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V
A POPULAR HISTORY OF
AMERICAN INVENTION
EDISON AND HIS FIRST HAND-TURNED PHONOGRAPH.
A POPULAR HISTORY OF
AMERICAN INVENTION
EDITED BY
WALDEMAR KAEMPFFERT
WITH OVER FIVE HUNDRED ILLUSTRATIONS
VOLUME I
TRANSPORTATION, COMMUNICATION, AND POWER
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
NEW YORK • LONDON
1924
/
9.1
Vl
Copyright, 1924, by
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
Printed in the United States of America
i CONTENTS
VOLUME I
> PART I. THE REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
^
\
CHAPTER PAGE
I. From Stephenson to the Twentieth Century Limited —
The Story of American Railroading 3
by walter bannard and waldemar kaempffert
II. How Power \Yon the Inland Waters 68
\
jv BY JOHN WALKER HARRINGTON
HI. Electric Cars and Trains . . . .• 106
BY T. COMMERFORD MARTIN
Formerly Editor of Electrical World and Advisory Secretary of the National
Electric Light Association
IN IV. The Rise of the Automobile 134
■\^ BY H. W. PERRY
V. Man Conquers the Air 175
BY WALDEMAR KAEMPFFERT
Formerly Managing Editor of Scientific American
PART 11. COMMUNICATION
I. The Story of the Printed Word 221
BY JAMES H. COLLINS
II. Writing by Machine 262
BY JAMES H. COLLINS
III. Sending Messages and Pictures over a Wire. The Story
OF the Telegraph 286
BY FLOYD L. DARROW
Head of Science Department, Brooklyn Polytechnic Preparatory Country Day School
IV. Talking over a Wire. The Story of the Telephone . 320
BY FLOYD L. DARROW
Head of Science Department, Brooklyn Polytechnic Preparatory Country Day School
vii
JfJ^^
viii CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
V. Signalling and Talking by Radio 351
BY WALDEMAR KAEMPFFERT
Formerly Managing Editor of Scientific American
VI. Putting Sunlight to Work 379
BY HENRY DAVID HUBBARD
United States Bureau of Standard!
VII. Pictures that Live and Move 419
BY HENRY DAVID HUBBARD
United States Bureau of Standards
VIII, Frozen Music and Speech — How EDisf^N Invented the
Phonocjrai'h 445
by william h. meadowcroft
Edison Laboratories
PART III. POWER
I. Putting Steam to Work 467
BY W. F. decker (\M\\or o{ The Steam Engine)
AND WALDEMAR KAEMPFFERT (Formerly Managing Editor of .SnVn/i/r //mmfa?!)
II. The Rise of Electricity 504
BY T. COMMERFORD MARTIN
Formerly Editor of Electrical World
III. I<"rom Rush LIGHT to Incandescent Lamp 539
BY M. LUCKEISCH, PH.D.
Director of Laboratory of Applied Science, Nela Laboratories, Cleveland, Ohio
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Edison and His First Hand- 1 urned Phonoj^rapli Frontispiece
PAGE
The Stone Blocks Used by the Philadelphia and Columbia Railway ... 7
Plate-Rail and Stone Sleeper, Surrey Iron Railway, 1804 9
Plate-Rail of the Ticknall Tramway in England . . . . " 10
Jessop Edge-Rails 1 1
Model of Trevithick's Locomotive of 1804 13
Blenkinsop's Locomotive, Patented in 181 1 14
The "Puffing Billy" Locomotive 15
George and Robert Stephenson 1 8
Three Locomotive Engines Which Competed at Rainhill in 1829 .... 20
The First Steam Locomotive in America 22
Early Freight-lrains of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway .... 23
The Stourbridge Lion 23
Model of Peter Cooper's "Tom iliuinb" 25
The "Best Friend" 26
The "De Witt Clinton" 27
The "John Bull" 28
The "De Witt Clinton" and a Pacific Locomotive 29
"Old Ironsides" 32
Model of John B. Jervis's "Experiment" 33
William James's Locomotive 34
The "Hercules" of Harrison 35
The Most Powerful Passenger Locomotive (Rock Island Line) 37
The Most Powerful Freight Locomotive, the "Virginian" 37
Poster Used in 1854 and 1855 to Advertise the New York Central Railroad and
Its Connections 41
Early Time-Table 42
Form of Ticket Issued in the Thirties 43
Pullman's Early Sleeping-Car 44
Interior of a Pullman "Bunk" Car 45
Old No. 9, the First Pullman Sleeping-Car 46
The Diner "America" Exhibited at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893 ... 49
Pullman's "Pacific" Combination Sleeper and Observation-Car 49
Interior of a Modern Pullman Sleeping-Car 50
Riveting the I-Beams of a Pullman Car 51
Interior of a Swift Refrigera tor-Car 53
Modern American Live-Stock Car 54
ix
X LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
Model of Liverpool and Manchester Railway Day and Night Signals ... 58
Modern Electric Signal Bridge 60
Building the Northern Pacific Railroad 64
Where the Union and Central Pacific Met 65
General Grenville M. Dodge 66
Chancellor Livingston and Robert Fulton 72
Colonel John Stevens and Robert L. Stevens 77
John Fitch's Steamboat, Equipped with Oars 79
Colonel John Stevens's Screw-Propelled Boat of 1804 81
Engines of Stevens's Boat of 1804 82
Stevens's Phcenix, the First Ocean-Going Steamer 83
Robert Fulton's Steamboat, The Clermont, 1807 . . 86
Replica of Fulton's Clermont 87
Fulton's Paragon 88
Dam at Delta Reservoir, New York 93
Locks at Lockport, New York 94
Operating a Gate on the New York State Barge Canal 95
An Ore-Carrier of the Great Lakes 97
Machinery Abandoned by the French at Panama 98
Culebra Cut, Culebra 99
How Ships are Electrically Controlled in the Panama Canal 100
The Miraflores Lock Control Board, Panama Canal lOl
Construction of Gatun Locks, Panama Canal, Showing the Huge Gates 102
Steam Dipper at Work in Panama Canal 103
U. S. S. Wisconsin in Middle East Chamber of Gatun Lock, Panama Canal . 104
Professor Joseph Henry's Electromagnet 108
Broadway, New York, About 1863, When Stage-Coaches Were in Their Prime in
The "John Mason," Used on Broadway, New York, in 1832 113
New York (Forty-Second Street) in the Horse-Car Days of the Eighties . 114
New York (Thirty-Fourth Street and Broadway) in the Nineties 115
Edison's Electric Locomotive with Which He Experimented at Menlo Park,
New Jersey, in 1882 119
Daft's Ampere-Electric Locomotive 122
The Sprague "Multiple-Unit" System • • 123
One of the First Types of Electric Trollcy-Car 126
Modern Trolley-Car of Interurban Type 127
The Trackless Trolley Omnibus 128
The First Standard-Railway Electric Trunk-Line 129
Grand Central Terminal, New York, Before and After Electrification . . . 131
Electric Locomotive of the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul Railway . 132
Cugnot's Steam Carriage of 1769 . . . ^35
Gurney's Steam Coach ^37
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xi
PAGE
Serpollet Steam Tricycle of 1890 139
Daimler's Automobile of the Late Eighties 145
Benz Automobile of 1885 147
Replica of Selden Car (1877) 149
Franklin Car of 1903 150
Dos-a-dos Automobile of the Early Nineties 151
White Steam-Cars that Competed in the New York-Boston 500-Mile Endur-
ance Run, 1902 152
Haynes Gasoline Car of 1895 155
Henry Ford in His First Car 157
One of Ford's Early Models 158
Typical Packard Four-Cylinder Car of About 1904 159
Packard Automobile of the Early Nineties 161
Charles Goodyear Accidentally Discovers His Vulcanizing Process .... 165
Two Phases of the Rubber Industry 171
The Largest Tire Manufactured 173
One of Leonardo's Rough Sketches for a Machine to be Driven by Flapping
Wings 177
Henson's "Aerial Equipage" of 1842 179
Stringfellow's Airplane of 1868 181
Hargrave Flying-Machine 182
Samuel Pierpont Langley and Octave Chanute 185
Langley Airplane, Hammondsport, New York, 1914 187
Chanute's Five-Decker of 1896 188
The Truss as Chanute Applied It to the Glider 189
Lilienthal in Flight with One of His Birdlike Craft 191
Clement Ader's Steam-Driven "Avion" 191
Wright Glider Flown as a Kite 193
The First Wright Glider 193
The Predecessor of the Modern Flying-Machine 195
The Wright Launching-Tower (1909) 196
The Wright Brothers 197
The First Public Flight in the United States 197
Santos-Dumont's Machine of 1903 199
The "Antoinette" of 1909, Made Famous by Hubert Latham 201
Farman Flying Across Country in 1908 202
Bleriot on a Cross-Country Flight in 1908 203
Curtiss Flying Over Lake Keuka, New York, in 1909 204
Louis Bleriot and Glenn H. Curtiss 205
Curtiss Hydro Airplane of 191 1 207
The Wind Tunnel of the L^nited States Navy 209
The NC-4 on Her Trans-Atlantic Voyage 210
xii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
The Airplane That First Crossed the Atlantic Ocean 211
The Machine in Which Major Schroeder Broke the Two-man Altitude Record 212
Cockpit of a Modern Military Airplane 213
Bristol Passenger-Carrying Airplane 215
Interior of a Large Passenger-Carrying Airplane 215
The Oldest Example of Printing from Type 223
Wood Block Used Before the Invention of Movable Type 223
Copper Engraver and Copper-Plate Printing-Press of the Sixteenth Century . 224
Typecasting in England in 1750 225
Ottmar Mergenthaler, Inventor of the Linotype 227
Rotary Matrix Linotype of 1883 227
The First Mergenthaler Band Machine 229
Mergenthaler's Second Band Machine (1885) 229
Linotype Matrices Assembled for Casting 231
Group of Linotype Slugs 231
The First Linotype to Set Type for a Newspaper 235
The Latest Model Linotype 235
The Lanston Monotype 237
The Monotype Matrix-Case 238
First Autoplate Machine of Henry A. Wise Wood (1901) 239
Stanhope Press (1800) 242
Peter Smith's Press (1822) 242
The Columbian Hand-Press 243
Friedrich Koenig's First Rapid Steam Printing-Press of 181 r 244
Treadwell Press of 1822 246
The Applegath Press of the London Times (1848) 248
Richard March Hoe (1812-1886) 250
Hoe Press of 1846 250
Hoe Ten-Cylinder Rotary Press of 1 846-1 848 250
Modern Hoe Double Press for Fast Newspaper Printing 251
Bullock's Press — the First to Print from a Web 254
Henry A. Wise Wood's Press for Newspapers 256
A Standard High-Speed Automatic Job-Press 260
The Autopress for Fast Automatic Job-Printing 260
Sholes's First, Rude, One-Letter Typewriter 265
Thurber's Typewriter of 1843 266
Specimen of Machine-Writing from Thurber's "Chirographie," 1845 . . . 267
Christopher Latham Sholes, Father of the Typewriter 269
Sholes Records His Progress 269
The Machine That Sholes Brought to Ilion in 1876 273
Patent Office Model of the Machine Patented July 14, 1886, by Sholes, Glidden,
and Soule 273
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xiii
PAGE
The First Typist — One of Sholes's Daughters 275
Made for the Exposition in 1876 278
Mark Twain's Typewriter 278
The Wagner Typewriter of 1894 279
The First Shift-Key Remington Typewriter (1878) 279
Modern Elhott-Fisher Book Typewriter 281
The Hall-Braille Typewriter for the Blind 283
Specimen of Writing on the Hall-Braille Machine, and Translation .... 284
Samuel F. B. Morse and Cyrus W. Field 289
Sketches from Morse's Note-Book 290
Morse's Original Sending and Receiving Instruments 291
Stages in the Evolution of Morse's Telegraph 295
The First Message Sent by Morse 299
Simple Telegraph System 301
Duplex System of Telegraphing 301
Modern Automatic Tape Transmitter 303
A Page Multiplex Printer 305
Automatic Telegraph Printer at Receiving End 305
Chicago Switchboard, Western Union Office 307
Cleveland's High Bridge Transmitted by Wire from Cleveland, Ohio, to New
York on May 19, 1924, by the American Telephone & Telegraph Co. 309
Landing of the Shore End at Trinity Bay, August 4, 18^8 311
Section of the Atlantic Cable Carried Through the Streets of New York 311
The Niagara, Falorous, Gorgmi, and Agamemnon Laying the Cable at Mid-
Ocean 312
Section of the Atlantic Cable of 1866 313
The Arrival of the Great Eastern, Carrying the Atlantic Cable, in Newfound-
land, July 27, 1866 314
Forward Cable Machinery, U. S. Cable Ship Burnside 315
Landing Shore End of Cable from Burnside, Philippine Islands 316
Keyboard Perforator of a Cable Office 317
Siphon Recorder That Receives the Message 317
Bell's "Harmonic Telegraph" 323
Bell's Original Instruments Now Preserved in the National Museum, Wash-
ington 324
The First Telephone That Talked 325
Bell's Experimental Telephone (1875) 325
Introducing the Telephone to the Public 329
The First Magneto Call 331
Early "Central" Switchboards 331
The First Telephone Switchboard 331
Early Blake Transmitter 333
A Telephone Cable Bouquet 333
xlv LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
Boys, Not Girls, Manned the Early Centrals 335
Alexander Graham Bell and C. E. Scribner 336
Richmond (Va.) Switchboard of 1882 339
Behind the Scenes in a Girlless Central 341
Broadway and John Street, New York, in 1890 342
Alexander Graham Bell Opening the New York-Chicago Line 345
Interior of the "Chelsea" Exchange, New York 346
Modern Manually Operated Telephone Switchboard 347
Loud Speaker Installed in the Auditorium Theatre, Chicago, During a Con-
vention 34^
James Clerk Maxwell and Heinrich Hertz 352
Doctor Edouard Branly and Sir Oliver Lodge 353
Guglielmo Marconi, Inventor of Wireless Communication 359
Joseph A. Fleming and Lee De Forest 361
Damped and Continuous Radio Waves 362
The Simplest Sound-Wave 363
The Wave Produced by a French Horn 363
The Noise of a Big Gun 363
Arc of the Bordeaux Station 364
The Alexanderson Alternator 365
Interior of the Lafayette Station, France 366
Five-Watt Transmitting-Tube Complete and Dismembered 367
Vacuum-Tubes in a Modern Radio Transmitting Station 368
Little and Big Vacuum-Tubes 369
"Radio Central" as It Will Appear when Completed 370
The Towers of "Radio Central," Port Jefferson, Long Island 371
Loud-Speaker for Large Audiences 373
How President Harding Talked to the Nation 376
How Silhouettes Were Made Before Photography Was Invented .... 382
Print Made by Contact of a Leaf with Sensitized Paper 384
Joseph Nicephore Niepce and Louis Joseph Daguerre 386
First Portrait Made in America . ■ 388
Copy of a Print Made by Niepce 388
Portable Daguerreotype Camera Used in 185 1 390
Daguerreotype Developing-Box (1850) 390
Box Used for Sensitizing the Daguerreotype Plate with Iodine and Bromide . 392
Sticks Used for Buffing Daguerreotype Plates Before They Were Sensitized . 392
William Henry Fox Talbot 393
Leacock Abbey, Fox Talbot's Home 393
A Wet-Plate Photographer at Work in the Field 395
The Amateur Travelling Equipment in Pre-Kodak Days 400
George Eastman and Gabriel Lippman 401
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xv
PAGE
Multiple Back Kromskop Camera of Ives 406
The Ives Lantern Kromskop 406
The First Eastman Kodak (1888) 408
A Bullet Piercing a Soap-Bubble 412
Great Nebula in Andromeda 416
The "Zoetrope" or "Wheel of Life" 422
The Periphanoscope of 1833 422
Muybridge's Photographic Study of a Running Horse . 425
How Muybridge Made His Pictures 426
The Praxiscope 428
Portrait of Edward Muybridge Painted by Elsa Koenig Nietsche .... 430
C. Francis Jenkins 430
First Jenkins Motion-Picture Projector of the Type Now in General Use . . 432
High-Speed Jenkins Camera 432
Motion-Pictures on Paper Disks 433
Property Department Laying Out a Desert at the Lasky Studio . . . .437
The Norman Castle Which Was Erected for Douglas Fairbanks's production,
"Robin Hood" 441
Directing a Motion-Picture Play 443
The Telegraphic Father of the Phonograph 447
Leon Scott's "Phonoautograph" of 1857 448
The Original Treadle Graphophone of 1887 448
Edison Record Engraving Tool 450
Modern Edison Diamond-Point Reproducer 450
Edison's Original Sketch of the Phonograph 45 1
Edison's First Working Drawing of the Phonograph 45 1
A Hill-and-Dale Record Magnified 453
Edison Phonograph of 1888 456
The Graphophone of the Nineties 456
Emile Berliner, Inventor of the "Lateral-Cut" Disk 460
First Publicly Exhibited Gramophone of Emile Berliner 461
Microphotograph of a "Lateral-Cut" Record 462
Making a Phonograph Record 463
The Phonograph in the Office 464
How Papin Created a Vacuum by Condensing Steam 471
Savery's Engine 473
Newcomen's Engine 473
Matthew Boulton and James Watt 477
Early Watt Engine with Separate Condenser 479
Original Experimental Model of the Separate Condenser Made by Watt in 1765 479
Where Watt's Engines Were Made 483
The "Amphibious Digger" of Oliver Evans — the First Automobile .... 485
xvi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
Oliver Evans and Sir Charles A. Parsons 487
Corliss P^ngine 488
Huge Engine Built by Corliss for the Philadelphia Exposition of 1876 489
Course of Steam-Jet Between P'ixed and Moving Blades (Parsons Type) . 493
The "Rotor" or Moving Blades of a Westinghouse-Parsons Steam-Turbine 493
De Laval Turbine 495
\he First Power-House Equipped with Parsons Turbine 497
Steam Passage in a Four-Stage Curtis Steam-Turbine 498
The Emmett Mercury-Steam Power-Plant 501
Franklin's Kite Experiment 508
Benjamin Franklin and Michael Faraday 509
The First Electric Cell 51 1
Edison Dynamo of 1883 515
Thomas Alva Edison and William Stanley 517
Evolution of the Electromagnet 520
The Generation of Electricity by Moving Wires Near Magnets 520
Replica of Pacinotti's Dynamo of i860 521
Original Ring-Armature Dynamo of Gramme (1870) 521
The First Central Station 523
Twenty-Ton Heroult Electric Furnace 525
Section Through the Fourneyron Water- Turbine of 1834 527
Part of Niagara's Harness 528
Modern Hydroelectric Plant 529
Twenty-Five-Ton Water-Wheel 533
Electric Oven Used for Baking Dolls' Heads 535
Electric Auger Drilling Holes in a Piano Frame 536
Motor-Driven Milk-and-Cream Separator 537
Before the Days of Street-Lamps 540
Method of Manufacturing Tallow and Wax Candles in the Eighteenth Century 541
William Murdock and F. A. Winsor 544
Rembrandt Peale and Samuel Clegg 545
Equipment of a Meter-Man Fifty Years Ago in the Days of the Wet Meter . 547
Airplane View of the Present Gas-Plant of the City of Baltimore • ... 553
Sir Humphrey Davy and Doctor Peter Cooper Hewitt 559
Replica of Edison's First Incandescent Lamp 567
First Incandescent-Lamp Factory, Menlo Park, 1880 567
The Birthplace of the Incandescent Lamp 569
Doctor W. D. Coolidge and Doctor Irving Langmuir 573
More Artificial Light Than There Was in All America a Century Ago . • ■ 575
A Modern Vacuum Tungsten-Filament Lamp, and One of the Gas-Filled Type 576
PART I
THE REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
CHAPTER I
FROM STEPHENSON TO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY LIMITED
—THE STORY OF AMERICAN RAILROADING
BEFORE the invention of the railway, the principal manu-
facturing towns both of Great Britain and the United
States were situated on or near the coast-line or navigable
streams. This was natural enough, for in the development of
commerce sailing vessels were the chief, and perhaps the only,
progressive means of transportation. Inland, goods and food-
stuffs had to be carried or hauled over the wretched roads.
According to Lardner, the eminent British historian of the
early nineteenth century, "the internal transport of goods in
England was performed by wagon, and was not only intolerably
slow, but so expensive as to exclude every object except manu-
factured articles, and such as — being of light weight and small
bulk in proportion to their value — would allow of a high rate of
transport." Lardner found that the charge for carriage by wagon
from London to Leeds was at the rate of about $63.31 a ton,
being 27 cents per ton-mile. Between Liverpool and Man-
chester it was I9.60 a ton, or 30 cents per ton-mile. "Heavy
materials such as coal could only be available for commerce
where their position favored transport by sea, and consequently,
many of the richest districts of the kingdom remained unpro-
ductive, awaiting the tardy advancement of the art of trans-
port." Not until 1833 was a daily mail established between
London and Paris, and the charge on foreign letters, in addi-
tion to the ship's postage and the expense in foreign countries,
varied from twenty-eight to eighty-four cents. The postage on
a letter sent from one point in England to another amounted to
about twenty cents a sheet. Hence letters were usually in-
trusted to some person bound for the city in which the addressee
lived.
Bad as they were in England, conditions in the American
colonies were worse. Here the roads were nothing but trails,
3
4 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
thick with dust in summer, heavy with mud in winter, often
completely impassable, and deviating miles out of the way to
avoid a mountain or river. As late as 1780 the roadways of
Pennsylvania were still narrow paths which had been made
through the woods by Indians and traders. Brissot de War-
ville, a Frenchman who travelled in the United States in 1788,
thus describes part of a journey which he took from Philadelphia
to Baltimore:
"From thence (Havre de Grace) to Baltimore are reckoned
sixty miles. The road in general is frightful; it is over a clay
soil, full of deep ruts, always in the midst of forests, frequently
obstructed by trees overset by the wind, which obliged us to
seek a new passage through the woods. I cannot conceive why
the stage does not often overset. Both the drivers and their
horses discover great skill and dexterity, being accustomed to
these roads."
Such were most of the roads of the United States even for
many years after the founding of the Republic. The only rea-
sonably good roads were those connecting the principal towns.
On the maps of 1800 only a few roads are shown in northern
New England, northern and western New York, northwestern
Pennsylvania, and in the South; there are none in eastern Maine.
The South was particularly indifferent to the condition of its
roads, probably because the plantations were situated on the
banks of rivers, making it easy to market produce by boat. So
rich a region as that along the Susquehanna was cut off from
the outer world up to 1786. One of the reasons urged for the
removal of the State capital from Philadelphia to Harrisburg,
in 1799, was the cost of travel, which bore heavily on the legis-
lators. In a country with few roads carriages and wagons were,
therefore, seen chiefly in the cities. Before the Revolution a
man travelled by horse or by boat^preferably by boat.
As the population increased, turnpike and stage-coach com-
panies were organized, but it was not until 1783 that Levi Pease
started the first stage-coach line between Boston and New York.
Washington died on December 14, 1799, and it took ten days
for the news of such an important event to reach Boston by
stage-coach. Two days was the usual time in which this lum-
bering vehicle covered the distance between New York and
STORY OF AMERICAN RAILROADING 5
Philadelphia, although the road was the best In the country —
an engineering masterpiece of wood resting on mud or "on a
soil that trembled when stepped upon." And the stage-coach
itself was not the Imposing carriage which we associate with
Mr. Pickwick's journeys or our modern fashionable four-in-
hands; it was an open wagon, with curtains which could be raised
or lowered, and it contained four benches to accommodate
twelve miserable passengers.
Little wonder that, when possible, most Americans preferred
to travel by water in the more roomy sloops. All the towns
along the Atlantic seaboard from Boston to New York were
connected by these sailing vessels. The fare from Providence
to New York by sloop was six dollars. Meals, however, were
charged for at such high rates that their cost for the trip ex-
ceeded the fare.
Without roads. Industry remained at a standstill. Wilbert
Lee Anderson In his Country Town states that "merchandise
and produce that could not stand a freight charge of fifteen
dollars a ton could not be carried overland to a consumer 150
miles from the point of production." Hence each State was its
own producer, and also its own consumer. Nearly every Amer-
ican in Washington's time who did not live near a town raised
his own wool and flax, did his own spinning and weaving, and
made his own clothing. It cost twenty dollars to haul a cord
twenty miles, and five dollars to haul a barrel of flour 150 miles.
So great were transportation charges that every community
had to be more or less self-supporting.
In less than a century all this was changed. The United
States was transformed from a wilderness of forest and prairie
into a land of active industry; this astonishing transformation
is due chiefly to the invention of the locomotive engine and its
development to meet American conditions.
The American Railway Track
The steam locomotive is so much more picturesque than the
track on which it runs that in most histories of invention scant
attention has been paid to the road-bed. A house has its foun-
dations, and a locomotive must have Its tracks. Indeed, with-
out the track there would be no locomotive.
6 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
Have you ever ridden a bicycle over a fine, new, concrete
road and suddenly passed on to a stretch of worn-out country
road ? On the concrete you were spinning along with little
effort at twelve to fifteen miles an hour; now your machine be-
gins to bump and crash among the holes and loose rocks; you
labor hard, but your speed drops to six or eight miles. The
reason for this is that instead of moving along on a smooth and
level line you are now lifting your weight over a series of ob-
stacles. This takes more leg power. If you were the size of a
small beetle crawling across the road, and a wagon looked pro-
portionately big to you, its wheels rolling over the rough sur-
face would appear to be alternately climbing hills and dropping
into valleys, as it crashed noisily by. If you asked the driver
of the wagon, he would tell you that he could haul five times as
great a load on the smooth concrete as he could on the country
road, with its humps and hollows, rocks, sand, and mud.
One-half of the success of the steam railroad is due to those
two shining strips of smooth, hard, and unyielding steel rail,
securely held in place upon broad, solid ties and the broken-
stone road-bed.
For the first attempt to build tracks for loaded vehicles, we
must go back several centuries — the sixteenth-century days of
coal-mining in England. The loaded coal-carts were heavy, the
roads were poor, and the wheels cut deep ruts in them. Even-
tually the miners laid heavy planks in the bottom of the ruts,
and at once found the going much easier for the horses. Then
they laid crosspieces, or "ties," as we now call them, along the
roads, and upon them fastened longitudinal timbers. This was
better, but the wood surface of the "tramway" did not last long.
Some one suggested in the eighteenth century that fiat strips of
iron be spiked down on the timbers. For many, many years
thereafter tracks were so laid. But the iron wore away the
wooden wheels of the little wagons, so that early in the eigh-
teenth century iron wheels were substituted. Sometimes In
place of wood granite blocks were used, about eight inches
square and five feet long, laid end to end, and on these, toward
the close of the eighteenth century, the fiat strips of iron, or
"plates," were fastened. In England the men who lay rails
are still called "plate-layers."
STORY OF AMERICAN RAILROADING 7
The first railway to be built in America was of this character.
It was particularly constructed to bring heavy blocks of granite
from the Quincy quarries to Boston for the Bunker Hill Monu-
ment. The line, three miles long, was opened in 1828,'^nd a
granite monument, standing alongside the New Haven tracks,
y^;i-^
Courtesy of the Pennsylvania Railroad.
THE STONE BLOCKS USED BY THE PHILADELPHIA AND COLUMBIA
RAILWAY.
Part of the road-bed of the Old Portage Railroad near Gallitzin, Pa. Frost split and even
shifted the stone blocks, and the rails were consequently twisted out of place.
six miles south of Boston, marks the site of this first American
wagon railroad. It was a crude piece of work, yet it taught the
American people of that day how vastly superior was an iron
track for transporting heavy freight.
A railroad track, however, must possess a certain amount of
spring or elasticity, and it was found that granite was too rigid.
The concussion of the iron wheels of the loaded wagons worked
loose the rails, especially at the ends, and it was realized that
granite was not the thing to use.
8 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
In 1789 William Jessop introduced in England the system
of fastening cast-iron ''chairs," or sockets, to the sleepers, and
of securing the rails in the chairs. It was Jessop, too, who in-
vented the modern flanged wheel — that is, a wheel with a rim
on the inside to prevent it from slipping from the track. He is
also credited with having fixed the gauge of to-day — four feet
eight and one-half inches.
What appears to have been most difficult was the construc-
tion of a track foundation that would remain stable. As late
as 1 841 the president of the Erie Railroad ordered piles driven
for one hundred miles on dry land to provide a substantial sup-
port for the stringers and rails. The expedient failed. There
was no elasticity to the structure, and it was pounded to de-
struction by the heavy trains. Then came cross-ties.
Of course on early American railroads, as on those in Eng-
land, the hauling was done by horses. David Stevenson, who
came to this country about 1836 to study our railways, wrote:
"I travelled by horse-power on the Mohawk and Hudson Rail-
way from Schenectady to Albany, a distance of sixteen miles,
and the journey was performed in sixty-five minutes, being at
the astonishing rate of fifteen miles an hour. The car by which
I was conveyed carried twelve passengers, and was drawn by
two horses, which ran stages of five miles." Clearly, the old
horse-cars were not so slow as might be supposed.
The first American railroad to be constructed with the in-
tention of using steam locomotives only, was the South Caro-
lina Railroad, commenced in 1827; but the first road to be
opened was the Baltimore and Ohio, which was partly put in
operation for service in 1830. Their first rail was laid on July
4, 1828, by Charles Carroll, of Carroll ton, the only then surviving
signer of the Declaration of Independence.
