely inapplicable to a long circuit
with an intensity battery, and no person possess-
ing the requisite scientific knowledge, would
have attempted to use it in that connection after
reading my paper.

In sending a message to a distance, two cir-
31

Masterpieces of Science

cults are employed, the first a long circuit through
which the electricity is sent to the distant station
to bring into action the second, a short one, in
which is the local battery and magnet for work-
ing the machine. In order to give projectile
force sufficient to send the power to a distance,
it is necessary to use an intensity battery in the
long circuit, and in connection with this, at
the distant station, a magnet surrounded with
many turns of one long wire must be employed
to receive and multiply the effect of the current
enfeebled by its transmission through the long
conductor. In the local or short circuit either
an intensity or a quantity magnet may be em-
ployed. If the first be used, then with it a com-
pound battery will be required; and, therefore
on account of the increased resistance due to
the greater quantity of acid, a less amount of
work will be performed by a given amount of
material; and, consequently, though, this arrange-
ment is practicable it is by no means economical.
In my original paper I state that the advantages
of a greater conducting power, from using several
wires in the quantity magnet, may, in a less de-
gree, be obtained by substituting for them one
large wire; but in this case, on account of the
greater obliquity of the spires and other causes,
the magnetic effect would be less. In accordance
with these principles, the receiving magnet, or
that which is introduced into the long circuit,
consists of a horse-shoe magnet surrounded with
many hundred turns of a single long wire, and
32

Professor Joseph Henry's Invention

is operated with a battery of from twelve to
twenty-four elements or more, while in the local
circuit it is customary to employ a battery of one
or two elements with a much thicker wire and
fewer turns.

It will, I think, be evident to the impartial
reader that these were improvements in the elec-
tro-magnet, which first rendered it adequate to
the transmission of mechanical power to a dis-
tance ; and had I omitted all allusion to the tele-
graph in my paper, the conscientious historian of
science would have awarded me some credit,
however small might have been the advance
which I made. Arago and Sturgeon, in the ac-
counts of their experiments, make no mention of
the telegraph, and yet their names always have
been and will be associated with the invention.
I briefly, however, called attention to the fact
of the applicability of my experiments to the
construction of the telegraph; but not being
familiar with the history of the attempts made
in regard to this invention, I called it "Barlow's
project," while I ought to have stated that Mr.
Barlow's investigation merely tended to disprove
the possibility of a telegraph.

I did not refer exclusively to the needle tele-
graph when, in my paper, I stated that the mag-
netic action of a current from a trough is at least
not sensibly diminished by passing through a long
wire. This is evident from the fact that the
immediate experiment from which this de-
duction was made was by means of an electro-
33

Masterpieces of Science

magnet and not by means of a needle galva-
nometer.

At the conclusion of the series of experiments
which I described in Silliman's Journal , there
were two applications of the electro-magnet in
my mind : one the production of a machine to be
moved by electro-magnetism, and the other the
transmission of or calling into action power at a
distance. The first was carried into execution

Fig. 7

in the construction of the machine described in
Silliman's Journal, vol. xx, 1831, and for the pur-
pose of experimenting in regard to the second, I
arranged around one of the upper rooms in the
Albany Academy a wire of more than a mile in
length, through which I was enabled to make
signals by sounding a bell, (Fig. 7.) The me-
chanical arrangement for effecting this object was
simply a steel bar, permanently magnetized, of
about ten inches in length, supported on a pivot,
34

Professor Joseph Henry's Invention

and placed with, its north end between the two
arms of a horse-shoe magnet. When the latter
was excited by the current, the end of the bar thus
placed was attracted by one arm of the horse-
shoe, and repelled by the other, and was thus
caused to move in a horizontal plane and its fur-
ther extremity to strike a bell suitably adjusted.

I also devised a method of breaking a circuit,
and thereby causing a large weight to fall. It was
intended to illustrate the practicabilityof calling
into action a great power at a distance capable
of producing mechanical effects; but as a de-
scription of this was not printed, I do not place
it in the same category with the experiments of
which I published an account, or the facts which
could be immediately deduced from my papers in
Silliman's journal.

From a careful investigation of the history of
electro-magnetism in its connection with the
telegraph, the following facts may be established:

1. Previous to my investigations the means of
developing magnetism in soft iron were imper-
fectly understood, and the electro-magnet which
then existed was inapplicable to the transmission
of power to a distance.

2. I was the first to prove by actual experi-
ment that, in order to develop magnetic power
at a distance, a galvanic battery of intensity
must be employed to project the current through
the long conductor, and that a magnet surrounded
by many turns of one long wire must be used to
receive this current.

Masterpieces of Science

3. I was the first actually to magnetize a piece
of iron at a distance, and to call attention to the
fact of the applicability of my experiments to
the telegraph.

4. I was the first to actually sound a bell at a
distance by means of the electro-magnet.

5. The principles I had developed were applied
by Dr. Gale to. render Morse's machine effective
at a distance.

THE FIRST ATLANTIC CABLES
GEORGE ILES

[From "Flame, Electricity and the Camera," copyright
Doubleday, Page & Co., New York.fl

ELECTRIC telegraphy on land has put a vast
distance between itself and the mechanical sig-
nalling of Chappe, just as the scope and availabil-
ity of the French invention are in high contrast
with the rude signal fires of the primitive savage.
As the first land telegraphs joined village to
village, and city to city, the crossing of water
came in as a minor incident; the wires were
readily committed to the bridges which spanned
streams of moderate width. Where a river or
inlet was unbridged, or a channel was too wide
for the roadway of the engineer, the question
arose, May we lay an electric wire under water ?
With an ordinary land line, air serves as so good
a non-conductor and insulator that as a rule
cheap iron may be employed for the wire instead
of expensive copper. In the quest for non-con-
ductors suitable for immersion in rivers, channels,
and the sea, obstacles of a stubborn kind were
confronted. To overcome them demanded new
materials, more refined instruments, and a com-
plete revision of electrical philosophy.

As far back as 1795, Francisco Salva had re-
commended to the Academy of Sciences, Barce-
37

Masterpieces of Science

lona, the covering of subaqueous wires by resin,
which is both impenetrable by water and a non-
conductor of electricity. Insulators, indeed, of
one kind and another, were common enough, but
each of them was defective in some quality in-
dispensable for success. Neither glass nor
porcelain is flexible, and therefore to lay a con-
tinuous line of one or the other was out of the
question. Resin and pitch were even more faulty,
because extremely brittle and friable. What of
such fibres as hemp or silk, if saturated with tar
or some other good non-conductor ? For very
short distances under still water they served
fairly well, but any exposure to a rocky beach
with its chafing action, any rub by a passing
anchor, was fatal to them. What the copper
wire needed was a covering impervious to water,
unchangeable in composition by time, tough of
texture, and non-conducting in the highest degree.
Fortunately all these properties are united
in gutta-percha : they exist in nothing else known
to art. Gutta-percha is the hardened juice of a
large tree (Isonandra gutta) common in the
Malay Archipelago; it is tough and strong, easily
moulded when moderately heated. In com-
parison with copper it is but one 60,000,000,000,-
ooo,ooo,oooth as conductive. As without gutta-
percha there could be no ocean telegraphy, it is
worth while recalling how it came within the
purview of the electrical engineer.

In 1843 Jose d' Almeida, a Portuguese engi-
neer, presented to the Royal Asiatic Society,
38

The First Atlantic Cables

London, the first specimens of gutta-percha
brought to Europe. A few months later, Dr.
W. Montgomerie, a surgeon, gave other speci-
mens to the Society of Arts, of London, which
exhibited them; but it was four years before the
chief, characteristic of the gum was recognized.
In 1847 Mr- S. T. Armstrong of New York, during
a visit to London, inspected a pound or two of
gutta-percha, and found it to be twice as good a
non-conductor as glass. The next year, through
his instrumentality, a cable covered with this
new insulator was laid between New York and
Jersey City; its success prompted Mr Armstrong
to suggest that a similarly protected cable be
submerged between America and Europe.
Eighteen years of untiring effort, impeded by
the errors inevitable to the pioneer, stood be-
tween the proposal and its fulfilment. In 1848
the Messrs. Siemens laid under water in the port
of Kiel a wire covered with seamless gutta-
percha, such as, beginning with 1847, they had
employed for subterranean conductors. This
particular wire was not used for telegraphy, but
formed part of a submarine-mine system. In
1849 Mr. C. V. Walker laid an experimental line
in the English Channel ; he proved the possibility
of signalling for two miles through a wire covered
with gutta-percha, and so prepared the way for
a venture which joined the shores of France and
England.

In 1850 a cable twenty-five miles in length
was laid from Dover to Calais, only to prove
39

Masterpieces of Science

worthless from faulty insulation and the lack
of armour against dragging anchors and fretting
rocks. In 1851 the experiment was repeated
with success. The conductor now was not a
single wire of copper, but four wires, wound

Fig. 58.— Calais-Dover cable, 1851

spirally, so as to combine strength with flexibility;
these were covered with gutta-percha and sur-
rounded with tarred hemp. As a means of im-
parting additional strength, ten iron wires were
wound round the hemp — a feature which has
been copied in every subsequent cable (Fig. 58).
The engineers were fast learning the rigorous
conditions of submarine telegraphy; in its essen-
tials the Dover-Calais line continues to be the
type of deep-sea cables to-day. The success of
the wire laid across the British Channel incited
other ventures of the kind. Many of them,
through careless construction or unskilful laying,
were utter failures. At last, in 1855, a sub-
marine line 171 miles in length gave excellent
service, as it united Varna with Constantinople;
this was the greatest length of satisfactory cable
until the submergence of an Atlantic line.
40

The First Atlantic Cables

In 1854 Cyrus W. Field of New York opened
a new chapter in electrical enterprise as he re-
solved to lay a cable between Ireland and New-
foundland, along the shortest line that joins
Europe to America. He chose Valentia and
Heart's Content, a little more than 1,600 miles
apart, as his termini, and at once began to enlist
the co-operation of his friends. Although an
unfaltering enthusiast when once his great idea
had possession of him, Mr. Field was a man of
strong common sense. From first to last he went
upon well-ascertained facts; when he failed he
did so simply because other facts, which he could
not possibly know, had to be disclosed by costly
experience. Messrs. Whitehouse and Bright,
electricians to his company, were instructed to
begin a preliminary series of experiments. They
united a continuous stretch of wires laid beneath
land and water for a distance of 2,000 miles, and
found that through this extraordinary circuit
they could transmit as many as four signals per
second. They inferred that an Atlantic cable
would offer but little more resistance, and would
therefore be electrically workable and commer-
cially lucrative.

In 1857 a cable was forthwith manufactured,
divided in halves, and stowed in the holds of the
Niagara of the United States navy, and the
Agamemnon of the British fleet. The Niagara
sailed from Ireland; the sister ship proceeded to
Newfoundland, and was to meet her in mid-
ocean. When the Niagara had run out 335
41

Masterpieces of Science

miles of her cable it snapped under a sudden in-
crease of strain at the paying-out machinery;
all attempts at recovery were unavailing, and the
work for that year was abandoned. The next
year it was resumed, a liberal supply of new
cable having been manufactured to replace the
lost section, and to meet any fresh emergency
that might arise. A new plan of voyages was
adopted: the vessels now sailed together to
mid-sea, uniting there both portions of the cable;
then one ship steamed off to Ireland, the other
to the Newfoundland coast. Both reached their
destinations on the same day, August 5, 1858,
and, feeble and irregular though it was, an elec-
tric pulse for the first time now bore a message
from hemisphere to hemisphere. After 732
despatches had passed through the wire it be-
came silent forever. In one of these despatches
from London, the War Office countermanded
the departure of two regiments about to leave
Canada for England, which saved an outlay of
about $250,000. This widely quoted fact demon-
strated with telling effect the value of cable
telegraphy.

Now followed years of struggle which would
have dismayed any less resolute soul than Mr.
Field. The Civil War had broken out, with its
perils to the Union, its alarms and anxieties for
every American heart. But while battleships
and cruisers were patrolling the coast from
Maine to Florida, and regiments were marching
through Washington on their way to battle,
42

The First Atlantic Cables

there was no remission of effort on the part of the
great projector.

Indeed, in the misunderstandings which grew
out of the war, and that at one time threatened
international conflict, he plainly saw how a cable
would have been a peace-maker. A single word
of explanation through its wire, and angry feel-
ings on both sides of the ocean would have been
allayed at the time of the Trent affair. In this
conviction he was confirmed by the English
press; the London Times said: " We nearly went
to war with America because we had no telegraph
across the Atlantic." In 1859 the British gov-
ernment had appointed a committee of eminent
engineers to inquire into the feasibility of an
Atlantic telegraph, with a view to ascertaining
what was wanting for success, and with the in-
tention of adding to its original aid in case the
enterprise were revived. In July, 1863, this
committee presented a report entirely favourable
in its terms, affirming "that a well-insulated
cable, properly protected, of suitable specific
gravity, made with care, tested under water
throughout its progress with the best-known
apparatus, and paid into the ocean with the most
improved machinery, possesses every prospect
of not only being successfully laid in the first
instance, but may reasonably be relied upon to
continue for many years in an efficient state for
the transmission of signals."

Taking his stand upon this endorsement, Mr.
Field now addressed himself to the task of rais-
43

Masterpieces of Science

ing the large sum needed to make and lay a new
cable which should be so much better than the
old ones as to reward its owners with triumph.
He found his English friends willing to venture
the capital required, and without further delay
the manufacture of a new cable was taken in
hand. In every detail the recommendations of
the Scientific Committee were carried out to the
letter, so that the cable of 1865 was incompara-
bly superior to that of 1858. First, the central
copper wire, which was the nerve along which
the lightning was to run, was nearly three times
larger than before. The old conductor was a
strand consisting of seven fine wires, six laid
around one, and weighed but 107 pounds to
the mile. The new was composed of the same
number of wires, but weighed 300 pounds to the
mile, ^t was made of the finest copper obtain-
able.

To secure insulation, this conductor was first
embedded in Chatterton's compound, a prepara-
tion impervious to water, and then covered with
four layers of gutta-percha, which were laid on
alternately with four thin layers of Chatterton's
compound. The old cable had but three coat-
ings of gutta-percha, with nothing between.
Its entire insulation weighed but 261 pounds
to the mile, while that of the new weighed 400
pounds.* The exterior wires, ten in number,
were of Bessemer steel, each separately wound

* Henry M. Field, " History of the Atlantic Telegraph."
New York: Scribner, 1866.

The First Atlantic Cables

in pitch-soaked hemp yarn, the shore ends
specially protected by thirty-six wires girdling
the whole. Here was a combination of the
tenacity of steel with much of the flexibility of
rope. The insulation of the copper was so
excellent as to exceed by a hundredfold that of
the core of 1858 — which, faulty though it was,
had, nevertheless, sufficed for signals. So much
inconvenience and risk had been encountered
in dividing the task of cable-laying between two
ships that this time it was decided to charter a
single vessel, the Great Eastern, which, fortu-
nately, was large enough to accommodate the
cable in an unbroken length. Foilhommerum
Bay, about six miles from Valentia, was selected
as the new Irish terminus by the company. Al-
though the most anxious care was exercised in
every detail, yet, when 1,186 miles had been laid,
the cable parted in 11,000 feet of water, and
although thrice it was grappled and brought
toward the surface, thrice it slipped off the
grappling hooks and escaped to the ocean floor.
Mr. Field was obliged to return to England
and face as best he might the men whose capital
lay at the bottom of the sea — perchance as
worthless as so much Atlantic ooze. With
heroic persistence he argued that all difficulties
would yield to a renewed attack. There must
be redoubled precautions and vigilance never
for a moment relaxed. Everything that deep-
sea telegraphy has since accomplished was at
that moment daylight clear to his prophetic
45

Masterpieces of Science

view. Never has there been a more signal ex-
ample of the power of enthusiasm to stir cold-
blooded men of business; never has there been a
more striking illustration of how much science
may depend for success upon the intelligence
and the courage of capital. Electricians might
have gone on perfecting exquisite apparatus for
ocean telegraphy, or indicated the weak points in
the comparatively rude machinery which made
and laid the cable, yet their exertions would
have been wasted if men of wealth had not re-
sponded to Mr. Field's renewed appeal for help.
Thrice these men had invested largely, and thrice
disaster had pursued their ventures; neverthe-
less they had faith surviving all misfortunes for
a fourth attempt.

In 1866 a new company was organized, for two
objects: first, to recover the cable lost the pre-
vious year and complete it to the American shore ;
second, to lay another beside it in a parallel
course. The Great Eastern was again put in
commission, and remodelled in accordance with
the experience of her preceding voyage. This
time the exterior wires of the cable were of gal-
vanized iron, the better to resist corrosion. The
paying-out machinery was reconstructed and
greatly improved. On July 13, 1866, the huge
steamer began running out her cable twenty-
five miles north of the line struck out during the
expedition of 1865; she arrived without mishap
in Newfoundland on July 2 7 , and electrical com-
munication was re-established between America
46

The First Atlantic Cables

and Europe. The steamer now returned to trie
spot where she had lost the cable a few months
before; after eighteen days' search it was brought
to the deck in good order. Union was effected
with the cable stowed in the tanks below, and
the prow of the vessel was once more turned
to Newfoundland. On September 8th this second
cable was safely landed at Trinity Bay. Mis-
fortunes now were at an end; the courage of Mr.
Field knew victory at last; the highest honors
of two continents were showered upon him.
Tis not the grapes of Canaan that repay,
But the high faith that failed not by the way.

What at first was as much a daring adventure
as a business enterprise has now taken its place
as a task no more out of the common than build-
a steamship, or rearing a cantilever bridge.
Given its price, which will include too moderate
a profit to betray any expectation of failure, arid
a responsible firm will contract to lay a cable
across the Pacific itself. In the Atlantic lines
the uniformly low temperature of the ocean
floor (about 4° C.) , and the great pressure of the
superincumbent sea, co-operate in effecting an
enormous enhancement both in the insulation
and in the carrying capacity of the wire. As an
example of recent work in ocean telegraphy let
us glance at the cable laid in 1894, by the Com-
mercial Cable Company of New York. It unites
Cape Canso, on the northeastern coast of Nova
Scotia, to Waterville, on the southwestern coast
of Ireland. The central portion of this cable
47

Masterpieces of Science

much resembles that of its predecessor in 1866.
Its exterior armour of steel wires is much more
elaborate. The first part of Fig. 59 shows the
details of manufacture: the central copper core
is covered with gutta-percha, then with jute,
upon which the steel wires are spirally wound,

Fig. 59. — Commercial cable, 1894

followed by a strong outer covering. For the
greatest depths at sea, type A is employed for a
total length of 1,420 miles; the diameter of this
part of the cable is seven-eighths of an inch. As
the water lessens in depth the sheathing in-
creases in size until the diameter of the cable
becomes one and one-sixteenth inches for 152
miles, as type B. The cable now undergoes a
third enlargement, and then its fourth and last
48

The First Atlantic Cables

proportions are presented as it touches the shore,
for a distance of one and three-quarter miles,
where type C has a diameter of two and one-half
inches. The weights of material used in this
cable are: copper wire, 495 tons; gutta-percha,
315 tons; jute yarn, 575 tons; steel wire, 3,000
tons; compound and tar, 1,075 tons; total,
5,460 tons. The telegraph-ship Faraday, spe-
cially designed for cable-laying, accomplished
the work without mishap.

Electrical science owes much to the Atlantic
cables, in particular to the first of them. At
the very beginning it banished the idea that
electricity as it passes through metallic conduc-
tors has anything like its velocity through free
space. It was soon found, as Professor Menden-
hall says, "that it is no more correct to assign
a definite velocity to electricity than to a river.
As the rate of flow of a river is determined by the
character of its bed, its gradient, and other cir-
cumstances, so the velocity of an electric current
is found to depend on the conditions under which
the flow takes place. "* Mile for mile the origi-
nal Atlantic cable had twenty times the retard-
ing effect of a good aerial line; the best recent
cables reduce this figure by nearly one-half.

In an extreme form this slowing down reminds
us of the obstruction of light as it enters the at-
mosphere of the earth, of the further impedi-
ment which the rays encounter if they pass from

* "A Century of Electricity." Boston, Houghton,
Mifflin & Co., 1887.

Masterpieces of Science

the air into the sea. In the main the causes
which hinder a pulse committed to a cable are
two: induction, and the electrostatic capacity of
the wire, that is, the capacity of the wire to take
up a charge of its own, just as if it were the
metal of a Ley den jar.