The promoters of the Baltimore and Ohio decided to build
a model railroad, and they sent their engineers to England to
report on the roads of that country. Acting upon the report
submitted, the use of granite was still retained, and a track was
built, consisting of granite sills, eight by fifteen inches in lengths
of six to ten feet. These rested on broken stone ballast, laid
in two parallel trenches, and the flat iron strips of rail, five-
eighths of an inch thick and two and one-half inches wide,
STORY OF AMERICAN RAILROADING 9
were spiked into wooden plugs inserted in holes drilled in the
granite. Mr. Hasell Wilson, one of the best of the American
engineers of that day, said of this track: "It was an entire fail-
ure; it was found impracticable to maintain an even surface;
the track spread apart; and the iron rails worked loose, causing
frequent accidents." It was the fond hope of the early railway-
builders that they could construct a road to last forever, and to
this end it was thought that a substance like granite was ab-
Courtesy of the South Kensington Museum.
PLATE-RAIL AND STONE SLEEPER, SURREY IRON RAILWAY, 18U4.
solutely necessary. But frost split and even shifted the stone
blocks, and the rails were consequently twisted out of place.
Experiment followed experiment; all without success.
But the pioneers were not daunted. On the line in course
of construction between Philadelphia and Columbia, 163 miles
of single track, they tried three different systems. Six miles
were laid with granite sills, as on the Baltimore and Ohio; eigh-
teen miles with wood instead of granite sills; and the remainder
with stone blocks, eighteen inches square, placed three feet
apart. On these stone blocks they laid "edge-rails," so called
because the flanged wheel ran on the upper edge of the rail.
They were from nine to fifteen feet long, and had been imported
from England.
Early iron rails were of two kinds: the plate-rail and the edge-
rail. The plate-rail was L-shaped. The wheels ran on the
10 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
flat base of the L, and were prevented by the vertical flange
from running ofl^ the track. The edge-rail also had a flat base,
but from the centre of it projected a vertical flange. The wheel
ran on the top of this flange. With this rail, however, although
it was stiffer and more serviceable than the plate-rail, it was
necessary to have a projecting flange on the wheels. At first
the flange was on the outside of the wheel; later Jessop put it on
the inside, and in that position it has remained ever since.
Courtesy of the South Kensington Museum.
PLATE-RAIL OF THE TICKNALL TRAMWAY IN ENGLAND.
This tramway was constructed in 1799 by Benjamin Outram. A line 4.25 miles in length con-
nected with the Ashby Canal, Leicestershire. It is still occasionally used. The metals are
of cast iron and are of angled section, the raised flange being arranged on the inside of the
track. The switch shown has a wrought-iron tongue, provided with a stem which drops
into a hole into the casting, but no mechanical device is provided for moving the tongue.
The railway was now utterly dependent on the iron-maker.
Not until the founder learned how to roll rails that would en-
dure could railway travel be safe and speedy. It was a great
advance when wrought iron was substituted for cast Iron, an
innovation that followed the patenting, In 1820, of a method of
rolling wrought-iron rails by John Birkinsaw, who operated the
Bedlngton Iron Works, of Durham, England. George Stephen-
son used BIrklnsaw's rails on the famous Stockton and Dar-
lington road, and also on the Liverpool and Manchester.
The edge-rail and the Inside-flange wheel led to the system
which Is In use to-day. A remarkable American, Robert Living-
ston Stevens, the son of Colonel John Stevens, was the Inventor
of this system, and its principal feature is the T-rall. While
STORY OF AMERICAN RAILROADING 11
Stevens was on his way to Europe, in 1830, to order for the
Camden and Amboy Railroad the locomotive that has passed
into history as the "John Bull," he thought much about tracks
and their defects. Out of wood he whittled models of rails,
one of which was the forerunner of the modern broad-based
T-rail, so called from its cross-section, and it was eventually
laid by Stevens himself on the Camden and Amboy Railroad.
The rail-rollers of England thought Stevens a "crank." He had
Courtesy of the South Kensington Museum.
JESSOP EDGE-RAILS.
These rails were laid down by William Jessop in 1789. This is believed to have been a first in-
stance of a narrow rail being used on its edge, and therefore marks a great advance upon
the earlier wooden Ways and plate ways.
to assume full responsibility for failure, pay all extra expenses,
and to put up a bond to pay for any damages that might be in-
flicted on the rail works. Although regarded as a dangerous
innovation, the T-rail was in use on many roads by 1840.
Stevens's rail had a wide, flat base, by which it was secured to the
tie with hooked spikes. It weighed thirty-six pounds to the yard.
To-day, rails weigh from ninety to 130 pounds.
The early rails of America were of British manufacture, and
were often carried as ship ballast. By removing the duty on
railroad iron the government made it possible to lay the rails
down in New York at a cost not much greater than the English
purchase price. It was largely for this reason that we did not
roll our own rails until about 1840. When we began to roll
rails of steel, something like perfection was attained. A steel
12 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
rail is from eight to fifteen times more durable than one made
ot iron, and is much less liable to break. In the chapter on
iron and steel the development of this rail is more fully de-
scribed. "Probably no other single influence was so effective
in reducing the cost of transportation and improving the gen-
eral conditions of the railroads as the substitution of steel for
iron rails." This is the verdict of Bogart in his Economic His-
tory of the United States.
It was the steel rail that brought the Western wheat-growing
regions into direct competition with the agricultural industry
of the East; consequently it soon had a profound effect on farm-
ing in the British Isles. After it was introduced railroad com-
panies began to move passengers and freight at a minimum ex-
pense. The steel rail has, therefore, been the principal factor
in enabling the American railroad to populate the West by dis-
tributing the hordes that migrated from Europe.
A road-bed must be well drained. This is secured by finish-
ing the surface of the natural ground (the subgrade) with a slight
slope from the centre to the sides, so that rain-water, passing
through the ballast, will run off into the side ditches. On the
subgrade are laid about eighteen inches ot broken stone, upon
which are laid the cross-ties, preferably of oak. The ballast is
frequently filled up flush with the top of the ties, and banked up
against their ends. By this means a firm and yet elastic foun-
dation is provided. To increase the bearing surface, steel tie-
plates are inserted between the base of the rails and the ties,
and the hooked spikes pass through square holes in these plates,
and thus enable the spikes to offer resistance to any lateral
spreading of the rail. The abutting ends of the rails are held in
true alignment and level by two splice-bars or angle-bars, one
on each side of the joint, which are held against the rail by four
or six bolts. The ties are spread about two feet, centre to cen-
tre, the two ties at each joint being brought closer together, to
afford additional support at this, the weakest point in the rail.
The heaviest rails to-day are of 130 pounds to the yard on cer-
tain sections of the Pennsylvania Railroad, and 135-pound rails
are being experimented with on the Lackawanna road.
STORY OF AMERICAN RAILROADING
13
The Invention and Introduction of the Locomotive
As soon as the great James Watt had perfected the steam-
engine, it occurred to many practical men that here was a
machine which would supersede horses for hauling loads on
tramways. The first of these seems to have been the Cornish-
man, Richard Trevi thick, who was born in 1 771, and died penni-
less in 1833. Trevithick, a giant of a man, who could beat the
Courtesy oj the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad,
MODEL OF TREVITHICK'S LOCOMOTIVE OF 1804.
whole countryside in wrestling and feats of strength, was so
capable an inventor that he must be regarded as one of the
originators of the modern automobile, although he used steam
instead of gasoline as the propelling power. He was one of
Watt's few formidable and successful rivals in the development
of the steam-engine, although there is good reason to believe
that he saw the earlier plans for such an engine drawn by Oliver
Evans.
Too much credit cannot be given to the American, Oliver
14
REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
Evans, for his conception of a locomotive engine. In the chap-
ter on the steam-engine his engineering skill has been sufficiently
dwelt upon, and some of the more important events of his em-
bittered life have been noted. Horatio Allen, who imported
and ran the first locomotive in America, said that his engine had
Courtesy of the South Kensington Museum. t
BLENKINSOP'S LOCOMOTIVE, PATENTED IN 1811.
A racked or tooth rail was laid alongside the road; into this rack the toothed wheel of the
locomotive worked. The engine had two cylinders, an innovation due to Matthew Murray,
of Leeds. The connecting-rods gave motion to two pinions by cranks at right angles to
each other; these pinions communicating the motion to the wheel which engaged the rack.
Blenkinsop's engines began running in 1812, and were the first to be regularly engaged for
commercial purposes.
all the elements of a permanent success. "Had Evans a Boul-
ton, as Watt had a co-operating Boulton . . . the high-pres-
sure steam-engine would have had a position from that time of
great interest to the country, and, through this country to the
world." Evans was probably the first to invent the multi-
tubular boiler, now a distinguishing feature of the locomotive,
although his was a water-tube and not a fire-tube boiler.
After he had built and operated half a dozen "road locomo-
STORY OF AMERICAN RAILROADING 15
tives," or steam automobiles, Trevithick, in 1804, built a real
steam locomotive that ran on rails and hauled twenty tons of
iron ore in Wales. Although horse-power was cheaper than
steam for such work, he not only built another locomotive for
a coal-mine, but also constructed a little circular passenger-
Courtc-sy oj tki South kensmgton Museum.
THE "PUFFING BILLY" LOCOMOTIVE.
The "Puffing Billy" locomotive was constructed at Wylam colliery in 1813 by William Hedley,
assisted by the enginewrights, one of whom, Timothy Hackworth, subsequently became
locomotive superintendent of the Stockton and Darlington Railway. It worked between
the colliery and the Staithes at Lennington-on-Tyne. The boiler is a wrought-iron cylinder
with one egg end and has an internal return furnace flue as used by Trevithick. The engine
usually hauled about fifty tons at a speed of five miles an hour. The fender consists of a
wooden frame supported on four wheels, carrying a water-tank and coal-box.
railway near Euston Square, London, which attracted the curi-
osity and interest of many people.
Trevithick, in his turn, had some aggressive competitors.
In 181 1 John Blenkinsop built a coal-hauling locomotive that
propelled itself by a cog, which engaged a rack attached to the
tramway. Then there was William Hedley, whose "Puffing
Billy" and "Wylam Dilly," built in 1813, also hauled coal.
But the foremost of all these pioneers and the man to whom
16 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
the modern railroad owes most was George Stephenson (who
was born in 178 1, and died in 1848). His was the typical career
of an inventor, except that he amassed a fortune by the exer-
cise of more business sense than that displayed by most inven-
tors. After working as a cowherd and driving a gin-horse for a
coal-mine, he became a pumping-engine attendant. A boy of
seventeen, naturally imaginative and inventive, could hardly
be brought face to face with Watt's great engine without want-
ing to fathom its mysteries. There were books enough on steam-
engines, but he could not read. So he went to night-school,
learned his letters, and then read about engines to his heart's
content. From then on, his life was devoted to the steam-
engine. He was so fascinated by Hedley's experiments with
"Puffing Billy" that he induced the owners of the Killingsworth
colliery to authorize him to build a locomotive which was to
run on a railroad between the mine and a shipping port, nine
miles distant. His first engine, the " Blucher," drew eight loaded
wagons weighing thirty tons up a grade which rose one foot in
every 450 feet.
Stephenson became engineer of the Stockton and Darlington
Railway, authorized by Parliament in 1821. Horses were to be
used for hauling the cars, but Stephenson successfully urged
the adoption of steam locomotives. The line, thirty-eight miles
long, was opened in 1825, with Stephenson driving an engine
that hauled thirty-four tiny wagons or cars, constituting a load
of ninety tons. A man on horseback rode in advance of the
train, and on the easiest section of the line he had to gallop at
the rate of fifteen miles an hour to keep in front.
Although the Stockton and Darlington Railway was built
primarily as a freight road, there was such a demand for pas-
senger accommodation that the company soon made arrange-
ments to run a daily coach with six seats inside and fifteen
outside. The "Experiment," as this first passenger-car was
called, was little more than an ordinary stage-coach with iron
wheels running on iron rails.
It might be supposed that after the Stockton and Darling-
ton success England was prepared for a revolution in trans-
portation. Far-sighted men were convinced that the steam
road was destined to carry goods and people with undreamed-of
STORY OF AMERICAN RAILROADING 17
swiftness. On the other hand, conservative opinion pointed
out, and very properly, that the engines lacked power and were
expensive. A bookkeeper by a simple comparison of cost of
horses and engines could easily dispose of any arguments in
favor of steam. Allied to this objection was the opposition of
the stage-coach lines, the canal companies, and the landed
gentry, who resented the invasion of their estates by the smok-
ing, roaring locomotives and their noisy trains of cars. In tact
the charter of the Liverpool and Manchester road was obtained
only with difficulty. It cost Huskisson, a skilled politician,
seventy thousand pounds to carry it through.
The construction of this Liverpool and Manchester line was
the turning-point. It was destined to prove, slowly but surely,
the advantages of steam over horse-power, and the national
benefits that would result from a smoothly operated steam rail-
road.
George Stephenson, his Stockton and Darlington experi-
ences behind him, was engaged to build it. There were many
obstacles in his path. To begin with, differences of opinion as
to the tractive power to be employed sprang up amongst the
officials. Some of them were in favor of the old, reliable horse,
others advocated the use of fixed engines which could haul the
cars by cables; in fact the best engineering opinion of the day
was in favor of these fixed engines. George Stephenson, how-
ever, insisted upon steam locomotives.
Urging the merits of the locomotive at every opportunity,
he pointed out the serious inconvenience that would arise to
the whole line if one of the fixed engines should break down,
and he dwelt on the large amount of capital that would have to
be sunk in hauling-engines and engine-houses. If the locomotive
was not yet economical it was because inventors had not been
given sufficient encouragement, he argued. Great improve-
ments could be made. He offered to build a locomotive him-
self which would haul heavy loads with speed, regularity, and
safety. This persistence and earnestness led the directors to
offer a prize of £500 for the best engine that would haul six tons
at ten miles an hour, or twenty tons at ten miles, with a pressure
of steam on the boiler not exceeding fifty pounds to the square
inch. There were other conditions, not immoderate as we
18 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
look back at them now, but considered hopelessly difficult of
fulfilment in 1830.
With the assistance of his son Robert, George Stephenson
built a locomotive called the "Rocket." In his earliest engines
Stephenson had used the system of exhausting the spent steam
into the smoke-stack. Thus he found that the draft was in-
GEORGE STEPHENSON.
ROBERT STEPHENSON.
Foremost of tlie railway pioneers was George Stephenson, who was born in 1781 and died in 1848.
As an illiterate pumping-engine attendant of seventeen, he learned how to read in order
that he might be able to familiarize himself with principles of steam-engine construction as
they were disclosed in books of the day. With him really begins the development of the
modern locomotive.
Robert Stephenson assisted his distinguished father, George, in building the famous "Rocket"
locomotive that won the Rainhill contest. He was born in 1803 and died in 1859. Unlike
his father, he was a highly educated engineer. He built the London and Birmingham Rail-
way, the first to run into London. He was even more distinguished as a civil than as a me-
chanical engineer.
creased, with the result that a hotter fire could be maintained
under the boiler. The steam-blast was so essential to the gen-
eration of high-pressure steam that Stephenson used it in the
"Rocket." To meet the conditions of the prize offer he had to
provide a very large heating surface. He decided to adopt what
we now call a multitubular boiler in which the fire was carried
through a great many small tubes surrounded by water, rather
than through the usual single flue. The idea was old, although
Stephenson did not know it.
STORY OF AMERICAN RAILROADING 19
The complete "Rocket" had two cyHnders, eight Inches in
diameter by sixteen and one-half Inches stroke, direct-connected
to driving-wheels measuring four feet eight Inches In diameter,
which were placed In front below the smoke-stack. The en-
gine weighed four and one-quarter tons and the tender three and
one-fifth tons. The steam pressure was fifty pounds.
On the day when the great competition for the prize was to
be held four locomotives were on hand. One was the "Rocket."
Another was the "Novelty," designed by Ericsson, who was
later destined to play a part In our Civil War as the builder of
the Monitor. There were also Hackworth's "Sansparell," and
Burstall's "Perseverance."
Samuel Smiles, who knew Robert Stephenson, thus describes
the contest in his Life of George Stephenson and of His Son,
Robert Stephenson :
"The contest was postponed until the following day (Octo-
ber 7); but before the judges arrived on the ground the bellows
for creating the draft In the 'Novelty' gave way, and It was
found Incapable of going through its performance. A defect
was also found In the boiler of the 'Sanspareil,' and some further
time was allowed to get it repaired. The large number of spec-
tators who had assembled to witness the contest were greatly
disappointed at this postponement; but to lessen It Stephenson
brought out the 'Rocket,' and attaching it to a coach contain-
ing thirty persons, he ran them along at the 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 readiness by eight o'clock on the following morning, to
go through its definite trial according to the prescribed con-
ditions."
On the next day the "Rocket" surpassed all expectations.
"It was the simple but admirable contrivance of the steam-
blast and Its combination with the multitubular boiler," says
Smiles, "that at once gave locomotion a vigorous life and se-
cured the triumph of the railway system."
But the railroad engineers were poor prophets. After
Stephenson's dramatic success they confidently predicted im-
mediate speeds of seventy-five and even a hundred miles an
hour. On the other hand, they failed to appreciate the steam
1829.
GRAND COMPETITION
LOCOMOTIVES
LIVERPOOL & MANCHESTER
RAILWAY.
STIPULATIONS & CONDltlONS
TonA, icoUdus I
T>-.TO;
miiA >« a Hercurtil G»use
tliB Machm
ti, wiih Tadi'i R*J, Blwwtn^
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ooniRnictni
toNow T.i.i • -
tK>r laoh.
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at tM U
ftV<«l ena i:.! Ui'i Kii;iv.»i
tboa tlL«
Lst Of Oetotxtt aczL
Xti^l
flM (rf iJie Enalne wM '■ '
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Railway;
uaa nor Eftg*°f o^-' .
Ukw t.40
k by tfie Owaw.
lEl XUCDi-iD'i'lCTJB 3'i':£AJ)i ^rTDIHiiS,
Fisoo OFTiRto e-y thl directors o
> MANCHtSTER RAILWAY COM PAMY.
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'fl-jVllT^'eiF MSSS"? Bfi&ITE-5WA!?£ & SRiaSCSS®!* 9F L9HB0N,
"■I
<F SAKLIHCTOn.
/"/om a lithograph, court:sy oj the South Kensinrlon Museum.
THREE LOCOMOTIVE ENGINES WHICH COMPETED AT RAINHILL IN 1829.
This is an announcement of the prize of £500 offered by the Liverpool and Manchester
Railway for the engine which would best fulfil its conditions.
STORY OF AMERICAN RAILROADING 21
locomotive's ability to haul great weights cheaply. Nor did
they realize that the railroad could successfully compete with
the waterway.
The "Rocket" is regarded as the forerunner of the modern
locomotive because it had the following four modern funda-
mental elements of ef^ciency:
1. The fire-box was surrounded by the water of the boiler.
2. The boiler was horizontal, and the hot gases were led
from the fire-box to the smoke-box through tubes which passed
through the boiler, and which were surrounded by the water
to be heated.
3. The steam exhausted into the smoke-stack, thereby
greatly increasing the draft and making a very hot fire.
4. The power of the steam was exerted through the piston-
rods and connecting-rods directly upon the driving-wheels, to
which the connecting-rods were attached without any inter-
vening parts.
Development of the American Locomotive
Oliver Evans and Colonel John Stevens had proposed steam
railways for the United States before the Stockton and Dar-
lington experiments were made. Evans, as the chapter on the
steam-engine recounts, was the inventor of the high-pressure
steam-engine, and the builder of the first steam automobile, a
vehicle which travelled not only on land but also in water.
Again and again Evans advocated steam locomotion, first on
turnpikes, then on rails after they were invented. Stevens
was more concrete in his ideas, and more energetic. He
applied for and received from the State of New Jersey, in 18 15,
the first American railway charter, although as early as 18 10
he had been preaching the gospel of the steam railway.
While Stephenson was still experimenting with steam on the
Stockton and Darlington, Stevens built a rack-rail engine that
propelled itself by a cog-wheel engaging a rack bolted to the
ties. Constructed in 1825 to run between Philadelphia and
Columbia, the engine had a vertical boiler — a multitubular
boiler. Hence Stevens actually anticipated Stephenson in the
use of fire-tubes, although both fire-tube and water-tube boilers
were patented before Stevens's or Stephenson's day. The wheels
22
REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
of Stevens's engine were kept on the track not by the usual
flanges but by small side horizontal friction-wheels.
America was no more favorably inclined to such experi-
ments than was England. The idea of a boiler and engine
mounted on wheels as a substitute for horses was received with
doubt and derision. When, in 1830, the Baltimore and Ohio
Courtesy oj the Stevens Institute of Technology.
THE FIRST STEAM LOCOMOTIVE IN AMERICA.
On this private track, built in Hoboken, Colonel John Stevens in 1826 (he was then seventy-
six years old) operated an experimental locomotive with a multitubular boiler of his own
invention.
Railroad was opened with horse and rail cars, Daniel Webster
expressed grave doubts as to the ultimate success of the rail-
road, saying among other things that the frost on the rails
would prevent a train from moving, or if it did move, from being
stopped, which shows that whatever may have been Webster's
ability as a lawyer, his knowledge of mechanics was not even
rudimentary.
In view of the work that had been done in England it was
natural that the early American promoters of railroads should
look to that country for their motive power. The Delaware and
Hudson Canal Company sent Horatio Allen to England to buy
Courtesy of the South Kensington Museum.
EARLY FREIGHT-TRAINS OF THE LIVERPOOL AND MANCHESTER RAILWAY.
Courtesy of the Dela::are and Hudson Raikvay Company
THE STOURBRIDGE LION.
This was the first locomotive that ran in commercial service in the United States. The locomo-
tive was tested in 1829 by Horatio Allen, and proved to be too heavy for the light American
tracks of that period. It was imported by the Delaware and Hudson Company from
England.
24 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
iron rails and two locomotives. The "America," built to Allen's
order by George Stephenson, was practically a duplicate of the
famous "Rocket," but the four wheels were coupled to give
better adhesion and a greater tractive power— the first stage in
the development of the many-coupled American locomotive.
There is no known record of the "America's" performance
in this country. The other locomotive ordered by Allen, the
"Stourbridge Lion," built at Stourbridge, England, was the
first locomotive that ran in commercial service in America. In
August, 1829, with Horatio Allen at the throttle, the engine
made its trial trip. It had two vertical cylinders operating two
overhead walking beams, from which connecting-rods ran to
the driving-wheels, and must have appeared like a marine
engine on wheels.
Allen tested the "Stourbridge Lion" with some trepidation.
He had specified a locomotive weighing three tons; he received
one weighing seven. On August 9, 1829, the engine was placed
on the tracks at Honesdale. Allen knew that the track was
too light, but he determined to take the risk. Nobody accepted
his invitation to ride with him. Bidding good-by to the on-
lookers he dashed off and, probably to his own surprise, quickly
found himself out of sight. In 1884 Mr. Allen wrote the fol-
lowing humorous account of the first American trial of the
"Stourbridge Lion":
"When the time came, and the steam was of the right pres-
sure, and all was ready, I took my position on the platform of
the locomotive alone, and with my hand on the throttle-valve
handle, said: 'If there is any danger in this ride it is not neces-
sary that the hfe and limbs of more than one be subjected to
danger.'
"The locomotive, having no train behind it, answered at
once to the movement of the hand; . . . soon the straight line
was run over, the curve was reached and passed before there
was time to think as to its not being passed safely, and soon I
was out of sight in the three miles ride alone in the woods of
Pennsylvania. I had never run a locomotive nor any other
engine before; I have never run one since."
The engine proved satisfactory enough on the coal docks of
the Delaware and Hudson Company, but it was too heavy for
STORY OF AMERICAN RAILROADING 25
the regular tracks. It was withdrawn from service after a
short time.
The truth was that the English locomotives were not adapted
to run on the flimsy American tracks; moreover they burned
coke and not wood. Yet these poorly laid, light rails proved
Courtesy of tlie Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.
MODEL OF PETER COOPER'S "TOM THUMB."
Peter Cooper was one of the pioneers of the American railroad. His "Tom Thumb" locomo-
tive had a short career on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in 1830. All the locomotives
of the early thirties were but little larger than a modern fire-engine. They were too light
to haul heavy loads.
to be the incentive needed for America to design and build her
own locomotives and introduce characteristically American im-
provements. Peter Cooper, Long and Norris, and Rogers were
especially prominent among those who struck out along new
lines.
The earliest American locomotive was Peter Cooper's "Tom
Thumb," which had a brief existence on the Baltimore and
Ohio Railroad in 1830 — so brief, in fact, that it deserves no ex-
tended description. The "Best Friend," built at the West
26
REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
Point Foundry in 1830 for the South Carolina Railroad Com-
pany, is really the patriarch of American locomotives. The
"Best Friend" was what railway engineers call "four-coupled";
that is to say the four wheels were connected by outside coup-
ling-rods; it was also "inside-connected," meaning that the
cylinders were inside the frames and coupled to two cranks on
the driving-axle. The cylinders were six inches by sixteen-inch
Courtesy of the Soulhern Railzvay Company.
THE "BEST FRIEND."
The "Best Friend" was built at the West Point Foundry shops in New Yorlc City for the South
Carolina Railroad, arrived by the ship Niagara, October 27, and after experimental trials,
in November and December, 1830, made the first excursion trip here pictured, on Saturday,
January 15, 183 1. The "Best Friend" was the first locomotive built in the United States
for actual service.
Stroke; the driving-wheels were four feet nine inches, and the
weight was four and one-half tons.
The West Point Foundry, New York, will always possess
strong historical interest, since here were built the first prac-
tical American locomotives. Following the "Best Friend," this
shop turned out the "West Point," which had a horizontal
boiler, and conformed more to the type which has survived.
It hauled 117 passengers in four cars, and between the locomo-
tive and the cars was a "barrier car."
This "barrier car" was an interesting innovation. Invented
solely and simply to ease the anxiety of the passenger. It was
a car loaded with bales of cotton, which, says Angus Sinclair in
his Develop?ne?it of the American Locomotive^ was widely adver-
tised as a good protection to the passengers "when the locomo-
tive exploded." The boiler of the "Best Friend" had exploded,
and this little weakness seems to have been generally accepted
as unavoidable.
STORY OF AMERICAN RAILROADING 27
Following the "West Point" came the most famous of all
pioneer American locomotives, the "De Witt Clinton." Built
at West Point in 1831 for the Mohawk and Hudson Railroad
it made its first run on August 9 of that year from Albany to
Schenectady, and with a load of three coaches it attained a
Courtesy of the \e:f York Central Lines.
THE
'DE WITT CLINTON."
The "De Witt Clinton" was the first American passenger-locomotive. It hauled its first train on
August 9, 183 1, over the Mohawk and Hudson Railroad, now a part of the New York Cen-
tral system. The trip between Albany and Schenectady, a distance of seventeen miles, was
made in one hour and forty-five minutes. The maximum speed attained was thirty miles
an hour. Upon arrival at Schenectady the train was greeted by bands and the roar of can-
non. The "De Witt Clinton" made the return trip from Schenectady to Albany with five
coaches in thirty-eight minutes. After fourteen years of service the "De Witt Clinton"
was then stored at Karner, near West Albany, from which place it was moved in June,
1920, and placed on exhibition in the Grand Central Terminal. The old locomotive is
here shown on the tracks of the present New York Central Railroad.
speed of fifteen miles an hour. Alone, the "De Witt Clinton"
made a speed of forty miles an hour. The cylinders were five
and one-half inches in diameter by sixteen inches stroke, direct-
connected to coupled wheels four feet six inches in diameter.
The boiler contained thirty copper tubes, and the weight of
the engine was six tons.
28
REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
A full-size model of this early train was shown at the Chicago
Exposition of 1893; and in 1921 it was run under its own steam
on various stretches of track throughout the country, before
being exhibited in Chicago. Millions of people looked with
wonderment at this curious example of how our forefathers at-
tempted to solve the problem of transportation. The influence
*' _> rLl^j^fei!* «-Ki
Courtesy of tin- Pc-nnsylvanta Railnuul
THE "JOHN BULL."
To meet the demand for greater hauling power, Robert L. Stevens imported the "John Bull"
for the Camden and Amboy line, now part of the Pennsylvania system. Finding the
English locomotive too rigid for the sharp curves, Isaac Dripps, of the Camden and Amboy,
removed the coupling-rods of the wheels, gave one and one-half inches play sidewise to the
leading axle, and attached in front a two-wheeled pilot or cowcatcher, which relieved the
leading driving-wheels of some of the superimposed weight — characteristics of American
locomotives to this day.
of the early stage-coach is seen in the construction of the pas-
senger-cars— a subject to which reference will be made later on.
Riding behind the "De Witt Clinton" or any of its contem-
poraries was not an unmixed blessing. William H. Brown, one
of the passengers hauled by the "De Witt Clinton" when the
Mohawk and Hudson was opened on August 9, 1831, gives this
description of his experiences:
"John T. Clark, as the first passenger-railroad conductor in
the North, stepping from platform to platform outside the cars,
collected the tickets which had been sold at hotels and other
places through the city. When he finished his tour he mounted
upon the tender attached to the engine, and sitting upon the
30 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
little buggy seat, gave the signal with a tin horn, and the train
started on its way. But how shall we describe that start ?