Let us first consider induction. As a current
takes its way through the copper core it induces
in its surroundings a second and opposing cur-
rent. For this the remedy is one too costly to
be applied. Were a cable manufactured in a
double line, as in the best telephonic circuits,
induction, with its retarding and quenching
effects, would be neutralized. Here the steel
wire armour which encircles the cable plays an
unwelcome part. Induction is always pro-
portioned to the conductivity of the mass in
which it appears; as steel is an excellent con-
ductor, the armour of an ocean cable, close as it is
to the copper core, has induced in it a current
much stronger, and therefore more retarding,
than if the steel wire were absent.

A word now as to the second difficulty in work-
ing beneath the sea — that due to the absorbing
power of the line itself. An Atlantic cable, like
any other extended conductor, is virtually a long,
cylindrical Ley den jar, the copper wire forming
the inner coat, and its surroundings the outer
coat. Before a signal can be received at the
distant terminus the wire must first be charged.
The effect is somewhat like transmitting a signal
through water which fills a rubber tube; first of
50

The First Atlantic Cables

all the tube is distended, and its compression, or
secondary effect, really transmits the impulse.
A remedy for this is a condenser formed of alter-
nate sheets of tin-foil and mica, C ', connected
with the battery, B, so as to balance the electric
charge of the cable wire (Fig. 60). In the first
Atlantic line an impulse demanded one-seventh
of a second for its journey. This was reduced

Fig. 60. — Condenser

when Mr. Whitehouse made the capital dis-
covery that the speed of a signal is increased
threefold when the wire is alternately connected
with the zinc and copper poles of the battery.
Sir William Thomson ascertained that these
successive pulses are most effective when of pro-
portioned lengths. He accordingly devised
an automatic transmitter which draws a duly
perforated slip of paper under a metallic spring
connected with the cable. To-day 250 to 300
letters are sent per minute instead of fifteen, as
at first.

In many ways a deep-sea cable exaggerates in
51

Masterpieces of Science

an instructive manner the phenomena of tele-
graphy over long aerial lines. The two ends of
a cable may be in regions of widely diverse
electrical potential, or pressure, just as the read-
ings of the barometer at these two places may
differ much. If a copper wire were allowed to
offer itself as a gateless conductor it would
equalize these variations of potential with serious
injury to- itself. Accordingly the rule is adopted

Fig. 61. — Reflecting galvanometer
L, lamp; N, moving spot of light reflected from mirror

of working the cable not directly, as if it were a
land line, but indirectly through condensers.
As the throb sent through such apparatus is but
momentary, the cable is in no risk from the strong
currents which would course through it if it
were permitted to be an open channel.

A serious error in working the first cables was
in supposing that they required strong currents
as in land lines of considerable length. The
very reverse is the fact. Mr. Charles Bright,
in Submarine Telegraphs, says:
52

The First Atlantic Cables

"Mr. Latimer Clark had the conductor of the
1865 and 1866 lines joined together at the New-
foundland end, thus forming an unbroken length
of 3,700 miles in circuit. He then placed some
sulphuric acid in a very small silver thimble, with
a fragment of zinc weighing a grain or two. By
this primitive agency he succeeded in conveying

Fig. 62. — Siphon recorder

signals through twice the breadth of the Atlantic
Ocean in little more than a second of time after
making contact. The deflections were not of a
dubious character, but full and strong, from which
it was manifest that an even smaller battery
would suffice to produce somewhat similar
effects.

At first in operating the Atlantic cable a mirror
galvanometer was employed as a receiver. The
principle of this receiver has often been illustrated
53

Masterpieces of Science

by a mischievous boy as, with a slight and al-
most imperceptible motion of his hand, he has
used a bit of looking-glass to dart a ray of re-
flected sunlight across a wide street or a large
room. On the same plan, the extremely minute
motion of a galvanometer, as it receives the
successive pulsations of a message, is magnified
by a weightless lever of light so that the words
are easily read 'by an operator (Fig. 61). This
beautiful invention comes from the hands of Sir

Fig. 63. — Siphon record. "Arrived yesterday "

William Thomson [now Lord Kelvin], who,
more than any other electrician, has made
ocean telegraphy an established success.

In another receiver, also of his design, the
siphon recorder, he began by taking advantage
of the fact, observed long before by Bose, that a
charge of electricity stimulates the flow of a
liquid. In its original form the ink-well into
which the siphon dipped was insulated and
charged to a high voltage by an influence-ma-
chine; the ink, powerfully repelled, was spurted
from the siphon point to a moving strip of paper
beneath (Fig. 62). It was afterward found
better to use a delicate mechanical shaker which
throws out the ink in minute drops as the cable
current gently sways the siphon back and forth
(Fig. 63).

The First Atlantic Cables

Minute as the current is which suffices for
cable telegraphy, it is essential that the metallic
circuit be not only unbroken, but unimpaired,
throughout. No part of his duty has more
severely taxed the resources of the electrician
than to discover the breaks and leaks in his ocean
cables. One of his methods is to pour electricity
as it were, into a broken wire, much as if it were
a narrow tube, and estimate the length of the
wire (and consequently the distance from shore
to the defect or break) by the quantity of current
required to fill it.

BELL'S TELEPHONIC RESEARCHES

[From "Bell's Electric Speaking Telephones," by George
B. Prescott, copyright by D Appleton & Co., New York, 1884

IN a lecture delivered before the Society of
Telegraph Engineers, in London, October 31,
1877, Prof. A. G. Bell gave a history of his re-
searches in telephony, together with the experi-
ments that he was led to undertake in his en-
deavours to produce a practical system of mul-
tiple telegraphy, and to realize also the trans-
mission of articulate speech. After the usual
introduction, Professor Bell said in part:

"It is to-night my pleasure, as well as duty,
to give you some account of the telephonic re-
searches in which I have been so long engaged.
Many years ago my attention was directed to
the mechanism of speech by my father, Alexan-
der Melville Bell, of Edinburgh, who has made a
life-long study of the subject. Many of those
present may recollect the invention by my father
of a means of representing, in a wonderfully
accurate manner, the positions of the vocal
organs in forming sounds. Together we carried
on quite a number of experiments, seeking to
discover the correct mechanism of English and
foreign elements of speech, and I remember
especially an investigation in which we were
57

Masterpieces of Science

engaged concerning the musical relations of
vowel sounds. When vocal sounds are whis-
pered, each vowel seems to possess a particular
pitch of its own, and by whispering certain vow-
els in succession a musical scale can be distinctly
perceived. Our aim was to determine the
natural pitch of each vowel; but unexpected
difficulties made their appearance, for many of
the vowels seemed to possess a double pitch —
one due, probably, to the resonance of the air in
the mouth, and the other to the resonance of the
air contained in the cavity behind the tongue,
comprehending the pharynx and larynx.

I hit upon an expedient for determining the
pitch, which, at that time, I thought to be original
with myself. It consisted in vibrating a tuning
fork in front of the mouth while the positions of
the vocal organs for the various vowels were
silently taken. It was found that each vowel
position caused the reinforcement of some par-
ticular fork or forks.

I wrote an account of these researches to Mr.
Alex. J. Ellis, of London. In reply, he informed
me that the experiments related had already been
performed by Helmholtz, and in a much more
perfect manner than I had done. Indeed, he
said that Helmholtz had not only analyzed the
vowel sounds into their constituent musical ele-
ments, but had actually performed the synthesis
of them.

He had succeeded in producing, artificially,
certain of the vowel sounds by causing tuning
58

Bell's- Telephonic Researches

forks of different pitch to vibrate simultaneously
by means of an electric current. Mr. Ellis was
kind enough to grant me an interview for the
purpose of explaining the apparatus employed
by Helmholtz in producing these extraordinary
effects, and I spent the greater part of a delight-
ful day with him in investigating the subject.
At that time, however, I was too slightly ac-
quainted with the laws of electricity fully to
understand the explanations given; but the in-
terview had the effect of arousing my interest in
the subjects of sound and electricity, and I did
not rest until I had obtained possession of a copy
of Helmholtz 's great work " The Theory of Tone, "
and had attempted, in a crude and imperfect
manner, it is true, to reproduce his results. While
reflecting upon the possibilities of the production
of sound by electrical means, it struck me that
the principle of vibrating a tuning fork by the
intermittent attraction of an electro-magnet
might be applied to the electrical production of
music.

I imagined to myself a series of tuning forks
of different pitches, arranged to vibrate auto-
matically in the manner shown by Helmholtz —
each fork interrupting, at every vibration, a
voltaic current — and the thought occurred, Why
should not the depression of a key like that of a
piano direct the interrupted current from any
one of these forks, through a telegraph wire, to
a series of electro-magnets operating the strings
of a piano or other musical instrument, in which
59

Masterpieces of Science

case a person might play the tuning fork piano
in one place and the music be audible from the
electro-magnetic piano in a distant city.

The more I reflected upon this arrangement
the more feasible did it seem to me; indeed, I
saw no reason why the depression of a number
of keys at the tuning fork end of the circuit should
not be followed by the audible production of a
full chord from the piano in the distant city, each
tuning fork affecting at the receiving end that
string of the piano with which it was in unison.
At this time the interest which I felt in electricity
led me to study the various systems of telegraphy
in use in this country and in America. I was
much struck with the simplicity of the Morse
alphabet, and with the fact that it could be
read by sound. Instead of having the dots and
dashes recorded on paper, the operators were
in the habit of observing the duration of the
click of the instruments, and in this way were
enabled to distinguish by ear the various signals.

It struck me that in a similar manner the dura-
tion of a musical note might be made to repre-
sent the dot or dash of the telegraph code, so that
a person might operate one of the keys of the
tuning fork piano referred to above, and the dura-
tion of the sound proceeding from the corre-
sponding string of the distant piano be observed
by an operator stationed there. It seemed to
me that in this way a number of distinct tele-
graph messages might be sent simultaneously
from the tuning fork piano to the other end of the
60

Bell's Telephonic Researches

circuit by operators, each manipulating a differ-
ent key of the instrument. These messages would
be read bv operators stationed at the distant
piano, each receiving operator listening for sig-
nals for a certain definite pitch, and ignoring all
others. In this way could be accomplished the
simultaneous transmission of a number of tele-
graphic messages along a single wire, the number
being limited only by the delicacy of the listener's
ear. The idea of increasing the carrying power

, . Direct

, •» Reverted.
mlntermUtad&f f if n

..&.!.-

a. d

A TfnJ 1 tary k b *

~iT f~^r^~'~*r^

Fig. i

of a telegraph wire in this way took complete
possession of my mind, and it was this practical
end that I had in view when I commenced my
researches in electric telephony.

In the progress of science it is universally found
that complexity leads to simplicity, and in nar-
rating the history of scientific research it is often
advisable to begin at the end.

In glancing back over my own researches, I
find it necessary to designate, by distinct names,
a variety of electrical currents by means of which
sounds can be produced, and I shall direct your
attention to several distinct species of what may
61

Masterpieces of Science

be termed telephonic currents of electricity. In
order that the peculiarities of these currents may
be clearly understood, I shall project upon the
screen a graphical illustration of the different
varieties.

The graphical method of representing electrical
currents shown in Fig. i is the best means I have
been able to devise of studying, in an accurate
manner, the effects produced by various forms
of telephonic apparatus, and it has led me to the
conception of that peculiar species of telephonic
current, here designated as undulatory, which has
rendered feasible the artificial production of
articulate speech by electrical means.

A horizontal line (g g') is taken as the zero of
current, and impulses of positive electricity are
represented above the zero line, and negative
impulses below it, or vice versa.

The vertical thickness of any electrical im-
pulse (b or d), measured from the zero line, in-
dicates the intensity of the electrical current at
the point observed, and the horizontal extension
of the electric line (b or d) indicates the duration
of the impulse.

Nine varieties of telephonic currents may be
distinguished, but it will only be necessary to
show you six of these. The three primary varie-
ties designated as intermittent, pulsatory and
undulatory, are represented in lines i, 2 and 3.

Sub-varieties of these can be distinguished as
direct or reversed currents, according as the
electrical impulses are all of one kind or are alter-
62

Bell's Telephonic Researches

nately positive and negative. Direct currents
may still further be distinguished as positive
or negative, according as the impulses are of one
kind or of the other.

An intermittent current is characterized by
the alternate presence and absence of electricity
upon the circuit.

A pulsatory current results from sudden or
instantaneous changes in the intensity of a con-
tinuous current; and

An undulatory current is a current of electric-
ity, the intensity of which varies in a manner pro-
portional to the velocity of the motion of a par-
ticle of air during the production of a sound:
thus the curve representing graphically the un-
dulatory current for a simple musical note is the
curve expressive of a simple pendulous vibra-
tion— that is, a sinusoidal curve.

And here I may remark, that, although the
conception of the undulatory current of electri-
city is entirely original with myself, methods of
producing sound by means of intermittent and
pulsatory currents have long been known. For
instance, it was long since discovered that an
electro-magnet gives forth a decided sound when
it is suddenly magnetized or demagnetized.
When the circuit upon which it is placed is rapidly
made and broken, a succession of explosive
noises proceeds from the magnet. These sounds
produce upon the ear the effect of a musical note
when the current is interrupted a sufficient num-
ber of times per second.
63

Masterpieces of Science

For several years my attention was almost
exclusively directed to the production of an in-
strument for making and breaking a voltaic
circuit with extreme rapidity, to take the place
of the transmitting tuning fork used in Helm-
holtz's researches. Without going into details,
I shall merely say that the great defects of this
plan of multiple telegraphy were found to con-

Fig. 2

sist, first, in the fact that the receiving oper-
ators were required to possess a good musical ear
in order to discriminate the signals; and secondly,
that the signals could only pass in one direction
along the line (so that two wires would be neces-
sary in order to complete communication in both
directions). The first objection was got over
by employing the device which I term a "vibra-
tory circuit breaker, ' ' whereby musical signals
can be automatically recorded. . . .
64

Bell's Telephonic Researches

I have formerly stated that Helmholtz was en-
abled to produce vowel sounds artificially by com-
bining musical tones of different pitches and in-
tensities. His apparatus is shown in Fig. 2.
Tuning forks of different pitch are placed be-
tween the poles of electro-magnets (ai, 02, &c.),
and are kept in continuous vibration by the action
of an intermittent current from the fork b. Reso-
nators, i, 2, 3, etc., are arranged so as to rein-
force the sounds in a greater or less degree, ac-
cording as the exterior orifices are enlarged or
contracted.

Thus it will be seen that upon Helmholtz 's plan
the tuning forks themselves produce tones of
uniform intensity, the loudness being varied
by an external reinforcement; but it struck me
that the same results would be obtained, and in
a much more perfect* manner, by causing the
tuning forks themselves to vibrate with different
degrees of amplitude. I therefore devised the
apparatus shown in Fig. 3, which was my first
form of articulating telephone. In this figure a
harp of steel rods is employed, attached to the
poles of a permanent magnet, N. S. When any
one of the rods is thrown into vibration an un-
dulatory current is produced in the coils of the
electro-magnet E, and the electro-magnet E' at-
tracts the rods of the harp H' with a varying
force, throwing into vibration that rod which is
in unison with that vibrating at the other end
of the circuit. Not only so, but the amplitude of
vibration in the one will determine the amplitude
65

Masterpieces of Science

of vibration in the other, for the intensity of the
induced current is determined by the amplitude
of the inducing vibration, and the amplitude of
the vibration at the receiving end depends upon
the intensity of the attractive impulses. When
we sing into a piano, certain of the strings of the
instrument are set in vibration sympathetically
by the action of the voice with different degrees
of amplitude, and a sound, which is an approxi-
mation to the vowel uttered, is produced from the

Fig. 3

piano. Theory shows that, had the piano a very
much larger number of strings to the octave, the
vowel sounds would be perfectly reproduced.
My idea of the action of the apparatus, shown
in Fig. 3, was this: Utter a sound in the neigh-
bourhood of the harp H, and certain of the rods
would be thrown into vibration with different
amplitudes. At the other end of the circuit the
corresponding rods of the harp H would vibrate
with their proper relations of force, and the

Bell's Telephonic Researches

timbre [characteristic quality] of the sound would
be reproduced. The expense of constructing such
an apparatus as that shown in figure 3 deterred
me from making the attempt, and I sought to
simplify the apparatus before venturing to have
it made.

I have before alluded to the invention by my
father of a system of physiological symbols for'

Fig. 4

representing the action of the vocal organs, and
I had been invited by the Boston Board of Edu-
cation to conduct a series of experiments with
the system in the Boston school for the deaf and
dumb. It is well known that deaf mutes are
dumb merely because they are deaf, and that
there is no defect in their vocal organs to inca-
pacitate them from utterance. Hence it was
thought that my father's system of pictorial
symbols, popularly known as visible speech,
67

Masterpieces of 'Science

might prove a means whereby we could teach
the deaf and dumb to use their vocal organs and
to speak. The great success of these experiments
urged upon me the advisability of devising
method of exhibiting the vibrations of sound
optically, for use in teaching the deaf and dumb.
For some time I carried on experiments with the
manometric capsule of Koenig and with the
phonautograph of Leon Scott. The scientific
apparatus in the Institute of Technology in
Boston was freely placed at my disposal for
these experiments, and it happened that at that
time a student of the Institute of Technology,
Mr. Maurey, had invented an improvement upon
the phonautograph. He had succeeded in vibrat-
ing by the voice a stylus of wood about a foot in
length, which was attached to the membrane of
the phonautograph, and in this way he had
been enabled to obtain enlarged tracings upon a
plane surface of smoked glass. With this appa-
ratus I succeeded in producing very beautiful
tracings of the vibrations of the air for vowel
sounds. Some of these tracings are shown in
Fig. 4. I was much struck with this improved
form of apparatus, and it occurred to me that
there was a remarkable likeness between the
manner in which this piece of wood was vibrated
by the membrane of the phonautograph and the
manner in which the ossicula' [small bones] of
the human ear were moved by the tympanic
membrane. I determined therefore, to con-
struct a phonautograph modelled still more
68

Bell's Telephonic Researches

closely upon the mechanism of the human ear,
and for this purpose I sought the assistance of a

Fig. 5

distinguished aurist in Boston, Dr. Clarence J.

Blake. He suggested the use of the human ear

itself as a phonautograph, instead of making an

Masterpieces of Science

artificial imitation of it. The idea was novel
and struck me accordingly, and I requested my
friend to prepare a specimen for me, which he
did. The apparatus, as finally constructed, is
shown in Fig. 5. The stapes [inmost of the
three auditory ossicles] was removed and a
pointed piece of hay about an inch in length
was attached to the end of the incus [the middle
of the three auditory ossicles]. Upon moisten-
ing the membrana tympani [membrane of the

Fig. 6

ear drum] and the ossiculae with a mixture of
glycerine and water the necessary mobility of
the parts was obtained, and upon singing into the
external artificial ear the piece of hay was thrown
into vibration, and tracings were obtained upon
a plane surface of smoked glass passed rapidly
underneath. While engaged in these experi-
ments I was struck with the remarkable dispro-
portion in weight between the membrane and
the bones that were vibrated by it. It occurred
to me that if a membrane as thin as tissue paper
could control the vibration of bones that were,
compared to it, of immense size and weight, why
70

Bell's Telephonic Researches

should not a larger and thicker membrane be
able to vibrate a piece of iron in front of an
electro-magnet, in which case the complication
of steel rods shown in my first form of telephone,
Fig. 3, could be done away with, and a simple
piece of iron attached to a membrane be placed
at either end of the telegraphic circuit.

Figure 6 shows the form of apparatus that I
was then employing for producing undulatory
currents of electricity for the purpose of multiple
telegraphy. A steel reed, A, was clamped firmly
by one extremity to the uncovered leg h of an
electro-magnet E, and the free end of the reed
projected above the covered leg. When the
reed A was vibrated in any mechanical way the
battery current was thrown into waves, and
electrical undulations traversed the circuit
B E W E', throwing into vibration the corre-
sponding reed A' at the other end of the circuit.
I immediately proceeded to put my new idea to
the test of practical experiment, and for this
purpose I attached the reed A (Fig. 7) loosely
by one extremity to the uncovered pole \ of the
magnet, and fastened the other extremity to the
centre of a stretched membrane of goldbeaters'
skin n. I presumed that upon speaking in the
neighbourhood of the membrane n it would be
thrown into vibration and cause the steel reed A
to move in a similar manner, occasioning undula-
tions in the electrical current that would corre-
spond to the changes in the density of the air
during the production of the sound ; and I further
71

Masterpieces of Science

thought that the change of the density of the
current at the receiving end would cause the
magnet there to attract the reed A' in such a
manner that it should copy the motion of the
reed A, in which case its movements would oc-
casion a sound from the membrane nr similar
in timbre to that which had occasioned the origi-
nal vibration.

Fig. 7

The results, however, were unsatisfactory and
discouraging. My friend, Mr. Thomas A. Wat-
son, who assisted me in this first experiment,
declared that he heard a faint sound proceed
from the telephone at his end of the circuit, but I
was unable to verify his assertion. After many
experiments, attended by the same only partially
successful results, I determined to reduce the
size and weight of the spring as much as possible.
For tin's purpose I glued a piece of clock spring
about the size and shape of my thumb nail,
firmly to the centre of the diaphragm, and had
a similar instrument at the other end (Fig. 8) ;
we were then enabled to obtain distinctly audi-
72

Bell's Telephonic Researches

ble effects. I remember an experiment made
with this telephone, which at the time gave
me great satisfaction and delight. One of the
telephones was placed in my lecture room in the
Boston University, and the other in the base-
ment of the adjoining building. One of my
students repaired to the distant telephone to
observe the effects of articulate speech, while I
uttered the sentence, " Do you understand what I

Fig. 8

say?" into the telephone placed in the lecture
hall. To my delight an answer was returned
through the instrument itself, articulate sounds
proceeded from the steel spring attached to the
membrane, and I heard the sentence, "Yes, I
understand you perfectly." It is a mistake,
however, to suppose that the articulation was by
any means perfect, and expectancy no doubt had
a great deal to do with my recognition of the
sentence; still, the articulation was there, and I
recognized the fact that the indistinctness was
73

Masterpieces of Science

entirely due to the imperfection of the instru-
ment. I will not trouble you by detailing the
various stages through which the apparatus
passed, but shall merely say that after a time I
produced the form of instrument shown inFig.g,
which served very well as a receiving telephone.
In this condition my invention was, in 1876,
exhibited at the Centennial Exhibition in Phila-
delphia. The telephone shown in Fig. 8 was

Fig. 9

used as a transmitting instrument, and that in
Fig. 9 as a receiver, so that vocal communication
was only established in one direction.

The articulation produced from the instru-
ment shown in Fig. 9 was remarkably distinct,
but its great defect consisted in the fact that it
could not be used as a transmitting instrument,
and thus two telephones were required at each
station, one for transmitting and one .for receiv-
ing spoken messages.

It was determined to vary the construction of
74

Bell's Telephonic Researches

the telephone shown in Fig. 8, and I sought, by
changing the size and tension of the membrane,
the diameter and thickness of the steel spring,
the size and power of the magnet, and the coils of
insulated wire around their poles, to discover
empirically the exact effect of each element of
the combination, and thus to deduce a more
perfect form of apparatus. It was found that a
marked increase in the loudness of the sounds

Fig. 10

resulted from shortening the length of the coils
of wire, and by enlarging the iron diaphragm
which was glued to the membrane. In the latter
case, also, the distinctness of the articulation was
improved. Finally, the membrane of gold
beaters' skin was discarded entirely, and a simple
iron plate was used instead, and at once intelligi-
ble articulation was obtained. The new form
of instrument is that shown in Fig. 10, and, as
had been long anticipated, it was proved that the
only use of the battery was to magnetize the iron
75

Masterpieces of Science

core, for the effects were equally audible when the
battery was omitted and a rod of magnetized
steel substituted for the iron core of the magnet.
It was my original intention, as shown in Fig.3,
and it was always claimed by me, that the final
form of telephone would be operated by perma-
nent magnets in place of batteries, and numer-
ous experiments had been carried on by Mr.

Fig. ii

Watson and myself privately for the purpose of
producing this effect.

At the time the instruments were first exhibited
in public the results obtained with permanent
magnets were not nearly so striking as when a
voltaic battery was employed, wherefore we
thought it best to exhibit only the latter form of
instrument.

The interest excited by the first published ac-
counts of the operation of the telephone led many
persons to investigate the subject, and I doubt
not that numbers of experimenters have inde-
76

Bell's Telephonic Researches

pendently discovered that permanent magnets
might be employed instead of voltaic batteries.
Indeed, one gentleman, Professor Dolbear, of
Tufts College, not only claims to have discovered
the magneto-electric telephone, but, I under-
stand, charges me with having obtained the idea
from him through the medium of a mutual friend.

A still more powerful form of apparatus was
constructed by using a powerful compound horse-
shoe magnet in place of the straight rod which
had been previously used (see Fig. n). Indeed,
the sounds produced by means of this instru-
ment were of sufficient loudness to be faintly
audible to a large audience, and in this condition
the instrument was exhibited in the Essex In-
stitute, in Salem, Massachusetts, on the. 1 2th
of February, 1877, on which occasion a short
speech shouted into a similar telephone in Boston
sixteen miles away, was heard by the audience in
Salem. The tones of the speaker's voice were
distinctly audible to an audience of six hundred
people, but the articulation was only distinct at
a distance of about six feet. On the same oc-
casion, also, a report of the lecture was trans-
mitted by word of mouth from Salem to Boston,
and published in the papers the next morning.

From the form of telephone shown in Fig. 10
to the present form of the instrument (Fig. i 2)
is but a step. It is, in fact, the arrangement of
Fig. 10 in a portable form, the magnet F. H. be-
ing placed inside the handle and a more con-
venient form of mouthpiece provided ....
77

Masterpieces of Science

It was always my belief that a certain ratio
would be found between the several parts of a tele-
phone, and that the size of the instrument was
immaterial ; but Professor Peirce was the first to
demonstrate the extreme smallnessof the magnets
which might be employed. And here, in order
to show the parallel lines in which we were work-
ing, I may mention the fact that two or three
days after I had constructed a telephone of the
portable form (Fig. 12), containing the magnet
inside the handle, Dr. Channing was kind enough
to send me a pair of telephones of a similar
pattern, which had been invented by experi-
menters at Providence. The convenient form
of the mouthpiece shown in Fig. 1 2 , now adopted
by me, was invented solely by my friend, Pro-
fessor Peirce. I must also express my obliga-
tions to my friend and associate, Mr. Thomas A.
Watson, of Salem, Massachusetts, who has for
two years past given me his personal assistance
in carrying on my researches.

In pursuing my investigations I have ever had
one end in view — the practical improvement of
electric telegraphy — but I have come across
many facts which, while having no direct bearing
upon the subject of telegraphy, may yet possess
an interest for you.

For instance, I have found that a musical tone
proceeds from a piece of plumbago or retort
carbon when an intermittent current of electric-
ity is passed through it, and I have observed the
most curious audible effects prodticed by the
78

Bell's Telephonic Researches

passage of reversed intermittent currents through
the human body. A breaker was placed in
circuit with the primary wires of an induction
coil, and the fine wires were connected with two
strips of brass. One of these strips was held
closely against the ear, and a loud sound pro-
ceeded from it whenever the other slip was
touched with the other hand. The strips of
brass were next held one in each hand. The
induced currents occasioned a muscular tremor
in the fingers. Upon placing my forefinger to my
ear a loud crackling noise was audible, seemingly
proceeding from the finger itself. A friend who
was present placed my finger to his ear, but heard
nothing. I requested him to hold the strips
himself. He was then distinctly conscious of a
noise (which I was unable to perceive) proceed-
ing from his finger. In this case a portion of the
induced current passed through the head of the
observer when he placed his ear against his own
finger, and it is possible that the sound was oc-
casioned by a vibration of the surfaces of the ear
and finger in contact.

When two persons receive a shock from a
Ruhmkorff's coil by clasping hands, each taking
hold of one wire of the coil with the free hand, a
sound proceeds from the clasped hands. The
effect is not produced when the hands are moist.
When either of the two touches the body of the
pther a loud sound comes from the parts in con-
tact. When the arm of one is placed against the
arm of the other, the noise produced can be heard
79

Masterpieces of Science

at a distance of several feet. In all these cases a
slight shock is experienced so long as the contact
is preserved. The introduction of a piece of
paper between the parts in contact does not ma-
terially interfere with the production of the
sounds, but the unpleasant effects of the shock
are avoided.

When an intermittent current from a Ruhm-
korff's coil is passed throtigh the arms a musical

Fig. 12

note can be perceived wnen the ear is closely
applied to the arm of the person experimented
upon. The sound seems to proceed from the
muscles of the fore-arm and from the biceps
muscle. Mr. Elisha Gray has also produced
audible effects by the passage of electricity
through the human body.

An extremely loud musical note is occasioned
by the spark of a Ruhmkorff's coil when the
primary circuit is made and broken with suffi-
cient rapidity. When two breakers of differ-
80

Bell's Telephonic Researches

ent pitch are caused simultaneously to open and
close the primary circuit a double tone proceeds
from the spark.

A curious discovery, which may be of interest
to you,, has been made by Professor Blake. He
constructed a telephone in which a rod of soft
iron, about six feet in length, was used instead
of a permanent magnet. A friend sang a con-
tinuous musical tone into the mouthpiece of a
telephone, like that shown in Fig. 12, which was
connected with the soft iron instrument alluded
to above. It was found that the loudness of the
sound produced in this telephone varied with the
direction in which the iron rod was held, and
that the maximum effect was produced when the
rod was in the position of the dipping needle.
This curious discovery of Professor Blake has
been verified by myself.

When a telephone is placed in circuit with a
telegraph line the telephone is found seemingly to
emit sounds on its own account. The most
extraordinary noises are often produced, the
causes of which are at present very obscure.
One class of sounds is produced by the inductive
influence of neighbouring wires and by leakage
from them, the signals of the Morse alphabet
passing over neighbouring wires being audible in
the telephone, and another class can be traced
to earth currents upon the wire, a curious modifi-
cation of this sound revealing the presence of
detective joints in the wire.

Professor Blake informs me that he has been
81

Masterpieces of Science

able to use the railroad track for conversational
purposes in place of a telegraph wire, and he
further states that when only one telephone was
connected with the track the sounds of Morse
operating were distinctly audible in the tele-
phone, although the nearest telegraph wires
were at least fifty feet distant.

Professor Peirce has observed the most singular
sounds produced from a telephone in connection
with a telegraph wire during the aurora borealis,
and I have just heard of a curious phenomenon
lately observed by Dr. Channing. In the city
of Providence, Rhode Island, there is an over-
house wire about one mile in extent with a tele-
phone at either end. On one occasion the sound
of music and singing was faintly audible in one
of the telephones. It seemed as if some one were
practising vocal music with a pianoforte accom-
paniment. The natural supposition was that
experiments were being made with the telephone
at the other end of the circuit, but upon inquiry
this proved not to have been the case. Atten-
tion having thus been directed to the phenome-
non, a watch was kept upon the instruments, and
upon a subsequent occasion the same fact was
observed at both ends of the line by Dr. Chan-
ning and his friends. It was proved that the
sounds continued for about two hours, and
usually commenced about the same time. A
searching examination of the line disclosed
nothing abnormal in its condition, and I am
unable to give you any explanation of this curi-
82

Bell's Telephonic Researches

ous phenomenon. Dr. Channing has, however,
addressed a letter upon the subject to the editor
of one of the Providence papers, giving the names
of such songs as were recognized, and full details
of the observations, in the hope that publicity
may lead to the discovery of the performer,
and thus afford a solution of the mystery.

My friend, Mr. Frederick A. Gower, communi-
cated to me a curious observation made by him
regarding the slight earth connection required
to establish a circuit for the telephone, and to-
gether we carried on a series of experiments
with rather startling results. We took a couple
of telephones and an insulated wire about 100
yards in length into a garden, and were enabled
to carry on conversation with the greatest ease
when we held in our hands what should have
been the earth wire, so that the connection with
the ground was formed at either end through
our bodies, our feet being clothed with cotton
socks and leather boots. The day was fine, and
the grass upon which we stood was seemingly
perfectly dry. Upon standing upon a gravel
walk the vocal sounds, though much diminished,
were still perfectly intelligible, and the same
result occurred when standing upon a brick wall
one fcot in height, but no sound was audible
when one of us stood upon a block of freestone.

One experiment which we made is so very

interesting that I must speak of it in detail. Mr.

Gower made earth connection at his end of the

line by standing upon a grass plot, whilst at the

Masterpieces of Science

other end of the line I stood upon a wooden
board. I requested Mr. Gower to sing a contin-
uous musical note, and to my surprise the sound
was very distinctly audible from the telephone
in my hand. Upon examining my feet I dis-
covered that a single blade of grass was bent over
the edge of the board, and that my foot touched
it. The removal of this blade of grass was fol-
lowed by the cessation of the sound from the
telephone, and I found that the moment I
touched with the toe of my boot a blade of grass
or the petal of a daisy the sound was again
audible.

The question will naturally arise, Through
what length of wire can the telephone be used ?
In reply to this I may say that the maximum
amount of resistance through which the undula-
tory current will pass, and yet retain sufficient;
force to produce an audible sound at the distant
end, has yet to be determined; no difficulty, has,
however, been experienced in laboratory ex-
periments in conversing through a resistance of
60,000 ohms, which has been the maximum at my
disposal. On one occasion, not having a rheostat
[for producing resistance] at hand, I passed
the current through the bodies of sixteen persons,
who stood hand in hand. The longest length of
real telegraph line through which I have at-
tempted to converse has been about 250 miles.
On this occasion no difficulty was experienced
so long as parallel lines were not in operation.
Sunday was chosen as the day on which it was
84

Bell's Telephonic Researches

probable other circuits would be at rest. Con-
versation was carried on between myself, in New
York, and Mr. Thomas A. Watson, in Boston,
until the opening of business upon the other
wires. When this happened the vocal sounds
were very much diminished, but still audible.
It seemed, indeed, like talking through a storm.
Conversation, though possible, could be carried
on with difficulty, owing to the distracting
nature of the interfering currents.

I am informed by my friend Mr. Preece that
conversation has been successfully carried on
through a submarine cable, sixty miles in length,
extending from Dartmouth to the Island of
Guernsey, by means of hand telephones.

PHOTOGRAPHING THE UNSEEN: THE
ROENTGEN RAY

H. J. W. DAM

[By permission from McClure's Magazine, April, 1896,
copyright by S. S. McClure, Limited.]

IN all the history of scientific discovery there
has never been, perhaps, so general, rapid, and
dramatic an effect wrought on the scientific
centres of Europe as, has followed, in the past
four weeks, upon an announcement made to the
Wiirzburg Physico-Medical Society, at their
December [1895] meeting, by Professor William
Konrad Rontgen, professor of physics at the
Royal University of Wiirzburg. The first news
which reached London was by telegraph from
Vienna to the effect that a Professor Rontgen,
until then the possessor of only a local fame in
the town mentioned, had discovered a new kind
of light, which penetrated and photographed
through everything. This news was received
with a mild interest, some amusement, and much
incredulity; and a week passed. Then, by mail
and telegraph, came daily clear indications of
the stir which the discovery was making in all
the great line of universities between Vienna and
Berlin. Then Ront gen's own report arrived,
so cool, so business-like, and so truly scientific in
character, that it left no doubt either of the
87

Masterpieces of Science

truth or of the great importance of the preceding
reports. Today, four weeks after the announce-
ment, Rontgen's name is apparently in every
scientific publication issued this week in Europe ;
and accounts of his experiments, of the experi-
ments of others following his method, and of
theories as to the strange new force which he has
been the first to observe, fill pages of every scien-
tific journal that comes to hand. And before
the necessary time elapses for this article to
attain publication in America, it is in all ways
probable that the laboratories and lecture-rooms
of the United States will also be giving full evi-
dence of this contagious arousal of interest over
a discovery so strange that its importance cannot
yet be measured, its utility be even prophesied,
or its ultimate effect upon long established
scientific beliefs be even vaguely foretold.

The Rontgen rays are certain invisible rays
resembling, in many respects, rays of light, which
are set free when a high-pressure electric current
is discharged through a vacuum tube. A vacuum
tube is a glass tube from which all the air, down
to one-millionth of an atmosphere, has been ex-
hausted after the insertion of a platinum wire
in either end of the tube for connection with the
two poles of a battery or induction coil. When
the discharge is sent through the tube, there pro-
ceeds from the anode — that is, the wire which is
connected with the positive pole of the battery — -
certain bands of light, varying in colour with
the colour of the glass. But these are insignifi-

Photographing the Unseen

cant in comparison with the brilliant glow which
shoots from the cathode, or negative wire. This
glow excites brilliant phosphorescence in glass
and many substances, and these ' 'cathode rays, "
as they are called, were observed and studied by
Hertz; and more deeply by his assistant, Pro-
fessor Lenard, Lenard having, in 1894, reported
that the cathode rays 'would penetrate thin films
of aluminum, wood, and other substances, and
produce photographic results beyond. It was
left, however, for Professor Rontgen to discover
that during the discharge quite other rays
are set free, which differ greatly from those de-
scribed by Lenard as cathode rays. The most
marked difference between the two is the fact
that Rontgen rays are not deflected by a magnet,
indicating a very essential difference, while their
range and penetrative power are incomparably
greater. In fact, all those qualities which have
lent a sensational character to the discovery of
Ront gen's rays were mainly absent from those
of Lenard, to the end that, although Rontgen
has not been working in an entirely new field, he
has by common accord been freely granted all
the honors of a great discovery.

Exactly what kind of a force Professor Ront-
gen has discovered he does not know. As will
be seen below, he declines to call it a new kind
of light, or a new form of electricity. He nas
given it the name of the X rays. Others speak
of it as the Rontgen rays. Thus far its results
only, and not its essence, are known. In the
89

Masterpieces of Science

terminology of science it is generally called ' ' a
new mode of motion, " or, in other words, a new
force. As to whether it is or not actually a force
new to science, or one of the known forces mas-
querading under strange conditions, weighty
authorities are already arguing. More than one
eminent scientist has already affected to see in it
a key to the great mystery of the law of gravity.
All who have expressed themselves in print have
admitted, with more or less frankness, that, in
view of Rontgen's discovery, science must forth-
with revise, possibly to a revolutionary degree,
the long accepted theories concerning the phe-
nomena of light and sound. That the X rays,
in their mode of action, combine a strange
resemblance to both sound and light vibrations,
and are destined to materially affect, if they do
not greatly alter, our views of both phenomena,
is already certain; and beyond this is the opening
into a new and unknown field of physical knowl-
edge, concerning which speculation is already
eager, and experimental investigation already in
hand, in London, Paris, Berlin, and, perhaps, to
a greater or less extent, in every well-equipped
physical laboratory in Europe.

This is the present scientific aspect of the dis-
covery. But, unlike most epoch-making results
from laboratories, this discovery is one which, to
a very unusual degree, is within the grasp of the
popular and non-technical imagination. Among
the other kinds of matter which these rays pene-
trate with ease is human flesh. That a new
90

Photographing the Unseen

photography has suddenly arisen which can
photograph the bones, and, before long, the or-
gans of the human body ; that a light has been
found which can penetrate, so as to make a pho-
tographic record, through everything from a
purse or a pocket to the walls of a room or a
house, is news which cannot fail to startle every-
body. That the eye of the physician or surgeon,
long baffled by the skin, and vainly seeking to
penetrate the unfortunate darkness of the human
body, is now to be supplemented by a camera,
making all the parts of the human body as
visible, in a way, as the exterior, appears cer-
tainly to be a greater blessing to humanity than
even the Listerian antiseptic system of surgery;
and its benefits must inevitably be greater than
those conferred by Lister, great as the latter
have been. Already, in the few weeks since
Rontgen's announcement, the results of surgical
operations under the new system are growing
voluminous. In Berlin, not only new bone frac-
tures are being immediately photographed, but
joined fractures, as well, in order to examine the
results of recent surgical work. In Vienna,
imbedded bullets are being photographed, in-
stead of being probed for, and extracted with
comparative ease. In London, a wounded
sailor, completely paralyzed, whose injury was a
mystery, has been saved by the photographing
of an object imbedded in the spine, which, upon
extraction, proved to be a small knife-blade.
Operations for malformations, hitherto obscure,
91

Masterpieces of Science

but now clearly revealed by the new photo-
graphy, are already becoming common, and are
being reported from all directions. Professor
Czermark of Graz has photographed the living
skull, denuded of flesh and hair, and has begun
the adaptation of the new photography to brain
study. The relation of the new rays to thought
rays is being eagerly discussed in what may be
called the non-exact circles and journals; and all
that numerous group of inquirers into the occult,
the believers in clairvoyance, spiritualism,
telepathy, and kindred orders of alleged phe-
nomena, are confident of finding in the new force
long-sought facts in proof of their claims. Pro-
fessor Neusser in Vienna has photographed gall-
stones in the liver of one patient (the stone show-
ing snow-white in the negative) , and a stone in
the bladder of another patient. His results so
far induce him to announce that all the organs
of the human body can, and will, shortly, be
photographed. Lannelongue of Paris has ex-
hibited to the Academy of Science photographs
of bones showing inherited tuberculosis which
had not otherwise revealed itself. Berlin has
already formed a society of forty for the immedi-
ate prosecution of researches into both the char-
acter of the new force and its physiological possi-
bilities. In the next few weeks these strange
announcements will be trebled or quadrupled,
giving the best evidence from all quarters of the
great future that awaits the Rontgen rays, and
the startling impetus to the universal search for
92

Photographing the Unseen

knowledge that has come at the close of the nine-
teenth century from the modest little laboratory
in the Pleicher Ring at Wiirzburg.