There came a sudden jerk that bounded the sitters from their
places, to the great detriment of their high-top, fashionable
beavers from the close proximity to the roofs of the cars. This
first jerk being over, the engine proceeded on its way with con-
siderable velocity, when compared with stage-coaches, until it
arrived at a water station, when it suddenly brought up with
jerk number two to the further amusement of some of the ex-
cursionists. Mr. Clark retained the elevated seat, thanking his
stars for its close proximity to the tall smoke-pipe of the machine
in allowing the smoke and sparks to pass over his head."
These locomotives of the early thirties were little larger than
modern fire-engines. The weight of the first Baltimore and
Ohio regular locomotives was only three and one-half tons.
The companies soon found that locomotives weighing less than
ten tons were too weak for hauling heavy loads, and that small
cars had too much dead weight relatively to the paying load.
There came a demand for greater hauling power, and to
meet it Robert L. Stevens imported the "John Bull" for the
Camden and Amboy line. The cylinders were nine inches by
twenty inches, and the weight was ten tons — a big advance in
power and size. Isaac Dripps of the Camden and Amboy road,
finding the English locomotive too rigid for the sharp curves of
American roads, removed the coupling-rods of the wheels, gave
one and one-half inches side play to the leading axle, and at-
tached in front a two-wheeled pilot or cowcatcher, which re-
lieved the leading driving-wheels of some of the superimposed
weight; characteristics that distinguish the American locomo-
tive of to-day. Indeed, the "John Bull," as improved by
Dripps, was not only the first to have a cowcatcher, but it also
introduced the bell and the headlight.
Some extraordinary designs were produced during all this
pioneer work — locomotives of such fantastic shape that they
were given the name their shape suggested. One does not|
usually associate a locomotive with a grasshopper, and yet the
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in the early thirties used several
"Grasshoppers," whose advantage over the insect lay principally
in the matter of size and noise. A vertical boiler, two vertical
STORY OF AMERICAN RAILROADING 31
ten-inch cylinders, a pair of rocker-shafts, a pair of connecting-
rods, some gear-wheels, outside cranks and coupling-rods served
to transmit the power to the wheels.
It is important that the steam in a locomotive be properly
controlled in the cylinders, and the year 1832 is notable for the
invention of the "link-motion" by William T. James of New
York. It was one of the simplest, most efficient, and most
enduring of inventions. Hitherto, valve-gears were crude, com-
plicated, and inefficient. James connected the eccentric-rod
ends by a curved and slotted link carrying a sliding block, to
which was fastened the valve-stem. By means of a hand-lever
the engineer lifted or depressed the link, thereby throwing the
gear into forward or reverse operation.
The Rise of Matthew Baldwin
Some mechanics drifted into engine-building in queer ways.
There was Matthew Baldwin, for example, founder of the fa-
mous Baldwin Locomotive Works, a jeweller by trade, who was
engaged in the manufacture of bookbinder's tools and calico-
printing machinery in 1825. Needing an engine that would
occupy the least possible space in his shop, he proceeded to de-
sign it himself. This engine attracted so much attention that
he received orders for duplicates. Thus he was launched as an
engine-builder, a career of which he probably never dreamed in
the days when he was a jeweller. Franklin Peale, proprietor of
the Philadelphia Museum, asked Baldwin to construct a work-
ing miniature locomotive for exhibition. Baldwin had never
seen a locomotive. With the aici of inadequate sketches of the
"Rocket," which had won the Liverpool and Manchester con-
test, he succeeded in producing a little engine which hauled two
cars seating four passengers. Peale did a thriving business
with this little train.
Thus was Baldwin fairly started as a locomotive-builder. In
1832 he was asked to build a locomotive for the Philadelphia,
Germantown and Norristown Railroad. He studied the im-
ported Camden and Amboy locomotives, and constructed the
"Old Ironsides," which marked an advance on the "John Bull."
The cylinders were nine and one-half inches by eighteen, and
the boiler contained thirty copper tubes. American builders
32
REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
soon abandoned copper for the tubes, though the EngHsh re-
tained the practice. The engine weighed eight tons, and could
haul thirty tons on a level road. "Old Ironsides" was the first
steam-engine to be built by a firm destined to become known all
over the world for its construction of locomotives.
Courtesy of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.
"OLD IRONSIDES."
Matthew Baldwin studied the locomotives imported from England in the early thirties and pro-
ceeded to construct the "Old Ironsides," of which this is a reproduction made by the Bal-
timore and Ohio Railroad. The engine weighed eight tons, and could haul thirty tons on a
level road.
The Swivelling Truck and the Equalizing-Lever
Pioneer railroad-builders in England were justified in spend-
ing more money in constructing their roads than we could afford
to spend in America. That country was settled; passengers and
freight were abundant; the new roads were certain to pay good
dividends from the very start. So the roads were built straight
and level, with masonry or iron bridges. In the United States
the new roads were built largely through sparsely settled coun-
STORY OF AMERICAN RAILROADING
33
try, where freight and passengers were comparatively scarce.
In England, the country developed the railroads; in the United
States the railroads developed the country.
Our early roads had so many sharp curves and heavy grades
that, eventually, the American locomotive was designed to meet
them. It had to be flexible to run around sharp curves and
Courtesy of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.
MODEL OF JOHN B. JERVIS'S "EXPERIMENT."
The "Experiment" was built in 1832 by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. This was the first
locomotive that had a swivelling truck capable of turning horizontally about a centre-pin,
an invention made necessary by the sharp curves and rough tracks of the time. The cylin-
ders were coupled to single driving-wheels, and the weight was over seven and one-half tons.
over rough track; it had to be powerful to surmount heavy
grades; it had to be heavy, with many driving-wheels, to be
able to haul heavy loads. For this reason our trains have grown
to be far heavier and our locomotives more powerful than those
of the older countries.
The credit for designing the first locomotive with a swivelling
truck, capable of turning horizontally about a centre-pin, goes
to John B. Jervis, chief engineer of the Mohawk and Hudson
34
REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
Railroad, who In 1832 placed the "Experiment" in service. The
cylinders were coupled to single driving-wheels, and the weight
was over seven and one-half tons.
It became apparent that if the locomotive was not to cause
the track to sink the weiti;ht must be distributed over the rails.
Courtesy of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.
WILLIAM JAMES'S LOCOMOTIVE.
The steam in a locomotive's cylinders must be properly controlled. The locomotive invented
by William James, of New York (of which this is a reproduction made by the Baltimore
and Ohio Railroad), is historically important. It incorporated for the first time the modern
"link-motion," one of the simplest and most enduring of inventions.
The principle Is much the same as that applied In the snow-
shoe or the ski. A man on snow-shoes can stand on the surface
of loose snow because his weight is distributed over several
square feet; In boots he would sink in. Horatio Allen was the
first to suggest this principle In locomotives, although it re-
mained for John Jervis to carry It out. Jervis ordered from
H. R. Campbell for the Germantown railroad, the first eight-
wheel locomotive — a type that has prevailed for over half a
century. It was called the "Experiment." Weights and power
STORY OF AMERICAN RAILROADING 35
were going up. This engine had cyhnders fourteen by sixteen
inches, and it weighed twelve tons.
The roughness of the track led to another valuable improve-
ment: the equalizing-lever. It was a strong flat bar, pivoted at
its centre to the locomotive frame, with its ends resting upon
Courtesy of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.
THE "HERCULES" OF HARRISON.
Rough tracks inspired Joseph Harrison to invent the equalizing-lever — a flat bar pivoted at its
centre through a spring to the frame, with its ends resting upon the journal-boxes of the ad-
joining driving-wheels. The lever distributed the shock or "hammer-blow" due to bumps
or hollows of the track. The locomotive in which Harrison incorporated this invention in
1837 was the "Hercules," of which this is a reproduction made by the Baltimore and Ohio
Railroad.
the journal-boxes of the adjoining driving-wheels. The new de-
vice distributed the shock or "hammer-blow," due to passing
over bumps or hollows of the track, evenly over the two wheels.
The "Hercules" of 1837 was the first to embody the equalizing-
lever, and to Joseph Harrison goes the credit for this notable
engine, a full-size model of which is in the Field Museum,
Chicago.
36 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
Typical American-Type Locomotive of 1845
The famous Rogers Locomotive Works of Paterson, N. J.,
was responsible for many improvements, notably the placing of
a balance weight at the rim of the driving-wheel to counteract
the back-and-forth surging and hammering effects of the piston,
connecting-rods, etc. This was done in the "Sandusky."
Rogers also placed the cylinders outside the frames, used bar
iron in opposition to the English plate-frames, and by combin-
ing these features with the equalizing-lever and a forward
truck, he produced the typical American outside-connected,
eight-wheel engine, which remained the standard passenger-
engine for fifty years. This locomotive, with cylinders eleven
and one-half inches by eighteen, and five-foot drivers, was
built in 1845 for the New Haven and Hartford road.
The increased length and weight of American passenger-
trains demanded powerful engines. They were an absolute
necessity. Hence in locomotives we find first the four-coupled,
then the six-coupled, and finally in the latest Rock Island loco-
motive, the eight-coupled.
The Largest Express Locomotive
Bear in mind the modest dimensions of the early locomo-
tives above described, and compare them with the following
figures for the Rock Island Locomotive — the most powerful
passenger locomotive in the world in 192 1:
Length over all 90 feet
Weight 270 tons
Diameter of boiler 80 inches
Boiler pressure per square inch 200 pounds
Diameter of cylinders 28 inches
Stroke of cylinders 28 inches
Draw-bar pull 25 tons
This engine has hauled sixteen Pullman cars, weighing twelve
hundred tons, at a speed on level track of slightly more than
sixty miles an hour.
38 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
The American Freight Locomotive
Freight-trains, also increasing their weight, called for more
power, and this in turn demanded larger boilers and cylinders;
these again required additional weight on the drivers to prevent
their slipping on the rails. The problem was met by adding
yet another pair of wheels and coupling all six together. The
first of this type known as the "Mogul" was built in 1863 at
the Rogers Works. A two-wheel pony truck took the place of
the four-wheel truck. The cylinders were large, seventeen
inches by twenty-two, and the weight went up to thirty-five
tons.
The next step in weight and power was taken by the Bald-
win Locomotive Works. They added another pair of drivers,
and in 1866 produced the first "Consolidation" — a type which,
like the "Mogul," was to endure to our day. The cylinders
were twenty inches by twenty-four, and the weight went up to
forty-five tons, about one-tenth the weight of the largest loco-
motive of to-day.
Hitherto the main efforts of locomotive-builders had been
directed toward an increase of power; if engines pulled the load,
that was suf^cient. But in the latter half of the nineteenth
century they aimed at an economical machine that would have
the maximum of hauling power with the least possible con-
sumption of fuel. The builders of steamship engines had al-
ready found that a given amount of steam would do more
work if it were first used in a high-pressure cylinder, and then
exhausted to a larger, low-pressure cylinder. The locomotive-
builders began to use this method. In the period 1890 to 19 10
thousands of compound locomotives were built, some with one
high-pressure cylinder and one low-pressure, some with two
high and one low, and others with two high and two low. Some
economy resulted, but the gain was not so marked as in the
steamship engines, where first compound, then triple-expansion,
and finally quadruple-expansion engines, in which the steam
passed through four successive cylinders, proved very economical.
In general, compounding failed to show a sufBcient saving
in steam, and therefore in coal, to justify its general adoption.
A better way has been found in superheating. In this method,
STORY OF AMERICAN RAILROADING 39
the steam in its passage from the boiler to the cylinders, is led
through tubes around which pass the hot gases from the fire-
box. The steam is thereby dried, and its temperature is raised
several hundred degrees. Heat is power, and the heat drawn
from the hot gases represents an equivalent gain of power in
the cylinders. Now, this heat is a clear gain; but without the
superheater it would have Dassed out through the smoke-stack
and been lost.
Locomotive engineers estimate that the use of superheaters
represents a saving of about twenty-five per cent in coal. In
other words, if a simple locomotive does a certain amount of
work for every ton of coal burned, a superheater locomotive
will do the same work on about three-quarters of a ton.
It would take more than a volume to trace in detail the
growth of the freight locomotive from the fifties to the present
day. We have seen how its essential features came, one by
one, to be incorporated; from then on growth was in the direc-
tion of size, weight, and power. The true measure of a loco-
motive's power is the size of its boiler, and American engineers
have never lost sight of this fact; in fact our locomotives have
always carried a much larger boiler than those of any other
country. Moreover, we have consistently used higher steam
pressures.
It should be remembered that a sufficient number of wheels
must be coupled together and a sufficient part of the weight of
the freight locomotive be carried by them, to prevent the power
of the cylinders from slipping the wheels. Hence, as boilers
and cylinders grew in size, more pairs of wheels had to be coupled
together. In the freight-engine, there was first the "Mogul"
(six-coupled); then the "Consolidation" (eight-coupled), fol-
lowed by the "Decapods" (ten-coupled). This was the limit.
A way of gaining further adhesion was found in using the
invention of the Frenchman, Mallet, who provided two sepa-
rate trucks below the boiler, each of which carried a pair of
cylinders coupled to a set of drivers. This opened up great
possibilities of power. Longer boilers could be used, more
drivers could be utilized, and the adhesion and tractive power
increased.
The accompanying illustration of the "Virginian" shows the
40 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
most powerful freight steam locomotive in the world. Its pro-
portions are enormous:
Length over all 107 feet
Weight 450 tons
Diameter of boiler 103 inches
Boiler pressure per square inch 215 pounds
Diameter of cylinders:
High pressure 30 inches
Low pressure 48 inches
Stroke of cylinders 32 inches
Total heating surface 10,725 square feet
This engine during a test hauled a coal train weighing
17,600 tons up a long two-tenths of one per cent grade. The
American Locomotive Company built this mastodon.
The American Passenger-Car
The first passenger-car that ran on the Baltimore and Ohio
was described by an eye-witness as "a little clapboarded cabin
on wheels, for all the world like one of those North Carolina
mountain huts, with the driver perched on top of the front por-
tico—driver, because the motive power then was one horse in a
treadmill-box."
A glance at the "De Witt Clinton" steam train shows that
the more comfortable early passenger-car was the body of a
stage-coach mounted upon four iron wheels. Some of the pas-
sengers sat upon the roof, stage-coach fashion, where they were
not only exposed to wind and rain but also to the smoke and
hot sparks of the wood fuel with which the locomotive was
fired. Later, to provide the passengers with better shelter and
comfort, closed box-like cars were introduced; but these brought
discomforts of their own.
That a railway journey in the early days of the steam loco-
motive was something to be dreaded may be gathered from this
extract from the diary of pessimistic Samuel Breck of Boston:
''July 11^ ^'^ZS' This morning at nine o'clock I took pas-
sage on a railroad-car (from Boston) for Providence. Five or
six other cars were attached to the locomotive, and uglier boxes
I do not wish to travel in. They were made to stow away some
STORY OF AMERICAN RAILROADING 41
thirty human beings, who sit cheek by jowl as best they can.
Two poor fellows who were not much in the habit of making
their toilet, squeezed me into a corner, while the hot sun drew
'^m
li'j.
385
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LX. •#
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^""' BETWEEN NIAGARA FALLS AND DETROrT,
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ST. 1©133S 111' SiilSSIA'
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Courtesy of the New York Central Lines.
POSTER USED IN 1854 AND 1855 TO ADVERTISE THE NEW YORK CENTRAL
RAILROAD AND ITS CONNECTIONS.
from their garments a villainous compound of smells made up
of salt fish, tar, and molasses. By and by just twelve — only
twelve — bouncing factory girls were introduced, who were going
on a party of pleasure to Newport. 'Make room for the ladies !'
bawled out the superintendent. 'Come, gentlemen, jump on
42
REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
the top; plenty of room there !' 'I'm afraid of the bridge knock-
ing my brains out/ said a passenger. Some made one excuse,
and some made another. For my part I flatly told him that
since I had belonged to the corps of Silver Grays I had lost my
gallantry and did not intend to move. The whole twelve, how-
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Courtesy 0/ the New York Central Lines.
EARLY TIME-TABLE.
ever, were introduced and some made themselves at home,
sucking lemons and eating green apples. . . . The rich and
the poor, the educated and the ignorant, the polite and the vul-
gar, all herd together in this modern improvement in travelling
. . . and all this for the sake of doing very uncomfortably in
two days what would be done delightfully in eight or ten."
The cars in which Breck and his contemporaries had to ride
were little more than wooden vans on wheels, slightly smaller
STORY OF AMERICAN RAILROADING
43
than the old-fashioned street-car. It was bad enough to be
herded in these smelly vehicles and compelled to sit on hard
wood, but as soon as the locomotive started passengers were
choked with smoke and stung with road dust and flying sparks.
At night, the few flickering candles were apt to fling their drip-
RAIL ROAD LINE FROM NKW YORK TO BUFFALO.
♦ R.KT,
1! .il l!o
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"''■"/.,". ';"''^'';
Courtesy of the New York Central Lines.
FORM OF TICKET ISSUED IN THE THIRTIES, GOOD ON RIVER
STEAMBOAT, RAILROAD, AND CANAL-BOAT.
ping tallow on to the best of clothes. During the winter the
cars were not ventilated, and the air was vitiated by a wood-
burning stove that only made a pretense of furnishing heat.
Ross Winans introduced about 1832 a car mounted on two
four-wheeled trucks. The sharp curves of the early roads
brought about the use of the swivelling locomotive truck.
Winans applied the idea to cars. His first car had seats inside
and outside, arranged like those of stage-coaches. It was fol-
lowed by a car which looked like three stage-coach bodies in one,
divided into three compartments and entered by doors on the
side of each compartment. The next improvement resulted in
something more like the modern car — a vehicle with doors only
at the ends, and with an aisle between seats extending through
the car. Thanks to Winans the cars gradually grew in width,
height, length, and weight. In Europe the separate-compart-
ment idea prevailed, but in the United States the cars were
open from end to end.
44
REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
Thus was born the long, easy-riding typical American car,
the most distinctive contribution of America to the convenience
and safety of railroad travel.
Affecting the safety of passengers, a most important step
was the introduction of the all-steel car. The wooden car was
liable, in collision or derailment, to burst apart and splinter.
In such accidents, the sharp broken timbers had caused fright-
Courtesy of the Pullman Company.
PULLMAN'S EARLY SLEEPING-CAR.
One of the oldest sleeping-cars, built on the style of the Erie Canal packet, with three tiers of
bunks on one side of the car only. This preceded Pullman's No. 9 (his first modern car).
ful lacerations. Moreover, the whole car had burst into flame
and the imprisoned passengers had been roasted to death.
Now the steel car, with its greater strength, rarely telescopes,
and though it may bend it will not break easily. It cannot
catch fire. Passengers may be bruised, but even in severe col-
lisions they are not likely to be killed.
Thus, from the small, uncomfortable, noisy boxes on wheels
in which our forefathers travelled in the thirties, have devel-
oped the huge steel cars of to-day, eighty to ninety feet in
length and weighing from eighty to ninety tons — cars in which
STORY OF AMERICAN RAILROADING 45
we may travel for days and nights, surrounded with many of
the comforts of a city hotel.
How THE Sleeping-Car Was Invented
The first trains were so slow and the distances to be cov-
ered so great that as early as 1836 the Cumberland Valley Rail-
road of Pennsylvania inaugurated a sleeping-car service between
TEKLV
:>:&^f^.Mc,^^- [:May 2^, 1859. '•,
CONVENIEKCB OF THE NEW SLEEPING CARS.
{Tmiii fiU Cn.i^ trhrt inhes a birlh in the eiefping Car, tUtnt.')
■ .Tt-M ,!,, .,,,: think tV.o Millerfflt Bridpc snfo In-nitrht?"
' f n the steam, 1 gao.-s wo'i! get the Kncnnc ami Tender over all
Courtesy of ihe Pullman Company.
INTERIOR OF A PULLMAN "BUNK" CAR.
Harper's Weekly of May 28, 1859, published this conception of sleeping-car comfort before George
Pullman determined to make a night journey on a railroad somewhat more restful than it
was in the days when he bumped over the tracks in the State of New York. These "bunk"
cars were all that the travelling public could count upon for nearly a generation after the
first railway was built in America.
46
REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
Harrisburg and Chambersburg. An ordinary day-coach was
divided into four compartments fitted with bunks against the
side. In the rear the heavy-eyed passengers, who had vainly
tried to sleep while the car bumped its way during the night
over the uneven track, might wash themselves as best they
could with the aid of the basin and towel there provided. To
Courtesy of the Pullman Company.
OLD NO. 9, THE FIRST PULLMAN SLEEPING-CAR.
A Chicago and Alton day-coach remodelled at Bloomington, 111., by George M. Pullman,
and first operated from there to Chicago in 1859.
undress was out of the question; there were no bedclothes.
Men threw themselves down on mattresses and piled over them
their coats and shawls. For almost a generation these "bunk"
cars were all in the way of sleeping accommodation the various
railway companies offered the public. Bedding was furnished
after a time, each passenger proceeding to a closet at one end
of the car, selecting the cleanest sheets and blankets he could
find and making his own bed. At irregular intervals the bed-
clothes were washed.
One who often tossed about in "bunk" cars on his journeys
between Buffalo and Westfield was a young contractor named
George Mortimer Pullman. Westfield knew him at one time
as a clerk in the country store, but lost sight of him when he
Joined his brother, a cabinetmaker, of Albion, N. Y. Business
STORY OF AMERICAN RAILROADING 47
was dull in Albion, and young Pullman cast about for money-
making opportunities. He took the contract of moving some
buildings to the banks of the newly widened Erie Canal, and
thus it was that he acquired a first-hand knowledge of sleeping-
car misery in the early fifties. Since Pullman was born in 1831,
he was still in his twenties when the terrors of a railway night
were thrust upon him. On one of these journeys he thought
of a car in which it was actually possible to sleep, but it was not
until 1855, after he had moved to Chicago, whither his bound-
less energy and restlessness had urged him, that he put his ideas
to the test. He made some money by contracting to elevate
some wretched sunken streets and raising buildings to the new
level.
In 1858, three years after his arrival in Chicago, then an
overgrown country town of about 100,000 population, he built
his first sleeping-cars for the Chicago and Alton Railroad. He
simply remodelled two old coaches, built into them ten sleeping
sections, a linen-closet, and two wash-rooms. Pullman even
then had notions about interior decoration. He finished his re-
modelled cars in cherry. Plans there were none. Pullman and
a few men worked out the details and the measurements as they
came to them. The two cars cost Pullman not more than $2,000,
or $1,000 each. They were upholstered in plush, lighted by oil
lamps, heated with box stoves, and mounted on four-wheel
trucks. There was no porter in those days; the brakeman
made up the beds. So little accustomed were the passengers
to the luxuries provided that on the first night they had to be
asked to take off their boots before entering their berths. In-
cidentally, it may be mentioned that the upper berths were of
the swinging type ever since built into American sleepers — the
invention of Pullman. Curtains, and not wooden partitions,
divided the sections.
The cars proved a success after a few months' trial. To
Pullman, however, they were merely old cars slightly improved,
an experiment, and certainly not the luxurious bedrooms on
wheels of which he had dreamed on his rough nightly journeys
through the State of New York. It was not until 1864 that he
built the first real Pullman car. Into it he put practically all
the money that he had saved — over $20,000.
48 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
Twenty thousand dollars for a single car ! Railroad men
stood aghast at such extravagance. They had reluctantly
spent ^5,000 after Pullman had shown them the way with his
two experimental cars. It seemed impossible to make money
out of the "Pioneer," as this $20,000 venture was fittingly
called. Moreover, the "Pioneer" was higher and larger than
existing cars; the question was how to get it under the old
bridges and past the more protruding platforms. But luck was
with Pullman. The government engaged the "Pioneer" to
carry the body of President Lincoln from Chicago to Spring-
field, for which reason one railroad had to adapt itself to Pull-
man's ideas of what cars should be. Later General Grant used
the "Pioneer" for a journey from Detroit to Galena, 111., and
another road adapted itself to Pullman's car.
The increased dimensions of the "Pioneer" meant greater
weight; hence Pullman added a third wheel to each truck. This
introduced the three-wheel truck which has since become the
standard for all Pullmans and heavy passenger-cars. While
our modern cars are longer than was the "Pioneer," their width
and height are the same. By standardizing construction Pull-
man helped to bring about the system which makes it possible
for a man to travel in the same sleeping-car from one end of the
country to the other.
The immediate successors of the "Pioneer" cost Pullman
about $24,000. It was not yet proved that such an expendi-
ture was justified by possible earning power. Pullman argued
that any sensible traveller would be willing to pay two dollars
a night for comfort, attractive surroundings, and the greater
safety his cars afforded through their stanch construction.
The railway managers were convinced that the prevailing rate
of $1.50 was the maximum that the public would pay. But at
Pullman's suggestion the new sleeping-cars were coupled with
the old in the same train, and it was left to the passengers to
render a decision. Render it, they did. Only those who grum-
bled because all berths had been sold out for the new cars trav-
elled in the old. Such was the demand for accommodations in
the new Pullmans that the Michigan Central Railroad, con-
vinced by the experiment, was forced to abandon the old-
fashioned sleeper.
Courtesy of the Pullman Company.
THE DINER "AMERICA" EXHIBITED AT THE CHICAGO WORLD'S FAIR
IN 1893.
A perfect specimen of the rococo period of Pullman interior decoration.
Courtesy of the Pullman Company.
PULLMAN'S "PACIFIC" COMBINATION SLEEPER AND OBSERVATION-CAR.
The "Pacific" was exhibited at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893 by the Pullman Company.
A rococo tempered by time.
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STORY OF AMERICAN RAILROADING 51
These early cars of the "Pioneer" type had all the charac-
teristics of the modern Pullman sleeper. By day there was no
sign of berth or bed. Every night the linen was changed. En-
thusiastic reporters commented on the "window-curtains looped
in heavy folds," "the French plate mirrors suspended from the
walls," and the "beautiful chandeliers with exquisitely ground
Courtesy of the Pullman Company.
RIVETING THE I-BEAMS OF A PULLMAN CAR.
The four I-beams (two at the vestibule end, as shown, and two directl}- behind at the entrance)
are of such strength as to make "telescoping" an impossibility. Like the willow, they give
but do not break. In the case of an impact the adjoining car might climb but could not
telescope this car.
shades" which hung from a ceiling "painted with chaste and
elaborate design upon a delicately tinted azure ground." The
old cars had bare floors. In the Pullmans the traveller's feet
sank in Brussels carpet.
In 1867 Pullman owned forty-seven cars, all of them manned
by negro porters and crews in accordance with a system that
has since become part and parcel of the American railroad. He
now introduced arrangements for serving cooked food. His
first restaurant experiments were conducted in what he called
"hotel" sleeping-cars, in reality sleeping-cars with kitchens at
52 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
one end. Meals were served at tables which could be quickly
mounted in place and as quickly taken down. The idea of
cooking and serving meals with hotel ceremony on a train origi-
nated with Pullman, and was first carried out in 1867 on the
Great Western Railroad of Canada.. These "hotel" cars cost
130,000 each, and out of them developed the Pullman dining-
car without sleeping accommodations. The first of these
"diners" was introduced in 1868 and was fittingly named the
"Delmonico." Meals were served at one dollar each. Later
came "parlor" cars and smoking-cars.
The necessity of passing through several coaches to the
"diner" suggested the need for a safe, covered passageway. In
1887 the vestibule Pullman train appeared, in which the prob-
lem of allowing cars to sway and to round curves without tear-
ing away the covered passage was solved. The patentee was
not Pullman himself, but H. H. Sessions, one of his employees.
Thus was the "solid-vestibule train" introduced, now the
standard equipment of every self-respecting American railroad.
The abutting faces of the vestibules terminate in flat, broad, steel
frames, held against each other by stout springs. The vesti-
bules not only tend to steady the cars, but also to shut out drafts,
cinders, and dust. Moreover, in case of collision they prevent
telescoping, and thus add to the safety of travel.
The American Freight-Car
The American freight-car is as distinctive as the passenger-
car in respect of size, weight, and carrying capacity. The
larger the single unit of transportation, the lower the cost per
ton of the freight carried, and the great size of our freight-car
is one of the reasons why American railroads can profitably move
freight at a lower rate than the European roads.
American cars are of three principal types: the fiat car, the
closed box car, and the coal car; although each of these include
subtypes, designed for special service. The most notable growth
in size is found in the coal cars, particularly those of the hopper
type, with hopper bottoms, closed by hinged doors or gates,
which on being released, instantly discharge the whole contents.
During the past forty years these have increased, successively,
to capacities of 25, 50, 75, 100 and, during the past year, to 120
STORY OF AMERICAN RAILROADING
53
tons of coal — the last-named being carried on three-wheel end
trucks.
Of the special cars, none has shown a more remarkable devel-
opment than the refrigerator-car, designed for the carrying of
dressed meat from the great Western packing-houses to the
various cities throughout the Eastern States — a development
Courtesy of Sui/l and Company.
INTERIOR OF A SWIFT REFRIGERATOR-CAR.
An invention that enabled the packing industry to centralize the killing of cattle and to
reduce the cost of meat.
mainly due to the foresight and enterprise of Mr. G. F. Swift,
the founder of Swift and Company. Before the introduction
of the refrigerator-car, live stock was shipped "on the hoof"
from the distant Western ranches to the packing-houses in Bos-
ton, New York, and other Eastern cities. Swift realized that if
the animals were slaughtered, say in Chicago, and the dressed
beef were shipped from there to the Eastern cities, there would
be a considerable reduction of freight expense, meaning cheaper
meat to the consumer, and the ill-conditioning of live stock by
a long, overland journey would be avoided.