The Physical Institute, Professor Ront gen's
particular domain, is a modest building of two
stories and basement, the upper story constitut-
ing his private residence, and the remainder of
the building being given over to lecture rooms,
laboratories, and their attendant offices. At the
door I was met by an old serving-man of the
idolatrous order, whose pain was apparent when
I asked for "Professor" Rontgen, and he gently
corrected me with "Herr Doctor Rontgen."
As it was evident, however, that we referred to
the same person, he conducted me along a wide,
bare hall, running the length of the building,
with blackboards and charts on the walls. At
the end he showed me into a small room on the
right. This contained a large table desk, and a
small table by the window, covered by photo-
graphs, while the walls held rows of shelves
laden with laboratory and other records. An open
door led into a somewhat larger room, perhaps
twenty feet by fifteen, and I found myself gazing
into a laboratory which was the scene of the dis-
covery— a laboratory which, though in all ways
modest, is destined to be enduringly historical.

There was a wide table shelf running along
the farther side, in front of the two windows,
which were high, and gave plenty of light. In
the centre was a stove; on the left, a small cabinet
whose shelves held the small objects which the
93

Masterpieces of Science

professor had been using. There was a table in
the left-hand corner; and another small table —
the one on which living bones were first photo-
graphed— was near the stove, and a Ruhmkorff
coil was on the right. The lesson of the labora-
tory was eloquent. Compared, for instance,
with the elaborate, expensive, and complete
apparatus of, say, the University of London, or
of any of the great American universities, it was
bare and unassuming to a degree. It mutely
said that in the great march of science it is the
genius of man, and not the perfection of ap-
pliances, that breaks new ground in the great
territory of the unknown. It also caused one
to wonder at and endeavour to imagine the great
things which are to be done through elaborate
appliances with the Rontgen rays — a field in
which the United States, with its foremost genius
in invention, will very possibly, if not probably,
take the lead — when the discoverer himself had
done so much with so little. Already, in a few
weeks, a skilled London operator, Mr. A. A. C.
Swinton, has reduced the necessary time of ex-
posure for Rontgen photographs from fifteen
minutes to four. He .used, however, a Tesla oil
coil, discharged by twelve half-gallon Ley den
jars, with an alternating current of twenty thou-
sand volts' pressure. Here were no oil coils,
Ley den jars, or specially elaborate and expensive
machines. There were only a Ruhmkorff coil
and Crookes (vacuum) tube and the man him-
self.

Photographing the Unseen

Professor Rontgen entered hurriedly, some-
thing like an amiable gust of wind. He is a tall,
slender, and loose-limbed man, whose whole ap-
pearance bespeaks enthusiasm and energy. He
wore a dark blue sack suit, and his long, dark
hair stood straight up from his forehead, as if
he were permanently electrified by his own en-
thusiasm. His voice is full and deep, he speaks
rapidly, and, altogether, he seems clearly a man
who, once upon the track of a mystery which
appealed to him, would pursue it with unremit-
ting vigor. His eyes are kind, quick, and pene-
trating; and there is no doubt that he much pre-
fers gazing at a Crookes tube to beholding a visi-
tor, visitors at present robbing him of much
valued time. The meeting was by appointment,
however, and his greeting was cordial and hearty.
In addition to his own language he speaks French
well and English scientifically, which is different
from speaking it popularly. These three tongues
being more or less within the equipment of his
visitor, the conversation proceeded on an inter-
national or polyglot basis, so to speak, varying
at necessity's demand.

It transpired in the course of inquiry, that the
professor is a married man and fifty years of age,
though his eyes have the enthusiasm of twenty-
five. He was born near Zurich, and educated
there, and completed his studies and took his
degree at Utrecht. He has been at Wiirzburg
about seven years, and had made no discoveries
which he considered of great importance prior
95

Masterpieces of Science

to the one under consideration. These details
were given under good-natured protest, he failing
to understand why his personality should interest
the public. He declined to admire himself or his
results in any degree, and laughed at the idea of
being famous. The professor is too deeply in-
terested in science to waste any time in thinking
about himself. His emperor had feasted, flat-
tered, and decorated him, and he was loyally
grateful. It was evident, however, that fame
and applause had small attractions for him, com-
pared to the mysteries still hidden in the vacuum
tubes of the other room.

"Now, then," said he, smiling, and with some
impatience, when the preliminary questions at
which he chafed were over, "you have come to
see the invisible rays."

" Is the invisible visible ? "

"Not to the eye; but its results are. Come in
here."

He led the way to the other square room men-
tioned, and indicated the induction coil with
which his researches were made, an ordinary
Ruhmkorff coil, with a spark of from four to six
inches, charged by a current of twenty amperes.
Two wires led from the coil, through an open
door, into a smaller room on the right. In this
room was a small table carrying a Crookes tube
connected with the coil. The most striking
object irt the room, however, was a huge and
mysterious tin box about seven feet high and
four feet square. It stood on end, like a huge
96

Photographing the Unseen

packing case, its side being perhaps five inches
from the Crookes tube.

The professor explained the mystery of the tin
box, to the effect that it was a device of his own
for obtaining a portable dark-room. When he
began his investigations he used the whole room,
as was shown by the heavy blinds and curtains so
arranged as to exclude the entrance of all inter-
fering light from the windows. In the side of the
tin box, at the point immediately against the
tube, was a circular sheet of aluminum one
millimetre in thickness, and perhaps eighteen
inches in diameter, soldered to the surrounding
tin. To study his rays the professor had only
to turn on the current, enter the box, close the
door, and in perfect darkness inspect only such
light or light effects as he had a right to consider
his own, hiding his light, in fact, not under the
Biblical bushel, but in a more commodious box.

" Step inside, " said he, opening the door, which
was on the side of the box farthest from the tube.
I immediately did so, not altogether certain
whether my skeleton was to be photographed
for general inspection, or my secret thoughts
held up to light on a glass plate. "You will find
a sheet of barium paper on the shelf, " he added,
and then went away to the coil. The door was
closed, and the interior of the box became black
darkness. The first thing I found was a wooden
stool, on which I resolved to sit. Then I found
the shelf on the side next the tube, and then the
sheet of paper prepared with barium platino-
97

Masterpieces of Science

cyanide. I was. thus being shown the first phe-
nomenon which attracted the discoverer's at-
tention and led to his discovery, namely, the
passage of rays, themselves wholly invisible,
whose presence was only indicated by the effect
they produced on a piece of sensitized photo-
graphic paper.

A moment later, the black darkness was pene-
trated by the rapid snapping sound of the high-
pressure current in action, and I knew that the
tube outside was glowing. I held the sheet ver-
tically on the shelf, perhaps four inches from the
plate. There was no change, however, and
nothing was visible.

"Do you see anything?" he called.

"No."

"The tension is not high enough; " and he pro-
ceeded to increase the pressure by operating an
apparatus of mercury in long vertical tubes acted
upon automatically by a weight lever which
stood near the coil. In a few moments the
sound of the discharge again began, and then
I made my first acquaintance with the Rontgen
rays.

The moment the current passed, the paper
began to glow. A yellowish green light spread
all over its surface in clouds, waves and flashes.
The yellow- green luminescence, all the stranger
and stronger in the darkness, trembled, wavered,
and floated over the paper, in rhythm with the
snapping of the discharge. Through the metal
plate, the paper, myself, and the tin box, the
98

Photographing the Unseen

invisible rays were flying, with an effect strange,
interesting and uncanny. The metal plate
seemed to offer no appreciable resistance to the
flying force, and the light was as rich and full as
if nothing lay between the paper and the tube.
"Put the book up," said the professor.
I felt upon the shelf, in the darkness, a heavy
book, two inches in thickness, and placed this
against the plate. It made no difference. The
rays flew through the metal and the book as if
neither had been there, and the waves of light,
rolling cloud-like over the paper, showed no
change in brightness. It was a clear, material
illustration of the ease with which paper and
wood are penetrated. And then I laid book
and paper down, and put my eyes against the
rays. All was blackness, and I neither saw nor
felt anything. The discharge was in full force,
and the rays were flying through my head, and,
for all I knew, through the side of the box be-
hind me. But they were invisible and impalpa-
ble. They gave no sensation whatever. What-
ever the mysterious rays may be, they are not
to be seen, and are to be judged only by their
works.

I was loath to leave this historical tin box, but
time pressed. I thanked the professor, who was
happy in the reality of his discovery and the
music of his sparks. Then I said: "Where did
you first photograph living bones?"

"Here," he said, leading the way into the
room where the coil stood. He pointed to a

Masterpieces of Science

table on which was another — the latter a small
short-legged wooden one with more the shape
and size of a wooden seat. It was two feet
square and painted coal black. I viewed it with
interest. I would have bought it, for the little
table on which light was first sent through the
human body will some day be a great historical
curiosity; but it was not for sale. A photograph
of it would have been a consolation, but for
several reasons one was not to be "had at present.
However, the historical table was there, and
was duly inspected.

11 How did you take the first hand photograph ?"
I asked.

The professor went over to a shelf by the win-
dow, where lay a number of prepared glass plates,
closely wrapped in black paper. He put a
Crookes tube underneath the table, a few inches
from the under side of its top. Then he laid his
hand flat on the top of the table, and placed the
glass plate loosely on his hand.

"You ought to have your portrait painted in
that attitude," I suggested.

" No, that is nonsense, " said he, smiling.

"Or be photographed." This suggestion was
made with a deeply hidden purpose.

The rays from the Rontgen eyes instantly
penetrated the deeply hidden purpose. "Oh,
no," said he; "I can't let you make pictures of
me. I am too busy. " Clearly the professor was
entirely too modest to gratify the wishes of the
curious world.

100

Photographing the Unseen

"Now, Professor," said I, "will you tell me
the history of the discovery ? "

"There is no history, " he said. " I have been
for a long time interested in the problem of the
cathode rays from a vacuum tube as studied by
Hertz and Lenard. I had followed their and
other researches with great interest, and deter-
mined, as soon as I had the time, to make some
researches of my own. This time I found at the
close of last October. I had been at work for
some days when I discovered something new. ' '

"What was the date?"

"The eighth of November. "

"And what was the discovery?"

"I was working with a Crookes tube covered
by a shield of black cardboard. A piece of
barium platino-cyanide paper lay on the bench
there. I had been passing a current through
the tube, and I noticed a peculiar black line
across the paper. "

"What of that?"

"The effect was one which could only be pro-
duced, in ordinary parlance, by the passage of
light. No light could come from the tube, be-
cause the shield which covered it was impervious
to any light known, even that of the electric arc. "

"And what did you think ? "

"I did not think; I investigated. I assumed
that the effect must have come from the tube,
since its character indicated that it could come
from nowhere else. I tested it. In a few min-
utes' there was no doubt about it. Rays were
101

Masterpieces of Science

coming from the tube which had a luminescent
effect upon the paper. I tried it successfully at
greater and greater distances, even at two
metres. It seemed at first a new kind of invisi-
ble light. It was clearly something new, some-
thing unrecorded."

"Is it light?"

"No."

"Is it electricity?"

" Not in any known form. "

"What is it?"

" I don't know. "

And the discoverer of the X rays thus stated
as calmly his ignorance of their essence as has
everybody else who has written on the phe-
nomena thus far.

"Having discovered the existence of a new
kind of rays, I of course began to investigate
what they would do." He took up a series of
cabinet-sized photographs. "It soon appeared
from tests that the rays had penetrative powers
to a degree hitherto unknown. They penetrated
paper, wood, and cloth with ease; and the thick-
ness of the substance made no perceptible differ-
ence, within reasonable limits." He showed
photographs of a box of laboratory weights of
platinum, aluminum, and brass, they and the
brass hinges all having been photographed from
a closed box, without any indication of the box.
Also a photograph of a coil of fine wire, wound
on a wooden spool, the wire having been photo-
graphed, and the wood omitted. "The rays,"
102

Photographing the Unseen

he continued, "passed through all the metals
tested, with a facility varying, roughly speaking,
with the density of the metal. These phe-
nomena I have disctissed carefully in my report
to the Wiirzburg society, and you will find all the
technical results therein stated." He showed a
photograph of a small sheet of zinc. This was
composed of smaller plates soldered laterally with
solders of different metallic proportions. The
differing lines of shadow, caused by the difference
in the solders, were visible evidence that a new
means of detecting flaws and chemical variations
in metals had been found. A photograph of a
compass showed the needle and dial taken through
the closed brass cover. The markings of the
dial were in red metallic paint, and thus inter-
fered with the rays, and were reproduced.
"Since the rays had this great penetrative power,
it seemed natural that they should penetrate
flesh, and so it proved in photographing the
hand, as I showed you."

A detailed discussion of the characteristics of
his rays the professor considered unprofitable
and unnecessary. He believes, though, that
these mysterious radiations are not light, because
their behaviour is essentially different from that
of light rays, even those light rays which are
themselves invisible. The Rontgen rays cannot
be reflected by reflecting surfaces, concentrated
by lenses, or refracted or diffracted. They pro-
duce photographic action on a sensitive film, but
their action is weak as yet, and herein lies the
103

Masterpieces of Science

first important field of their development. The
professor's exposures were comparatively long — •
an average of fifteen minutes in easily penetrable
media-, and half an hour or more in photograph-
ing the bones of the hand. Concerning vacuum
tubes, he said that he preferred the Hittorf,
because it had the most perfect vacuum, the
highest degree of air exhaustion being the con-
summation most desirable. In answer to a
question, "What of the future ? " he said:

"I am not a prophet, and I am opposed to
prophesying. I am pursuing my investigations,
and as fast as my results are verified I shall make
them public. "

" Do you think the rays can be so modified as
to photograph the organs of the human body ? ' '

In answer he took up the photograph of the
box of weights. "Here are already modifica-
tions," he said, indicating the various degrees of
shadow produced by the aluminum, platinum,
and brass weights, the brass hinges, and even the
metallic stamped lettering on the cover of the
box, which was faintly perceptible.

" But Professor Neusser has already announced
that the photographing of the various organs is
possible. "

"We shall see what we shall see," he said.
"We have the start now; the development will
follow in time. "

"You know the apparatus for introducing the
electric light into the stomach?"

"Yes."

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Photographing the Unseen

"Do you think that this electric light will
become a vacuum tube for photographing,
from the stomach, any part of the abdomen or
thorax?"

The idea of swallowing a Crookes tube, and
sending a high frequency current down into one's
stomach, seemed to him exceedingly funny.
"When I have done it', I will tell you," he said,
smiling, resolute in abiding by results.

"There is much to do, and I am busy, very
busy," he said in conclusion. He extended his
hand in farewell, his eyes already wandering
toward his work in the inside room. And his
visitor promptly left him; the words, "I am
busy," said in all sincerity, seeming to de-
scribe in a single phrase the essence of his
character and the watchword of a very unusual
man.

Returning by way of Berlin, I called upon
Herr Spies of the Urania, whose photographs
after the Rontgen method were the first made
public, and have been the best seen thus far. In
speaking of the discovery he said:

" I applied it, as soon as the penetration of
flesh was apparent, to the photograph of a man's
hand. Something in it had pained him for
years, and the photograph at once exhibited a
small foreign object, as you can see; " and he
exhibited a copy of the photograph in question.
"The speck there is a small piece of glass, which
was immediately extracted, and which, in all
probability, would have otherwise remained in
105

Masterpieces of Science

the man's hand to the end of his days." All
of which indicates that the needle which
has pursued its travels in so many persons,
through so many years, will be suppressed by
the camera.

"My next object is to photograph the bones
of the entire leg," continued Herr Spies. "I
anticipate no difficulty, though it requires some
thought in manipulation."

It will be seen that the Rontgen rays and their
marvellous practical possibilities are still in their
infancy. The first successful modification of the
action of the rays so that the varying densities of
bodily organs will enable them to be photo-
graphed will bring all such morbid growths as tu-
mours and cancers into the photographic field, to
say nothing of vital organs which may be ab-
normally developed or degenerate. How much
this means to medical and surgical practice it re-
quires little imagination to conceive. Diagnosis,
long a painfully uncertain science, has received an
unexpected and wonderful assistant; and how
greatly the world will benefit thereby, how much
pain will be saved, only the future can determine.
In science a new door has been opened where none
was known to exist, and a side-light on phe-
nomena has appeared, of which the results may
prove as penetrating and astonishing as the
Rontgen rays themselves. The most agreeable
feature of the discovery is the opportunity it
gives for other hands to help; and the work of
these hands will add many new words to the
106

Photographing the Unseen

dictionaries, many new facts to science, and, in
the years long ahead of us, fill many more vol-
umes than there are paragraphs in this brief and
imperfect account.

107

THE WIRELESS TELEGRAPH
GEORGE ILES

[From "Flame, Electricity and the Camera," copyright
by Doubleday, Page & Co., New York.]

IN a series of experiments interesting enough
but barren of utility, the water of a canal, river,
or bay has often served as a conductor for the
telegraph. Among the electricians who have
thus impressed water into their service was
Professor Morse. In 1842 he sent a few signals
across the channel from Castle Garden, New
York, to Governor's Island, a distance of a mile.
With much better results, he sent messages,
later in the same year, from one side of the canal
at Washington to the other, a distance of eighty
feet, employing large copper plates at each ter-
minal. The enormous current required to over-
come the resistance of water has barred this
method from practical adoption.

We pass, therefore, to electrical communica-
tion as effected by induction — the influence which
one conductor exerts on another through an in-
tervening insulator. At the outset we shall do
well to bear in mind that magnetic phenomena,
which are so closely akin to electrical, are always
inductive. To observe a common example of
magnetic induction, we have only to move a
horseshoe magnet in the vicinity of a compass
109

Masterpieces of Science

needle, which will instantly sway about as if
blown hither and thither by a sharp draught of
air. This action takes place if a slate, a pane of
glass, or a shingle is interposed between the
needle and its perturber. There is no known
insulator for magnetism, and an induction of this
kind exerts itself perceptibly for many yards
when large masses of iron are polarised, so that
the derangement of compasses at sea from moving
iron objects aboard ship, or from ferric ores
underlying a sea-coast, is a constant peril to the
mariner.

Electrical conductors behave much like mag-
netic masses. A current conveyed by a .con-
ductor induces a counter-current in all surround-
ing bodies, and in a degree proportioned to their
conductive power. This effect is, of course,
greatest upon the bodies nearest at hand, and we
have already remarked its serious retarding
effect in ocean telegraphy. When the original
current is of high intensity, it can induce a per-
ceptible current in another wire at a distance of
several miles. In 1842 Henry remarked that
electric waves had this quality, but in that early
day of electrical interpretation the full signifi-
cance of the fact eluded him. In the top room
of his house he produced a spark an inch long,
which induced currents in wires stretched in
his cellar, through two thick floors and two rooms
which came between. Induction of this sort
causes the annoyance, familiar in single tele-
phonic circuits, of being obliged to overhear
110

The Wireless Telegraph

other subscribers, whose wires are often far away
from our own.

The first practical use of induced currents in
telegraphy was when Mr. Edison, in 1885, enabled
the trains on a line of the Staten Island Railroad
to be kept in constant communication with a
telegraphic wire, suspended in the ordinary way
beside the track. The roof of a car was of in-
sulated metal, and every tap of an operator's
key within the walls electrified the roof just long
enough to induce a brief pulse through the tele-
graphic circuit. In sending a message to the
car this wire was, moment by moment, electrified,
inducing a response first in the car roof, and next
in the " sounder " beneath it. This remarkable
apparatus, afterward used on the Lehigh Valley
Railroad, was discontinued from lack of com-
mercial support, although it would seem to be
advantageous to maintain such a service on other
than commercial grounds. In case of chance
obstructions on the track, or other peril, to be
able to communicate at any moment with a
train as it speeds along might mean safety in-
stead of disaster. The chief item in the cost of
this system is the large outlay for a special tele
graphic wire.

The next electrician to employ induced cur-
rents in telegraphy was Mr. (now Sir) William
H. Preece, the engineer then at the head of the
British telegraph system. Let one example of
his work be cited. In 1896 a cable was laid be-
tween Lavernock, near Cardiff, on the Bristol
111

Masterpieces of Science

Channel, and Flat Holme, an island three and a
third miles off. As the channel at this point is
a much-frequented route and anchor ground,
the cable was broken again and again. As a
substitute for it Mr. Preece, in 1898, strung wires
along the opposite shores, and found that an
electric pulse sent through one wire instantly
made itself heard in a telephone connected with
the other. It would seem that in this etheric
form of telegraphy the two opposite lines of
wire must be each as long as the distance which
separates them; therefore, to communicate across
the English Channel from Dover to Calais would
require a line along each coast at least twenty
miles in length. Where such lines exist for
ordinary telegraphy, they might easily lend them-
selves to the Preece system of signalling in case
a submarine cable were to part.

Marconi, adopting electrostatic instead of
electromagnetic waves, has won striking results.
Let us note the chief of his forerunners, as they
prepared the way for him. In 1864 Maxwell
observed that electricity and light have the same
velocity, 186,400 miles a second, and he formu-
lated the theory that electricity propagates itself
in waves which differ from those of light only
in being longer. This was proved to be true by
Hertz, who in 1888 showed that where alternat-
ing currents of very high frequency were set up
in an open circuit, the energy might be conveyed
entirely away from the circuit into the surround-
ing space as electric waves. His detector was
112

The Wireless Telegraph

a nearly closed circle of wire, the ends being
soldered to metal balls almost in contact. With
this simple apparatus he demonstrated that
electric waves move with the speed of light, and
that they can be reflected and refracted pre-
cisely as if they formed a visible beam. At a
certain intensity of strain the air insulation broke
down, and the air became a conductor. This
phenomenon of passing quite suddenly from a
non-conductive to a conductive state is, as we
shall duly see, also to be noted when air or other
gases are exposed to the X ray.

Now for the effect of electric waves such as
Hertz produced, when they impinge upon sub-
stances reduced to powder or filings. Conductors,
such as the metals, are of inestimable service to
the electrician ; of equal value are non-conductors,
such as glass and gutta-percha, as they strictly
fence in an electric stream. A third and re-
markable vista opens to experiment when it deals
with substances which, in their normal state, are
non-conductive, but which, agitated by an elec-
tric wave, instantly become conductive in a high
degree. As long ago as 1866 Mr. S. A. Varley
noticed that black lead, reduced to a loose dust,
effectually intercepted a current from fifty
Daniell cells, although the battery poles were
very near each other. When he increased the
electric tension four- to sixfold, the black-lead
particles at once compacted themselves so as to
form a bridge of excellent conductivity. On this
principle he invented a lightning-protector for
113

Masterpieces of Science

electrical instruments, the incoming flash causing
a tiny heap of carbon dust to provide it with a
path through which it could safely pass to the
earth. Professor Temistocle Calzecchi Onesti of
Fermo, in 1885, in an independent series of re-
searches, discovered that a mass of powdered
copper is a non-conductor until an electric wave
beats upon it; then, in an instant, the mass re-
solves itself into a conductor almost as efficient
as if it were a stout, unbroken wire. Professor
Edouard Branly of Paris, in 1891, on this princi-
ple devised a coherer, which passed from resist-
ance to invitation when subjected to an electric
impulse from afar. He enhanced the value of
his device by the vital discovery that the con-
ductivity bestowed upon filings by electric dis-
charges could be destroyed by simply shaking
or tapping them apart.

In a homely way the principle of the coherer is
often illustrated in ordinary telegraphic practice.
An operator notices that his instrument is not
working well, and he suspects that at some point
in his circuit there is a defective contact. A little
dirt, or oxide, or dampness, has come in between
two metallic surfaces; to be sure, they still touch
each other, but not in the firm and perfect way
demanded for his work. Accordingly he sends a
powerful current abruptly into the line, which
clears its path thoroughly, brushes aside dirt,
oxide, or moisture, and the circuit once more is as
it should be. In all likelihood, the coherer is
acted upon in the same way. Among the phy-
114.

The Wireless Telegraph

sicists who studied it in its original form was Dr.
Oliver J. Lodge. He improved it so much that,
in 1894, at the Royal Institution in London, he
was able to show it as an electric eye that regis-
tered the impact of invisible rays at a distance of
more than forty yards. He made bold to say
that this distance might be raised to half a mile.
As early as 1879 Professor D. E. Hughes began
a series of experiments in wireless telegraphy,
on much the lines which in other hands have now
reached commercial as well as scientific success.
Professor Hughes was the inventor of the micro-
phone, and that instrument, he declared, affords
an unrivalled means of receiving wireless mes-
sages, since it requires no tapping to restore its
non-conductivity. In his researches this in-
vestigator was convinced that his signals were
propagated, not by electromagnetic induction,
but by aerial electric waves spreading out from
an electric spark, Early in 1880 he showed his
apparatus to Professor Stokes, who observed its
operation carefully. His dictum was that he
saw nothing which could not be explained by
known electromagnetic effects. This erroneous
judgment so discouraged Professor Hughes that
he desisted from following up his experiments,
and thus, in all probability, the birth of the
wireless telegraph was for several years delayed.*

*" History of the Wireless Telegraph," by J. J. Fahie.
Edinburgh and London, William Blackwood & Sons; New
York, Dodd, Mead & Co., 1899. This work is full of interest-
ing detail, well illustrated.

115

Masterpieces of Science

The coherer, as improved by Marconi, is a glass
tube about one and one-half inches long and
about one-twelfth of an inch in internal diameter.
The electrodes are inserted in this tube so as
almost to touch; between them is about one-
thirtieth of an inch filled with a pinch of the
responsive mixture which forms the pivot of
the whole contrivance. This mixture is 90 per
cent, nickel filings, 10 per cent, hard silver filings,
and a mere trace of mercury; the tube is ex-

Fig. 71. — Marconi coherer, enlarged view

hausted of air to within one ten-thousandth part
(Fig. 7 1) . How does this trifle of metallic dust
manage loudly to utter its signals through a
telegraphic sounder, or forcibly indent them
upon a moving strip of paper? Not directly,
but indirectly, as the very last refinement of ini-
tiation. Let us imagine an ordinary telegraphic
battery strong enough loudly to tick out a mes-
sage. Be it ever so strong it remains silent
until its circuit is completed, and for that com-
pletion the merest touch suffices. Now the
thread of dust in the coherer forms part of such
a telegraphic circuit: as loose dust it is an effect-
113

The Wireless Telegraph

ual bar and obstacle, under the influence of
electric waves from afar it changes instantly to a
coherent metallic link which at once completes
the circuit and delivers the message.

An electric impulse, almost too attenuated for
computation, is here able to effect such a change
in a pinch of dust that it becomes a free avenue
instead of a barricade. Through that avenue a
powerful blow from a local store of energy makes
itself heard and felt. No device of the trigger
class is comparable with this in delicacy. An
instant after a signal has taken its way through
the coherer a small hammer strikes the tiny tube,
jarring its particles asunder, so that they resume
their normal state of high resistance. We may
well be astonished at the sensitiveness of the
metallic filings to an electric wave originating
many miles away, but let us remember how
clearly the eye can see a bright lamp at the same
distance as it sheds a sister beam. Thus far no
substance has been discovered with a mechanical
responsiveness to so feeble a ray of light; in the
world of nature and art the coherer stands alone.
The electric waves employed by Marconi are
about four feet long, or have a frequency of about
250,000,000 per second. Such undulations pass
readily through brick or stone walls, through
common roofs and floors — indeed, through all
substances which are non-conductive to electric
\Vaves of ordinary length. Were the energy of a
Marconi sending-instrument applied to an arc-
lamp, it would generate a beam of a thousand
117

Masterpieces of Science

candle-power. We have thus a means of com-
paring the sensitiveness of the retina to light
with the responsiveness of the Marconi coherer
to electric waves, after both radiations have
undergone a journey of miles.

An essential feature of this method of etheric
telegraphy, due to Marconi himself, is the sus-
pension of a perpendicular wire at each terminus,
its length twenty feet for stations a mile apart,
forty feet for four miles, and sc on, the telegraphic
distance increasing as the square of the length
of suspended wire. In the Kingstown regatta,
July, 1898, Marconi sent from a yacht under full
steam a report to the shore without the loss of a
moment from start to finish. This feat was re-
peated during the protracted contest between
the Columbia and the Shamrock yachts in New
York Bay, October, 1899. On March 28, 1899,
Marconi signals put Wimereux, two miles north
of Boulogne, in communication with the South
Foreland Lighthouse, thirty-two miles off.*
In August, 1899, during the manoeuvres of the

* The value of wireless telegraphy in relation to disasters
at sea was proved in a remarkable way yesterday morning-
While the Channel was enveloped in a dense fog, which hac?
lasted throughout the greater part of the night, the East
Goodwin Lightship had a very narrow escape from sinking
at her moorings by being run into by the steamship R. F.
Matthews, 1,964 tons gross burden, of London, outward
bound from the Thames. The East Goodwin Lightship
is one of four such vessels marking the Goodwin Sands, and,
curiously enough, it happens to be the one ship which has
been fitted out with Signor Marconi's installation for wire-
!ess telegraphy. The vessel was moored about twelve miles

118

The Wireless Telegraph

British navy, similar messages were sent as far
as eighty miles. It was clearly demonstrated
that a new power had been placed in the hands
of a naval commander. "A touch on a button
in a flagship is all that is now needed to initiate
every tactical evolution in a fleet, and insure an
almost automatic precision in the resulting
movements of the ships. The flashing lantern is
superseded at night, flags and the semaphore by
day, or, if these are retained, it is for services
purely auxiliary. The hideous and bewildering
shrieks of the steam-siren need no longer be heard
in a fog, and the uncertain system of gun signals
will soon become a thing of the past. " The in-
terest of the naval and military strategist in the
Marconi apparatus extends far beyond its com-
munication of intelligence. Any electrical ap-
pliance whatever may be set in motion by the
same wave that actuates a telegraphic sounder.
A fuse may be ignited, or a motor started and
directed, by apparatus connected with the co-
herer, for all its minuteness. Mr. Walter Jamie-

to the northeast of the South Foreland Lighthouse (where
there is another wireless-telegraphy installation), and she
is about ten miles from the shore, being directly opposite
Deal. The information regarding the collision was at once
communicated by wireless telegraphy from the disabled
lightship to the South Foreland Lighthouse, where Mr.
Bullock, assistant to Signer Marconi, received the following
message: "We have just been run into by the steamer
R. F. Matthews of London. Steamship is standing by us.
Our bows very badly damaged." Mr. Bullock immediately
forwarded this information to the Trinity House authorities
at Ramsgate. — Times, April 29, 1899.
119

Masterpieces of Science

son and Mr. John Trotter have devised means for
the direction of torpedoes by ether waves, such
as those set at work in the wireless telegraph.
Two rods projecting above the surface of the
water receive the waves, and are in circuit with a
coherer and a relay. At the will of the distant
operator a hollow wire coil bearing a current draws
in an iron core either to the right or to the left,
moving the helm accordingly.

As the news of the success of the Marconi tele-
graph made its way to the London Stock Ex-
change there was a fall in the shares of cable
companies. The fear of rivalry from the new
invention was baseless. As but fifteen words
a minute are transmissible by the Marconi sys-
tem, it evidently does not compete with a cable,
such as that between France and England, which
can transmit 2,500 words a minute without diffi-
culty. The Marconi telegraph comes less as a
competitor to old systems than as a mode of
communication which creates a field of its own.
We have seen what it may accomplish in war,
far outdoing any feat possible to other appa-
ratus, acoustic, luminous, or electrical. In quite
as striking fashion does it break new ground in
the service of commerce and trade. It enables
lighthouses continually to spell their names, so
that receivers aboard ship may give the steers-
men their bearings even in storm and fog. In
the crowded condition of the steamship "lanes"
' which cross the Atlantic, a priceless security
against collision is afforded the man at the helm,
120

The Wireless Telegraph

On November 15, 1899, Marconi telegraphed
from the American liner St. Paul to the Needles,
sixty-six nautical miles away. On December 1 1
and 12, 1901, he received wireless signals near
St. John's, Newfoundland, sent from Poldhu,
Cornwall, England, or a distance of 1,800 miles,
— a feat which astonished the world. In many
cases the telegraphic business to an island is too
small to warrant the laying of a cable; hence
we find that Trinidad and Tobago are to be
joined by the wireless system, as also five islands
of the Hawaiian group, eight to sixty-one miles
apart.

A weak point in the first Marconi apparatus
was that anybody within the working radius of
the sending-instrument could read its messages.
To modify this objection secret codes were at
times employed, as in commerce and diplomacy.
A complete deliverance from this difficulty is
promised in attuning a transmitter and a receiver
to the same note, so that one receiver, and no
other, shall respond to a particular frequency of
impulses. The experiments which indicate suc-
cess in this vital particular have been conducted
by Professor Lodge.

When electricians, twenty years ago, com-
mitted energy to a wire and thus enabled it to go
round a corner, they felt that they had done well.
The Hertz waves sent abroad by Marconi ask no
wire, as they find their way, not round a corner,
but through a corner. On May i, 1899, a party
of French officers on board the Ib is at Sangatte,
121

Masterpieces of Science

near Calais, spoke to Wimereux by means of a
Marconi apparatus, with Cape Grisnez, a lofty
promontory, intervening. In ascertaining how
much the earth and the sea may obstruct the
waves of Hertz there is a broad and fruitful field
for investigation. "It may be," says Professor

Fig. 73 — Discontinuous electric waves

John Trowbridge, "that such long electrical
waves roll around the surface of such obstruc-
tions very much as waves of sound and of water
would do. "

It is singular how discoveries sometimes arrive
abreast of each other so as to render mutual aid,
or supply a pressing want almost as soon as it is
felt. The coherer in its present form is actuated
by waves of comparatively low frequency,
which rise from zero to full height in extremely
brief periods, and are separated by periods de-
cidedly longer (Fig. 73). What is needed is a
plan by which the waves may flow either con-
tinuously or so neat together that they may lend
themselves to attuning. Dr. Wehnelt, by an
extraordinary discovery, may, in all likelihood,
provide the lacking device in the form of his in-
terrupter, which breaks an electric circuit as often
as two thousand times a second. The means for
122

The Wireless Telegraph

this amazing performance are simplicity itself
(Fig. 74). A jar, a, containing a solution of sul-
phuric acid has two elec-
trodes immersed in it; one
of them is a lead plate
of large surface, 6; the
other is a small platinum
wire which protrudes
from a glass tube, d. A
current passing through
the cell between the two
metals at c is interrupted,
in ordinary cases five
hundred times a second,
and in extreme cases
four times as often,

by bubbles of gas given off from the wire instant
by instant.

Fig. 74
Wehnelt interrupter

123

ELECTRICITY, WHAT ITS MASTERY

MEANS: WITH A REVIEW

AND A PROSPECT

GEORGE ILES

[From "Flame, Electricity and the Camera," copyright
by Doubleday, Page & Co., New York.]

WITH the mastery of electricity man enters
upon his first real sovereignty of nature. As we
hear the whirr of the dynamo or listen at the tele-
phone, as we turn the button of an incandescent
lamp or travel in an electromobile, we are par-
takers in a revolution more swift and profound
than has ever before been enacted upon earth.
Until the nineteenth century fire was justly ac-
counted the most useful and versatile servant of
man. To-day electricity is doing all that fire
ever did, and doing it better, while it accom-
plishes uncounted tasks far beyond the reach of
flame, however ingeniously applied. We may
thus observe under our eyes just such an impetus
to human intelligence and power as when fire
was first subdued to the purposes of man, with
the immense advantage that, whereas the subju-
gation of fire demanded ages of weary and un-
certain experiment, the mastery of electricity is,
for the most part, the assured work of the nine-
teenth century, and, in truth, very largely of its
last three decades. The triumphs of the elec-
125

Masterpieces of Science

trician are of absorbing interest in themselves,
they bear a higher significance to the student of
man as a creature who has gradually come to be
what he is. In tracing the new horizons won by
electric science and art, a beam of light falls on
the long and tortuous paths by which man rose
to his supremacy long before the drama of
human life had been chronicled or sung.

Of the strides taken by humanity on its way
to the summit of terrestrial life, there are but
four worthy of mention as preparing the way for
the victories of the electrician — the attainment
of the upright attitude, the intentional kindling
of fire, the maturing of emotional cries to articu-
late speech, and the invention of written symbols
for speech. As we examine electricity in its
fruitage we shall find that it bears the unfailing
mark of every other decisive factor of human
advance: its mastery is no mere addition to the
resources of the race, but a multiplier of them.
The case is not as when an explorer discovers a
plant hitherto unknown, such as Indian corn,
which takes its place beside rice and wheat as a
new food, and so measures a service which ends
there. Nor is it as when a prospector comes
upon a new metal, such as nickel, with the sole
effect of increasing the variety of materials from
which a smith may fashion a hammer or a blade.
Almost infinitely higher is the benefit wrought
when energy in its most useful phase is, for the
first time, subjected to the will of man, with
dawning knowledge of its unapproachable
126

Electricity

powers. It begins at once to marry the resources
of the mechanic and the chemist, the engineer
and the artist, with issue attested by all its own
fertility, while its rays reveal province after
province undreamed of, and indeed unexisting,
before its advent.

Every other primal gift of man rises- to a new
height at the bidding of the electrician. All the
deftness and skill that have followed from the
upright attitude, in its creation of the human
hand, have been brought to a new edge and a
broader range through electric art. Between the
uses of flame and electricity have sprung up
alliances which have created new wealth for the
miner and the metal-worker, the manufacturer
and the shipmaster, with new insights for the
man of research. Articulate speech borne on
electric waves makes itself heard half-way across.
America, and words reduced to the symbols of
symbols— expressed in the perforations of a strip
of paper — take flight through a telegraph wire
at twenty-fold the pace of speech. Because the
latest leap in knowledge and faculty has been
won by the electrician, he has widened the scien-
tific outlook vastly more than any explorer who
went before. Beyond any predecessor, he began
with a better equipment and a larger capital to
prove the gainfulncss which ever attends the
exploiting a supreme agent of discovery.

As we trace a few of the unending interlace-
ments of electrical science and art with other
sciences and arts, and sttidy their mutually
127

Masterpieces of Science

stimulating effects, we shall be reminded of a
series of permutations where the latest of the
factors, because latest, multiplies all prior factors
in an unexampled degree.* We shall find reason
to believe that this is not merely a suggestive
analogy, but really true as a tendency, not only
with regard to man's gains by the conquest of
electricity, but also .with respect to every other
signal victory which has brought him to his
present pinnacle of discernment and rule. If
this permutative principle in former advances
lay undetected, it stands forth clearly in that
latest accession to skill and interpretation which
has been ushered in by Franklin and Volta,
Faraday and Henry.

Although of much less moment than the
triumphs of the electrician, the discovery of
photography ranks second in importance among
the scientific feats of the nineteenth century.
The camera is an artificial eye with almost every
power of the human retina,* and with many that

* Permutations are the various ways in which two or
more different things may be arranged in a row, all the things
appearing in each row. Permutations are readily illus-
trated with squares or cubes of different colours, with num-
bers, or letters.

Permutations of two elements, i and 2, are (1x2) two;
i, 2; 2, i ; or a, b; b, a. Of three elements the permutations
are (i x 2 x 3) six; i, 2, 3; i, 3, 2; 2, i, 3; 2, 3, i ; 3, i, 2, 3, 2, i;
or a, b, c; a, c, b; b, a, c;, b, c, a; c, a, b; c, b, a. Of four ele-
ments the permutations are (1x2x3x4) twenty-f oxtr ;
of five elements, one hundred and twenty, and so on. A
new element or permutator multiplies by an increasing
figure all the permutations it finds.

128

Electricity

are denied to vision — however ingeniously for-
tified by the lens-maker. A brief outline of
photographic history will show a parallel to the
permutative impulse so conspicuous in the pro-
gress of electricity. At the points where the
electrician and the photographer collaborate
we shall note achievements such as only the
loftiest primal powers may evoke.