So in 1875 he developed a box car of special construction in
which the dressed beef and pork were hung from the roof, and the
floor space was filled with other products such as lard in tubs.
To keep the meat at a constant low temperature, he provided
end compartments, or bunkers, in which was placed cracked
ice and salt. The chilled air flowed downward to the floor and
then up through the car to the roof, where it passed out through
ventilators.
54
REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
The refrigerator-car was a success from the first. But the
railroads refused to build the cars themselves and the packers
had to construct their own rolling-stock. To such proportions
Courtesy of the Pennsylvania Railroad.
MODERN AMERICAN LIVE-STOCK CAR.
The American freight-car is as distinctive as the passenger-car in respect of size, weight, and
carrying capacity. The present tendency is toward steel construction. This standard
live-stock car has a steel underframe.
has this enterprise grown, that Swift and Company alone em-
ploy 8,000 refrigerator-cars to transport their products.
Safety in Railway Travel
The loud protests against the danger of railroad travel, with
which the first proposals to carry passengers at the unheard-of
speeds of from fifteen to thirty miles an hour were received,
were not so unreasonable then as they seem to us to-day. It
was one thing to start a train and speed it up to thirty miles
an hour — it was quite another thing to stop the train when some
obstacle ahead, some defect in the track, threatened destruction.
A train of the twentieth century, made up of a 250-ton
locomotive and 10 cars of 75 tons each, running at 60 an hour,
in a collision would strike a blow equal to that delivered against
armor-plate by the 2,450-pound projectile from our biggest
STORY OF AMERICAN RAILROADING 55
army gun — the i6-inch coast-defense gun which was tested at
Aberdeen, Maryland, In 1922.
So, having learned how to start and speed up a train, the
next thing to learn was how to stop It In the face of danger,
and stop It In the least possible distance.
Robert Stephenson, the gifted son of George Stephenson,
realized this, and in 1843 he devised a steam-brake. In which a
steam-cylinder, acting through levers, pressed two wooden
blocks against the driving-wheels. The Invention was ahead
of its day, but the principle, with air substituted for steam, is
in use on all modern engines.
The early braking arrangements, both In England and
America, were very crude. On the New Castle and Frenchtown
road In the United States the trains were stopped by main
physical strength with an enormous hullabaloo on approaching
the station at the signal of the engineer. He raised his safety-
valve, and the sudden loud hissing noise thus produced sum-
moned negro slaves who rushed to the train, seized It, and tried
to hold it back while the station agent thrust a stick of wood
through the wheel spokes. Better than this was the more com-
monly used hand-brake for passenger-trains, and the foot-brake
for freight-trains. But even with these the shock of stopping
was enough to shake every bone in the body of a passenger or a
trainman.
Later, the rotating axles of the cars were made to wind up
chains which pulled on the brakes. Next, the motion of clos-
ing up the cars as they thrust in the draw-heads by which cars
were coupled, was utilized to wind up the chain brakes. Then
the steam-brake and the vacuum-brake were tried. All of this
experimental work led up to the conviction that any effective
braking system must be continuous — that Is to say, every wheel
of the train must be braked simultaneously by one man from
one point on the train. This man, of course, was the engineer
in his cab.
The Westinghouse Air-Brake
The problem was solved by the genius and perseverance of
that great American inventor, George Westinghouse. The facts
of his stirring life and the underlying principles of his Invention
56 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
are given in the chapter "Putting Air to Work." On the loco-
motive WestinghoLise provided a steam-driven air-pump, which
maintained a constant air-pressure of seventy pounds in an air-
reservoir also located on the locomotive. From this air-reser-
voir an air-pipe led up to a control-valve near the engineer's
hand. From the control-valve an air-pipe, now known as the
"brake-pipe," was led beneath the floor of the cars for the whole
length of the train. Also, attacheci below the floor of each car,
was a brake-cylinder. The piston-rod of this cylinder was so
connected to the brake rods and levers — "brake-gear" — that
when air was admitted, the movement of the piston, acting
through the brake-gear, would set the brakes. When the en-
gineer wished to slow down the train or stop it altogether, he
opened his valve. The air rushing through the brake-pipe en-
tered the brake-cylinders on each car and set the brakes.
So far, so good. But it took time for the air to fill all these
cylinders. Those next the engine were filled first, and on a
test, it was found that the last car was not braked until eigh-
teen seconds later. This was too slow for an emergency.
Then Westinghouse did a very clever thing. He placed an
air-reservoir on each car and kept it filled at all times with air.
Between this reservoir and the brake-cylinder he placed a most
ingenious device known as the triple valve. He maintained the
train-pipe under air-pressure. The triple valve formed the pas-
sageway between the auxiliary air-reservoir on each car and its
brake-cylinder, and this valve, normally, when the brakes were
"ofl^," was closed and was kept closed by the pressure in the
brake-pipe. It was so adjusted that when the brake-pipe pres-
sure was reduced it would open, permitting air to pass from
the reservoirs on the cars to the brake-cylinders. This action
was instantaneous.
Now see how beautifully the device operated. All the en-
gineer had to do to set the brakes simultaneously throughout the
train was to open his controlling-valve and let air out of the
brake-pipe, lowering Its pressure throughout the whole train.
This caused the triple valves instantly to pass air from the car-
reservoirs to the brake-cylinders, so that there was a practically
instantaneous application of the brakes throughout the train.
To demonstrate his brake George Westinghouse equipped a
STORY OF AMERICAN RAILROADING 57
train of 50 freight-cars and ran it 3,000 miles around the coun-
try. In comparative tests, hand-brakes stopped the train when
running 20 miles an hour in 794 feet. The air-brakes stopped
the same train in 166 feet.
The next improvement provided an extra or emergency reser-
voir on each car, which could be opened so as to add an addi-
tional brake pressure for a quick stopping of the train in an
emergency.
Finally, it was considered important to secure an equal pres-
sure on all brakes throughout the train. Unequal pressures
produce heavy surging and jerking effects, which are destruc-
tive to the cars and extremely annoying to the passengers.
This was accomplished by the introduction of the automatic
straight air-brake. With this brake a coal train of 100 cars
weighing with the engine about 9,000 tons, was taken down a
mountain grade at a predetermined low speed, without any
jerking or surging of the cars.
Signalling Systems
A railroad must not only have a method of stopping its
trains, but it must know when to stop them. The necessity for
signals, both to warn the engineman of dangers ahead and also
to tell him whether the track is clear, was realized from the very
first. Stephenson sent a man ahead with a flag to warn vehicles
and foot-passengers, and the early trains, here and in England,
utilized the horn of the stage-coach guard. In America this
was eventually superseded by the bell and steam-whistle; but
the former is more ornamental than necessary to-day.
Signals are of two kinds: those which protect switches, junc-
tions, and railroad crossings, and those which preserve a safe
interval between trains running on the same track. The latter
are known as "block-signals."
In the days of the single-track road the "staff" signal was
used. There was a single staff for each stretch of road between
any two stations A and B. No train was allowed on that " block"
without the staff that travelled back and forth and never left
the block. A train reached Station B. The station master
handed the staff to the engineer. He carried it to A and handed
it to the master there. It was carried back to B by the first
58
REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
train running in that direction. Since there was but one staff,
two trains could never be in the same block at the same time.
The method was safe but crude. By that arrangement a col-
Courtesy of the South Kensington Museum.
MODEL OF LIVERPOOL AND MANCHESTER RAILWAY DAY AND NIGHT
SIGNALS.
This represents the earliest form of fixed signal, introduced on the Liverpool and Manchester
Railway about 18-54. It consisted of a rectangular frame on which a red flag was stretched,
fixed to a vertical rod which was mounted in bearings attached to a wooden post. By
means of a handle near the bottom the flag could be turned so as to face the engine-driver,
when indicating danger, or set parallel with the rails to indicate safety. Red and white
lights placed on posts served the same purpose at night.
lision between stations was avoided, since two trains could not
be in possession of the same staff at the same time.
The first system of fixed signals was introduced in 1834 ^^
the Liverpool and Manchester. It consisted of a post with a
rotating disk at its top, showing red for danger. The absence
STORY OF AMERICAN RAILROADING 59
of the red by day or the glow of a white light at night indicated
that the road was clear. Sir Charles Gregory in 1841 designed
and erected at New Cross the first semaphore signal. There
was no communication between stations; each signalman dis-
played his danger-signal after the passage of a train until a cer-
tain time had elapsed.
It is said that the modern method of operating semaphores
by wires or shift-rods was the offspring of laziness. About
Gregory's time, an unknown English railway "pointsman," who
had to attend to two station signals, decided to save him-
self the trouble of walking to and fro between them by fasten-
ing the two levers together with a long piece of wire. A broken
chair served as the counterweight. The wire ran into his hut,
where he sat by his fireside and worked the two signals without
setting foot outside. When his method was discovered he was
reprimanded by the railway authorities, promoted, and re-
warded for his ingenuity.
But it was evident that the semaphore system considered
only the tiine interval between trains. The signalman had no
means of knowing whether the train had stopped or not before
it had reached the next signal. The telegraph remedied this
defect.
Sometimes the signalman would not act promptly enough,
and sometimes he failed to act at all. The consequent collisions
led to the installation of devices to give advance information to
the engineman of the position of the signal that he was to obey,
and this was the inception of the block-signal system of our day.
Next to the automatic air-brake the block-signal system is the
greatest safety device of the modern railroad.
The "Bell Code," as it was called, was introduced on the
Southwestern Company of England by C. V. Walker — the first
audible method of communication between signal-stations.
This was supplemented by electric visual signals, the glowing of
a light informing the signalman whether a signal had been dis-
played. Here we have a suggestion of space interval between
trains, something better than the untrustworthy time interval.
By 1858 the positive block system, based on the space interval,
was established in England. In the block system the road is
divided into "blocks" of various lengths, the minimum length
60
REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
being that within which the brakes will stop the train. No two
trains are allowed in the same block at the same time
The United States proceeded along different lines. Ashbel
Welch, chief engineer of the United New Jersey Canal and
Railroad Company, devised and installed in 1863 ^^e first block
Courtesy of the Pinnsyhania Railroad.
MODERN ELECTRIC SIGNAL BRIDGE.
The electric signal over the right-hand track reads "Stop." This means that the westbound
train here shown, near Rosemont, Pa., has just entered a "block" of 3,500 feet in length.
The signal will remain at "Stop" until the train enters the next block, when it will go to
"Caution," with the diagonal, instead of vertical, row of lights lighted on the upper half.
On the adjoining westbound track, shown in the picture, the signal reads "Proceed," which
means that at least three blocks ahead are clear.
system of signals in this country on the double-track line be-
tween Philadelphia and New Brunswick. He made use of tele-
graphic communication. The signalman did not remove the
red danger-signal after a train had thundered by until he had
been advised by telegraph that the next station had been passed.
This telegraph block system, with modifications, is still gener-
ally used. The addition of track circuits for locking and indi-
cating purposes, and for interlocking between stations, was
effectively brought about by the Coleman block instrument in
1896, and from this was developed the controlled manual block
system used to-day.
STORY OF AMERICAN RAILROADING 61
The development of interlocking prevented the display of
conflicting signals. In the Interlocking system the entire con-
trol of switches and signals In a large terminal is assigned to
one man equipped with a machine that cannot possibly indi-
cate conflicting routes. In this England, as usual, led. Ash-
bel Welch, after convincing himself of the advantages of inter-
locking as practised In England, recommended its adoption here,
and thanks to his efforts the system was Introduced In the
United States in 1874. Power-operated interlocking systems
followed, and the more recent development of power-operated
interlocking systems has made It possible for larger railroads to
consolidate control In a central station.
But signalmen are but human. What was really wanted
was a method of making the train itself operate the signals.
The need was early recognized. In 1867 Thomas S. Hall pat-
ented an electric signal which was used in connection with a
switch or a drawbridge. It was defective because a break in
the circuit gave no indication of danger. Thereupon he de-
vised a closed-circuit system. In 1870 William Robblns hit
upon the plan of having the wheels of the locomotive push down
a track-lever which closed the circuit and cleared the signal, un-
less there was a break In the line.
It was Hall who Introduced the first American automatic
electric block system and installed it on the New York and
Harlem Railroad. The wheels struck a lever to complete a
circuit and set the danger-signal, and held It in that position un-
til the train had reached the next signal or "block." But there
were disadvantages In causing a train moving at high speed
to strike a lever; the blow delivered was terrific. So, F. L.
Pope devised a system In which the track Itself acted as the
electric conveyer, the wheels and axles completing the circuit
and throwing the signal to danger. In 1879 this Invention was
Introduced In service, and to some extent Is still In use. Then
followed systems In which both electricity and compressed air
were used. In these electropneumatic systems the signalman
threw over a little lever or switch and immediately, by means of
magnets at the far-distant semaphore, the control-valve of an
air-cylinder was opened and moved the signal-arm.
The latest safety device is the automatic train-stop. So
62 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
many are the inventors who have devoted their lives to this
phase of railway signalling that it would be impracticable to
enumerate them here. Each contributed something, so that
the modern automatic stop is hardly to be credited to a single
man. All these systems operate on much the same principle.
A downwardly projecting contact rod is mounted on the loco-
motive so as to touch a short length of raised rail in the middle
or at the side of the track. This short rail is in electrical cir-
cuit with the signal. When the signal is at "danger" an elec-
trical impulse passes through the rail and locomotive contact
rod and sets the brakes. The automatic stop is not fully per-
fected, but already it has probably saved thousands of lives.
Linking the Atlantic with the Pacific
In the expansion of the country westward of the Alleghanies,
more formidable than the bloody opposition of the Indians was
the lack of means of adequate transportation. It was in this
development of the West that the railroad was destined to play
a conspicuous part. At first the settlers were almost entirely
dependent on wagons and such navigable streams as the Ohio
and the Mississippi. A few products, such as hides, furs, and
ginseng, could be sent East by pack-horses and wagons; hogs,
cattle, and horses could be driven "on the hoof" over the moun-
tains; but most produce had to be circuitously transported by
water. The population of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan,
Wisconsin, and Iowa had increased from 50,240 in 1800, to
792,719 in 1820, and to 2,967,840 in 1840. "We are great,"
said Calhoun in 18 17, "and rapidly— I was about to sav fear-
fully— growing."
It was vitally essential that the railroad should bring this
rapidly growing population in contact with the Eastern sea-
board. The steamboat had done well, but at its best it was in-
direct transportation down rivers and round by way of the sea.
The United States has seen three periods of transportation which
are thus classified by Bogart in his Economic History of the United
States : the turnpike period; the river and canal period; and the
railroad period. By 1850, however, the railroad had assumed
the ascendancy, and the development of the Far West was now
assured.
STORY OF AMERICAN RAILROADING 63
The discovery of gold in California in 1848 drove home to
the American people the importance of transcontinental trans-
portation. When stories drifted East that one man, with the
help of a few Indians, cleared a dollar a minute; that "panners"
earned as much as $5,000 a day; that nuggets worth thousands
of dollars were being picked up by boys, the rush to the West
began. There were just two ways of reaching California: by a
rough and dangerous voyage around Cape Horn, or by the still
rougher and still more dangerous overland route in canvas-
covered wagons drawn by mules or oxen. Probably never in
history had so many people been eager to travel to an unset-
tled land. Thousands who journeyed by wagon died of hunger
or hardship, or were killed by Indians. The overland trail was
marked by the white bones of gold-seekers.
Those who arrived In the Promised Land found It harder to
earn a living than they had been led to believe. Spades and
shovels cost $10 each. Flour sold for $400 a barrel. Even a
wooden bowl for washing gold cost $16. A San Francisco res-
taurant charged $3 for a cup of coffee, a slice of ham, and two
eggs. A month-old newspaper was worth a dollar.
There was a crying need for transportation. The canvas-
covered "prairie-schooner" was introduced, an Improvement
over the older ox-drawn wagons, a huge vehicle drawn by six
or twelve animals, the whole costing from $3,600 to $7,000.
But It took from May to November to cross the prairie to Cali-
fornia In these wagons. For the carrying of mails, express
packages, and passengers, stage-lines were organized. In the
stage-coach of 1858, eleven passengers, by travelling night and
day, could reach San Francisco from St. Louis In a little more
than three weeks at a cost that varied from $100 to $600.
Even this faster method of transportation was too slow for im-
portant despatches. At the suggestion of Senator Gwin the
pony-express was established In 1859, with 500 horses, 190
relay stations, 200 hostlers, and eighty first-class riders,
among whom the famous "Buffalo Bill" was soon numbered.
Letters had to be written on tissue-paper, and the postage at
first was five dollars for less than half an ounce. Yet even these
expert, lightly armed riders took ten days to travel from Mis-
souri to the Pacific coast.
64
REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
The need for transportation across the continent became so
urgent that the idea of a railroad stretching from coast to coast
took ready root. The government authorized extensive sur-
veys. For years Fremont and others explored the mountains
seeking the most favorable roadway. Congress received peti-
tions, memorials, and letters urging the establishment of a rail-
Courtesy oj the Northern Pacific Railroad.
BUILDING THE NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD.
Driving the last spike in tlie transcontinental system in August, 1883, under the direction
of Henry Villard, at that time president of the Northern Pacific.
road. The bitter feeling that finally brought on the Civil War
retarded progress; for the North wanted a northern route; the
South, a southern route. Yet so pressing was the neeci that
even in the midst of the war the project of a transcontinental
line was not entirely forgotten. After a lengthy debate Con-
gress, in 1862, voted in favor of incorporating the Union Pacific
Railway Company. This was to be the eastern company to
connect with the western Central Pacific Railroad of California.
President Lincoln lent his powerful support to the enterprise,
and chose Council Bluffs, Iowa, as the eastern terminus. The
STORY OF AMERICAN RAILROADING 65
Central Pacific Company began work at the California end and
turned its first sod on Washington's Birthday, 1863.
After the Civil War the energies of the country were re-
doubled in opening up the unsettled portions of the West and
in linking the Atlantic with the Pacific. General Sherman be-
came an ardent advocate of the railroad, and General Dodge,
l'%!'%^^*^;
if.
■"'■''*. 4f^l»
^•■;':
Courtesy of the Union Pacific Lines.
WHERE THE UNION AND CENTRAL PACIFIC MET.
Completion of the work which united the Union and Central Pacific lines. The engineers
shake hands.
a great soldier-engineer, took charge of the work. It was harder
to build the eastern than the western end of the line because of
lack of material. For two years building material, workmen,
equipment, had to be brought up the Missouri River by steamer
or across the plains by prairie-schooner. Indian tribes fre-
quently descended on the railway-builders, but meat at least was
plentiful. General Sheridan states that on one occasion he
rode for three days, in 1868, through a single herd of buffalo.
Unfortunately, progress was so slow that at the end of one
year the Union Pacific had laid but 40 miles of track, and
after five years the Central Pacific had completed only 136
miles. To stimulate the companies Congress offered a bounty
66
REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
of from $64,000 to $96,000 a mile for work done in the moun-
tainous country. Then began a contest between the Western
and the Eastern companies. In 1868 the Union Pacific had
built 425 miles, and Central Pacific ^63 miles. The following
spring the road was complete — all but the actual meeting of the
two branches. Congress failed to designate where the roads
should join; so the rival companies, to earn the rich bounty,
simply kept on building, although
their lines were paralleling each
other. The Central Pacific had
built eighty miles beyond Prom-
ontory Point, near Ogden,
Utah, the junction finally agreed
upon, and the Union Pacific had
spent a million dollars in need-
lessly pushing on beyond Ogden.
The last ties were laid on the loth
of May, 1869, by the Chinese of
the Western company and the
Irishmen of the Eastern company.
The final tie was of polished Cali-
fornia laurel, to which the rails
were secured by spikes of silver
from Nevada and Idaho, spikes
of gold, silver, and iron from Ari-
zona, and a spike of gold from
California, all driven in by a sil-
ver sledge-hammer. The blows
of that hammer were heard in the East by the aid of telegraph-
wires attached to the rails. Such was the public excitement
that according to one writer "Chicago made a procession seven
miles long; New York hung out bunting, fired a hundred guns,
and held Thanksgiving services in Trinity; Philadelphia rang
the old Liberty Bell; Buffalo sang the 'Star-Spangled Banner,'
and many towns burnt powder in honor of the consummation
of a work which . . . gives us a road to the Indies, a means of
making the United States a half-way house between the East
and the West, and last, but not least, a new guaranty of the
perpetuity of the Union as it is."
Courtesy of the Union Pacific Lines.
GENERAL GRENVILLE M. DODGE,
Chief Engineer of the Union Pacific Rail-
road during its construction.
STORY OF AMERICAN RAILROADING 67
Eighteen hundred miles of track from the Mississippi to
CaHfornia had been laid through a wilderness, and a vast amount
of tunnelling and bridge-building had been completed, the
whole at an expense to the government of $830,000,000. The
building of this transcontinental railroad is the greatest feat
in the history of American engineering, with the possible excep-
tion of the construction of the Panama Canal.
Statistics
This, then, is the story of the American railroad. Like
most American enterprises it Is a story of big things, done in a
big way, by big men. If we could unravel the network of the
shining steel rails which cover the forty-eight States of the
Union, stretch it out to a single line, and wind it around this
earth, we could circle the globe ten times and still have 20,000
miles to spare. If we could assemble all the 69,000 locomotives,
57,000 passenger-cars, and 2,500,000 freight-cars and couple
them up, end to end, they would fall only 1,000 miles short of
forming a complete girdle around the earth at the equator.
Finally, if we were to assemble all the railroad employees for a
grand parade in New York, we would have an army almost the
size of the one we sent to France in the war, roughly 2,000,000
men. If that parade, in ranks stretching from curb to curb,
or sixteen abreast, passed a reviewing-stand In New York, it
would take fully three days and nights before the last rank had
gone by.
To build this stupendous system has cost $20,000,000,000,
or as much as the whole cost of the war. There are men living
to-day who can remember the time when not a mile of this
track and not a locomotive or car was In existence, for the
American railroad is only ninety years old.
CHAPTER II
HOW POWER WON THE INLAND WATERS
Early Methods of Transportation
THE winning of the waters in the interior of the region now
known as the United States brought about the real union
of the commonwealths which, in 1776, had declared themselves
free and independent peoples. This union would have been
delayed many years, however, had it not been for men who in
their youth saw a vision which gave them no rest until it was
realized. Despite many discouragements, and often in the
face of criticism, they held to their ideas until widely scattered
communities were connected by the bonds of trade and traffic
and the future of the country was assured.
Although Americans were once famed as a sea-faring race,
they did little for many a decade to promote the navigation of
their big rivers and Great Lakes. Their clipper ships were seen
in the ports of Europe and in the harbors of China long before
the taming of their own Mississippi. They turned their daring
and skill in the direction of the arctic circle in quest of whales,
and gave battle to the pirates of the Spanish Main, leaving
their vast waterways of the West unexplored.
Strange as this situation may seem, it was the natural out-
come of the conditions under which the colonies were founded.
At first, the settlers built their homes either on the ocean or on
the banks of the navigable streams which flowed into it. They
kept in touch with one another by voyaging in pinnaces and
sloops along the coast, making the deck answer the same pur-
pose as the wagon or coach. In New England there developed
the "Apple Tree Fleet," made up of schooners, the skippers
taking their bearings from the orchards along the ocean beaches.
Then came stout barks and full-rigged ships, which essayed the
trade of the West Indies and finally sought the Big Ferry which
brought them to foreign shores.
68
HOW POWER WON THE INLAND WATERS 69
In due time the early colonies were assembled about water
routes directly connecting with the sea. Virginia flourished on
the banks of the James; Maryland had the Potomac; Pennsyl-
vania came into being on the shores of the Schuylkill and the
Delaware, and the Dutch founded their New x'\msterdam where
the Hudson poured into what is now the harbor of New York.
The value of land was largely rated by its distance from a
wharf. If it had a ready outlet to the water, it was worth from
ten to forty dollars an acre; if not accessible by boat, it might
be worth only a few shillings.
It was hard work for the colonists to take themselves from
place to place, but the transportation of goods was much more
difficult. Many things were bought in England which might
have been obtained on this side of the ocean. As an example
of what it meant to go from one city to another, read the jour-
nal of Benjamin Franklin, who at the age of seventeen started
out on some American touring. He set sail from Boston, in
1723, in a sloop bound for New York. Unable to find employ-
ment there, he started for Philadelphia, but was wrecked in a
heavy gale on the coast of Long Island. Finally, he reached
Perth Amboy, N. J., in a crazy little craft on which he had
been thirty hours without food. He then walked across New
Jersey to Burlington on the Delaware River, from which point
he got passage in a rowboat to the town of William Penn.
There he arrived, wet, bedraggled, and friendless, with naught
to bless himself but a Dutch dollar.
Like other boys of his time, Franklin had been thrilled by
the life of a sailor and had come very near defying the will of
his father and going before the mast. This taste of the temper
of the ocean may have had a good effect. Years later Frank-
lin became assistant postmaster-general for the continent, and
he made a study of transportation, both by land and water. His
early travelling experiences therefore were very valuable to him,
as well as to the nation.
Inland, most of the communication was by canoes made
after the fashion of the original Americans, who were given to
painting their faces and unpleasantly wielding the tomahawk.
These aborigines made canoes by hollowing tree trunks, but
the common type of boat among them was the birch-bark
70 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
canoe, which was so light that it could be carried easily from
one stream to another. The eighteen-inch paths through the
primeval forests, the Indian trails, were merley passages through
which "poor Lo" could carry these frail craft from one river to
another. The white men, when they essayed the inland wilder-
ness, also adapted themselves to this method of transportation.
In 1760 Franklin wrote that the western country of America
was accessible by great interior rivers and lakes, except for the
shortest portages. He said it was possible to go from New
York city to Lake Ontario by water, with the exception of a
break of twenty-seven miles over which it was necessary to
carry canoes. From Lake Erie stretched hundreds of miles of
water passage into the heart of the Rockies. From Canada,
the Hudson valley, the St. Lawrence, and the lakes George and
Champlain furnished a liquid highway used by Iroquois and
Algonquins both in peace and war — as all of us who have read
the novels of James Fenimore Cooper well remember. That
there was an internal commerce over these trails, portages, and
streams is known to every one who has studied the arrow heads
and the wampum of the Indians; for weapons of iron and copper
were brought from the Northwest to the East in the course of
that primitive traffic. When Columbus and his caravels reached
these shores, he found a land without horses, cattle, or beasts of
burden of any kind, except a few dogs. Such a thing as a
wheeled vehicle was entirely unknown. Transport in any large
way was dependent upon water-courses, and upon the almost
imperceptible paths made in the woods by lightly moccasined
feet. Many years passed before the coming of the turnpike or
of any other highway of the land.
Washington and Inland Navigation
Statesmen who charged themselves with the future of this
country saw that, in order to weld the colonies into a whole,
it was necessary to solve the problem of transportation. None
sensed this more clearly than did George Washington. By in-
stinct a frontiersman, by training a leader in commerce and
finance, no man had been brought up in a more useful school of
experience than he. Like Franklin he had an early longing
HOW POWER WON THE INLAND WATERS 71
for the sea, which he overcame only at the instance of his widowed
mother, who prevented him from accepting a commission which
a relative had obtained for him in the British navy. The plan-
tation where Washington was born was on Pope's Creek, a
branch of the Potomac. In his boyhood he had learned how
to handle the canoe and the skiff. As a young militia lieuten-
ant he had served with General Braddock in the ill-starred
expedition to western Pennsylvania, and had often tested the
temper of forest streams. Once he narrowly escaped from
drowning when he was hurled from a raft into deep water.
Braddock, who insisted not only on wagons to take him into
the wilderness, but also on the building of corduroy roads, was
a commander of a school which had nothing in common with
the needs of a land of pioneers. Washington, a surveyor in
Virginia, had made a detailed study of transportation, and had
set his heart on giving easy means of communication to the
land which was the hope of the Western world. In all manner
of water-craft he was master, as was shown by his crossing of
the Delaware in the dead of winter to surprise the British at
Trenton, and by his orderly retreat by boat from the city of
New York when it was necessary to abandon the city to the
British. And when the Revolution was over General Washing-
ton devoted himself to the development of his long-cherished
plans of uniting the new nation in the bond of water-borne
traffic.
This was no sudden impulse. The same idea had guided
Washington in 1763, when he organized the Mississippi Com-
pany for the promotion of the lands of the West. Six years
before the signing of the Declaration of Independence Wash-
ington had spoken of the need of bringing the watersheds of
the East, with the Ohio River and the Great Lakes, into one
system of communication. While at Newburgh, although the
formal treaty of peace with Great Britain had not yet been
signed, his alert and practical mind was busied with vast inland
transportation projects for the new nation. He took a journey
to the headwaters of the Mohawk and the Susquehanna, and,
in 1783, started on his exploration of the West with the intention
of achieving an ambition which he considered of such impor-
tance that he had declined an invitation to be the honor guest
72
REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
of France. One of the many signs of his activity was his presi-
dency of a canal corporation organized for the purpose of unit-
ing the waters of Chesapeake Bay with the turgid floods of the
Ohio River.
The time had come for abandoning old methods of travel
and traffic. From the capital of the nation it was only a dis-
CHANCELLOR LIVINGSTOxN.
ROBERT FULTON.
Chancellor Livingston went to France as minister of the United States. In Paris he met Fulton,
with whom he later formed a partnership. Livingston, member of an old, aristocratic
family and one of the richest men of his time, had tried to build a steamboat as early as
1798.