A brief story of what electricity and its
necessary precursor, fire, have done and promise
to do for civilization, may have attraction in itself;
so, also, may a review, though most cursory, of
the work of the camera and all that led up to it :
for the provinces here are as wide as art and
science, and their bounds comprehend well-nigh
the entirety of human exploits. And between
the lines of this story wre may read another — •
one which may tell us something of the earliest
stumblings in the dawn of human faculty.
When we compare man and his next of kin, we
find between the two a great gulf, surely the
widest betwixt any allied families in nature.
Can a being of intellect, conscience, and aspira-
tion have sprung at any time, however remote,
from the same stock as the orang and the chim-
panzee? Since 1859, when Darwin published
his ''Origin of Species," the theory of evolution
has become so generally accepted that to-day it
is little more assailed than the doctrine of gravi-
tation. And yet, while the average man of in-
telligence bows to the formula that all which
now exists has come from the simplest conceiv-
129

Masterpieces of Science

able state of things, — a universal nebula, if you
will, — in his secret soul he makes one exception —
himself. That there is a great deal more assent
than conviction in the world is a chiding which
may come as justly from the teacher's table as
from the preacher's pulpit. Now, if we but
catch the meaning of man's mastery of electricity,
we shall have light upon his earlier steps as a fire-
kindler, and as a graver of pictures and symbols
on bone and rock. As we thus recede from civili-
zation to primeval savagery, the process of the
making of man may become so clear that the
arguments of Darwin shall be received with con-
viction, and not with silent repulse.

As we proceed to recall, one by one, the salient
chapters in the history of fire, and of the arts of
depiction that foreran the camera, we shall per-
ceive a truth of high significance. We shall see
that, while every new faculty has its roots deep
in older powers, and while its growth may have
been going on for age after age, yet its flowering
may be as the event of a morning. Even as our
gardens show us the century-plants, once sup-
posed to bloom only at the end of a hundred
years, so history, in the large, exhibits discover-
ies whose harvests are gathered only after the
lapse of aeons instead of years. The arts of fire
were slowly elaborated until man had produced
the crucible and the still, through which his
labours culminated in metals purified, in acids
vastly more corrosive than those of vegetation,
in glass and porcelain equally resistant to flame
130

Electricity

and the electric wave. These were combined in
an hour by Volta to build his cell, and in that
hour began a new era for human faculty and in-
sight.

It is commonly imagined that the progress of
humanity has been at a tolerably uniform pace.
Our review of that progress will show that here
and there in its course have been leaps, as radi-
cally new forces have been brought under the
dominion of man. We of the electric revolu-
tion are sharply marked off from our great-
grandfathers, who looked upon the cell of Volta
as a curious toy. They, in their turn, were pro-
foundly differenced from the men of the seven-
teenth century, who had not learned that flame
could outvie the horse as a carrier, and grind
wheat better than the mill urged by the breeze.
And nothing short of an abyss stretches between
these men and their remote ancestors, who had
not found a way to warm their frosted fingers
or lengthen with lamp or candle the short,
dark days of winter.

Throughout the pages of this book there will be
some recital of the victories won by the fire-
maker, the electrician, the photographer, and
many more in the peerage of experiment and
research. Underlying the sketch will appear
the significant contrast betwixt accessions of
minor and of supreme dignity. The finding a
new wood, such as that of the yew, means better
bows for the archer, stronger handles for the
tool-maker; the subjugation of a universal force
131

Masterpieces of Science

such as fire, or electricity, stands for the exalta-
tion of power in every field of toil, for the creation
of a new earth for the worker, new heavens for
the thinker. As a corollary, we shall observe
that an increasing width of gap marks off the
successive stages of human progress from each
other, so that its latest stride is much the longest
and most decisive. And it will be further evi-
dent that, while every new faculty is of age-long
derivation from older powers and ancient apti-
tudes, it nevertheless comes to the birth in a
moment, as it were, and puts a strain of probably
fatal severity on those contestants who miss
the new gift by however little. We shall, there-
fore, find that the principle of permutation, here
merely indicated, accounts in large measure for
three cardinal facts in the history of man : First,
his leaps forward; second, the constant accelera-
tions in these leaps; and third, the gap in the
record of the tribes which, in the illimitable past,
have succumbed as forces of a new edge and
sweep have become engaged in the fray.*

The interlacements of the arts of fire and of
electricity are intimate and pervasive. While
many of the uses of flame date back to the dawn
of human skill, many more have become of new
and higher value within the last hundred years.
Fire to-day yields motive power with tenfold

* Some years ago I sent an outline of this argument to
Herbert Spencer, who replied: "I recognize a novelty and
value in your inference that the law implies an increasing
width of gap between lower and higher types as evolution
advances."

132

Electricity

the economy of a hundred years ago, and motive
power thus derived is the main source of modern
electric currents. In metallurgy there has long
been an unwitting preparation for the advent of
the electrician, and here the services of fire within
the nineteenth century have won triumphs upon
which the later successes of electricity largely
proceed. In producing alloys, and in the singu-
lar use of heat to effect its own banishment,
novel and radical developments have been re-
corded within the past decade or two. These,
also, make easier and bolder the electrician's
tasks. The opening chapters of this book will,
therefore, bestow a glance at the principal uses
of fire as these have been revealed and applied.
This glance will make clear how fire and electrici-
ty supplement each other with new and re-
markable gains, while in other fields, not less
important, electricity is nothing else than a
supplanter of the very force which made possible
its own discovery and impressment.

[Here follow chapters which outline the chief
applications of flame and of electricity.]

Let us compare electricity with its precursor,
fire, and we shall understand the revolution by
which fire is now in so many tasks supplanted by
the electric pulse which, the while, creates for it-
self a thousand fields denied to flame. Copper is
an excellent thermal conductor, and yet it trans-
mits heat almost infinitely more slowly than it
conveys electricity. One end of a thick copper
rod ten feet long may be safely held in the hand
133

Masterpieces of Science

while the other end is heated to redness, yet one
millionth part of this same energy, if in the form
of electricity, would traverse the rod in one
ioo,ooo,oooth part of a second. Compare next
electricity with light, often the companion of
heat. Light travels in straight lines only; elec-
tricity can go round a corner every inch for
miles, and, none the worse, yield a brilliant
beam at the end of its journey. Indirectly,
therefore, electricity enables us to conduct either
heat or light as if both were flexible pencils of
rays, and subject to but the smallest tolls in
their travel.

We have remarked upon such methods as
those of the electric welder which summon in-
tense heat without fire, and we have glanced at
the electric lamps which shine just because com-
bustion is impossible through their rigid ex-
clusion of air. Then for a moment we paused to
look at the plating baths which have developed
themselves into a commanding rivalry with the
blaze of the smelting furnace, with the flame which
from time immemorial has filled the ladle of the
founder and moulder. Thus methods that com-
menced in dismissing flame end boldly by dis-
possessing heat itself. But, it may be said, this
usurping electricity usually finds its source, after
all, in combustion under a steam-boiler. True,
but mark the harnessing of Niagara, of the
Lachine Rapids near Montreal, of a thousand
streams elsewhere. In the near future motive
power of Nature's giving is to be wasted less and
134

Electricity

less, and perforce will more and more exclude heat
from the chain of transformations which issue
in the locomotive's flight, in the whirl of factory
and mill. Thus in some degree is allayed the
fear, never well grounded, that when the coal
fields of the globe are spent civilization must
collapse. As the electrician hears this forebod-
ing he recalls how much fuel is wasted in con-
verting heat into electricity. He looks beyond
either turbine or shaft turned by wind or tide,
and, remembering that the metal dissolved in
his battery yields at his will its full content of
energy, either as heat or electricity, he asks,
Why may not coal or forest tree, which are but
other kinds of fuel, be made to do the same ?

One of the earliest uses of light was a means of
communicating intelligence, and to this day the
signal lamp and the red fire of the mariner are as
useful as of old. But how much wider is the field
of electricity as it creates the telegraph and the
telephone ! In the telegraph we have all that
a pencil of light could be were it as long as an
equatorial girdle and as flexible as a silken thread.
In the telephone for nearly two thousand miles
the pulsations of the speaker's voice are not only
audible, but retain their characteristic tones.

In the field of mechanics electricity is decidedly
preferable to any other agent. Heat may be
transformed into motive power by a suitable
engine, but there its adaptability is at an end.
An electric current drives not only a motor, but
every machine and tool attached to the motor,
135

Masterpieces of Science

the whole executing tasks of a delicacy and com-
plication new to industrial art. On an electric
railroad an identical current propels the train,
directs it by telegraph, operates its signals, pro-
vides it with light and heat, while it stands ready
to give constant verbal communication with
any station on the line, if this be desired.

In the home electricity has equal versatility,
at once promoting healthfulness, refinement
and safety. Its tiny button expels the hazard-
ous match as it lights a lamp which sends forth
no baleful fumes. An electric fan brings fresh
air into the house — in summer as a grateful
breeze. Simple telephones, quite effective for
their few yards of wire, give a better because a
more flexible service than speaking-tubes. Few
invalids are too feeble to whisper at the light,
portable ear of metal. Sewing-machines and
the more exigent apparatus of the kitchen ind
laundry transfer their demands from flagging
human muscles to the tireless sinews of electric
motors — which ask no wages when they stand
unemployed. Similar motors already enjoy
favour in working the elevators of tall dwellings
in cities. If a householder is timid about burg-
lars, the electrician offers him a sleepless watch-
man in the guise of an automatic alarm; if he
has a dread of fire, let him dispose on his walls an
array of thermometers that at the very inception
of a blaze will strike a gong at headquarters.
But these, after all, are matters of minor im-
portance in comparison with the foundations
136

Electricity

upon which may be reared, not a new piece of
mechanism, but a new science or a new art.

In the recent swift subjugation of the territory
open alike to the chemist and the electrician,
where each advances the quicker for the other's
company, we have fresh confirmation of an old
truth — that the boundary lines which mark off
one field of science from another are purely artifi-
cial, are set up only for temporary convenience.
The chemist has only to dig deep enough to find
that the physicist and himself occupy common
ground. "Delve from the surface of your sphere
to its heart, and at once your radius joins every
other. " Even the briefest glance at electro-
chemistry should pause to acknowledge its pro-
found debt to the new theories as to the bonding
of atoms to form molecules, and of the continuity
between solution and electrical dissociation.
However much these hypotheses may be modi-
fied as more light is shed on the geometry and
the journeyings of the molecule, they have for the
time being recommended themselves as finder-
thoughts of golden value. These speculations of
the chemist carry him back perforce to the days
of his childhood. As he then joined together
his black and white bricks I } 6 found that he could
build cubes of widely different patterns. It was
in propounding a theory of molecular architec-
ture that Kekul6 gave an impetus to a vast and
growing branch of chemical industry — that of
the synthetic production of dy( s and allied com-
pounds.

137

Masterpieces of Science

It was in pure research, in paths undirected to
the market-place, that such theories have been
thought out. Let us consider electricity as an
aid to investigation conducted for its own sake.
The chief physical generalization of our time,
and of all time, the persistence of force, emerged
to view only with the dawn of electric art.
When it was observed that electricity might be-
come heat, light, chemical action, or mechanical
motion, that in turn any of these might produce
electricity, it was at once indicated that all these
phases of energy might differ from each other
only as the movements in circles, volutes, and
spirals of ordinary mechanism. The suggestion
was confirmed when electrical measurers were
refined to the utmost precision, and a single
quantum of energy was revealed a very Proteus
in its disguises, yet beneath these disguises noth-
ing but constancy itself.

"There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth;
and there is that withholdeth more than is meet,
but it tendeth to poverty. " Because the geom-
eters of old patiently explored the properties of
the triangle, the circle, and the ellipse, simply
for pure love of truth, they laid the corner-stones
for the arts of the architect, the engineer, and the
navigator. In like manner it was the disinter-
ested work of investigation conducted by Am-
pere, Faraday, Henry and their compeers, in as-
certaining the laws of electricity which made
possible the telegraph, the telephone, the dyna-
mo, and the electric furnace. The vital relations
138

Electricity

between pure research and economic gain have
at last worked themselves clear. It is perfectly
plain that a man who has it in him to discover
laws of matter and energy does incomparably
more for his kind than if he carried his talents
to the mint for conversion into coin. The voy-
age of a Columbus may not immediately bear as
much fruit as the uncoverings of a mine prospec-
tor, but in the long run a Columbus makes possi-
ble the finding many mines which without him
no prospector would ever see. Therefore let the
seed-corn of knowledge be planted rather than
eaten. But in choosing between one research
and another it is impossible to foretell which may
prove the richer in its harvests; for instance, all
attempts thus far economically to oxidize carbon
for the production of electricity have failed, yet
in observations that at first seemed equally
barren have lain the hints to which we owe the
incandescent lamp and the wireless telegraph.

Perhaps the most promising field of electrical
research is that of discharges at high pressures;
here the leading American investigators are
Professor John Trowbridge and Professor Elihu
Thomson. Employing a tension estimated at one
and a half millions volts, Professor Trowbridge
has produced flashes of lightning six feet in
length in atmospheric air; in a tube exhausted
to one-seventh of atmospheric pressure the
flashes extended themselves to forty feet. Ac-
cording to this inquirer, the familiar rending of
trees by lightning is due to the intense heat
139

Masterpieces of Science

developed in an instant by the electric spark;
the sudden expansion of air or steam in the
cavities of the wood causes an explosion. The
experiments of Professor Thomson confront him
with some of the seeming contradictions which
ever await the explorer of new scientific territory.
In the atmosphere an electrical discharge is
facilitated when a metallic terminal (as a light-
ning rod) is shaped as a point ; under oil a point
is the form least favourable to discharge. In the
same line of paradox it is observed that oil
steadily improves in its insulating effect the
higher the electrical pressure committed to its
keeping; with air as an insulator the contrary is
the fact. These and a goodly array of similar
puzzles will, without doubt, be cleared up as
students in the twentieth century pass from
the twilight of anomaly to the sunshine of as-
certained law.

"Before there can be applied science there
must be science to apply, " and it is by enabling
the investigator to know nature under a fresh
aspect that electricity rises to its highest office.
The laboratory routine of ascertaining the con-
ductivity, polarisability, and other electrical
properties of matter is dull and exacting work,
but it opens to the student new windows through
which to peer at the architecture of matter.
That architecture, as it rises to his view, dis-
closes one law of structure after another; what
in a first and clouded glance seemed anomaly
is now resolved and reconciled; order displays
140

Electricity

itself where once anarchy alone . appeared.
When the investigator now needs a substance
of peculiar properties he knows where to find it,
or has a hint for its creation — a creation perhaps
new in the history of the world. As he thinks of
the wealth of qualities possessed by his store
of alloys, salts, acids, alkalies, new uses for them
are borne into his mind. Yet more — a new
orchestration of inquiry is possible by means of
the instruments created for him by the electrician,
through the advances in method which these
instruments effect. With a second and more
intimate point of view arrives a new trigonome-
try of the particle, a trigonometry inconceivable
in pre-electric days. Hence a surround is in
progress which early in the twentieth century
may go full circle, making atom and molecule as
obedient to the chemist as brick and stone are
to the builder now.

The laboratory investigator and the commer-
cial exploiter of his discoveries have been by
turns borrower and lender, to the great profit of
both. What Ley den jar could ever be con-
structed of the size and revealing power of an
Atlantic cable ? And how many refinements
of measurement, of purification of metals, of
precision in manufacture, have been imposed
by the colossal investments in deep-sea telegraphy
alone ! When a current admitted to an ocean
cable, such as that between Biest and New York,
can choose for its path either 3,540 miles of copper
wire or a quarter of an inch of gutta-percha,
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Masterpieces of Science

there is a dangerous opportunity for escape into
the sea, unless the current is of nicely adjusted
strength, and the insulator has been made and
laid with, the best-informed skill, the most con-
scientious care. In the constant tests required
in laying the first cables Lord Kelvin (then
Professor William Thomson) felt the need for
better designed and more sensitive galvano-
meters or current measurers. His great skill
both as a mathematician and a mechanician
created the existing instruments, which seem
beyond improvement. They serve not only in
commerce and manufacture, but in promoting
the strictly scientific work of the laboratory.
Now that electricity purifies copper as fire can-
not, the mathematician is able to treat his prob-
lems of long-distance transmission, of traction,
of machine design, with an economy and cer-
tainty impossible when his materials were not
simply impure, but impure in varying and in-
definite degrees. The factory and the work-
shop originally took their magneto-machines
from the experimental laboratory; they have re-
turned them remodelled beyond recognition as
dynamos and motors of almost ideal effective-
ness.

A galvanometer actuated by a thermo-electric
pile furnishes much the most sensitive means
of detecting changes of temperature; hence elec-
tricity enables the physicist to study the phe-
nomena of heat with new ease and precision. It
was thus that Professor Tyndall conducted the
142

Electricity

classical researches set forth in his "Heat as a
Mode of Motion," ascertaining the singular
power to absorb terrestrial heat which makes the
aqueous vapours of the atmosphere act as an
indispensable blanket to the earth.

And how vastly has electricity, whether in the
workshop or laboratory, enlarged our conceptions
of the forces that thrill space, of the substances,
seemingly so simple, that surround us — sub-
stances that propound questions of structure
and behaviour that silence the acutest investiga-
tor. "You ask me," said a great physicist, "if
I have a theory of the universe ? Why, I haven't
even a theory of magnetism! "

The conventional phrase "conducting a cur-
rent" is now understood to be mere figure of
speech; it is thought that a wire does little else
than give direction to electric energy. Pulsa-
tions of high tension have been proved to be
mainly superficial in their journeys, so that they
are best conveyed (or convoyed) by conductors
of tubular form. And what is it that moves when
we speak of conduction ? It seems to be now
the molecule of atomic chemistry, and anon the
same ether that undulates with light or radiant
heat. Indeed, the conquest of electricity means
so much because it impresses the molecule and
the ether into service as its vehicles of communi-
cation. Instead of the old-time masses of metal,
or bands of leather, which moved stiffly through
ranges comparatively short, there is to-day em-
ployed a medium which may traverse 186,400
143

Masterpieces of Science

miles in a second, and with resistances most
trivial in contrast with those of mechanical
friction.

And what is friction in the last analysis but
the production of motion in undesired forms, the
allowing valuable energy to do useless work ?
In that amazing case of long distance transmis-
sion, common sunshine, a solar beam arrives at
the earth from the sun not one whit the weaker
for its excursion of 92,000,000 miles. It is
highly probable that we are surrounded by
similar cases of the total absence of friction in
the phenomena of both physics and chemistry,
and that art will come nearer and nearer to
nature in this immunity is assured when we see
how many steps in that direction have already
been taken by the electrical engineer. In a
preceding page a brief account was given of the
theory that gases and vapours are in ceaseless
motion. This motion suffers no abatement from
friction, and hence we may infer that the mole-
cules concerned are perfectly elastic. The
opinion is gaining ground among physicists that
all the properties of matter, transparency,
chemical combinability, and the rest, are due to
immanent motion in particular orbits, with
diverse velocities. If this be established, then
these motions also suffer no friction, and go on
without resistance forever.

As the investigators in the vanguard of science
discuss the constitution of matter, and weave
hypotheses more or less fruitful as to the inter-
144

Electricity

play of its forces, there is a growing faith that
the day is at hand when the tie between electri-
city and gravitation will be unveiled — when the
reason why matter has weight will cease to puz-
zle the thinker. Who can tell what relief of
man's estate may be bound up with the ability
to transform any phase of energy into any other
without the circuitous methods and serious losses
of to-day ! In the sphere of economic progress
one of the supreme advances was due to the in-
vention of money, the providing a medium for
which any salable thing may be exchanged,
with which any purchasable thing may be
bought. As soon as a shell, or a hide, or a bit of
metal was recognized as having universal con-
vertibility, all the delays and discounts of barter
were at an end. In the world of physics and
chemistry the corresponding medium is elec-
tricity; let it be produced as readily as it pro-
duces other modes of motion, and human art
will take a stride forward such as when Volta
disposed his zinc and silver discs together, or
when Faraday set a magnet moving around a
copper wire.

For all that the electric current is' not as yet
produced as economically as it should be, we do
wrong if we regard it as an infant force. How-
ever much new knowledge may do with elec-
tricity in the laboratory, in the factory, or in the
exchange, some of its best work is already done.
It is not likely ever to perform a greater feat
than placing all mankind within ear-shot of each
145

Masterpieces of Science

other. Were electricity unmastered there could
be no democratic government of the United
States. To-day the drama of national affairs
is more directly in view of every American citizen
than, a century ago, the public business of Dela-
ware could be to the men of that little State.
And when on the broader stage of international
politics misunderstandings arise, let us note how
the telegraph has modified the hard-and-fast
rules of old-time diplomacy. To-day, through
the columns of the press, the facts in controversy
are instantly published throughout the world,
and thus so speedily give rise to authoritative
comment that a severe strain is put upon nego-
tiators whose tradition it is to be both secret and
slow.