Although he was a painter of miniatures, Robert Fulton had dreamed of steamboats even as
a boy. He conducted experiments on the Seine in France and there met Livingston. Out
of the friendship thus born came the successful Clermont.
tance of 150 miles to what one of the chroniclers well called "a
most howling wilderness." The signing of the Ordinance of
1787, throwing open the vast domain of the Mississippi and
Ohio Valleys to immigration and settlement, started an exodus
to fields and pastures new. The Connecticut Yankee was glad
of the chance to pack up bag and baggage and take his family
for a hazard of new fortunes into the vaguely known "Empire
of the West." Large grants of land to the of^cers and the sol-
diers of the army of the Revolution also hastened the movement
toward the setting sun. At Marietta comrades in arms at
Valley Forge were united on the banks of the storied Ohio.
There was given to a huddle of huts lower down the stream the
title of Cincinnati, in honor of the society in which so many of
HOW POWER WON THE INLAND WATERS 73
the generals and colonels and captains of the patriot army had
enrolled.
The migration across the breadth of the country was fa-
vored by the fact that the Ohio River had a westerly course,
distinguished from the other streams which flowed south. The
pioneers, therefore, made their way through mountain gaps
and dense forests or over roads unworthy of the name, to Pitts-
burgh and other points at the headwaters of the Ohio. There
they rested from their exhausting pilgrimage and prepared for
the risks of the river. Their camps were made close to the
Allegheny and the Monongahela Rivers which join as sources of
the Ohio. Here had sprung up an industry unique in all his-
tory: the building of strange boats adapted to the passage of
the swift and muddy streams of the central United States. In
that region, Jacob Yoder, a German, had launched, in 1750, the
first flatboat, an awkward box-like craft, drawing little water,
on which he had committed himself and his goods to the crooked
stream which forms the southern boundary of the Buckeye
State.
The goal of the new traffic was New Orleans, then in the
grip of the "power that was Spain." From that Gulf port, at
the outset of the struggle of the colonies for independence, two
soldiers had brought a flat-bottomed ammunition-boat which
they poled up the Mississippi and the Ohio as far as the falls
opposite Louisville. Owing to the low stage of the water, they
could not get over the barrier, and they were obliged to carry
their 136 kegs of powder for the Continental Army overland.
As the migration down the two streams increased, there de-
veloped a new class of human beings: the rivermen. Knowing
the quirks and turns of the Ohio and the old "Massassip," they
hired themselves out as pilots and guides to venturesome Eastern-
ers. The settlers bought or built flatboats, as the roofed scows
were called, and with the guidance of the rough-and-ready
Charons, they started on their voyages. In the craft they
stowed all that they had, household goods, timber for their new
houses, cows and horses and chickens, their cats and their dogs.
When they reached places where they had arranged to rear
new homes, they either sold their flatboats, or broke them up
to get the material for their cabins. Some of the craft even
74 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
carried sawn lumber, loosely joined in a roof, which could be
broken up easily and joined in the lodges "in the vast wilder-
ness."
As the population of the Northwest Territory increased, the
hardy farmers were able to move some of their products to the
markets at New Orleans by the river routes. They raised hogs
and corn in plenty, wheat, and barley. Some built their own
grist-mills and turned out a flour, for which there was soon a
European demand. Before the coming of the river transport,
about the only commodities <^( that region which brought high
enough prices to justify the heavy wagon rates were saltpetre,
found in the caves of Kentucky, and the ginseng of Tennessee,
which then, as now, was highly prized as a medicine by the
Chinese. Before the new inland navigation began, the few farm-
ers who had settled in that part of the country raised only
enough wheat and meat and other products to feed their own
families. The age of the flatboats, however, ushered in both
agriculture and commerce.
Of all of that great fleet of flatboats built to serve the trade
of the central United States, there is, so far as is known, not
one survivor. Thousands of them were launched at Pittsburgh
and other points in Pennsylvania, while at sleepy old Marietta,
there rose a great shipyard from whose stocks came not only
flatboats, but keel-boats, arks, barges, and even schooners.
The Flatboats, Other River Craft, and Their Crews
Flatboats, in use as late as 1840, were the ugliest and most
ungainly of all river craft. Their average dimensions were sixty
feet in length and twenty feet in breadth, and they drew from
one to two and a half feet of water. Some were smaller. The
flatboat was meant to drift with the current, and was kept in
the channel by huge sweeps or oars at the sides or forward, and
another at the rear which served as a rude rudder. When two
of the sweeps were arranged at the bow and made to stick out
from either side, such craft were called "broadhorns," because
of the resulting resemblance to the head of an ox. The boats
were covered with a heavy roof, which was generally eight feet
or so from the bottom, and on it the owners and their families
HOW POWER WON THE INLAND WATERS 75
walked and took the air, as the vessel was borne upon the mud-
toned waters. Within was comfort and a more cheerful life
than the outside suggested. Forward was a sitting-room, "and
back of that the kitchen, while down a passageway were sev-
eral bedrooms. One compartment was for cargo, and back of
a bulkhead or heavy partition, were the stables for the animals.
When the craft was given up to commercial purposes only, the
arrangement of the interior was simpler. Flatboats were often
fitted up as floating stores, and were well stocked with groceries,
drygoods, and especially Yankee notions. The proprietor stand-
ing on the roof or upper deck would blow his tin horn as the
emporium neared a landing, and after he had done all the busi-
ness the spare cash in the town justified, he would cast his
establishment adrift and seek other customers down-stream.
The flatboat, by the way, was practically a down-stream ven-
ture; only when of moderate size could it be moved against the
current. This was done by the use of iron-pointed poles, on
which the crew bore and prodded with all their might.
Flatboating on the rivers of the Middle West was a calling
for men whose blood was as red as their flannel shirts. It took
muscle, nerve, and a devil-may-care spirit born of peril and
privation. At any turn in the river these men held themselves
ready to fight pirates as remorseless as Captain Brand of the
Centipede^ who scoured the Spanish Main, or as cruel as Long
John Silver of Treasure Island fame. At any moment Indian
arrows might sing over the heads, or rifle bullets come whizzing
from the low rakish craft hidden in the bushes alongshore.
Murder and pillage were the trades of the freebooters who lay
in wait for the unwary. At one point in the Ohio on the Illinois
bank was a stronghold in the cliffs, known as " the Cave in the
Rocks," a den of thugs and thieves, which the river travellers
approached with cocked muskets. The gentry who held that
evil citadel killed crews, captured the flatboats when they
could, and took boats and cargoes to New Orleans and sold
them. Many of them were shot, but it was several years be-
fore their lair was finally broken up and the band extermi-
nated.
Men fit to cope with robbers are not soft spoken, and the
flatboatmen of early river days were hard swearers and easy
76 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
drinkers. One of the early American artists, Bingham, who
knew the river life well, showed their type in his canvas depict-
ing The Jolly Flatboatmen^ a roistering group, singing, clog-
dancing, and fiddling on the roof of their craft. Generally,
however, the flatboaters were a lantern-jawed, ague-faced,
slant-eyed lot, who employed their scant leisure in hurling
tobacco juice at distant targets with amazing accuracy. Usually
they gave themselves up to malarial musings, but when danger
and battle came they were galvanized into quick action and
rapid profanity. Their lingo was all their own.
"Hell's a-snortin','' roared Red-Whiskered Blake. ''Watch
us put them galoots out of business quicker nor an alligator can
chaw a puppy."
He who was called "The Snag of the Mississippi" and like-
wise "The Snapping-Turtle of the Ohio," known also as Big
Mike Fink, had his last fight long years ago. "I can outrun,
outjump, outhop, throw down, outyell, knock down and drag
out any man in the country," was his favorite slogan. And it
was no idle jest.
Besides the flatboats, there were many other types of craft
especially adapted for the peculiar conditions on the Western
rivers. Like the flatboats, most of them were planned from
forms which had been used on the rivers of the East, especially
on the Connecticut and the Delaware.
The keel-boat, as its name suggests, had a heavy timber
fastened to the bottom along its entire length, which afforded
some protection when the boat struck a snag or a rock. It
was propelled up-stream by the use of setting-poles handled by
men who walked up and down a narrow running-board built
at its sides. When the keel-boat was roofed over it was known
as a barge. The Durham boat, so named for its inventor, Rob-
ert Durham, who first employed it on the Delaware River, had
more graceful lines than most river vessels of the period. It
was a keel-boat resembling an Indian canoe. This type was
sixty or more feet in length and roomy enough to be available
both for freight and passenger traffic. Out of it was evolved
the first packets of the Western rivers.
It was a far cry from the dugout to the floating hotels of the
palmy days of the Mississippi, but the packet keel-boats which
HOW POWER WON THE INLAND WATERS 77
were soon going out of Cincinnati were, at least, a promise of
things to be. They were advertised as comfortable, commodi-
ous, and the passengers were assured of "safety." The cabins
were recommended as bullet-proof; there were excellent port-
holes from which to shoot at river pirates, and also a one-
pounder cannon. The packet was followed by a convoy in
Courtesy of Stevens Inst, of Technology.
COLONEL JOHN STEVENS. ROBERT L. STEVENS.
Colonel Stevens, born in New York in 1749, invented not only the method of driving ships by
screw-propellers, but also the multitubular boiler (1803); established between New York
and Hoboken the first steam ferry in the world (181 1); and with his son, Robert, made
steam navigation a commonplace on the Delaware. He designed the first iron-clad ship
(1813), practically an anticipation of the Monitor, obtained the first charter for an American
railroad, built a steam locomotive with multitubular boiler (1826), and, single-handed, did
more for transportation in America than any other man.
Robert L. Stevens, son of Colonel John Stevens, for a quarter of a century stood at the head of
the naval engineering profession in this country. The universally prevalent forms of ferry-
boat and ferry-slip, the overhanging guards, the fenders, the spring-piling, the ship-walking
beam (1821), the split water-wheel (1826), the balance valve for beam engines (183 1), the
location of steamboat boilers on the wheel-guards are inventions of his.
which were armed men. Such vessels could get to New Orleans
in a month, carrying both passengers and cargo.
As the freight business of the rivers began to develop, roofed
craft, known as arks, were introduced. They served to trans-
port apples, cider, flour, and later coal, which found a ready
sale at New Orleans. When the demand for lumber grew,
huge rafts of logs were floated down-stream for European ship-
ment.
78 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
On the Missouri River, more turbulent and more muddy
even than its sisters of the valley, craft very much like those
seen on the Ohio and Mississippi were put into commission.
They were changed somewhat to meet the needs of a naviga-
tion in shallower and more uncertain waters. The "bull-boat"
was the Missouri's very own, because its principal material, the
hide of buffalo bulls, was easily obtained by shooting those
now nearly extinct animals ranging the shores of the "Big
Muddy." This vessel was made rather round; it was really
a big basket, composed of slender saplings and withes. Over
the skeleton were stretched the hides, which, as they shrank
considerably, made a tight covering. The seams were water-
proofed with pitch and gums. The bull-boat was not such a
river-worthy craft as the "broadhorn," however, for it was easily
punctured by the many obstructions in the channel.
Travelling on all three of these rivers was fraught with peril
on account of the many snags, timbers, and jagged rocks, often
masked by the shimmering surface. Flatboats, keel-boats, arks
were likely to be hung up on a floating tree, or driven high on
the numerous islands by capricious eddies. When this hap-
pened, the more fortunate vessels in sight went to the rescue,
but in most cases, the ill-starred boats proved total losses, and
their owners had to make their way back home through the
wilderness.
On account of these misadventures and of the great diffi-
culty of working vessels against the swift currents, men invented
all sorts of schemes for outwitting the stubborn river-gods. For
centuries, horses had been used to provide power for ferry-
boats by making them walk a treadmill or an endless-chain
arrangement. Horse-boats, a feature of harbor travel in the
Eastern waters, brought such cities as New York and Philadel-
phia in communication with suburbs beyond the rivers. At
some points on the Mississippi it was possible to work scows
across the stream by means of a small stern wheel, driven by
horses. Two adventurers of navigation rigged up an eight-
horse team-boat in 1807, and sought to reach Louisville, but they
lost control of their vessel at Natchez, where she was so badly
damaged that they abandoned her.
HOW POWER WON THE INLAND WATERS 79
Fitch and the Steamboat
The story of the cantankerous streams of the Central States
engaged the attention of a Connecticut boy, who did a great
deal in later years to conquer them. John Fitch was born in
Windsor, Conn., in 1743, and at an early age was apprenticed
to a watchmaker. At the outbreak of the Revolution he turned
from tinkering escapements to fashioning guns for the army.
His interest in the West led him to the Ohio country where he
JOHN FITCH'S steamboat, EQUIPPED WITH OARS.
became a trader. He and his party were captured by Indians
at the mouth of the Muskingum River, and all his goods were
destroyed. Fitch was spared, although nine of his companions
were killed. As a captive he was made to walk all the way to
Lake Erie. He finally made his escape and arrived penniless
and worn at Warminster, Pa. There, in 1785, he began work
on his steamboat, a device which he had planned especially for
conquering the rapid Western rivers. Since 1720, and prob-
ably before, inventors had been wrestling with the problem of
how to drive boats up-stream by the force of vapor, and at that
time experiments were being conducted along that principle in
England and France. Fitch probably knew little or nothing
about what was being done on the other side of the Atlantic.
He believed that the future of the United States depended upon
getting the best of the big rivers which were the keys to Ameri-
can Inland navigation, and he set his heart upon making this
practicable.
As watch and clock maker Fitch had been used to working
in brass. Of that alloy he made the model of his first steam-
80 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
boat which, in April, 1785, he showed to Doctor Ewing, the
Provost of the University of Pennsylvania. The educator was
much impressed by it, publicly declaring the invention to be a
valuable one. That autumn, at Davisville, Pa., Fitch operated
his steamboat. It was driven by buckets attached to the sides.
The steam-powered machinery set the buckets in motion, and
the vessel glided slowly over the water. The inventor made
five of his steamboats in all. The buckets did not suit him,
and the next model had oars. He finally produced a workable
vessel which became a steam ferry-boat, and during the summer
of 1790 it plied fairly regularly between Philadelphia and Bur-
lington. In 1796 Fitch demonstrated a steamboat with a screw
propeller in the water of Collect Pond in New York city.
Had the general public or the government seen the future
of steam navigation at that time, civilization might have set
its clock at least twenty-five years ahead in the interior of the
United States. John Fitch had the vision, but, like many in-
ventors before and after him, he was alone in his vision. When
he once told a group of men of his dream that the Mississippi
would be conquered by the power of steam, they heard him for-
bearingly, and when he left them one of the listeners remarked:
"He is crazy, poor fellow!"
The staid old American Philosophical Society, of Phila-
delphia, consenting to learn from him about the steamboat,
apparently saw no possibility of its doing anything very use-
ful. Fitch then took his scheme to Benjamin Franklin and
besought his aid. The greatest opportunity which that emi-
nent scientist and statesman ever missed was that of helping
the wild-eyed, unkempt, uncouth inventor who poured into his
ears a torrent of words about the vessel which was to revolu-
tionize the trafiic of a world. Franklin saw only the suffering
and distress of the man, and taking him into another room of-
fered him some money, which Fitch indignantly refused.
What hope could there be, thought Fitch, when a savant of
international fame, an inventor of distinction himself, could not
see that a boat would be driven by steam as easily as it was
then moved by the leverage of oars ! Without substantial help
and encouragement. Fitch went from the government to the
legislatures of the various States. Finally, to get rid of him,
HOW POWER WON THE INLAND WATERS 81
he was given the exclusive privilege of navigating vessels by
steam in the waters of New York and also those of New Jersey
and Virginia. Destitute and despondent, Fitch toiled on in
his efforts to get enough capital to build a boat big enough to
Courlcsy i)/ 6/<.ii;i.s Jii.^tiluli of rahnulugy.
COLONEL JOHN STEVENS'S SCREW-PROPELLED BOAT OF 1804.
Stevens had seen Fitch's steamboat. He examined the boat and her mechanism, and in 1792,
he took out patents for steam propulsion. Nearly a decade before Robert Fulton ran his
Clermont, Stevens had a steamboat on the Hudson as builder, owner, and captain. Six
years later he equipped with double screws this predecessor of Fulton's craft. This is a
photograph of a replica of Stevens's screw-propelled boat, taken at the foot of ist Street,
Hoboken, in the sixties.
demonstrate his ideas. Here was his project, given in his own
words; and in the light of our present knowledge what can
anybody see in it that indicates an unsound mind ?
"Where streams constantly tend one way," he wrote, "great
advantage will accrue in inland navigation, and particularly in
the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, where the God of Nature knew
that the banks could never be traversed by horses and has laid
82 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
a store of fuel at their headwaters to last to the latest ages for
the very purpose of navigating their waters by fire.
"Here is an estimate which I beg leave to make. It takes
thirty men to take a boat of thirty tons burthen from New
Orleans to the Illinois. Now, I say, if I could be enabled to
complete the experiment, I would obligate myself to make a
Courtesy of Scientific American.
ENGINES OF STEVENS'S BOAT OF 1804.
Three years before Robert Fulton's Clermont ploughed up the Hudson, an engine and boiler, built
by Colonel John Stevens, of Hoboken, N. J., had been successfully used in driving a screw-
propelled boat. In 1844 this engine, in the presence of a committee, propelled the vessel
at the rate of eight miles per hour.
boat of sixty tons burthen which, with engines and all complete,
would cost $2000. As that could work double the time of the
men at the oars, it could go half the time, and transport 120
tons in the same time that the other would thirty tons. At the
rate now charged this would pay for itself and clear ^10,000,
whilst one boat could make one trip — and larger boats could be
made to greater advantage. It would also raise the value of
land in the Western territories in proportion."
Failing to get anybody in the United States to see that his
invention would benefit the country. Fitch went to France,
where he was also unsuccessful. For a time his plans were in
the possession of an American consul. They were lent by the
consul to Robert Fulton, who was then working on the same
problem of steam navigation. Fitch finally retired to his lands
at Bardstown, Ky., where he eked out a meagre existence until
u. ? m ca
84 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
he ended it by his own hand. His company had failed; "the
steamboat" had been junked; and as far as he was concerned
"finis" had been written on all his hopes.
Fitch had often stated that some man of wealth would even-
tually make the art of steam navigation a success and win a
fortune. In the very year, 1798, in which the unfortunate in-
ventor ended his unhappy life, Robert R. Livingston, member of
an old and aristocratic family and one of the richest men of his
time, built a so-called steamboat, with which he failed, however,
to make enough speed to maintain a franchise. Chancellor
Livingston had taken over the lapsed rights of Fitch, whose
boat had not made the required four miles an hour. The boat
had been built on the joint account of Livingston, Nicholas J.
Roosevelt, and Colonel John Stevens, of Hoboken, all of whom
were to become noted factors in the development of power
navigation.
Stevens Builds His Steamboats
Colonel John Stevens and his son, Robert Livingston Stevens,
receive all too little credit for their remarkable inventions.
Stevens had seen John Fitch's steamboat navigating the Dela-
ware River and was much impressed. He examined the boat
and her mechanism, and in 1792 he took out his first patent for
a method of steam propulsion. By 1798, nearly a decade be-
fore Fulton, he was actually navigating the Hudson River with
a steamboat of his own. In 1804, he built a revolutionary type
of craft — a screw-propelled vessel, the first of its type. He was
probably the best engineer of his time in America. Stevens, in
1807, built his side-wheel Phoenix. Prevented by the monopoly
granted to Fulton and Livingston from navigating the Hudson
River, he boldly sent the Phoenix^ in command of his son, to
Philadelphia, in 1808. Although the vessel had to put into
Barnegat because of a violent storm, she was undoubtedly the
first steam-driven craft to navigate the high seas. For six years
she plied between Philadelphia and Trenton.
In the construction of the Phoenix Stevens, then over seventy
years of age, was assisted by his son Robert, who became the
foremost marine and railroad engineer in the United States.
The railway exploits of Robert are recounted in the chapter
HOW POWER WON THE INLAND WATERS 85
"From Stephenson to the Twentieth Century Limited." The
utmost speed that Fulton thought possible for a steam-driven
boat to attain was seven miles an hour, and this he accomplished
in his later vessels. It was reserved for Robert L. Stevens,
after long and cautiously conducted experiments as to the form
of vessel best calculated to overcome the resistance of water,
to design and build a boat which made what seemed then the
dizzy speed of thirteen and one-half miles an hour. With his
New Philadelphia^ there began the first day line to Albany.
Robert Livingston Stevens gave the modern American ferry-
boat and river steamer their familiar forms. He was the first
to invent, in 1818, the method of using steam expansively on
shipboard, and he devised the now prevalent form of ferry-
boat, ferry-slip fenders, and spring piling. The walking beam,
too, was first applied to shipping engines by him in 1821. The
enumeration of his many useful inventions would fill several
pages.
Fulton and Livingston
Chancellor Livingston went to France as the United States
minister, and in Paris he came in contact with Robert Fulton,
who was then busy with the invention of submarines and tor-
pedoes. He had given some attention to American navigation,
as he was an advocate both of the steamboat and a canal sys-
tem. When only thirteen, Fulton's dream of conquering the
waters with a force stronger than that of poles or oars began
to be realized, for at that age he constructed a boat which he
moved with side paddle-wheels. His painting of miniatures had
gained for him the friendly interest of Benjamin West, the
Philadelphia artist, with whom he liveci for several years in
London. While Fulton was conducting experiments on the
Seine, he formed a lasting friendship with Livingston, out of
which came the revival of the steamship project. He studied
what English and French engineers had done on the subject,
then returned to the United States, intent on bringing his ex-
periments to a successful issue. As Fulton himself often said,
he never claimed the idea of the steamboat as his own, but
only the ability to make a steam-driven vessel which could be
operated with practical success.
86
REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
Before he left Europe he had shipped to New York a good
steam-engine from the famous works of Boulton and Watt, at
Soho. On his arrival in America he began the construction of
the wooden hull of the steamboat, later named the Clermont in
honor of the Livingston's country-seat up the Hudson River.
A memorable year was 1807, in which Fulton s Folly ^ as the scoff-
ers had called the Clermont^ ended her trip from New York city,
up the Hudson, to Albany. She had made the run of 150 miles
ROBERT FULTON'S STEAMBOAT, THE CLRRM0N1\ 1807.
in thirty-two hours, which gave her a speed of nearly five miles
an hour and a good margin over the four miles required in
order to maintain an exclusive grant for steam navigation in
the waters of the Empire State. There was a stop overnight
at Clermont, the chancellor's estate, where congratulations were
showered upon the promoters. Thus, for the first time on any
river, was steam navigation on a large scale made a commercial
success.
Livingston and Fulton lost no time in following up their
advantage. The Clermont was lengthened and broadened, her
machinery made more efficient, and passengers made more
comfortable by the building of the paddle-wheels outboard, so
that these contrivances hung over the water. The passengers
were also enclosed, an arrangement which saved them from
being doused at unexpected times. Then came the launching
of two other steam craft, the Paragon and the Car of Neptune,
closely followed by that forerunner of lake and river hotel-
steamboats and the costly ocean steamships which cross the
HOW POWER WON THE INLAND WATERS 87
Atlantic in a week. This was the Savannah^ the first steam
vessel to cross the ocean to England, which trip she made in the
year 1819. She was named from the city in which she was
largely owned, and sailed under the American flag. The en-
gines of the Savannah were constructed in the old Speedwell
Iron Works in Morristown, N. J., where Samuel F. B. Morse
■replica of FULTON'S CLERMOXT.
The reconstructed Clermont took part in the Hudson-Fulton celebration.
worked out his invention of the submarine telegraph. Thus
in a little factory in the New World were brought into being two
means of uniting continents and defying space and time. The
Savannah^ however, was really only an auxiliary steam-craft, as
her paddle-wheels were often removed on her voyage when the
weather was rough. But she had shown the way to the ship-
builders of Europe, and British inventors and builders soon de-
veloped the ocean steamship, and made good once more the
boast that Britannia ruled the waves.
In America, as a result of the prevailing policy of granting
broad, exclusive franchises, the promoters of the steamboat were
able long to enforce their exclusive control, and to make giant
strides in inland steam navigation. Malice and jealousy could
not stay that wonderful progress. In vain did the captains of
sloops and schooners of the Hudson seek to injure the new
88
REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
steamboats by running into them. More drastic laws were
passed to punish such malicious mischief. The old sailing mas-
ters eventually bowed to the inevitable, and some of them joined
the crews of steam-driven vessels.
Developing the Water Navigation of the West
None read the doom of sail more quickly than did a steel-
thewed youth who stood at the tiller of a sloop which plied as
From ValenUnr's !\l uniial nj iS;^.
FULTON'S PARAGON.
After the success achieved with the Clermont, Fulton and Livingston built the Paragon.
a ferry between Staten Island and the Battery of New York
city. A commander on his own deck at sixteen, this son of a
New Dorp farmer had the genius of the Dutch for seamanship
and the readiness of the American to grasp opportunities.
Cornelius Vanderbilt, growing to man's estate, won a fortune
and fought the first American steamboat trust to a standstill.
With Daniel Webster as his counsel, he attacked the syndicate
of Livingston and Fulton in the Supreme Court and defeated it
on the broad grounds that any control over waterways by
private interests was a violation of the Constitution of the
United States. A mighty decision it was, for it established, for
all time, the federal responsibility for navigable rivers and
harbors, and started this country on that great enterprise which
HOW POWER WON THE INLAND WATERS 89
resulted in the deepening of channels and the fostering of both
ocean and inland navigation.
Commodore Vanderbilt, with a title won through his becom-
ing the owner of a steamboat line, flung his restless energy into
the fight for the Hudson and out of that came the splendid
transportation lines of the American Rhine. When the rivalry
was at white heat passengers were carried from New York to
Albany for a dollar each, and finally for ten cents. They had
to pay, of course, for their meals and staterooms, but the ac-
commodations they got were the last words in luxury. The
controversy, as it flamed high, advertised far and wide the
beauties of the majestic river, and hundreds of thousands of per-
sons both from these and foreign shores felt that they had missed
much in life until they had made at least one trip upon the
famous Hudson River.
Another of that doughty Dutch race, one closely connected
with Theodore Roosevelt in blood, was Nicholas J. Roosevelt,
pioneer for the steamboat on the turbid waters of the Middle
West. Like Fulton Roosevelt had dreamed when a boy of
an age of power on lake and stream. Nicholas Roosevelt was
born in New York city, in 1767. Until he grew to manhood
he spent his days on the country estate of his family near Esopus,
New York, where he was living when the British forces were
holding the island of Manhattan. His boyish activities often
took him to the neighboring Hudson, and among his recreations
was the running of a little power craft of his own invention.
This boat was an embryo Clermont^ for it was moved by paddle-
wheels at the side. The motive force came from the action of
whalebone and hickory springs imparted by a cord to the axle,
on which were the wheels. Although Fulton had also employed
paddle-wheels in his youthful experiments, he was at first in-
clined to use fioats and chains for the Clermont^ and was only
dissuaded from doing so by Chancellor Livingston and Roose-
velt. Lideed, it has often been asserted that Roosevelt was
well justified in his claim for a patent on the steamboat paddle-
wheels and boxes.
On account of his previous association with Livingston,
Nicholas Roosevelt became enthused with the idea of advertis-
ing the advantages of steam, and he started out at once to con-
90 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
vert the West. With authority from the Livingston-Fulton
combination, he started on his promotion tour. He found so
many sceptics that he fortified himself against objections to the
new power by observing conditions at first hand in a fiatboat
trip down the Ohio. Convinced that his idea was feasible, he
caused coal-mines to be opened at certain landings, so that
there would be no lack of fuel for the steamboat which he knew
would soon be picking its way among the islands of the Ohio.
On the strength of his own survey, Roosevelt was authorized
by his backers to spend $38,000 for the building of the hull of
a river steamboat, for which most of the machinery was shipped
from the East.
The Days of the Mississippi Steamboat
"Even a raft can float down-stream," chided the critics,
when they saw the New Orleans making for Louisville. "Just
wait till the old tea-kettle tries to go up-stream."
She did go up, with hum and whistle and with her decks
crowded with Rooseveltian converts. The age of the river
steamboat had come; a gilded age tinged with romance to this
day. From the launching of the New Orleans^ in 181 1, and the
Vesuvius^ for the lower Mississippi, in 18 14, the rivers took on
a new life. But it became evident that the old stream, which
tore out its banks and cavorted in a way which would have
scandalized the placid, classic Hudson, must have a steam-craft
especially designed for it. This want was partly met by Henry
Shreve, a young man who modelled a double-decked steamboat
of shallow draft, whose engines were on the main deck instead
of being buried in the hold. He was arrested and prosecuted,
and came near serving a long term in jail for his infringements,
but the Washington^ which he planned, came up to all the re-
quirements.
With the breaking up of the Livingston-Fulton monopoly in
1824, the rich and colorful life of the Mississippi under steam
burst forth with all its glamour and glory. It drew to it the
young and the adventurous from all the surrounding States, and
even from the Atlantic seaboard. The riotous Missouri caught
the fever, and soon steamboats of even lighter draft were in com-
mission on the bosom of the Big Muddy. The smoke from the
HOW POWER WON THE INLAND WATERS 91
stacks of these devil-boats of the white men made the Indians
rub their eyes. Among those who caught the lure was a boy
at Hannibal, Mo., who went as a lad to learn to be a pilot and
became a master of literature under his pen-name of Mark
Twain. The strange pseudonym came from the cry of the
leadsman, and meant that the water he was sounding was at
the two-fathom mark.
On the rivers of the big central valley, the flatboats and the
scows long held their own, and indeed rafts were often sighted
on the way to the Gulf. But before long the roustabouts of the
flatboats became the deck-hands of the steamboats. With the
growth of steam navigation the government provided power
snag-boats and dredges operated by steam to clear the channels
of obstructions. Travelling was somewhat safer then, and big
barges, large floating stores, floating theatres, and a circus
amphitheatre were added to the stream of traffic, for they could
all be towed by steam-tugs. The troublesome Mississippi was
never thoroughly tamed, however, and even though huge em-
bankments and levees were built to stay its sudden floods, it
still wandered a mile or so from its bed overnight, leaving steam-
boats stranded high and dry.
As the steamboats increased in size and power, competition
among their owners manifested itself in open rivalry. High-
pressure boilers were introduced and the whistles shrieked the
challenge of the race by day and night. The captains of the
white-hulled craft, regardless of the twisting channels and the
risk of snags, hurled defiance and vibrant oaths at all comers.
They risked life and property without a qualm. If coal and
wood gave out, goods, lard, bacon, hams, tar would do just as
well for the hungry, fiery maws of the furnaces. The scalded
stokers, naked to the waist, yelled and cursed, as with "a nigger
squat on the safety-valve" the trembling wooden vessels ca-
reened down-stream in belching clouds of smoke. Fires and
explosions were frequent, and there was more than one Jim
Bludso who stood at his post in the pilot-house and held the
nose of the boat against the bank until every passenger was
ashore. To the timid, the sign "Low Pressure," painted on a
paddle-box, was reassuring.
The days of the Sultana and the Southern Belle have gone
92 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
into the limbo of things that were; but there are still old stern-
wheelers on the Mississippi with the old thrill along their keels.
Once in a while, as old race-horses are wont to do, they try each
other's speed for a mile or two. With the coming of the rail-
road and the canal the pulse of the traffic in the Mississippi
slowed down. The steamboats of the old type suffered by com-
parison with the railroad largely because they carried so many
deck-hands, and with the demand for higher wages they were no
longer profitable. There was no more picturesque sight in the
old days than the antics of the roustabouts who took freight
in at the landings and hustled what cargo was waiting on board.
They had periods of leisure, however, which piled up heavy
overhead charges which could hardly be met under new con-
ditions. Still, with the introduction of cheaply operated barges
burning oil, a profitable freight business is again being built up
in the valley, and it is growing apparent that the railroad cannot
do everything.
The Great Lakes and the Canals
An entirely different system of inland transportation is that
which is built about the Great Lakes and the canals. There
were very short canals in the United States long before the suc-
cessful outcome of the American Revolution, but the history of
these artificial channels is bound up in the navigation and use
of the 80,000 square miles of those land-locked seas separating
part of the United States from Canada. Even early French
explorers had long recognized the value of the Great Lakes,
but it remained for the canal-builder to make them useful to
industry and commerce. One of the results of General Wash-
ington's trip into the Western wilderness, after independence
had been won, was his plan for connecting the Atlantic sea-
board with the central rivers. He had also approved the proj-
ect of joining the waters of the Hudson with Lake Erie by canal.
As president of the Potomac Canal Company, founded for the
purpose of digging the connecting channel from Chesapeake
Bay to the Ohio River, he did not live to see the fruition of his
plans. He was able, however, before his death, to support in
every way the view of Gouverneur Morris, the eminent finan-
cier, that the day was much to be desired when "the waters of
HOW POWER WON THE INLAND WATERS 93
the great inland seas would with the aid of man break all their
barriers and unite with those of the Hudson." Such a plan was
urged again, in 1808, by Albert Gallatin, the secretary of the
treasury; but it was not until 1817, ten years after the first
commercially successful steamboat had been launched, that this
mighty project was under way. In those days there were no
Courtesy New York State Barge Canal Commission.
DAM AT DELTA RESERVOIR, NEW YORK.
This reservoir, five miles north of Rome, impounds the flow of the Mohawk near its headwaters.
Water from the Delta Reservoir passes down the Mohawk and enters the canal at Rome.
The Delta Reservoir has a surface area of four and one-third square miles. The canal seen
in the view is the Black River Canal.
excavation engineers, no contractors on a big scale, and the
day of power machinery and steam dredges and shovels had
not dawned. American zeal, however, began the task of fell-
ing primeval forests, pulling up enormous roots, and removing
millions of tons of earth, which work was carried on for eight
years before "Clinton's Ditch" was done. A proud day it was
for DeWitt Clinton, governor of the Empire State of New York,
chief advocate of the canal, when from a ceremonial barge he
emptied two kegs of water from Lake Erie into the waters of
the Hudson and proclaimed the marriage of ocean and inland
sea. When this great artificial channel was opened in 1825,
the commerce of the Great Lakes, long pent up and undevel-
oped, began to pour toward the ocean ferries. The wheat and
wool of Ohio, the coal of Pennsylvania, and the copper of Lake
94
REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
Superior, were thus to find their way to the waiting ships of
foreign lands. Along the route of the Erie Canal sprang up
thriving communities. Buffalo which had been hardly more
than a trading-post, became a busy city. In the municipality
of New York, 3,500 new houses were built in the year the arti-
LOCKS AT LOCKPORT, N. Y.
Two locks of barge-canal dimensions have supplanted a tier of five old locks. Another tier of
locks has been retained. The two locks have a combined lift of fortv-nine feet.
ficial strait was opened, and it soon boasted a greater export
trade than either of its ancient rivals, Boston and Philadelphia.
Then came an era of canal-building which developed almost
side by side with the spread of steam navigation, although the
canal did not call on mechanical power for many a year to
propel its craft. Philadelphia hastened the completion of the
long-delayed Union Canal. The Western States speeded their
canal-digging programmes at every point. Ohio, alert to get
all the trade she could both from the North and the South, con-
nected her great river of the lower boundary with Lake Erie,
coming in touch not only with the many ports of the inland
seas but also finding a way to reach the Atlantic seaboard with
HOW POWER WON THE INLAND WATERS 05
heavy freight. Numerous other canals were excavated in re-
sponse to the demand for a network of communication through-
out the nation.
Although the day of the railroad was drawing near and
steamboats had become an accepted means of travel, the public
Courtesy of the General Electric Company.
OPERATING A GATE ON THE NEW YORK STATE BARGE-CANAL.
quite unexpectedly developed a wish to be canal-boat passengers.
As the boats were intended primarily for freight, their owners
had to change their plans to meet the demand. The canal-boats,
which are really modified keel-boats or barges, were quickly
fitted with cabins, and the travelling public welcomed. Thou-
sands of immigrants chose this method of transit on their West-
ward journey. For business men, who wanted to proceed to
their destination with all speed, express canal-boats were de-
vised. They had finer accommodations than the so-called line
boats, and were drawn by speedier horses or mules. Passen-
gers of social pretensions, dressed in fashionable attire, could
sun themselves on the roof, provided — especially if they wore
silk hats — they ducked their heads when the crew sounded the
96 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
warning, ''Low Bridge." The voyagers slept in bunks along
the sides of the cabins, which also served as dining-saloons when
the bunks were folded up after the manner of the berths in
modern Pullman coaches. The freight and passenger business
of the Erie Canal and that of the Ohio canals grew to enormous
proportions before the opposition and competition of the rail-
roads caused many of the familiar channels to be abandoned.
The canals of the United States, however, were not so easily
to be put out of the running. Some of the more elaborate ones,
such as the venerable Morris Canal in New Jersey, which has
few locks and depends upon inclined railroads or planes to lift
its boats from one level to another, remain as picturesque
relics.
While some wiseacres were singing the lay of the last canal,
conditions were arising in the Great Lakes and elsewhere which
called for a new policy toward the artificial waterways of the
country. Navigation on the huge area of the bodies of fresh
water had developed in an amazing manner. From the intro-
duction of the steamboat, and with the launching of the old
Walk-in-the-Water at the Lake port of Buffalo, special types of
power-craft were introduced.
The Age of Steamboats
The age of steam came to the Great Lakes at about the
same time it dawned upon the big rivers. The first steamboat
to dip into the unsalted seas was the Ontario^ which was launched
at Sacketts Harbor under a grant from the heirs of Robert
Fulton. A heavy swell and choppy waves at this particular
point often made navigation difficult. The Ontario got out of
control at first, and wrecked her pier in trying to get back. The
first steamer on Lake Erie, the Walk-in-the-Water^ was better
adapted to the disposition of the inland waters and did far
better than the Ontario.
The services of hardy Lake sailors, men of the stamp who
made possible the victory of Commodore Perry on Lake Erie,
were enlisted to man the new Lake steamboats. The discovery
of copper and of rich iron deposits on the shores of Lake Supe-
rior, the demand for bottoms to bring the wheat of the great
Northwest into Chicago or to the Erie Canal, stimulated traffic
HOW POWER WON THE INLAND WATERS 97
to a high degree. As there was no heavy foreign competition,
the shipping on the Great Lakes soon grew to be considerably
more than hah that of the entire nation, and gave to our in-
land navigation larger vessels than those maintained on the
interior waters of any other country.
The passenger and pleasure traffic of the Lakes is carried
on enormous excursion steamers which are as well appointed as
AN ORE-CARRIER OF THE GREAT LAKES.
This type of vessel was especially developed for the rapid loading and unloading of ore.
the finest ocean liners. The freight is handled in vessels which
are peculiarly adapted to Lake conditions. The whaleback (now
almost obsolete), a cigar-shaped craft the hull of which was
covered with curved plates of steel — the invention of a Scotch-
man, Captain McDougall— was especially adapted to Lake
traffic. Laden with iron ore and copper, the improved successors
of the "whalebacks" make quick trips in the Lakes, and as they
are speedily loaded and unloaded with devices which permit the
handling of a whole train-load in a few hours, they are increas-
ing in favor with inland navigators. Ore is literally poured into
them, settling down into their holds by force of gravity; and
when the vessel reaches its destination automatic grab-buckets
as quickly remove it. Large quantities of grain are handled in
much the same way.
98
REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
Although navigation on the Great Lakes is closed in winter,
it makes up in summer for lost time. During the season thou-
sands of salt-water sailors join the hardy mariners of the
Middle West in manning the huge fleets carrying raw material
for American furnaces and mills.
The usefulness of the 90,000 square miles of the land-locked
seas is increased by canals. Between Lake Superior and Lake
Courtesy of the Panama Canal Commission.
MACHINERY ABANDONED BY THE FRENCH AT PANAMA.
Huron is an artificial channel, making up for the shallowness of
the natural outlet, the St. Mary's River, in which there is also
a waterfall. Through this ship-canal, twenty feet in depth,
millions of tons of heavy freight pass every year. Between
Lakes Erie and Ontario there Is the Welland Canal, which was
begun by the Canadian Government In 1824, about the time the
Erie was nearing completion, and opened, in 1832, to connect
the Great Lakes more closely with the St. Lawrence. This
channel Is fourteen feet in depth, and through It pass vessels
of larger register from the Inland seas to the Atlantic. The
difference In level between the two lakes, taken care of by
locks, amounts to 300 feet.
HOW POWER WON THE INLAND WATERS 99
Although there are many abandoned canals, once busy
channels of trade, the commerce of the Great Lakes has done
much to keep in commission numerous straits dug to supple-
ment the rivers. There was a time when even the Erie was
reaching its last stages, but the indomitable energy of Theo-
Coiirtt-sy of the- Panama Canal Commission.
CULEBRA CUT, CULEBRA.
Deepest excavated portion of Panama Canal, showing Gold Hill on right and Contractor's Hill
on left. June, 1913.
dore Roosevelt brought a canal revival to the nation. When
he was governor of New York State he became so deeply inter-
ested in inland navigation that he started the movement which
resulted in the expenditure of $100,000,000 in the broadening
and deepening of the old Erie into a modern barge-canal. By
canalizing rivers and much dredging, this great liquid highway
across the Empire State has received a new lease of life.
The revised Erie differs in construction from the old in that
it makes use of slack-water navigation. There are 446 miles of
100
REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
the barge-canals, the Erie being 339 miles in length. The size
of the channels varies according to locality, the minimum depth
being 12 feet. The main line is 125 feet in width where it is
cut through the earth sections; 94 feet where the course has
Copyright, 1914, by Scientific Jmerican.
HOW SHIPS ARE ELECTRICALLY CONTROLLED IN THE PANAMA CANAL.
The passage of a vessel through the locks of the Panama Canal is controlled by means of a re-
markable switchboard located in the building at the left. A detailed view of the switch-
board appears on page loi. Every stage of the passage — the rise and fall of water in
the locks, the opening and closing of gates — is indicated by electric lights.
been blasted through the rock, and 200 feet in width in the
channels marked by buoys. Fifty-seven locks regulate the
flow of the water at the changing levels.
In the early canals, locks were ponderous gates of wood,
HOW POWER WON THE INLAND WATERS 101
opened and closed only with great labor. The barge-canal has
locks of reinforced concrete equipped with massive doors of
steel which are made to swing by electricity on metal pivots,
and they can be opened and shut within half a minute. The
machinery of the barge-canal alone cost the State of New York
about $10,000,000.
Courtesy cj ilu Gensral Electric Company.
THE MIRAFLORES LOCK CONTROL BOARD, PANA^L\ CANAL.
The course of a vessel through the locks of the Panama Canal is controlled by electric switch-
boards. The men at the switchboards need not see the vessel. . The height of the water in
the locks, the opening and closing of the gates, the positions of the moving parts of a lock
are all electrically indicated, chiefly by lights on the switchboards.
With the coming of the new method ot construction the old
tow-path, over which the hauling mules were driven, passed
into history. Now the barges are either self-propelled by elec-
tric power or towed by tugs.
Another interesting new canal development is the sluice
cut through the neck of Cape Cod, thus furnishing a safe and
easy passage for craft which before had to chance the rigors
of an outside route.
102 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
The Panama Canal
Of especial importance, both for peace and war, is that
combination of canals and rivers — found in the eastern and
southern United States — which permits the passage of vessels
of light draft, such as torpedo-boat destroyers, without their
having to navigate the ocean. On such waterways as these,
swift motor-boats are important factors in the development of
communication. It would be an ideal state of things, if the
American continent were spanned from the Atlantic to the
Courtesy of I he Panama Canal Commission.
CONSTRUCTION OF GATUN LOCKS, PANAMA CANAL, SHOWING THE
HUGE GATES.
Pacific by a huge lagoon, but owing to the enormous differences
in level, especially in the mountainous West, this dream of
transportation could hardly be realized.
Theodore Roosevelt, leader of the proponents of the inland
waterways, when he became President of the United States, gave
himself over, heart and soul, to the great project of cutting in
twain the Isthmus of Panama, which joined the two Americas.
HOW POWER WON THE INLAND WATERS 103
The digging of this big ditch brought the extreme West and the
East close together, and proved an important factor in the de-
velopment of international commerce.
The mighty plan of cutting down the distance between the
two coasts and saving the tedious and hazardous trip around
Courtesy of the Hucyrus Company.
STEAM DIPPER AT WORK IN PANAMA CANAL.
This boulder weighs over fifty tons and was blasted three times while it was resting on the dipper
before it could be deposited in the removing scow. At times more than thirty boulders
were blasted in this manner in a day.
Stormy Cape Horn was conceived shortly after the discovery of
America, although many centuries passed before the vision of
the Spanish conquistadores was translated into terms of dredges
and steam-shovels. A French company, of which Count Ferdi-
nand de Lesseps was the directing genius, began the digging of
a canal in 1880, but after millions and millions of francs had been
spent the work was suspended; costly machinery, assembled at
a great cost, fell into decay and rusted under the tropic skies.
104
REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
The United States acquired the title to the abandoned route
and, in 1904, began the colossal task of finishing the work.
Ten years and three months later the Panama Canal was
opened to the fleets of the world.
The Canal traverses a zone, obtained by special treaty on
the payment of the sum of $10,000,000. The acquisition of the
Courtesy oj the General Electric Company.
U. S. S. WISCONSIN IN MIDDLE EAST CHAMBER OF GATUN LOCK,
PANAMA CANAL.
Electric locomotives haul tlie ships tlirough the locks.
needed territory was pushed through by Theodore Roosevelt, in
accordance with the quick initiative which the Roosevelts have
always shown; he had made up his mind that the Canal had to
be built — and it was.
This great waterway is 50 miles In length; has a minimum
width of 300 feet and a minimum depth of 41 feet. It cost
$375,000,000, including the $40,000,000 paid to France for the
old route. When the work was at its height a veritable army
of 44,000 laborers were employed, and in all 238,000,000 cubic
yards of earth and rock were excavated. The "spoil," as taken
HOW POWER WON THE INLAND WATERS 105
from the big prism, would build sixty-three pyramids the size of
Cheops. It could have been piled into a structure of the bulk
of China's Great Wall, which would easily have stretched across
the continent, or almost as far as the distance between New
York and San Francisco. Some of the debris was employed as
a core or filling for the great Gatun Dam, which was built to
impound the waters of the fretful Chagres. The dam itself is
a mile and a half long, and half a mile wide at its base, and
tapers up to 400 feet in thickness at its top.
Mountains of cement were needed to construct the works
and locks about the big Canal, so that ocean liners might pass
from ocean to ocean as quickly as though they were small
barges going through an Ohio creek. On the whole, the trans-
fers from one level to another are made even more rapidly
than was possible in the early days of canal-boating on this
continent. The locks of Panama are 1,000 feet in length,
no feet in width, and have a depth of 41.66 feet. The gates
of steel are seven feet thick, and they weigh from 450 to 700 tons
each, according to their width and height. The many millions
of gallons of water which are poured in and out of these locks
are forced through valves and culverts. Where vessels are un-
able to use their own power the government provides towing
locomotives, driven by electricity, which run along the tops of
the locks, four in tandem, and in a very few minutes speed even
heavy war ships on their way.
Considered as a means of aiding the internal commerce of
the United States, the Canal can cut off the steaming or sailing
distance of any vessel bound from New York to a port on the
Pacific coast by 8,415 miles. Eventually, it will be of still
more value in developing our trade with the Central and South
American republics.
Our inland navigation bears a very close relation at all
points to foreign trade, for many of the cargoes are brought
from the inner regions for transfer direct to vessels loading for
Europe.
CHAPTER III
ELECTRIC CARS AND TRAINS
TEARFULLY but bravely the young wife handed to her
boyish inventive husband, "Tom," the silk dress in which
she had been married only eight years before. He needed it
in his work as an inventor. It had been carefully folded away
in lavender by the beautiful bride when, in 1827, Thomas
Davenport, the active but studious village blacksmith of Bran-
don, Vt., had so far forgotten his profound interest in the
"galvanic magnet" of Joseph Henry as to fall in love and
"settle down." Only a few miles away. Professor Henry was
making at the Albany Academy his immortal discoveries in
electromagnetic induction and the principles of the telegraph;
and one or two of his novel magnets had been taken to the Pen-
field Iron Works, near historic Ticonderoga, for sifting magnetic
ore. Rumor in those rural districts even had it that such a
magnet could hold up an anvil, like Mahomet's cofBn, 'twixt
heaven and earth; and dreaming Tom Davenport felt he must
see it and get one. But trade at the Brandon forge was brisk,
a little family began to grow up around it, and even a brick
home was built. Going across Lake Champlain to Penfield
one day in 1833 to get iron needed in the shop — it could have
been got nearer his village — poor Davenport yielded again to
the charm of those wonderful magnets. Their spell was so
strong that he took the pitiful little eighteen dollars he had
brought, and carried back, instead of iron, an electromagnet
and some batteries to excite it. How much more he needed
that cheap little equipment ! Impatient customers with broken
buggies and lame horses might wait angrily around his door,
while he, forgetting the smithy, handled the mysterious magnet
reverently, a humble worshipper at the shrine of Nature's
secret. "Like a flash," he says, "the thought occurred to me
that here was an available power which was within the reach
of man."
106
ELECTRIC CARS AND TRAINS 107
Yes, It was there, and his was the superb insight of genius
to detect that startling new fact. He was another Saul hunt-
ing for his father's strayed asses and finding a kingdom — another
of the Immortals selected In some superhuman way to be lead-
ers of the human race — the power-brlngers.
Within a year, still neglecting his smithy, Davenport had
built his first electric motor, and discovered "the production
of rotary motion by repeated changes of magnetic poles,"
which could be applied as a "moving principle for machinery."
His patent of 1837, the first of its kind In America, set all this
forth, and was as broad as a papal bull granting a continent to
Columbus. It was said in 1891, forty years after the patent
had run out, that "if It were in force to-day, upon a fair judicial
construction of its claims, every successful electric motor now
running would be embraced within its scope."
Possibly by reason of poor insulation, the first little Daven-
port motor of 1834 did not work very well. Funds were fading
away. Nevertheless another motor must be built; so Into its
Insulation around the tiny coils of wire went the narrow strips
of the delicate wedding-dress. From that time on, never again
was Davenport to know peace of mind, nor was his family to
enjoy a quiet home of comfort. It is told that when Palissy,
the famous French potter, closed in on the discovery of his beau-
tiful enamel, he tore down the very woodwork lining the walls
of his house and wrecked the furniture, to feed the fires of his
kiln. Madame Palissy did not quite like it. Can you blame
her ^ In both Instances, wifely devotion could go no further.
It is a pity loyal Emily Davenport did not live to see how In
these later, happier years, the successors of her husband by
way of noble amends have brought in countless little electric
motors to relieve the burden of drudgery In the household.
The First Electric Company"
About this time, Jacobi, In Russia, had also begun to obtain
rotary motion from electromagnets, and In 1838, with the help
of the Czar Nicholas he propelled a small boat on the Neva at
St. Petersburg. But meanwhile Davenport was already em-
ploying the first commutator on his motor of 1835; a commu-
tator Is the device at the end of the revolving bunch of wires,
PROFESSOR JOSEPH HENRY'S ELECTROMAGNET.
This photograph represents one of the first tests of Henry's electromagnet. Current was brought
to the magnet through the heavy copper strips at the left, which were connected to the wire
with which the soft iron core was wound. The core was thus magnetized, and supported the
weight shown on the platform below — approximately 450 pounds.
ELECTRIC CARS AND TRAINS 109
called an armature in a motor or dynamo, literally a bunch of
nozzles through which the current is collected or directed from
each coil as it flies past the exciting poles. Next year he made
the memorable advance of building both motors and tracks to
show that a railroad could be run quite as well by electricity
as by steam.
Davenport was ever as full of ideas as he was short of money.
As one of its early passengers and critics he had seen the pioneer
steam railroad working since 1831 between Albany and Schenec-
tady. It would seem that he even talked over electric traction,
at Albany, with the great Henry, who kindly warned him to go
slow when he proposed, in his competition with steam, to build
motors up to a size of one horse-power. At all events, when
his native State had not one single mile of steam railroad,
Davenport, all fire and enthusiasm, not only built his curiously
prophetic little model of an electric road, but boldly asserted
that such was the better way to do it. The car was shown
travelling on a circular track twenty-four inches in diameter.
It depended for "current" on primary batteries (dynamo-
electric energy not then being available) placed on a tray at the
centre of the track circle, with contact through mercury-cups;
thus was foreshadowed the central power-house idea of modern
operation. Moreover, like the cars of to-day, not only did
those primitive cars use the track for the return circuit, but
the motors were shunt-wound, that is, the wires in the winding
on the field-magnet poles were a "by-pass," through which
current was shunted from the armature. Such a motor seemed
to perform the feat of "hoisting itself by its own boot-straps,"
as our forefathers put it.
Beyond this, in order to raise capital for expensive trials
and machines, Davenport organized in 1837 his Electro-Mag-
netic Association, the first electric stock company in America,
and probably in the world. Serving the great American pub-
lic to-day such companies are capitalized at a score of billions.
Surely the owners of the "one-hoss shays" might well wait out-
side the humble Brandon smithy while the blacksmith inventor
was planning and building motors and tracks that were soon to
show the way in putting horse haulage forever in the "dis-
card." It is part of another story how Davenport in 1839
no REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
was the first man to apply the electric motor to printing-presses
and to publish, so printed, the first electrical journal; how, too,
when he died in 1851, he was applying electromagnets to the
vibration of piano-strings — the first production of music by
electricity.
After Davenport came a large group of far-seeing men who
bravely and cleverly struggled with the problems of electric
railroading. None of them realized that their trouble lay in
not having a cheap supply of electrical energy, or "current."
They depended on current from ''primary" batteries in which
acids attacked metals, and that method involved, as it does
now, enormous expense. Burning up zinc in a battery, for ex-
ample, could never successfully compete in its results with the
burning up of coal under a boiler, whether the steam drives
a locomotive or operates an engine in a factory. Unfortunately,
none of these early workers realized that the discoveries of
Faraday and Henry in magnetic attraction and repulsion
could be applied not only to produce Davenport's motor but
also the more wonderful machine, the modern dynamo, now
called the "generator." No matter how they use it, the great
applications of electricity all turn to the generator as the source
of their current energy. It might possibly be said without fear
of contradiction that had the dynamo been invented twenty-
five years or so earlier, the course of history would have been
vitally changed.
The Invention of the Electric Locomotive
While the steam locomotive, then entering upon its trium-
phant career, began to traverse continents with its seven-league
boots, the feeble electric locomotive was left to a stern chase for
fifty years. The primitive electric car-motor draining chemical
primary batteries of their costly supply of vital energy was
about as helpless as a baby sucking at its bottle. In Scotland,
in 1838, an engineer named Robert Davidson, tried out such an
electric locomotive on the Edinburgh-Glasgow Railway. Pat-
ents on various modifications of the basic idea were granted
in England and the United States, and many pretty little models
of the Davenport type were exhibited by wandering lecturers.
They rarely took in enough "gate-money" to pay the rent of
ELECTRIC CARS AND TRAINS
111
BROADWAY, NEW YORK, ABOUT 1863, WHEN STAGE-COACHES WERE
IN THEIR PRIME.
the hall in which to show their scientific freaks and curiosities.
Perhaps their only success was that they set thinking young
geniuses such as Edison.
About 1847-8, a famous American inventor, Moses G.
Farmer, who twenty years later did arrive at a clear-cut vision
of the dynamo, built an admirable experimental car — using
battery power, of course — which carried two passengers. Three
112 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
years after, a brilliant man, Professor C. G. Page, successor to
the great Henry at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington,
ran a car on tracks from that city to Bladensburg, Maryland,
using the current from no fewer than one hundred cells of pri-
mary battery. He actually got up to a speed of nineteen miles
an hour before the jars of the overworked batteries cracked
under the unendurable strain. That was the end of Page's
electric car as well as of his costly attempts to get to Baltimore.
Forty years elapsed before Leo Daft brought a successful elec-
tric car to the Maryland city, and sixty years before such cars
shuttled swiftly between it and Washington in regular hourly
trips.
Early Street-Car Lines
It is to be noticed that all these early workers and experi-
menters dealt with railroads and not with street-railways of
any kind. Utterly unknown then were such modern necessi-
ties as the "trolley," the "L," and the ''Tube," all of which
still lay many years ahead. Perhaps they were not greatly
wanted by our more tranquil forebears, when land travel, if not
afoot, was done on horseback or behind the horse in a coach,
and sometimes, even in towns of good size, by oxen. Paris,
one of the very first cities in the world to have a public system
for lighting its streets, was also the first city to enjoy the lux-
ury of an omnibus, or "carryall," something akin to the stage-
coach that plied on the ill-paved robber-haunted highways
across France. With Pascal, in 1662, or Baudry, in 1827, may
have originated the idea of the "omnibus," and thus also of the
street-car, which is nothing more or less than a "bus" on rails.
Another fruitful idea was embodied in the light railroads of the
two Outrams, father and son, built in England for mines, and
nicknamed "tramways" after them.
In 1830, the sprawling young city of New York had proudly
reached a population of 200,000. Lively, active people they
were, increasing by thousands and pushing "up-town" at the
rate of several "blocks" each year. They must have street-
transportation lines out to their newer suburbs. Hence that
year the famous Broadway stages were started from the Bowling
Green. Not so very long ago one could still experience the
ELECTRIC CARS AND TRAINS
113
perils and hardships of a ride in one of those gaudy old "stages,"
in appearance much the same as a Barnum circus parade-wagon,
and about as comfortable. But ambitious Manhattan Island
had no sooner thrilled with the excitement of dashing along by-
omnibus at six or eight miles an hour than, in 1832, it had at its
service the first horse street-car line in the world. It was
called the New York and Harlem Railroad, organized in 1831,
liiiijjgijii iniBJuBpillll iijlnij iae^M^^^!^B__j , JJligjiS.g^^^
THE "JOHN MASON," USED ON BROADWAY, NEW YORK, IN 1832.
The vehicle is frankly modelled after the stage-coaches of the day.
and it extended a few miles up Fourth Avenue from near the
City Hall to Murray Hill, where now stands the Grand Central
Terminal.
Thus in the ''John Mason," as the street-car, in honor of
the first president of the company, was named, the omnibus
and the "tramway" had been merged in the one vehicle on
flanged wheels. As it jogged over the uneven rails before the
inquiring eyes of the citizens of New York it presented the
funny appearance of a couple of "stages" squeezed together.
Moreover, by a strange coincidence, this first street-car bore
on the panel of its door the words "Stephenson's Patent."
That trade-mark, however, applied not to the great Englishman
who had harnessed steam for traction, but to a clever American
mechanic, John Stephenson, first of the horse-car builders, a
man of ready ingenuity whose business still bore his name full
114 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
fifty years later. His jolting juggernaut and the strap-rails
laid on stone ties constituted the first passenger street-railway.