Railroads, with all they mean for civilization,
could not have extended themselves without the
telegraph to control them. And railroads and
telegraphs are the sinews and nerves of national
life, the prime agencies in welding the diverse
and widely separated States and Territories of
the Union. A Boston merchant builds a cotton-
mill in Georgia; a New York capitalist opens a
copper-mine in Arizona. The telegraph which
informs them day by day how their investments
prosper tells idle men where they can find work,
where work can seek idle men. Chicago is laid
in ashes, Charleston topples in earthquake,
Johnstown is whelmed in flood, and instantly
a continent springs to their relief. And what
benefits issue in the strictly commercial uses of
146

Electricity

the telegraph ! At its click both locomotive and
steamship speed to the relief of famine in any
quarter of the globe. In times of plenty or of
dearth the markets of the globe are merged
and are brought to every man's door. Not less
striking is the neighbourhood guild of science,
born, too, of the telegraph. The day after Ront-
gen announced his X rays, physicists on every
continent were repeating his experiments — were
applying his discovery to the healing of the
wounded and diseased. Let an anti-toxin for
diphtheria, consumption, or yellow fever be pro-
posed, and a hundred investigators the world
over bend their skill to confirm or disprove, as if
the suggestor dwelt next door.

On a stage less dramatic, or rather not drama-
tic at all, electricity works equal good. Its motor
freeing us from dependence on the horse is
spreading our towns and cities into their adjoining
country. Field and garden compete with airless
streets The sunny cottage is in active rivalry
with the odious tenement-house. It is found
that transportation within the gates of a metro-
polis has an importance second only to the means
of transit which links one city with another.
The engineer is at last filling the gap which too
long existed between the traction of horses and
that of steam. In point of speed, cleanliness,
and comfort such an electric subway as that of
South London leaves nothing to be desired.
Throughout America electric roads, at first sub-
urban, are now fast joining town to town and
147

Masterpieces of Science

city to city, while, as auxiliaries to steam rail-
roads, they place sparsely settled communities
in the arterial current of the world, and build up
a ready market for the dairyman and the fruit-
grower. In its saving of what Mr. Oscar T.
Crosby has called "man-hours" the third-rail
system is beginning to oust steam as a motive
power from trunk-lines. Already shrewd rail-
road managers are granting partnerships to the
electricians who might otherwise encroach upon
their dividends. A service at first restricted to
passengers has now extended itself to the carriage
of letters and parcels, and begins to reach out for
common freight. We may soon see the farmer's
cry for good roads satisfied by good electric lines
that will take his crops to market much more
cheaply and quickly than horses and macadam
ever did. In cities, electromobile cabs and vans
steadily increase in numbers, furthering the quiet
and cleanliness introduced by the trolley car.

A word has been said about the blessings which
electricity promises to country folk, yet greater
are the boons it stands ready to bestow in the
hives of population. Until a few decades ago
the water-supply of cities was a matter not of
municipal but of individual enterprise; water
was drawn in large part from wells here and
there, from lines of piping laid in favoured locali-
ties, and always insufficient. Many an epidemic
of typhoid fever was due to the contamination of
a spring by a cesspool a few yards away. To-day
a supply such as that of New York is abundant
148

Electricity

and cheap because it enters every house. Let a
centralized electrical service enjoy a like privi-
lege, and it will offer a current which is heat,
light, chemical energy, or motive power, and all
at a wage lower than that of any other servant.
Unwittingly, then, the electrical engineer is a
political reformer of high degree, for he puts a
new premium upon ability and justice at the
City Hall. His sole condition is that electricity
shall be under control at once competent and
honest. Let us hope that his plea, joined to
others as weighty, may quicken the spirit of civic
righteousness so that some of the richest fruits
ever borne in the garden of science and art may
not be proffered in vain. Flame, the old-time
servant, is individual; electricity, its successor
and heir, is collective. Flame sits upon the
hearth and draws a family together; electricity,
welling from a public source, may bind into a
unit all the families of a vast city, because it
makes the benefit of each the interest of all.

But not every promise brought forward in
the name of the electrician has his assent or
sanction. So much has been done by electricity,
and so much more is plainly feasible, that a re-
flection of its triumphs has gilded many a baseless
dream. One of these is that the cheap electric
motor, by supply power at home, will break up
the factory system, and bring back the domestic
manufacturing of old days. But if this power
cost nothing at all the gift would leave the
factory unassailed; for we must remember that
149

Masterpieces of Science

power is being steadily reduced in cost from
year to year, so that in many industries it has
but a minor place among the expenses of pro-
duction. The strength and profit of the factory
system lie in its assembling a wide variety of
machines, the first delivering its product to the
second for another step toward completion, and
so on until a finished article is sent to the ware-
room. It is this minute subdivision of labour,
together with the saving and efficiency that
inure to a business conducted on an immense
scale under a single manager, that bids us be-
lieve that the factory has come to stay. To be
sure, a weaver, a potter, or a lens-grinder of
peculiar skill may thrive at his loom or wheel at
home; buo such a man is far from typical in
modern manufacture. Besides, it is very ques-
tionable whether the lamentations over the home
industries of the past do not ignore evil con-
comitants such as still linger in the home in-
dustries of the present — those of the sweater's
den, for example.

This rapid survey of what electricity has done
and may yet do — futile expectation dismissed —
has shown it the creator of a thousand material
resources, the perfector of that communication
of things, of power, of thought, which in every
prior stage of advancement has marked the suc-
cessive lifts of humanity. It was much when
the savage loaded a pack upon a horse or an ox
instead of upon his own back; it was yet more
when he could make a beacon-flare give news or
150

Electricity

warning to a whole country-side, instead of being
limited to the messages which might be read
in his waving hands. All that the modern en-
gineer v/as able to do with steam for locomotion
is raised to a higher plane by the advent of his
new power, while the long-distance transmission
of electrical energy is contracting the dimensions
of the planet to a scale upon which its cataracts
. in the wilderness drive the spindles and looms of
the factory town, or illuminate the thoroughfares
of cities. Beyond and above all such services as
these, electricity is the corner-stone of physical
generalization, a revealer of truths impenetrable
by any other ray.

The subjugation of fire has done much in giv-
ing man a new independence of nature, a mighty
armoury against evil. In curtailing the most
arduous and brutalizing forms of toil, electricity,
that subtler kind of fire, carries this emancipa-
tion a long step further, and, meanwhile, be-
stows upon the poor many a luxury which but
lately was the exclusive possession of the rich.
In more closely binding up the good of the bee
with the welfare of the hive, it is an educator and
confirmer of every social bond. In so far as it
proffers new help in the war on pain and disease
it strengthens the confidence of man in an Order
of Right and Happiness which for so many dreary
ages has been a matter rather of hope than of
vision. Are we not, then, justified in holding
electricity to be a multiplier of faculty and in-
sight, a means of dignifying mind and soul, un-
151

Masterpieces of Science

exampled since man first kindled fire and re-
joiced ?

We have traced how dexterity rose to fire-
making, how fire-making led to the subjugation
of electricity. Much of the most telling work
of fire can be better done by its great successor,
while electricity performs many tasks possible
only to itself. Unwitting truth there was in the
simple fable of the captive who let down a
spider's film, that drew up a thread, which in turn
brought up a rope — and freedom. It was in 1800
on the threshold of the nineteenth century, that '
Volta devised the first electric battery. In a
hundred years the force then liberated has vitally
interwoven itself with every art and science,
bearing fruit not to be imagined even by men of
the stature of Watt, Lavoisier, or Humboldt.
Compare this rapid march of conquest with the
slow adaptation, through age after age, of fire to
cooking, smelting, tempering. Yet it was partly,
perhaps mainly, because the use of fire had drawn
out man's intelligence and cultivated his skill
that he was ready in the fulness of time so quickly
to seize upon electricity and subdue it.

Electricity is as legitimately the offspring of
fire as fire of the simple knack in which one
savage in ten thousand was richer than his fel-
lows. The principle of permutation, suggested
in both victories, interprets not only how vast
empire is won by a new weapon of prime dignity ;
it explains why such empires are brought under
rule with ever- accelerated pace. Every talent
152

Electricity

only pioneers the way for the richer talents which
are born from it.

153

COUNT RUMFORD IDENTIFIES HEAT
WITH MOTION.

[Benjamin Thompson, who received the title of Count
Rumford from the Elector of Bavaria, was born in Woburn,
Massachusetts, in 1753. When thirty-one years of age
he settled in Munich, where he devoted his remarkable
abilities to the public service Twelve years afterward
he removed to England* in 1800 he founded the Royal
Institution of London, since famous as the theatre of the
labours of Davy, Faraday, Tyndall, and Dewar. He be-
queathed to Harvard University a fund to endow a pro-
fessorship of the application of science to the art of living:
he instituted a prize to be awarded by the American Aca-
demy of Sciences for the most important discoveries and
improvements relating to heat and light . In 1 804 he married
the widow of the illustrious chemist Lavoisier: he died in
1814. Count Rumford on January 25, 1798, read a paper
before the Royal Society entitled "An Enquiry Concerning
the Source of Heat Which Is Excited by Friction." The
experiments therein detailed proved that heat is identical
with motion, as against the notion that heat is matter. HD
thus laid the corner-stone of the modern theory that heat
light, electricity, magnetism, chemical action, and all other
forms of energy are in essence motion, are convertible into
one another, and as motion are indestructible. The follow-
ing abstract of Count Rumford's paper is taken from "Heat
as a Mode of Motion," by Professor John Tyndall, published
by D. Appleton & Co., New York. This work and "The
Correlation and Conservation of Forces," edited by Dr.
E. L. Youmans, published by the same house, will serve as
a capital introduction to the modern theory that energy
is motion which, however varied in its forms, is changeless
in its quantity [j

155

Masterpieces of Science

BEING engaged in superintending the boring
of cannon in the workshops of the military arsenal
at Munich, Count Rumford was struck with the
very considerable degree of heat which a brass
gun acquires, in a short time, in being bored,
and with the still more intense heat (much
greater than that of boiling water) of the metallic
chips separated from it by the borer, he pro-
posed to himself the following questions:

"Whence comes the heat actually produced
in the mechanical operations above mentioned?

"Is it furnished by the metallic chips which
are separated from the metal ? "

If this were the case, then the capacity for heat
of the parts of the metal so reduced to chips
ought not only to be changed, but the change
undergone by them should be sufficiently great
to account for all the heat produced. No such
change, however, had taken place, for the chips
were found to have the same capacity as slices
of the same metal cut by a fine saw, where heat-
ing was avoided. Hence, it is evident, that the
heat produced could not possibly have been
furnished at the expense of the latent heat of the
metallic chips. Rumford describes these experi-
ments at length, and* they are conclusive.

He then designed a cylinder for the express
purpose of generating heat by friction, by having
a blunt borer forced against its solid bottom,
while the cylinder was turned around its axis by
the force of horses. To measure the heat de-
veloped, a small round hole was bored in the
156

Count Rumford Identifies Heat

cylinder for the purpose of introducing a small
mercurial thermometer. The weight of the
cylinder was 113.13 pounds avoirdupois.

The borer was a flat piece of hardened steel,
o . 63 of an inch thick, four inches long, and nearly
as wide as the cavity of the bore of the cylinder,
namely, three and one-half inches. The area
of the surface by which its end was in contact
with the bottom of the bore was nearly two and
one-half inches. At the beginning of the experi-
ment the temperature of the air in the shade,
and also that of the cylinder, was 60° Fahr. At
the end of thirty minutes, and after the cylinder
had made 960 revolutions round its axis, the
temperature was found to be 130°.

Having taken away the borer, he now removed
the metallic dust, or rather scaly matter, which
had been detached from the bottom of the cylin-
der by the blunt steel borer, and found its weight
to be 837 grains troy. "Is it possible," he ex-
claims, "that the very considerable quantity of
heat produced in this expemnent — a quantity
which actually raised the temperature ,of above
113 pounds of gun-metal at least 70° of Fahren-
heit's thermometer — could have been furnished
by so inconsiderable a quantity of metallic dust
and this merely in consequence of a change in its
capacity of heat?"

" But without insisting on the improbability of
this supposition, we have only to recollect that
from the results of actual and decisive ex-
periments, made for the express purpose of as-
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Masterpieces of Science

certaining that fact, the capacity for heat for
the metal of which great guns are cast is not
sensibly changed by being reduced to the form of
metallic chips, and there does not seem to be any
reason to think that it can be much changed,
if it be changed at all, in being reduced to
much smaller pieces by a borer which is less
sharp."

He next surrounded his cylinder by an oblong
deal-box, in such a manner that the cylinder
could turn water-tight in the centre of the box,
while the borer was pressed against the bottom
of the cylinder. The box was filled with water
until the entire cylinder was covered, and then
the apparatus was set in action. The tempera-
ture of the water on commencing was 60°.

"The result of this beautiful experiment,"
writes Rumford, "was very striking, and the
pleasure it afforded me amply repaid me for all
the trouble I had had in contriving and arrang-
ing the complicated machinery used in making it.
The cylinder had b^en in motion but a short time,
when I perceived, by putting my hand into the
water, and touching the outside of the cylinder,
that heat was generated.

"At the end of one hour the fluid, which
weighed 18.77 pounds, or two and one-half
gallons, had its temperature raised forty-seven
degrees, being now 107°.

"In thirty minutes more, or one hour and
thirty minutes after the machinery had been set
in motion, the heat of the water was 142°.
158

Count Rumford Identifies Heat

" At the end of two hours from the beginning,
the temperature was 178°.

" At two hours and twenty minutes it was 200°,
and at two hours and thirty minutes it actually
boiled /"

"It would be difficult to describe the surprise
and astonishment expressed in the countenances
of the bystanders on seeing so large a quantity
of water heated, and actually made to boil,
without any fire. Though there was nothing
that could be considered very surprising in this
matter, yet I acknowledge fairly that it afforded
me a degree of childish pleasure which, were I
ambitious of the reputation of a grave philoso-
pher, I ought most certainly rather to hide than
to discover. "

He then carefully estimates the quantity of
heat possessed by each portion of his apparatus
at the conclusion of the experiment, and, adding
all together, finds a total sufficient to raise 26.58
pounds of ice-cold water to its boiling point, or
through 1 80° Fahrenheit. By careful calcula-
tion, he finds this heat equal to that given out by
the combustion of 2,303.8 grains (equal to four
and eight-tenths ounces troy) of wax.

He then determines the "celerity" with which
the heat was generated; summing up thus:
"From the results of these computations, it ap-
pears that the quantity of heat produced equably,
or in a continuous stream, if I may use the ex-
pression, by the friction of the blunt steel borer
against the bottom of the hollow metallic cylin-
159

Masterpieces of Science

der, was greater than that produced in the com-
bustion of nine wax-candles, each three-quarters
of an inch in diameter, all burning together with
clear bright flames.

"One horse would have been equal to the
work performed, though two were actually em-
ployed. Heat may thus be produced merely
by the strength of a horse, and, in a case of ne-
cessity, this heat might be used in cooking
victuals. But no circumstances could be im-
agined in which this method of procuring heat
would be advantageous, for more heat might
be obtained by using the fodder necessary
for the support of a horse as fuel. "

[This is an extremely significant passage, in-
timating as it does, that Rumford saw clearly
that the force of animals was derived from the
food; no creation of force taking place in the
animal body.]

"By meditating on the results of all these ex-
periments, we are naturally brought to that great
question which has so often been the subject of
speculation among philosophers, namely, What
is heat — is there any such thing as an igneous
fluid ? Is there anything that, with propriety,
can be called caloric ?

"We have seen that a very considerable quan-
tity of heat may be excited by the friction of
two metallic surfaces, and given off in a constant
stream or flux in all directions, without inter-
ruption or intermission, and without any signs of
diminution or exhaustion. In reasoning on this
160

Count Rumford Identifies Heat

subject we must not forget that most remarkable
circumstance, that the source of the heat gener-
ated by friction in these experiments appeared
evidently to be inexhaustible. [The italics are
Rumford's.] It is hardly necessary to add, that
anything which any insulated body or system of
bodies can continue to furnish without limitation
cannot possibly be a material, substance; and it
appears to me to be extremely difficult, if not
quite impossible, to form any distinct idea of any-
thing capable of being excited and communicated
in those experiments, except it be MOTION."

When the history of the dynamical theory
of heat is written, the man who, in opposition to
the scientific belief of his time, could experiment
and reason upon experiment, as Rumford did
in the investigation here referred to, cannot be
lightly passed over. Hardly anything mora
powerful against the materiality of heat has been
since adduced, hardly anything more conclusive
in the way of establishing that heat is, what
Rumford considered it to be, Motion.

161

VICTORY OF THE "ROCKET" LOCOMO-
TIVE.

[Part of Chapter XII. Part II. of "The Life of George
Stephenson and of His Son, Robert Stephenson," by
Samuel Smiles New York, Harper & Brothers. i868.fl

THE works of the Liverpool and Manchester
Railway were now approaching completion.
But, strange to say, the directors had not yet
decided as to the tractive power to be employed
in working the line when open for traffic. The
differences of opinion among them were so great
as apparently to be irreconcilable. It was
necessary, however, that they should come to
some decision without further loss of time, and
many board meetings were accordingly held to
discuss the subject. The old-fashioned and
well-tried system of horse-haulage was not with-
out its advocates; but, looking at the large
amount of traffic which there was to be con-
veyed, and at the probable delay in the transit
from station to station if this method were
adopted, the directors, after a visit made by them
to the Northumberland and Durham railways
in 1828, came to the conclusion that the employ-
ment of horse-power was inadmissible.

Fixed engines had many advocates; the loco-
motive very few: it stood as yet almost in a
minority of one — George Stephenson.
163

Masterpieces of Science

In the meantime the discussion proceeded as
to the kind of power to be permanently employed
for the working of the railway. The directors
were inundated with schemes of all sorts for
facilitating locomotion. The projectors of Eng-
land, France, and America seemed to be let loose
upon them. There were plans for working the
waggons along the line by water-power. Some
proposed hydrogen, and others carbonic acid gas.
Atmospheric pressure had its eager advocates.
And various kinds of fixed and locomotive steam-
power were suggested. Thomas Gray urged
his plan of a greased road with cog-rails; and
Messrs. Vignolles and Ericsson recommended the
adoption of a central friction-rail, against which
two horizontal rollers under the locomotive,
pressing upon the sides of this rail, were to afford
the means of ascending the inclined planes. . .

The two best practical engineers of the day
concurred in reporting substantially in favour
of the employment of fixed engines. Not a
single professional man of eminence could be
found to coincide with the engineer of the railway
in his preference for locomotive over fixed engine
power. He had scarcely a supporter, and the
locomotive system seemed on the eve of being
abandoned. Still he did not despair. With the
profession against him, and public opinion against
him — for the most frightful stories went abroad
respecting the dangers, the unsightliness, and
the nuisance which the locomotive would create
— 'Stephenson held to his purpose. Even in
164

Victory of the " Rocket " Locomotive

this, apparently the darkest hour of the locomo-
tive, he did not hesitate to declare that locomo-
tive railroads would, before many years had
passed, be "the great highways of the world. "

He urged his views upon the directors in all
ways, in season, and, as some of them thought,
out of season. He pointed out the greater con-
venience of locomotive power for the purposes of
a public highway, likening it to a series of short
unconnected chains, any one of which could be
removed and another substituted without inter-
ruption to the traffic; whereas the fixed-engine
system might be regarded in the light of a con-
tinuous chain extending between the- two termini,
the failure of any link of which would derange
the whole. But the fixed engine party was very
strong at the board, and, led by Mr. Cropper,
they urged the propriety of forthwith adopting
the report of Messrs. Walker and Rastrick. Mr.
Sandars and Mr. William Rathbone, on the other
hand, desired that a fair trial should be given to
the locomotive; and they with reason objected
to the expenditure of the large capital necessary
to construct the proposed engine-houses, with
their fixed engines, ropes, and machinery, until
they had tested the powers of the Ipcomotive
as recommended by their own engineer. George
Stephenson continued to urge upon them that
the locomotive was yet capable of great im-
provements, if proper inducements were held out
to inventors and machinists to make them;
and he pledged himself that, if time were given
165

Masterpieces of Science

him, he would construct an engine that should
satisfy their requirements, and prove itself capa-
ble of working heavy loads along the railway
with speed, regularity, and safety. At length,
influenced by his persistent earnestness not less
than by his arguments, the directors, at the sup-
gestion of Mr. Harrison, determined to offer a
prize of £500 for the best locomotive engine,
which, on a certain day, should be produced on
the railway, and perform certain specified con-
ditions in the most satisfactory manner.*

The requirements of the directors as to speed
were not excessive. All that they asked for was
that ten miles an hour should be maintained.
Perhaps they had in mind the animadversions of
the Quarterly Review on the absurdity of travel-

* The conditions were these:

1. The engine must effectually consume its own smoke.

2. The engine, if of six tons' weight, must be able to draw
after it, day by day, twenty tons' weight (including the
tender and water- tank) at ten miles an hour, with a pressure
of steam on the boiler not exceeding fifty pounds to the
square inch.

3. The boiler must have two safety-valves, neither of
which must be fastened dowr, and one of them be com-
pletely out of the control of the engine-man.

4. The engine and boiler must be supported on springs,
and rest on six wheels, the height of the whole not exceeding
fifteen feet to the top of the chimney.

5. The engine, with water, must not weigh more than
six tons; but an engine of less weight would be preferred
on its drawing a proportionate load behind it; if of only
four and a half tons, then it might be put on only four wheels.

The company will be at liberty to test the boiler, etc., by a
pressure of one hundred and fifty pounds to the square inch.

166

Victory of the " Rocket " Locomotive

ling at a greater velocity, and also the remarks
published by Mr. Nicholas Wood, whom they
selected to be one of the judges of the competi-
tion, in conjunction with Mr. Rastrick, of Stour-
bridge, and Mr. Kennedy, of Manchester.

It was now felt that the fate of railways in a
great measure depended upon the issue of this
appeal to the mechanical genius of England.
When the advertisement of the prize for the best
locomotive was published, scientific men began
more particularly to direct their attention to the
new power which was thus struggling into ex-
istence. In the meantime public opinion on
the subject of railway working remained sus-
pended, and the progress of the undertaking
was watched with intense interest.

During the progress of this important contro-
versyjwith reference to the kind of power to be em-

6. A mercurial gauge must be affixed to the machine,
showing the steam pressure above forty-five pounds per
square inch.

7. The engine must be delivered, complete and ready for
trial, at the Liverpool end of the railway, not later than the
ist of October, 1829.

8. The price of the engine must not exceed ^550.

Many persons of influence declared the conditions pub-
lished by the directors of the railway chimerical in the ex-
treme One gentleman of some eminence in Liverpool,
Mr. P. Ewart, who afterward filled the office of Government
Inspector of Post-office Steam Packets, declared that only
a parcel of charlatans would ever have issued such a set of
conditions; that it had been proved to be impossible to make
a locomotive engine go at ten miles an hour; but if it ever
was done, he would undertake to eat a stewed engine-wheel
for his breakfast?

167

Masterpieces of Science

ployed in working the railway, George Stephen-
son was in constant communication with his son
Robert, who made frequent visits to Liverpool
for the purpose of assisting his father in the
preparation of his reports to the board on the
subject. Mr. Swanwick remembers the vivid in-
terest of the evening discussions which then took
place between father and son as to the best mode
of increasing the powers and perfecting the
mechanism of the locomotive. He wondered
at their quick perception and rapid judgment on
each other's suggestions; at the mechanical diffi-
culties which they anticipated and provided for
in the practical arrangement of the machine ; and
he speaks of these evenings as most interesting
displays of two actively ingenious and able minds
stimulating each other to feats of mechanical
invention, by which it was ordained that the
locomotive engine should become what it now is.
These discussions became more frequent, and
still more interesting, after the public prize had
been offered for the best locomotive by the
directors of the railway, and the working plans
of the engine which they proposed to construct
had to be settled.

One of the most important considerations in
the new engine was the arrangement of the boiler,
and the extension of its heating surface to enable
steam enough to be raised rapidly and continu-
ously for the purpose of maintaining high rates of
speed — the effect of high pressure engines being
ascertained to depend mainly upon the quantity
168

Victory of the " Rocket " Locomotive

of steam which the boiler can generate, and
upon its degree of elasticity when produced.
The quantity of steam so generated, it will be
obvious, must chiefly depend upon the quantity
of fuel consumed in the f nace, and, by neces-
sary consequence, upon the high rate of tempera-
ture maintained there.

It will be remembered that in Stephenson's
first Killingworth engines he invited and applied
the ingenious method of stimulating combustion
in the furnace by throwing the waste steam into
the chimney after performing its office in the
cylinders, thereby accelerating the ascent of the
current of air, greatly increasing the draught,
and consequently the temperature of the fire.
This plan was adopted by him, as we have seen,
as early as 1815, and it was so successful that he
himself attributed to it the greater economy of
the locomotive as compared vvith horse-power.
Hence the continuance of iti use upon the Kil-
lingworth Railway.

Though the adoption of the steam blast greatly
quickened combustion and contributed to the
rapid production of high-pressure steam, the
limited amount of heating surface presented to
the fire was still felt to be an obstacle to the com-
plete success of the locomotive engine. Mr.
Stephenson endeavoured to overcome this by
lengthening the boilers and increasing the sur-
face presented by the flue-tubes. The "Lanca-
shire Witch, " which he built for the Bolton and
Leigh Railway, and used in forming the Liver-
169

Masterpieces of Science

pool and Manchester Railway embankments, was
constructed with a double tube, each of which
contained a fire, and passed longitudinally
through the boiler. But this arrangement
necessarily led to a considerable increase in the
weight of those engines, which amounted to
about twelve tons each; and as six tons was
the limit allowed for engines admitted to the
Liverpool competition, it was clear that the
time was come when the Killingworth engine
must undergo a farther important modification.

For many years previous to this period, in-
genious mechanics had been engaged in attempt-
ing to solve the problem of the best and most
economical boiler for the production of high-
pressure steam.

The use of tubes in boilers for increasing the
heating surface had long been known. As early
as 1780, Matthew Boulton employed copper
tubes longitudinally in the boiler of the Wheal
Busy engine in Cornwall — the fire passing
through the tubes — and it was found that the
production of steam was thereby considerably
increased. The use of tubular boilers afterwards
became common in Cornwall. In 1803, Woolf,
the Cornish engineer, patented a boiler with
tubes, with the same object of increasing the
heating surface. The water was inside the tubes,
and the fire of the boiler outside. Similar ex-
pedients were proposed by other inventors. In
1815 Trevithick invented his light high-pressure
boiler for portable purposes, in which, to " expose
.70

Victory of the "Rocket" Locomotive

a large surface to the fire, " he constructed the
boiler of a number of small perpendicular tubes
"opening into a common reservoir at the top."
In 1823 W. H. James contrived a boiler com-
posed of a series of annular wrought-iron tubes,
placed side by side and bolted together, so as to
form by their union a long cylindrical boiler, in
the centre of which, at the end, the fireplace was
situated. The fire played round the tubes, which
contained the water. In 1826 James Neville
took out a patent for a boiler with vertical tubes
surrounded by the water, through which the
heated air of the furnace passed, explaining also
in his specification that the tubes might be hori-
zontal or inclined, according to circumstances.
Mr. Goldsworthy, the persevering adaptor of
steam-carriages to travelling on common roads,
applied the tubular principle in the boiler of his
engine, in which the steam was generated within
the tubes; while the boiler invented by Messrs.
Summer and Ogle for their turnpike-road steam-
carriage consisted of a series of tubes placed
vertically over the furnace, through which the
heated air passed before reaching the chimney.
About the same time George Stephenson was
trying the effect of introducing small tubes in the
boilers of his locomotives, with the object of in-
creasing their evaporative power. Thus, in 1829,
he sent to France two engines constructed at
the Newcastle works for the Lyons and St.
Etienne Railway, in the boilers of which tubes
were placed containing water. The heating sur-
171

Masterpieces of Science

face was thus considerably increased ; but the ex-
pedient was not successful, for the tubes, becom-
ing furred with deposit, shortly burned out and
were removed. It was then that M. Seguin, the
engineer of the railway, pursuing the same idea,
is said to have adopted his plan of employing
horizontal tubes through which the heated air
passed in streamlets, and for which he took out a
French patent.

In the meantime Mr. Henry Booth, secretary
to the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, whose
attention had been directed to the subject on the
prize being offered for the best locomotive to
work that line, proposed the same method, which,
unknown to him, Matthew Boulton had em-
ployed but not patented, in 1780, and James
Neville had patented, but not employed, in 1826;
and it was carried into effect by Robert Stephen-
' son in the construction of the "Rocket," which
won the prize at Rainhill in October, 1829.
The following is Mr. Booth's account in a letter
to the author:

"I was in almost daily communication with
Mr. Stephenson at the time, and I was not aware
that he had any intention of competing for the
prize till I communicated to him my scheme of a
multitubular boiler. This new plan of boiler
comprised the introduction of numerous small
tubes, two or three inches in diameter, and less
than one-eighth of an inch thick, through which
to carry the fire instead of a single tube or flue
eighteen inches in diameter, and about half an
172

Victory of the " Rocket " Locomotive

inch thick, by which plan we not only obtain a
very much larger heating surface, but the heat-
ing surface is much more effective, as there in-
tervenes between the fire and the water only a
thin sheet of copper or brass, not an eighth of an
inch thick, instead of a plate of iron of four times
the stibstance, as well as an inferior conductor
of heat.

"When the conditions of trial were published,
I communicated my multitubular plan to Mr.
Stephenson, and proposed to him that we should
jointly construct an engine and compete for the
prize. Mr. Stephenson approved the plan, and
agreed to my proposal. He settled the mode in
which the fire-box and tubes were to be mutually
arranged and connected, and the engine was con-
structed at the works of Messrs. Robert Stephen-
son £ Co., Newcastle-on-Tyne.

44 1 am ignorant of M. Seguin's proceedings in
France, but I claim to be the inventor in Eng-
land, and feel warranted in stating, without
reservation, that until I named my plan to Mr.
Stephenson, with a view to compete for the prize
at Rainhill, it had not been tried, and was not
known in this country. "

From the well-known high character of Mr.
Booth, we believe his statement to be made in
perfect good faith, and that he was as much in
ignorance of the plan patented by Neville as he
was of that of Seguin. As we have seen, from
the many plans of tubular boilers invented dur-
ing the preceding thirty years, the idea was not
173

Masterpieces of Science

by any means new; and we believe Mr. Booth to
be entitled to the merit of inventing the method
by which the multitubular principle was so
effectually applied in the construction of the
famous "Rocket" engine.

The principal circumstances connected with
the construction of the "Rocket," as described
by Robert Stephenson to the author, may be
briefly stated. The tubular principle was adopted
in a more complete manner than had yet been
attempted. Twenty-five copper tubes, each three
inches in diameter, extended from one end of
the boiler to the other, the heated air passing
through them on its way to the chimney; and
the tubes being surrounded by the water of the
boiler, it will be obvious that a large extension
of the heating surface was thus effectually se-
cured. The principal difficulty was in fitting
the copper tubes in the boiler ends so as to pre-
vent leakage. They were manufactured by a
Newcastle coppersmith, and soldered to brass
screws which were screwed into the boiler ends,
standing cut in great knobs. When the tubes
were thus fitted, and the boiler was filled with
water, hydraulic pressure was applied; but the
water squirted out at every joint, and the factory
floor was soon flooded. • Robert went home in
despair; and in the first moment of grief he wrote
to his father that the whole thing was a failure.
By return of post came a letter from his father,
telling him that despair was not to be thought of
— that he must "try again;" and he suggested
174

Victory of the "Rocket" Locomotive

a mode of overcoming the difficulty, which, his
son had already anticipated and proceeded to
adopt. It was, to bore clean holes in the boiler
ends, fit in the smooth copper tubes as tightly
as possible, solder up, and then raise the steam.
This plan succeeded perfectly, the expansion of
the copper tubes completely filling up all inter-
stices, and producing a perfectly water-tight
boiler, capable of withstanding extreme external
pressure.

The mode of employing the steam-blast for
the purpose of increasing the draught in the
chimney was also the subject of numerous ex-
periments. When the engine was first tried, it
was thought that the blast in the chimney was
not sufficiently strong for the purpose of keeping
up the intensity of fire in the furnace, so as to
produce high-pressure steam with the required
velocity. The expedient was therefore adopted
of hammering the copper tubes at the point at
which they entered the chimney, whereby the
blast was considerably sharpened; and on a far-
ther trial it was found that the draught was in-
creased to such an extent as to enable abundance
of steam to be raised. The rationale of the
blast may be simply explained by referring to the
effect of contracting the pipe of a water-hose,
by which the force of the jet of water is pro-
portionately increased. Widen the nozzle of
the pipe, and the jet is in like manner diminished.
So it is with the steam-blast in the chimney of
the locomotive.

175

Masterpieces of Science

Doubts were, however, expressed whether the
greater draught obtained by the contraction of
the blast-pipe was not counterbalanced in some
degree by the negative pressure upon the piston.
Hence a series of experiments was made with
pipes of different diameters, and their efficiency
was tested by the amount of vacuum that was
produced in the smoke-box. The degree of
rarefaction was determined by a glass tube fixed
to the bottom of the smoke-box and descending
into a bucket of water, the tube being open at
both ends. As the rarefaction took place, the
water would, of course, rise in the tube, and the
height to which it rose above the surface of the
water in the bucket was made the measure of the
amount of rarefaction. These experiments
proved that a considerable increase of draught
was obtained by the contraction of the orifice;
accordingly, the two blast-pipes opening from
the cylinders into either side of the "Rocket"
chimney, and turned up within it, were con-
tracted slightly below the area of the steam-
ports, and before the engine left the factory, the
water rose in the glass tube three inches above
the water in the bucket.

The other arrangements of the " Rocket " were
briefly these: the boiler was cylindrical, with flat
ends, six feet in length, and three feet four inches
in diameter. The upper half of the boiler was
used as a reservoir for the steam, the lower half
being filled with water. Through the lower part
the copper tubes extended, being open to the

Victory of the " Rocket " Locomotive

fire-box at one end, and to the chimney at the
other. The fire-box, or furnace, two feet wide
and three feet high, was attached immediately
behind the boiler, and was also surrounded with
water. The cylinders of the engine were placed
on each side of the boiler, in an oblique position,
one end being nearly level with the top of the
boiler at its after end, and the other pointing
toward the centre of the foremost or driving pair
of wheels, with which the connection was directly
made from the piston-rod to a pin on the outside
of the wheel. The engine, together with its load
of water, weighed only four tons and a quarter;
and it was supported on four wheels, not coupled.
The tender was four-wheeled, and similar in
shape to a waggon — the foremost part holding the
fuel, and the hind part a water cask.

When the " Rocket " was finished it was placed
upon the Killingworth Railway for the purpose
of experiment. The new boiler arrangement was
found perfectly successful. The steam was
raised rapidly and continuously, and in a quan-
tity which then appeared marvellous. The same
evening Robert despatched a letter to his father
at Liverpool, informing him, to his great joy,
that the "Rocket" was "all right," and would
be in complete working trim by the day of
trial. The engine was shortly after sent by
waggon to Carlisle, and thence shipped for
Liverpool.

The time so much longed for by George Steph-
enson had now arrived, when the merits of the
177

Masterpieces of Science

passenger locomotive were ."bout to be put to the
test. He had fought the battle for it until now
almost single-handed. Engrossed by his daily
labours and anxieties, and harassed by difficulties
and discouragements which would have crushed
the spirit of a less resolute man, he had held
firmly to his purpose through good and through
evil report. The hostility which he experienced
from some of the directors opposed to the adop-
tion of the locomotive was the circumstance that
caused him the greatest grief of all ; for where he
had looked for encouragement, he found only
carping and opposition. But his pluck never
failed him; and now the "Rocket" was
upon the ground to prove, to use his own
words, * 'whether he was a man of his word or
not. "

On the day appointed for the great competition
of locomotives at Rainhill the following engines
were entered for the prize:

1. Messrs. Braithwaite and Ericsson's "Nov-
elty."

2. Mr. Timothy Hackworth's " Sanspareil. "

3. Messrs. R. Stephenson & Co.'s "Rocket."

4. Mr. Burstall's "Perseverance."

The ground on which the engines were to be
tried was a level piece of railroad, about two miles
in length. Each was required to make twenty
trips, or equal to a journey of seventy miles, in
the course of the day, and the average rate of
travelling was to be not under ten miles an hour.
It was determined that, to avoid confusion, each

Victory of the " Rocket " Locomotive

engine should be tried separately, and on differ-
ent days.

The day fixed for the competition was the ist
of October, but, to allow sufficient time to get
the locomotives into good working order, the
directors extended it to the 6th. It was quite
characteristic of the Stephensons that, although
their engine did not stand first on the list for
trial, it was the first that was ready, and it was
accordingly ordered out by the judges for an
experimental trip. Yet the " Rocket " was by no
means the "favourite" with either the judges or
the spectators. Nicholas Wood has since stated
that the majority of the judges were strongly pre-
disposed in favour of the "Novelty," and that
"nine-tenths, if not ten-tenths, of the persons
present were against the * Rocket ' because of its
appearance." Nearly every person favoured
some other engine, so that there was nothing for
the "Rocket" but the practical test. The first
trip made by it was quite successful. It ran
about twelve miles, without interruption, in
about fifty-three minutes.

The " Novelty " was next called out. It was a
light engine, very compact in appearance, carry-
ing the water and fuel upon the same wheels as
the engine. The weight of the whole was only
three tons and one hundred-weight. A pecu-
liarity of this engine was that the air was driven
or forced through the fire by means of bellows.
The day being now far advanced, and some dis-
pute having arisen as to the method of assigning
179

Masterpieces of Science

the proper load for the " Novelty, " no particular
experiment was made further than that the
engine traversed the line by way of exhibition,
occasionally moving at the rate of twenty-four
miles an hour. The "Sanspareil, " constructed
by Mr. Timothy Hackworth, was next exhibited,
but no particular experiment was made with it
on this day. This engine differed but little in
its construction from the locomotive last sup-
plied by the Stephensons to the Stockton and
Darlington Railway, of which Mr. Hackworth
was the locomotive foreman.

The contest was postponed until the following
day; but, before the judges arrived on the ground,
the bellows for creating the blast in the "Nov-
elty" gave way, and it was found incapable of
going through its performance. A defect was also
detected in the boiler of the "Sanspareil," and
some further time was allowed to get it repaired.
The large number of spectators who had as-
sembled to witness the contest were greatly dis-
appointed at this postponement; but, to lessen it,
Stephenson again brought out the "Rocket,"
and, attaching it to a coach containing thirty
persons, he ran them along the line at a rate of
from twenty-four to thirty miles an hour, much
to their gratification and amazement. Before
separating, the judges ordered the engine to be in
1 readiness by eight o'clock on the following morn-
ing, to go through its definite trial according to
the prescribed conditions.

On the morning of the 8th of October the
180

Victory of the " Rocket" Locomotive

" Rocket " was again ready for the contest. The
engine was taken to the extremity of the stage,
the fire-box was filled with coke, the fire lighted,
and the steam raised until it lifted the safety-valve
loaded to a pressure of fifty pounds to the square
inch. This proceeding occupied fifty-seven
minutes. The engine then started on its journey,
dragging after it about thirteen tons' weight in
waggons, and made the first ten trips backward
and forward along two miles of road, running the
thirty-five miles, including stoppages, in an hour,
and forty-eight minutes. The second ten trips
were in like manner performed in two hours and
three minutes. The maximum velocity attained
during the trial trip was twenty-nine miles an
hour, or about three times the speed that one of
the judges of the competition had declared to be
the limit of possibility. The average speed at
which the whole of the journeys was performed
was fifteen miles an hour, or five miles beyond the
rate specified in the conditions published by the
company. The entire performance excited the
greatest astonishment among the assembled
spectators; the directors felt confident that their
enterprise was now on the eve of success; and
George Stephenson rejoiced to think that, in
spite of all false prophets and fickle counsellors,
the locomotive system was now safe. When the
"Rocket," having performed all the conditions
of the contest, arrived at the "grand stand" at
the close of its day's successful run, Mr. Cropper
— one of the directors favourable to the fixed
181

Masterpieces of Science

engine system — lifted up his hands, and ex-
claimed, "Now has George Stephenson at last
delivered himself."

The "Rocket" had eclipsed the performance
of all locomotive engines that had yet been con-
structed, and outstripped even the sanguine ex-
pectations of its constructors. It satisfactorily
answered the report of Messrs. Walker and Ras-
trick, and established the efficiency of the loco-
motive for working the Liverpool and Man-
chester Railway, and, indeed, all future railways.
The "Rocket" showed that a new power had
been born into the world, full of activity and
strength, with boundless capability of work.
It was the simple but admirable contrivance of
the steamblast, and its combination with the
multitubular boiler, that at once gave locomotion
a vigorous life, and secured the triumph of the
railway system.*

* When heavier and more powerful engines were brought
upon the road, the old "Rocket," becoming regarded as a
thing of no value, was sold in 1837. It hat> since been trans-
ferred to the Museum of Patents at South Kensington, Lon-
don, where it is still to be seen.

182

The "Rocket1

183

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY
BERKELEY

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