It was not until nearly twenty years later that another
street-car system made its appearance in New York. Then
the present trolley era began with horse and mule, and between
NEW YORK IN I'HE HORSE-CAR DAYS OF THE EIGHTIES
(FORTY-SECOND STREET).
1850 and 1855 half a dozen American street-railways were built,
although not until i860 did Europe get its first street-rail-
way, when an erratic American, George Francis Train, secured
a franchise to operate one at Birkenhead. By that time, the
United States had nearly forty such railways, and over eighty
more were built between i860 and 1870. When the first cen-
sus of street-railways was taken in 1890, no fewer than 769 were
in operation in the United States. That great jump forward
was due wholly to the fact that electricity had at last come
into its own. In furnishing energy and service for the street-
car, the horse, cable, and steam or compressed air were now
obsolete and left behind.
It has been proved beyond all question that no agency but
ELECTRIC CARS AND TRAINS
115
electricity can handle the surging millions of people massed in
the great cities of our twentieth century. One hears a good
deal about "jitney" gasolene buses as competitors of the trolley.
Any one could soon figure out how many scores of thousands of
jitneys would be needed in New York to carry those of its
NEW YORK (I^HIRTY-FOURTH STREET AND BROADWAY) IN THE NINETIES.
The street-cars were hauled bv cable and the elevated trains bv steam locomotives.
6,000,000 citizens who must travel daily. From them and
from people coming into town are collected every twenty-four
hours more than 6,000,000 fares, giving the right on most lines
to journey more than fifteen miles for five cents at a speed of
twenty miles an hour.
"The Most Important Discovery of Modern Times"
One would like to tell more about the dynamo because it is
the source of all current for its counterpart, the motor; but that
is told in the chapter on "The Rise of Electricity." No sooner
was it realized that by spinning the armature coils of wire in
front of the electromagnets a ceaseless inexhaustible supply
of cheap current could be obtained from them, than all the
modern electrical arts sprang into being. To this is due the
116 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
remarkable fact noted above that, when electricity became
available soon after 1870, the street-railway industry increased
sixfold in the twenty years to 1890. Sometimes the generator
which delivers current to the distant car is driven by a steam-
engine, sometimes by a gas-engine, often by a water-wheel.
The result is the same. We have the generator driven by power
and developing electricity and then the motor receiving the
electrical stream and developing mechanical or motive power.
Clerk Maxwell, the great British physicist, called the dynamo
"the most important discovery of modern times." So far as
traction was concerned, however, it was only an improvement
on what Davenport, Davidson, Farmer, and others had already
done. To them goes the credit for the pioneer work; without
their indefatigable genius the activity of the generator might
have been limited. On the other hand, with the coming of the
generator we reached an absolutely new starting-point. In the
same way, when artificial gas was piped for lighting, it dis-
placed all that had before been done by oil lamp and tallow
candle.
Stephen Field Applies the Dynamo to Street-
Railways
About 1875, a poor mechanic, George Green, of Kalamazoo,
Mich., appears to have built one of the old-fashioned pre-
dynamo street-cars, with an overhead wire from a battery.
Three years later he built a bigger car, and, in 1879, at the
dawn of the new era, he secured a patent with such broad trol-
ley claims as to make him look like a Moses at the frontier of
the Promised Land. In 1877, came Stephen D. Field, who,
living in hilly San Francisco, thought that electric power could
be used instead of the noisy expensive cable, employed to haul
cars on the stiff inclines of that city. For such severe work,
equal to that of an office-building elevator, the cable has many
merits. It can still be found on a few mountain roads, but even
then the electric motor frequently drives the cable drum.
Stephen D. Field, a nephew of the famous untiring advocate
of the Atlantic telegraph cable, was a talented, harum-scarum
inventor, and as courageous as his uncle. He ordered one
dynamo from Europe for his experiments, lost it at sea, then
ELECTRIC CARS AND TRAINS 117
bought another, and soon found himself bankrupt on the shores
of the Pacific. Nothing daunted, the young engineer returned
East full of his novel scheme, there to round up friends and
funds. In 1874, he filed In the United States Patent Office
what Is called a "caveat," followed up by a regular "application"
the next year. These disclosed plans for an electric railway,
using current from a stationary dynamo, delivered through a
third rail or Insulated conductor to the car-wheels and traffic
rails, which, divided Into sections, formed the return circuit.
Just Davenport over again, with Improvements.
At the same time, the Siemens firm of Berlin, one of the first
great builders of dynamos and motors In Europe, were operat-
ing at a local exhibition near the River Spree a little electric
car, resulting from some abandoned experiments made by
Doctor Werner Siemens. Their little electric locomotive, with
third-rail supply and track return, pulled briskly for a third of
a mile Its train of three cars and twenty passengers at a rate of
eight miles an hour. It was as much a world sensation as were
airplane flights before the Great War. Similar ventures to
that Introduced by the Siemens In Berlin were soon in opera-
tion at exhibitions in Brussels, Frankfurt, and Diisseldorf. On
May 12, 1 88 1, a permanent line, the first of its kind, was put
in operation from Berlin to LIchterfelde; but it left out the
third rail, the two track-rails being the plus (-|-) and minus (— )
of the little system. And then the rush began In the Old
World.
Overlapping the plans of Field and the experiments of
Siemens came the work of Thomas A. Edison, unwearied and
fresh from his glorious triumphs with the quadruple telegraph,
the carbon telephone, the phonograph, the Incandescent lamp,
and a few other such miracles. The great Inventor could not
resist the opportunity of further success offered by the electric
railway.
Edison Experiments with Electric Traction
In the spring of 1880, trying out some Ideas conceived over
a year before, he built at the back of his Menlo Park laboratory
an Interesting little railroad. At this time he was still plunged
deep In all the problems of his electric-lighting system. Edi-
118 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
son's first locomotive was, in fact, merely a lighting dynamo
used as a motor, laid flat instead of set upright; and the power
from the armature shaft was simply applied to the car-axle by
friction pulleys, afterward changed to pulleys and belts. The
two track-rails were the conductors, one set of wheels being
insulated. It is noteworthy that the motor had a capacity of
not less than twelve horse-power, and that in describing the
primitive "road" the New York Daily Graphic published a
sketch of a hundred-horse-power locomotive which Edison even
then, with wonted audacity, was planning for the Pennsylvania
Railroad to ply between Perth Amboy and Rahway. In fact
by the time President Frank Thomson of the Pennsylvania
came out to risk his life on the ramshackle "road" at Menlo
Park, Edison, to use his own language, "was getting out plans
to make an electric locomotive of 300 horse-power, with six-foot
drivers, with the idea of showing people that they could dis-
pense with their steam locomotives." Henry Villard wanted
that locomotive for the wheat-fields and the mountain divisions
of his grand new Northern Pacific Railroad. Of one of the
demonstration trips Grosvenor P. Lowrey wrote: "The train
jumped the track on a short curve throwing off Edison's as-
sistant, Kruesi, who was driving the engine — with his face
down in the dirt. Edison was off in a minute, jumping and
laughing, and declaring it was a most beautiful accident.
Kruesi got up, his face bleeding, and a good deal shaken; and
I shall never forget the expression of voice and face when he
said with some foreign accent: 'Oh! yes, palrfeckly safe!'"
That was the spirit which carried the new idea to victory.
Speaking of some other advances of the kind at that time,
Edison remarks: "In the same manner I had worked out for
the Manhattan Elevated Railroad a system of electric trains,
and had the control of each car centred at one place — multiple
control. This was afterward worked out and made practical by
Frank Sprague." We shall speak of this later.
Electric-elevated railway practice was, as a matter of fact,
first carried out in June, 1883, under the Field and Edison pat-
ents at the Chicago Railway Exposition, around the outer edge
of whose gallery, over a three-foot gauge-track, ran "The Judge"
locomotive of about fifteen horse-power. This was the first
ELECTRIC CARS AND TRAINS
119
electric railway constructed in America for business purposes;
and its surprising success was a great advertisement. The road
issued regular railway tickets and carried no fewer than 26,805
From Harper's Weekly, July 15, 1882.
EDISON'S ELECTRIC LOCOMOTIVE WITH WHICH HE EXPERIMENTED
AT MENLO PARK, NEW JERSEY, IN 1882.
passengers in three weeks over an aggregate distance of 446
miles. Rebuilt at the Louisville Exposition the same year, the
feat was repeated on the same scale. Several aspiring young
inventors lent a hand in assembling it. One of them, Frank
B. Rae, afterward built many pioneer street-railways. Another
was C. O. Mailloux, now president of the International Electro-
Technical Commission.
120 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
The Invention of the "Trolley"
Charles J. Van Depoele, born in Belgium, in 1846, acquired
his mechanical and electrical knowledge under the guidance of
his father, who was master mechanic in the railway shops of
East Flanders. Fascinated by the batteries lying around the
shop benches, young Van Depoele had soon mastered so thor-
oughly the principles of electricity that when only fifteen he
operated a crude electric light with current from forty cells.
But his father, impatient with such pottering, insisted he should
have a real trade. Evident artistic ability led to his being ap-
prenticed to a Paris cabinetmaker noted for his carving of
altars and statuary. This did not hinder the young fellow from
taking an electrical course at Lille, France, where his family now
lived; here his enthusiasm aroused the interest of the teachers,
although it continued to give offense to his father. Sturdy
young Van Depoele, visiting an aunt at Antwerp in 1868, and
seeing his hopes blocked at home, slipped quietly away from
that seaport and sailed for the United States. He headed for
Detroit, which was then making its mark in furniture just as it
has later done in automobiles. Being an artist to his finger-
tips, and knowing all about church fixtures, from pews to rere-
doses, he joined hands with a compatriot and there founded a
factory which at times employed as many as 200 highly skilled
craftsmen. He did so well that he was able to bring the old
people to America. Then, in 1877, he took an amusing re-
venge on his father by turning over to him the active manage-
ment of his prosperous business. Freed from this responsibility,
with unconcealed delight he spent his profits from the carving
of saints on experiments in electric-lighting. Soon he evolved
a novel dynamo, and with its current lit up a big arc-lamp,
whose lurid glare in the overhanging fog from the lake caused
a nervous citizen to turn in a frantic fire-alarm. About 1878,
Forepaugh's famous circus came to town and Van Depoele lit
it up, making an immense sensation; in 1880, he had one of the
earliest American electric-light companies going at full blast.
A few years later the company began to dabble in electric
traction, and in 1883 it built two little roads, one of which,
toward the end of the year, ran for fifty days at the Chicago
ELECTRIC CARS AND TRAINS 121
Interstate Fair. Thus began Van Depoele's share in a new era
of development, with inventions of which the United States
courts said later: "Several patents cover highly meritorious in-
ventions which have largely contributed to the successful prac-
tical operation of the trolley roads throughout the country."
He built early roads in all parts of the United States and Can-
ada, and when he died, in 1892, he was the grantee of some 250
United States patents in all branches of electricity.
Many improvements have been made in electric railways
since those days, but his idea of the little wheel at the end of
the trolley-pole — dubbed by the poet Holmes "the witches'
broomstick" — still survives as a running contact under the
overhead wire as the most economical and efficient method of
picking up the current from the distant power-house.
Curiously enough, although Van Depoele has been called
the "Father of the Trolley," he did not coin the word. It
traces back to another pioneer, John C. Henry, a young tele-
graph operator, with courage and ideas of his own, one of which
was that of suspending the supply conductor wire over the track
by means of span wires supported in turn by the poles along the
line. Henry's first travelling contact for a line out of Kansas
City to Independence, some ten miles away, was a little four-
wheel carriage, which gripped onto and ran along the under
side of the overhead supply wire that fed current to the car
motor. It was virtually a baby's toy carriage turned upside
down, and was hauled by a flexible cable, string fashion, con-
necting to the motor, which thus trollied it along. At first it
was called a "troller." Then the street-car men and the pas-
sengers changed it to "trolley," and "trolley" it has ever since
remained as a general popular name for all electric street rail-
ways.
The Experiments of Daft and Short
Inventors and their efforts were rapidly increasing. One or
two stand out in the historic perspective of the new art, and their
efforts should briefly be noted since they began to mark out
distinct lines of either experiment or success. Thus there was
Leo Daft, a clever English photographer, who took the first
large views made in America, and later gave New York city its
122 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
first power circuits for operating electric motors. Picturesquely
he named his first electric locomotives after Morse, Volta,
Ampere, and Benjamin Franklin. Beginning in 1883, Daft did
some very interesting work on several roads, including the New
York Elevated, and one, an Adirondack hill-climber, on Mount
McGregor, where General Grant died and where regular rail-
road coaches were hauled by electric power for the first time.
From Martin's "Story of Electricity," published by Jiihiisriii and Co.
DAFT'S AMPERE-ELECTRIC LOCOMOTIVE.
The driver of the locomotive sat in the open, and situated directly in front of him
were three switch-boxes.
Early in the spring of 1885, Daft began to equip the Hampden
branch of the Baltimore Union Passenger Railway Company.
This had a third rail with track return, and it was probably
the first regularly operated street-railway in the country. The
conditions of the contract required satisfactory operation be-
fore payment. A distinguished scientist said that only a knave
or a fool would enter into such an undertaking; but the faith
of Daft and his backers was strong. They blazed the way for
other "fools" crowding in behind them.
In the early part of 1885, Professor Sydney Short, a young
physicist at Denver University, began an interesting number of
experiments out in the foot-hills of the Rockies. The ''series"
system was used, in which, as in the early arc-lighting, a con-
stant current went through all the motors in series succession on
the line. After a while it was found that the "multiple" was
the better way to do it, with the motors, across the current cir-
cuit, like incandescent lamps; or, to use a simple comparison,
like the rungs in a ladder between the two uprights. But Short,
ELECTRIC CARS AND TRAINS
123
Lindiscouraged, went on to great successes in "multiple" trol-
leys here and in England. He was very successful also with
gearless motors, in which all energy-wasting gears between the
motor armature and the driven car-axle were left out.
Another method of operation and its crude "try out" must
here be mentioned. Short had worked with a "conduit" sys-
THE SPRAGUE "MULTIPLE-UNIT" SYSTEM
OLL,
At first, Sprague used ordinary street-car controllers, as here shown. The motorman manipulated
a master-controller and thus controlled the motors on all the cars in the train.
c. i^l^
tem, or concealed feed-rail, to prevent any fatal human contact
with the really deadly high- voltage current he was using. Evi-
dently this also avoided the use of the overhead-wire method
which, though it had many objections, was long unfairly damned
in the sensational newspapers as the "deadly trolley." About
this time, watching the successful cable street-railways of the
day, with cars, like monster buckets, hooked on to the stout
wire rope travelling in the slotted road-bed, two young patent
lawyers, E. M. Bentley and W. H. Knight, put into operation
a proposed rival. It may be regarded as the protoype of all
the "conduit" street-railways operating successfully to this
day on many busy thoroughfares from which the city fathers
have barred the trolley overhead wires. The two-mile stretch
124 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
of the Bentley-Knight system on the East Cleveland, Ohio,
road gave new meanings to such words as "plough," "slot,"
"shoe," and "conduit." Operating quite well even through
the deep snows of the Lake shore in the hard winter of 1884-5,
it also may claim to have been one of the earliest lines to col-
lect a five-cent fare as a commercial electric street-railway.
Frank Sprague and "Multiple-Unit" Control
A brisk young lieutenant from Uncle Sam's navy now burst
impetuously into the electric-railway field. As jury secretary
of the famous Electrical Exposition at the Sydenham Crystal
Palace, England, in 1882, Frank Julian Sprague had to use the
smoky old London "Underground." He soon conceived the
idea of running it electrically, as it now is run. His clever plan
was to have rigid rails overhead as well as underneath the car,
all in one plane, with current contact with the overhead rails
by means of an upward-pressing wheel or cylinder. With that
began an inventive career unsurpassed in brilliance and suc-
cess. Sprague came at the moment when the electric railway
needed some great achievement to sum up all that had been
done before, to enlist capital, and to shape things for the long
future. Returning to America in 1883, Sprague entered the
service of Edison, then improving his incandescent-lighting sys-
tem. But he was too full of his own ideas to be interested in
those of any other man, or to bother about orders from any-
body. He cut loose ! Napoleonic in temper and character,
his moves and advances were made so swiftly that almost over-
night the central station industry found itself with the gift
from him of the motors so badly needed for its lighting circuits.
Sprague had as business partner Edward H. Johnson, who
had been associated with Edison; the two kindred spirits flung
themselves violently into the trolley industry with no delay and
precious little money. Some of Sprague's first work was done
on the Manhattan "L"; but mischance would have it that the
great financier. Jay Gould, a little man physically, stood near
the car-controller while the test car was being operated. An
exposed safety-fuse "blew" with a startling flash. Gould tried
to jump off at the risk of his life, and the "subsequent proceed-
ings" did not interest him at all.
ELECTRIC CARS AND TRAINS 125
Nothing daunted by ill-luck, Sprague at once took on a
street-railway job and soon had some minor work done. His
great opportunity came at Richmond, Virginia, and the capital
of the old Confederacy was assaulted with a Sprague determina-
tion that brooked no denial. The contract taken there would
have been staggering to any but a sanguine inventor willing to
gamble the very last dollar in backing up that in which he be-
lieved. Completion was called for in ninety days of a street-
railway with twelve miles of track, a central power-plant, the
overhead line, forty cars with eighty motors, one on each car-
axle, and all the needed controllers and appurtenances. This
was nearly as many motors as were then giving uncertain rail-
way service throughout the world. Moreover, grades of eight
per cent, were to be tackled, and no fewer than thirty of the
cars were to be in use at one time.
The difficulties to be overcome were stupendous. The
young inventor had barely signed the contract when he was
stricken with typhoid fever, and he had mighty little shot of
any kind left in his locker when, in February, 1888, the road
went into commercial operation. But its success was instan-
taneous, as was also the effect on the public, on capital, and the
whole range of electrical application. Watching those mysteri-
ous cars climb up the steep slippery grades of Richmond, an
old colored man ejaculated his fervent blessing: "Fust dey
freed de darky, and now dey freed de mule !"
"Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, plough boy, potboy" — runs
the old song snatch. And now just such another curious group-
ing had occurred around the trolley. Blacksmith, telegraph-
operator, photographer, navy officer, carver of furniture and
wooden saints, patent lawyer, college professor had been needed
in the combination of "all the talents" to which is owing the
modern electric railway. Whatever may be the method of
latter-day operation, including one or two variations and devel-
opments still to be noted, fundamental principles and appliances
were now all clearly established, foreseen, or promised. Little
or nothing could be added except by way of achievement.
Mark Twain said that without differences of opinion there
could be no horse-races. Without radical differences of opinion,
the modern street-railway would not have been developed.
126 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
Many things had to be tried before they could be discarded.
One was the "series" method of operation. Another was that of
carrying storage batteries on the cars, for current supply, so as
to get away from use of all overhead or underground wires and
contact. Julien, Reckenzaum, Arnold, Edison, and others did
their best to make this latter method successful, but it failed.
Fhoioirar.h by J. G. Brill CcmpuKy.
ONE OF THE FIRST TYPES OF ELECFRIC TROLLEY-CAR.
Arnold, who as a boy had built an operative steam locomotive
when only sixteen years old, was one of the earliest men to ap-
ply alternating current to regular railroads; a wonderful develop-
ment. Another ingenious plan, still favored to-day, is that of
sticking to the overhead wires but giving up the use of the track
as a return conductor. As far back as 1882, Doctor Finney, of
Pittsburgh, devised such a scheme for omnibuses and street-cars.
It has been used in a scattering way ever since; and at the time
of this writing the "trackless trolley" has been adopted for the
suburbs of New York city.
At first electric street-cars ran singly, usually with one motor
mounted over the floor or chassis. Then the motor was slung
underneath, on the car bottom or the axles. Sprague hit on
the now-universal "wheelbarrow" method of motor suspension
in 1885. Pretty soon, owing to the enormous growth of traffic
and increase in weight of cars with steel-girder frames, two motors
were the approved practice, the car often hauling one or two
ELECTRIC CARS AND TRAINS 127
"trailers," which had no motors. A next step was linking the
cars, even on the streets, into long trains, a dangerous prac-
tice, but the only way to carry the crowds of passengers unless
there are elevated roads or subways that free the thoroughfare
of such traffic. The train method has been a favorite with
the numerous "interurban" trolley systems supplanting or
supplementing ordinary steam railroads across country.
MODERN TROLLEY-CAR OF IXTERURBAX TYPE.
As we have seen, the elevated railway and the subway both
antedate the electric street-car. Few cities ever adopted the
"L," and those that did were compelled to endure its many
disadvantages. At best a makeshift and not a great invention,
the "L" will probably soon disappear, although it has done
great service in sorely congested cities like New York, Berlin,
Philadelphia, Chicago, and Boston. The more important in-
ventive and engineering teat was the subway.
But, for the "multiple control" or "multiple-unit" system,
credit at least is due to the "L" as also to the versatile, ener-
getic Sprague, who offered it for New York in 1891, and in 1897
actually put it in operation on the South Side Elevated of Chi-
cago. As Colonel H. G. Prout remarks in his life of George
Westinghouse, who did as good work in using compressed air
for multiple control as he had done in the air-brake: "It is ele-
mentary in the art of land transportation that when the volume
128 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
of traffic is large enough there is gain in massing the cars into
trains." Agreed, but the old-style locomotive must be dis-
pensed with and the motive power placed in smaller units under
each car. Then a highly novel and satisfactory condition
arises if only the motors can but lock-step and all go off together.
The train can start more quickly, stop more quickly, spread
THE TRACKLESS TROLLEY OMNIBUS.
Vehicles of this type are used where it does not pay to lay tracks and where the traffic is not dense.
The operating costs are lower than those of a track trolley-car. The seating capacity is about
thirty. This particular 'bus was built for Detroit, Mich. It follows gasoline 'bus rather
than street-car design.
out its weight over more track, use less current for the work
done, and "speed up the schedule" for all the headlong travel
of city and suburb. Sprague in applying electric elevators to
office-buildings had adopted a plan of motor control from a
distant "master" switch. Using to begin with, at Chicago^
ordinary street-car controllers, such as you see the motorman
operate in much the same way a steersman on shipboard does
his wheel or tiller, Sprague brought the operation of all of these,
no matter how many or how long the train, to a master con-
troller handled by one man. In this, his principle harked back
to the massing of power and the instant application of the
whole energy of it, exactly as though it were concentrated in a
big locomotive instead of being distributed in small units.
ELFXTRTC CARS AND TRAINS
129
The New York "Tubes"
The application of such control in the electropneumatic form
is best seen on the great subways of New York city, a system
in extent and travel far beyond anything else in the world, and
wholly impossible without electric traction. Other subways in
Boston, Paris, and such cities, have followed its example, while
THE FIRST STANDARD-RAILWAY ELECTRIC TRUNK-LINE.
Baltimore and Ohio electric locomotive hauling the first train under electric power in 1895.
in London similar tubes, under American enterprise, have been
put in operation 300 feet underground. Downward, rather than
upward and double-decking the streets, does the modern city
find the possibility of living and travelling in layers, much as
they did in the catacombs of ancient Rome.
Although as long ago as 1868 forty-two citizens of New York
formed an underground railway company to build a line from
the City Hall to the Harlem River, it was not until 1904 that
the first of the "Tubes" got into operation. Since then the
growth of the network has been incredibly rapid, and it is all
tied in with the "L" system as well as with river tunnels and
the main railway trunk-lines. There are over 600 miles of
"L" and Tube in the city, of which the Interborough Company's
130 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
subways total no less than 222 miles. And yet it is said that
if the mileage of track could at once be doubled, people would
still suffer the discomforts of overcrowding during the "rush
hours."
One means of relief is suggested by "travelling sidewalks."
At the Columbian World's Fair, outside Chicago in 1893, a
motor-driven endless circular sidewalk was successfully oper-
ated on a long pier, where the boats landed sightseers from the
city. It had two, or twin, platforms and some seats. Step-
ping first on the slower "walk," the passenger could either stay
there, or hop on to the other going at twice the rate, six or eight
miles an hour, equal to the speed of an ordinary street-car.
This was copied at the Paris World Exposition of 1900, with
American motors under the decks; the elevated "sidewalk,"
which one could board at frequent stations, gave the passenger
a fine view of the show and of Paris itself. More than once it
has been seriously proposed to introduce the "flying" pave-
ment into New York city, and the prediction is made that all
the people who use it will jump right off^ to the faster "belt"
as they get on the slower one.
When it is noted that the cars in Greater New York carry
yearly twice as many passengers as all the steam railroads of
the United States, it explains the confidence of electrical engi-
neers that in a few years there will be no steam railroads left.
A rising member of the profession once predicted that ten years
later there would be no steam locomotives plying between New
York and Boston. Andrew Carnegie listening, nodded his head
approvingly, but said with Scotch canniness: "Weel, it's fine for
young men to prophesy but they shouldn't fix dates!" The
process is already well advanced, and it involves no real changes
in methods or conditions. Such invention as is needed is aimed
rather at bringing the art abreast of the larger scale upon which
everything has to be done, and this readjustment begins at
the power-house itself.
Driving Trolley-Cars from a Central Power-House
The early reciprocating steam-engines driving direct current
generators of a few hundred horse-power have been left behind
by steam-turbine units — "turbo-generators" — of over 50,000
b
w
w
pi,
w
Q
w
O
w
m
o
o
132 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
horse-power capacity, twice as efficient and occupying less than
half the space. Formerly the power-plants were non-condensing
and stood on expensive ground at the city centre. Then they
were moved to the water's edge where condensing water was
free and gave cheaper current in greater volume. Now they are
Courtesy of General Electric Companv.
ELECTRIC LOCOMOTIVE OF THE CHICAGO, MILWAUKEE, AND ST. PAUL
RAILWAY.
The Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul Railway is operated by electricity generated by water-
power. The locomotives as they coast down-hill "regenerate" a certain amount of elec-
tricity on their own account, which is returned to the line. Electric meters record the amount
thus returned and the road receives credit for it. Electricity keeps its own books.
being put right at the pit's mouth so that no coal is carried, but
its power essence is invisibly loaded on to a wire. But most
notably of all, water-power is being enlisted so that coal of
ever-increasing costliness is saved. In 19 14, coal for our rail-
road locomotives cost ^235,231,481; in 1920 it cost just three
times as much — nearly $700,000,000. Of course it is expensive
to develop water-power, but a harnessed cataract is cheap to
manage and maintain. A coal-mine is soon plundered of its
wealth, but Niagara has been tumbHng millions of horse-power
over the Horseshoe precipice for tens ot thousands of years, and
we have barely begun to tap its inexhaustible supply of energy
ELFXTRTC CARS AND TRAINS 133
and power, (ictting in illiniitahle cjuantitics the "white coal"
of all such water-power, we can hm-j their lightnings across a
continent. Where low voltages or pressure of electricity could
be utilized only a few score miles with the direct current, "po-
tentials" have been raised by means of the alternating current
so that line pressures have been carried up to 100,000 and 250,-
000 volts; and power is already utilized several hundred miles
from the spot at which it is generated. The fog-banks from the
Pacific Ocean caught on the Sierras spin the buckets of the
turbo-generators, which convert the sparkling dewcirops into
power for the electric locomotives of Southern California. The
melting snows of the Rockies revolve the car-wheels of distant
Denver. Similar conversions of sources of energy to electricity
are going on not only in the leading countries of Europe, but in
Central Asia, India, Japan, and Australia.
At present, but four per cent, of main-line railroad has
been electrified in America. If fifty per cent, of the 270,000
miles were converted there would be, to mention one item, an
annual saving, chiefly in coal and tenders, of no less than
73,000,000,000 ton-miles. That volume of traffic is equal to
over ten per cent, of the total revenue-producing freight han-
dled. Meantime the good reasons that have shut the steam
locomotive for human travel out of New York city are of equal
force everywhere.
The electric locomotives supplied for the Chicago, Mil-
waukee, and St. Paul road were magnificent creations, the largest
passenger-locomotives in the world, rated at 4,200 horse-power.
Moreover, as they drop down-grade they "regenerate." That
is, the motors become dynamos feeding current back into the
line, so that they not only help brake their own descending train,
but generously send out energy and give a lift-up grade to
some sister train heavily climbing the mountains miles away.
The actual saving in the total power consumption on the St.
Paul road by this is from ten to fifteen per cent.
What would Thomas Davenport say of all this ? Does it
not outrun his boyhood dreams a century ago .? Yet did he not
foresee the supremacy of electric traction ^
I
CHAPTER IV
THE RISE OF THE AUTOMOBILE
T will be possible to construct chariots so that without
animals they may be moved with incalculable speed."
This prediction, 500 years before Watt's invention of the
steam-engine, was made by Roger Bacon, the English philos-
opher and man of science who was imprisoned for ten years
because Englishmen believed he was a magician in league with
the devil.
And Mother Shipley, in England, prophesied in rhyme that
"carriages without horses shall go."
Soon after Watt began his work on the steam-engine, Doctor
Erasmus Darwin, a great English philosopher, thus poetically
urged him to build steam wagons:
"Soon shall thy arm, Unconquered Steam, afar
Drag the slow barge, or drive the rapid car;
On, on wide waving wings, expanded, bear
The flying chariot through the field of air;
Fair crews, triumphant, leaning from above.
Shall wave their fluttering 'kerchiefs as they move,
Or warrior bands alarm the gaping crowds.
And armies shrink beneath the shadowy clouds."
Perhaps Watt was too busy perfecting his engines to be led
into any such bypaths. He did state in his patent on the double-
acting engine, granted in 1782, that his invention "might be
applied to give motion to wheel vehicles." But up to the time
of his death, thirty-seven years later, he opposed attempts to
use his engines for road vehicles, and even tried to prevent
William Murdock, who worked for him, from carrying out the
idea. Murdock, who had a will of his own, nevertheless built
a vehicle driven by a one-cylinder steam-engine, which he ran
successfully in 1784, and which is now in the British Museum
in London.
134
THE RISE OF THE AUTOMOBILE 135
This is not the first automobile of which we have a record.
Twenty years earlier, while Watt was improving the steam-
engine in England, Nicholas Joseph Cugnot, a French captain
of artillery, was trying to discover some way of moving heavy
cannon more rapidly than was possible by horses. He spent
some years in making engines and mounting them on wheels.
By 1769 he had built three steam vehicles, the last of which
was tested under the direction of the French minister of war.
Courlesy of Dculsilies Museum, Munich.
CUGNOT'S STEAM CARRIAGE OF 1769.
This steam carriage carried four persons at a speed of two and one-quarter miles an hour on a
common road. It was really what we would call a tractor, because it was designed to
haul artillery. The steam pressure was insufficient to drive the vehicle longer than fifteen
minutes.
It was a three-wheeled tractor, designed to draw field-guns. A
big boiler hung out in front, and there was an engine with two
cylinders over the front wheel. All this weight carried on one
drive-wheel, which was also used for steering, was bound to
overbalance the machine in front and make steering difficult.
The trials came to a sad end when the tractor ran into a wall.
This so discouraged Cugnot that he never rebuilt the machine,
and at the early age of forty-five he died in poverty.
The First Steam Vehicles
Three years after Watt patented his double-acting engine
in England, Oliver Evans, in 1785, built the first high-pressure
non-condensing engine in this country, and he sent copies of
his patents to Englishmen, including Richard Trevithick, who
made a four-wheel steam coach in 1802. The engines built by
Evans were so compact, simple, and light that they opened the
way both for the railroad locomotive and for the light steam
carriage that, a century later, became very popular in America.
136 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
Evans devised many ways of using his new steam-engines.
His application of them to mills and boats is described in the
chapter on the "Steam-Engine." There, too, will be found the
story of the scow that he built inland and ran down to the
river's edge on rollers under its own steam power— the first
American automobile.
For more than a hundred years after these early efforts of
Cugnot, Murdock, and Evans, much time, money, and labor
were expended in trying to perfect a practical, steam road
vehicle. George Stephenson, Walter Hancock, Sir Goldsworthy
Gurney, David Gordon, William Brinton, and others built vari-
ous machines in England. Thomas Blanchard, in 1825, ran
the first regular steam carriage in this country, at Springfield,
Massachusetts. Like Evans, he could not induce anybody to fi-
nance him; he turned his efforts toward building steamboats.
Other American inventors were Nathan Read, of Boston, and
William T. James, J. K. Fisher, Richard Dudgeon, and John A.
Reed, all of New York. John Reed's traction-engine was built
in New York in 1858, and after being driven in the streets it
was shipped by rail and river steamer to Nebraska City. Start-
ing from there for Denver, it broke down after running seven
miles.
After the American Revolution more than a score of inven-
tors in England and the United States were working on the per-
fection of a steam vehicle. By 1833, twenty steam coaches
were travelling in and around London, and a dozen companies
had been formed to build and operate them on stage routes.
The Road Locomotive Act of 1836
In those days the main roads, ''turnpikes," were built by
private companies that charged a fee for the privilege of using
their highways. They also leased road rights to stage com-
panies. The stage owners and drivers feared the steam coaches
would rob them of business, and the farmers felt it would be
impossible to sell horses to the stage companies at the old
prices. The noisy "steamers" were ridiculed. Boys threw
stones at them; farmers dug trenches across the roads to im-
pede their clumsy progress.
The final, crushing blow came when the English Parliament
THE RISE OF THE AUTOMOBILE
137
passed a law in 1836 — the "Road Locomotive Act"— which
imposed so high a tax on steam vehicles that their owners could
not operate them profitably. Worst of all, the law required
that a man carrying a red flag should walk ahead of a steam
GURNEY'S STEAM COACH.
Sir Goldsworthy Gurney began his work on steam carriages in 1823. In 1827 he patented this
steam coach having six road wheels, the front pair, which the driver steered, being connected
with the pole of an ordinary fore-carriage to control it; this peculiar steering arrangement
is stated to have been so satisfactory that it could be worked by a child. The two steam
cylinders were arranged on perches below the coach body and drove the rear wheels, which
were loose on their axles, the connection to one or both being extremely ingenious. Super-
heated steam was supplied by a boiler placed in the hind boot. The draft was produced b\'
a fan driven by a separate engine.
coach to warn people on the road ! To-day we laugh at this
odd English law. But it was no laughing matter in 1836, for
it killed the automobile in England, just when it was begin-
ning to win its way. Vicious as it was, that act remained in
force for sixty years, restraining English engineers, while French-
men, Germans, and Americans forged ahead.
All the early inventors of the steam vehicle were hampered
138 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
by bad roads. In fact many engineers believed their inven-
tions could never run successfully unless special tracks were
laid for them. Wooden and iron tracks had been used in the
English coal-mines from 1700 to 1800, making it easier for
donkeys and horses to draw the coal-cars. Sometimes two or
three cars were thus hauled by one animal.
But a few engineers believed that the highways should be so
improved that tracks would be unnecessary. Among these
James MacAdam, in Scotland, and Telford, in England, about
1800, invented ways of making roads with crushed stone. Their
methods, afterward used for many years in Europe and America,
made the road systems of England and France famous.
The Value of Petroleum
During the period when the English Government curbed her
inventors by the Road Locomotive Act, two events of great
importance concerning the rise of the automobile occurred in
America. In Philadelphia was a Doctor Kier, who in 1850 dis-
covered that when petroleum, or "coal-oil," as it was called,
is heated the lighter parts are driven off — just as water turns
to steam — and that the vapor can be cooled again into a light,
refined oil. Thus he obtained kerosene, which he burned in
lamps. The lightest vapor, gasoline, was allowed to waste,
because it was explosive and dangerous. Now we can hardly
obtain enough of it for the millions of automobiles in the world.
Nine years later, just two years before the Civil War,
Colonel E. L. Drake drilled a well at Titusville, Pa., from which
flowed 1,000 gallons of petroleum a day. The story is told in
the chapter on oil. Many other wells were quickly sunk, and
so began the great oil industry in this country. In i860 some
gasoline — the light, dangerous vapor — was offered for sale, but
nobody knew just how it could be utilized. Indeed, it was
twenty-five years before a way of using it in an engine was
discovered.
The new liquid fuels — kerosene and, later, gasoline — con-
tained much more energy per pound of weight than coal and were
easier to use. They gave new hope to inventors of engines and
motor vehicles. About 1870, certain men in France, Germany,
and America began experimenting with the new fuel. Amedee
THE RISE OF THE AUTOMOBU.E 139
Bollee, of Le Mans, France, soon patented a light kerosene-
burning steam carriage, and showed it in the exposition at
Vienna, Austria, and in 1875 ^^ ^^^ o^^ ^" ^"d around Paris at
a speed of nineteen miles an hour. Three years later he drove
a steam carriage from Paris to Vienna. BoUee and his son
Courtesy nf Deulsches Museum. Munich.
SERPOLLET STEAM TRICYCLE OF 1890.
L. Serpollet invented his flash boiler or instantaneous steam generator in 1887 and applied it
soon after to a steam-driven tricycle. This was so successful that in 1888-9 he constructed
first a larger tricycle and then some three-wheeled carriages, with a speed of about sixteen
miles an hour.
continued making steam automobiles until early in the present
century, then turning their attention to gasoline cars.
Another leading steam-car builder was Leon Serpollet, who
brought out a three-wheel carriage twelve years after Bollee.
It had a "flash" boiler, so called because when a little water
was supplied to its highly heated tubes it flashed into steam.
This principle (not the invention of Bollee, however) made it
possible to raise steam very quickly and overcome a great fault
of earlier machines. A rich American, F. L. Gardner, furnished
money to help Serpollet carry out his work. Eventually Ser-
pollet became the foremost steam-car manufacturer in Europe.
140 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
Light Steam Carriages Become Popular in America
America was not far behind. S. H. Roper, of Roxbury,
Massachusetts, a mechanic, spent thirty years trying to
perfect a steam-car. He was building steam bicycles and tri-
cycles at the beginning of the Civil War, and kept on until he
died, in 1894. With him begins the era of the light car in this
country. He built a carriage in 1889 which he sold to a doctor,
who used it for several years in his practice.
At the same time George E. Whitney, in Providence, Rhode
Island; A. L. Riker, in Brooklyn, New York; and R. E. Olds, in
Lansing, Michigan, were also making light steam-cars. Whitney
patented his invention in 1896, and it ran so well that he sold
the use of his patent rights to the Stanley brothers, who were
making dry plates for cameras in Newton, Massachusetts, and to
John Brisben Walker, who published the Cosmopolitan Magazine
at Irvington-on-the-Hudson, New York, and founded the Mo-
bile Company.
The Stanley brothers were twins with strange ways. They
were Yankees and had much of the ingenuity we associate with
Yankees. As might be expected, they improved on Whitney's
design. Wrapping themselves and their plant in mystery they
admitted few to their factory. Shrewd questioners were an-
swered either brusquely or not at all. They never advertised,
cared little about building up a business as we do to-day, and
yet they sold an increasing number of steam-cars each year.
After they had flourished under the Whitney patent they sold
their rights to Amzi L. Barber, a wealthy match manufac-
turer.
Later the Stanleys decided to resume steam-car building.
Unable to use the Whitney design with the engine under the
seat, they placed it horizontally on the rear axle. One of the
brothers was killed in an automobile accident some years ago,
but the other is still at the head of the coinpany bearing the
Stanley name. It is one of the very few companies still making
steam-cars in this country.
John Brisben Walker, who founded the Mobile Company of
America, built a huge factory at Tarrytown and for a few years
made and sold thousands of steam Mobiles,
THE RISE OF THE AUTOMOBILE 141
Armed with the Whitney patent, Amzi L. Barber, in 1899,
founded the Locomobile Company of America. He started
manufacturing in Newton, Massachusetts, but moved to a
larger plant in Bridgeport. There he developed a big business.
Great sums of money were spent in advertising his Locomo-
biles, and many thousands were sold, not only in the United
States, but in all parts of the world. Upward of 500 were built
in 1899 and more than 1,000 the next year. Barber was the
first man to put into practice cheap production and low selling
price — the idea that Henry P'ord was so brilliantly to apply
later on.
The Bicycle Craze
We must go back now and note another factor that greatly
influenced the manufacture of these early light steam-cars, the
bicycle. The bicycle goes back to 1800, but "wheels" were
not introduced generally until Colonel Albert A. Pope pat-
ented the first safety bicycle and began manufacturing ir
in Hartford, Connecticut, about 1886. His first bicycles
weighed more than 100 pounds and, of course, were hard to
pedal. Pope and other bicycle-makers then tried in every way
to reduce the weight and make the machines easier to run.
They put ball bearings in the wheels and crank-shaft brackets,
made frames of thin drawn-steel tubing, and adopted wood
rims and fine-tension steel spokes. In ten years the weight of
the bicycle was reduced to about twenty-five pounds; that of
the racing-machine to fifteen pounds; and prices were gradually
reduced from I150 to I50. By 1896 there were about 4,000,000
riders in this country. The making of bicycles became a re-
markable industry. There were more than 250 bicycle com-
panies in the United States, with over $60,000,000 invested.
Such was the demand for bicycles that ways had to be found
to produce them faster and in larger numbers. To meet this,
special machinery was invented to turn out parts of the same
kind. Indeed, some companies manufactured only parts, such
as spokes, rims, pedals, bearings, tires, saddles, and handle-bars.
Americans, therefore, in the days of the bicycle, learned how
to build light vehicles and make parts both rapidly and cheaply.
Moreover, the bicycle created a demand for better steel and
142 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
bearings. When in 1896 the bicycle began to lose its popu-
larity, bicycle manufacturers cast about for something to take
its place. Naturally they turned to the steam-car, then be-
ginning to attract attention. They had money to engage in
experimental work; they also had experience.
This helps to explain why the early automobiles, particu-
larly the steam-cars of the Stanleys, John Brisben Walker, and
the Locomobile Company, had so much in common with the
bicycle. Their frames were of steel tubing; they had ball
bearings; their wheels had wire spokes and pneumatic tires,
and the whole machine was extremely light.
The First Gasoline Automobiles
Gasoline automobiles attracted very little attention up to
the beginning of the present century. A few men were hard at
work fifteen and twenty years before they succeeded in perfect-
ing a light, powerful engine that would use the great energy
in liquid fuels without the loss caused by converting water
into steam. They saw that if they could use the fuel directly
in the engine they would get more power from it, and that it
would not be necessary to stop every few miles to take on more
water, which quickly boiled away.
In 1799 a French mechanic named LeBon had invented an
engine that worked on the principle of a cannon. The cylinder
was similar to the barrel of a gun and the piston like a cannon-
ball. Instead of gunpowder, he exploded street-lighting gas in
the cylinder behind the piston. The force drove the piston
toward the open end of the cylinder, and it was fastened so that
it was not completely driven out, but had to return. When it
had gone as far as it could, the burned gas was let out, and a
new charge admitted. The same principle is used in all auto-
mobile engines to-day. For that reason they are known as "ex-
plosion" engines, because the gasoline, when mixed with the
right amount of air, forms a gas that is exploded in the cylin-
ders, just as powder is exploded in a gun.
LeBon *s method of using an electric spark to ignite the gas
in his engine was also used in i860 by another Frenchman, Jean
Joseph Lenoir. The latter built a one and one-half horse-power
THE RISE OF THE AUTOMOBn.E 143
gas-engine of the LeBon type, and put it in a road vehicle.
Probably the machine did not run very well, because he turned
from automobiles to the making of boats. However, he was
luckier than most inventors, for the Academy of Sciences gave
him a decoration in honor of his work, and the Society of En-
couragement awarded him the Grand Prize of Argenteuil, about
|2,400.
In Cologne, Germany, Doctor N. A. Otto also began build-
ing gas-engines, and in the course of fifteen or twenty years
built up a great business in making what is known as the Otto
engine. He first used street gas, and later gasoline. In 1876
he invented an engine in which the gas is compressed before it
is exploded; the principle which had been suggested by William
Barnett in 1838. Compression is all important, and to Otto
belongs the credit of having practically succeeded in compress-
ing gas.
An engine in which gas is compressed is very powerful for
its size and weight. The piston does not have to travel very
far at each stroke, because the cylinder need not be long and
because the engine can run very fast. The faster a gas-engine
runs the more power does it generate and the lighter can it be
made. In some automobile engines the crank-shaft and fly-
wheel turn around as fast as 2,000 times a minute, or more than
30 times a second.
Doctor Otto gave us what is called the "four-cycle engine,"
the type used in all automobiles. The reason for the name be-
comes apparent when the method of its operation is considered.
Four distinct processes occur.
In the first place the piston moves away from the cylinder
head. As it does so a mixture of gasoline vapor is drawn in
through the mechanically opened inlet-valves, a mixture con-
sisting of just the right amount of gasoline vapor and air. This
sucking in of the mixture is known as the first cycle. The inlet-
valves close and the piston now travels back, compressing the
mixture as it does so. This is the second cycle. At the end of
this compression stroke of the piston the electric spark is made
to pass and ignite the mixture. A violent explosion occurs by
which the piston is again driven out. This is the third cycle.
Once more the piston returns. The exhaust-valves are opened
144 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
mechanicall)', and the piston discharges through them the spent
gases of the explosion. This is the fourth cycle. The piston
again moves forward, now drawing in a fresh supply of mixed
air and gasoline vapor, and thus recommences the first cycle.
And so the second cycle (compression), the third cycle (ex-
plosion), and the fourth cycle (exhaustion) are repeated. This
repetition of the cycles occurs nearly i,ooo times a minute.
It should be noticed that of these four piston strokes only
the third, or the explosion stroke, does really useful work, for
it is the explosion that drives the engine. The other strokes
are concerned only with preparing the engine for an explosion.
Naturally the piston must be kept moving during the three
powerless strokes. It is the function of the fly-wheel to keep
it in motion. The fly-wheel turns with the crank-shaft. It is so
heavy that once it is set in motion its momentum will keep it
moving for a time. So it is the momentum of the fly-wheel that
moves the piston back after explosion, then forward during the
first cycle, and backward during the second cycle.
The crank-shaft drives the rear wheels of the automobile
either with the aid of chains, as in the earlier cars, or shaft and
bevel gears, as in modern cars.
Daimler and the Modern Automobile
The Otto Engine Works made a great many gas-engines for
stationary work, but they did not produce portable engines for
use in road vehicles. During the ten years from 1872 to 1882
they employed a man who, later, did more than any other in-
ventor to perfect the gasoline motor-car. His name was Gott-
lieb Daimler, of Wiirttemburg. Daimler received an engineer-
ing education in the Polytechnic School in Stuttgart, after which
he spent two years in practical work at the Karlsruhe Machine
Works and the machine-shops of England. W'hen he was fifty
years old he left the Otto Works and started a shop of his own
at Cannstatt, where he could give all his time to improving light
gasoline-engines for automobiles and constructing motor-cars.
Here he built the wonderful Mercedes automobile, naming it
after his daughter. In later years he made other improved
automobiles which, exported to different countries, won many
THE RISE OF THE AUTOMOBHT:
145
great speed contests. Some of the Mercedes' chassis sold for
$20,000 or more each, without bodies.
Daimler built a motor-bicycle in 1885, then he made a tri-
cycle, and finally four-wheeled machines. He adopted the
Otto principle, making jackets or covers in which cooling water
Courtesy of Dculschcs Museum, Munich.
DAIMLER'S AUTOMOBILE OF THE LATE EIGHTIES.
The modern moLor-car was rendered possible mainly by the invention, in 1884, by Gottlieb Daim-
ler, of the light high-speed gasoline-engine. This engine, in the form patented by Daimler
in 1889, was taken up by Panhard and Levassor, who applied it to road carriages and de-
veloped a successful design.
circulated around the cylinder-heads in his engines. His chief
engineer, Wilhelm Maybach, added many important improve-
ments that made the Mercedes cars, for a time, the finest in the
world.
The Daimler Works also produced the aspirating carburetor,
in which the suction of the engine draws a current of air through
the carburetor, and with it a fine jet of gasoline, thus producing
a proper explosive mixture. Daimler and Maybach adopted
the cone-clutch and designed a suitable sliding gear change-
speed mechanism that allowed the engine to run at a nearly
146 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
uniform and efficient rate, permitting the speed of the car to
be varied as conditions required. The Daimler works were the
first to adopt the V-type engine, now used in American eight-
cylinder and twelve-cylinder cars. It is called the V-type be-
cause the cylinders are set in two rows at an angle to each other.
There was another German, Carl Benz, of Karlsruhe, who
was working hard on the gasoline-automobile problem, and who
subsequently disputed with Daimler the claim to be the inven-
tor of the modern automobile. He had spent four years at the
Technical High School in his town and then had three years of
shop experience in the Karlsruhe Machine Works, where Daim-
ler had also worked. When only twenty-eight Benz opened his
own shop in Mannheim, and began making stationary gas-
engines in 1880. Four years later he turned out his first gaso-
line automobile, which he ran in Mannheim the following year.
This machine, which had a leather-belt drive, was patented in
January, 1886. It is said the patent was the first granted in
Germany for a light, oil-fuel motor vehicle, and although issued
thirty-five years ago it covers some of the most important fea-
tures of present-day automobiles, such as the Otto four-cycle
principle, water-jacketed cylinders, and electric ignition.
The first automobile imported into the United States was a
Benz. It was displayed at the World's Fair or Columbian Ex-
position in Chicago, in 1893. A Benz also took part in the road
race from Chicago to Waukegan and return in November, 1895;
the race was won, however, by the Duryea motor-buggy.
Levassor Sees Advantages in Daimler's System
Although the two Germans — Benz and Daimler — were the
first men to make successful gasoline automobiles, progress in
the art of building motor-cars was made by the Frenchman,
Levassor, who graduated from the Central School of Arts and
Manufactures in Paris, then worked for eight years as an en-
gineer in manufacturing plants in Belgium and France, and
finally became junior partner in the firm of Perrin and Panhard.
One cannot but be impressed with the careers of such men as
Levassor, Daimler, and Benz, all of whom followed up an en-
gineering education by practical work in machine and engine
works. Levassor had long been interested in gas-engines and
THE RISE OF THE AUTOMOBILE 147
made his first in France according to the Otto system. Then, in
1886, he secured French rights to use the Daimler patents, and in
a few years brought out the first Panhard-Levassor automobile.
Other French experimenters obtained rights from Daimler
and Benz about the same time, and they used the Daimler and
Courtesy of Deulsclies Museum. Munich.
BENZ AUTOMOBILE OF 1885.
The car was a two-seated, three-wheeled vehicle with wire wheels and solid rubber tires. The
engine was placed over the rear driving-axle and had a single horizontal cylinder with a ver-
tical crank-shaft carrying a large fly-wheel. The car was rated at about 0.75 horse-power.
Benz engines in bicycles, tricycles, and four-wheeled road
vehicles. But the Panhard-Levassor patents are notable be-
cause they cover the arrangement of all the necessary parts of
the motor-car just as they appear in the automobiles of to-day.
Panhard and Levassor were the first to patent and construct
cars with frames made separately from the body and secured
to the axles by elliptical springs, the engine and change-speed
gearing being mounted on this frame. The advantage of this
was obvious. Because of the springs between the axles and the
148 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
heavy machinery, jolting over the roads did not injure the ma-
chinery or break the axles and wheels. To Levassor also goes
the honor of being the first to place the engine at the front,
under a hood, and the radiator in front of the engine, where it
would get the full cooling effect of the air current created as
the car moved forward. Panhard and Levassor set the engine
upright or vertical, used a cone-shaped clutch that engaged the
fly-wheel, connected the cone to a set of gears in a box under the
middle of the car, and used differential gears in a cross shaft
with two driving chains from the ends of this shaft to sprockets
on the rear wheels. The main difference between this arrange-
ment and modern cars is that instead of using chains we now
use a single lengthwise shaft to drive the rear wheels and place
the differential gears in the rear axle.
In Europe and America, toward the end of the nineteenth
century, many automobiles were made with different types of
gasoline-engines and other arrangements of the various parts of
the mechanism; but in time the whole world came back to the
Panhard-Levassor principle. The first automobile trial run —
in July, 1894, frorn Paris to Rouen, a distance of eighty miles —
was won by Panhard-Levassor and Peugeot cars, four of each,
driven by Daimler type engines of three and one-half horse-
power. These eight cars were so nearly tied for the best posi-
tions at the finish of the trial that the manufacturers divided
the prize.
Selden and His American Patents
America was only a little behind Europe in building and
successfully running gasoline machines. The first man to design
and begin building a gasoline carriage applied for a patent in
the United States in 1879, about seven years before Benz and
Daimler patented their ideas in Germany. He was George B.
Selden, of Rochester, New York, a patent lawyer and an in-
ventor. After leaving school he entered Yale University to
pursue classical studies; but his father was taken ill during a
visit to Switzerland, and the son left college in order to reach
his bedside. Returning to America, Selden entered the Sheffield
Scientific School of Yale University, and after graduation com-
pleted a law course anci was admitted to the bar in 187 1.
THE RISE OF THE AUTOMOBU.E
149
The idea of an automobile flashed on him when he saw a
steam road-roller. After much study he decided that steam
was not the best power for light carriages. In a shop for ex-
perimental work that he had fitted up at home, he built a gaso-
line-engine in 1877, ^^d made drawings of a carriage to be driven
by a three-cylinder engine mounted crosswise on the front axle.
REPLICA OF SELDEN CAR (1877).
This car was built to demonstrate the operativeness of the Seiden automobile in a patciit-
iufringement suit.
Seiden tried many times to get rich men to invest in the
manufacture of his "horseless carriage." He even went to
Europe for that purpose after having been rebuffed in this
country For fifteen years he strove to raise the necessary
money, and during that time he kept his application alive in
the Patent Office by skilful juggling, so that, after it was
granted, he would still have seventeen years in which to make
and sell gasoline road vehicles.
His patent, as finally issued in 1895, covered the principle of
using an explosion engine in a road vehicle. Had Seiden been
150 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
able to build automobiles while other Americans and Europeans
were developing their ideas, he might have monopolized the
whole industry. Half a dozen times, when he was just on the
point of making an agreement with some man or group of men
with money, something happened to prevent his coming to
terms. One man died suddenly, another failed in business and
FRANKLIN CAR OF 1903.
John Williamson, designer of Franklin car, at wheel of lo horse-power Franklin, with which
he won a 5-mile race at Yonkers, N. Y., July 25, 1903, in 6 minutes, 545 seconds.
lost his money, and the rest either became sick, had accidents,
or changed their minds.
During this period other men in America prospered in the
automobile business, many of them making money under licenses
to use the Selden patent. In 1902 and 1903, suits were brought
under his patent against Alexander Winton, Henry Ford, and
others. Winton soon agreed to pay a license and joined the
Association of Licensed Automobile Manufacturers which, con-
trolling the licenses under Selden's patent, was formed about
that time. Ford fought the case, and it was carried from one
court to another until a final decision was reached in the Court
of Appeals in 191 1. This court decided that Selden's patent
was good and the first of its kind; but they also found that
THE RISE OF THE AUTOMOBILE
151
other manufacturers did not infringe it because they were using
Otto engines, whereas Selden had hmited himself to the use of
another type of engine. It was brought out in the suit that
more than $2,000,000 had been paid in royalties to the Associa-
DOS-A-DOS AUTOMOBILE OF THE EARLY NINETIES.
This is Winton's second experimental model, a frank imitation of contemporary French
automobile designs.
tion of Licensed Automobile Manufacturers. Selden is said to
have received about $200,000 as his share of the royalties.
Rise and Decline of the Electric Vehicle
William Morrison, of Des Moines, Iowa, was the first to
design and build an electric road vehicle. That was in the
summer of 1891. He sold it the next year to J. B. McDonald,
president of the American Battery Company, of Chicago. It
created great curiosity in the streets of that city, and the owner
sometimes had to ask the police to make the crowds of people
move on, so that he could start his machine.
A year after Morrison brought out his first machine, Fiske
Warren, of Boston, made an electric vehicle called a "brake"
152 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
which could carry eight passengers at a speed of sixteen miles
an hour for fifty miles on one battery charge. About the same
time, Morris and Salom, of Philadelphia, began making electric
vehicles, but later sold out to the Electric Vehicle Company.
C. E. V^oods, of Chicago, and A. L. Riker, of Brooklyn,
started making electric automobiles in 1893. ^ ^^w years later
the Waverley Company, bicycle manufacturers in Indianapolis,
WHITE STEAM-CARS THAT COMPETED IN THE NEW YORK-BOSTON
500-MILE ENDURANCE RUN, 1902.
and the Bakers, in Cleveland, went into the business. The
Bakers were first to build very light, two-passenger electric
runabouts.
Pope, Riker, Waverley, and Barrows electric vehicles were
exhibited in 1898 at the electrical show in Madison Square
Garden, New York, and again at the bicycle show the follow-
ing year. The first real automobile show in this country was
held in New York in 1900. More than one-third of the space
was taken up by electric vehicles; the rest chiefly by steam-cars.
William C. Whitney, secretary of the navy under Presi-
dent Cleveland, became interested in electric railways and se-
cured the control of the Selden patent in 1899. He had just
bought the automobile business from the Pope Manufacturing
Company, which turned from making bicycles to manufactur-
ing electric vehicles. At that time electric vehicles were be-
ginning to compete for public favor with light steam-cars and
were more numerous than gasoline cars. With several other
THE RISE OF THE AUTOMOBILE 153
street-railway capitalists, Whitney organized the leading elec-
tric-vehicle companies into a group and formed companies in
New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, and other large cities
to operate public electric cabs. All were controlled by the
Electric Vehicle Company, which company also secured the
right to make gasoline automobiles under Selden's patent
through Whitney's purchase of the Pope business.
DURYEA AND HiS GaSOLINE BuGGIES
The honor of being first to make a successful gasoline auto-
mobile in America belongs to Charles E. Duryea. When he
was about twenty-five or thirty years old he saw a stationary
gasoline-engine with electric ignition, and made up his mind
that such an engine could be used to run a buggy. He began
to study and experiment, and in 1891, with the help of his
brother, J. Frank Duryea, made drawings and started to build
a gasoline carriage. They took almost a year to complete their
first motor carriage, which, in the end, failed to satisfy them.
So they kept on making and improving, and finished their fifth
buggy in 1894. This one had most of the main features of
modern automobiles, such as a four-cylinder engine with 'water-
jackets, electric ignition, bevel-gear differential, rigid front axle
with steering knuckles at the ends, and pneumatic tires. It was
the first machine in America to be fitted with such tires.
The Duryeas were very capable young mechanics, and this
motor carriage was so well made that it won the first /\merican
road race. It was run in the snow on Thanksgiving Day from
Chicago to Waukegan for a money prize offered by the Chi-
cago Times-Herald. The average speed made by the winning
car was ten miles an hour. Most of the contestants failed to
finish.
The following year the brothers built thirteen more gasoline
motor carriages; the first that were regularly manufactured for
sale in this country. They entered four in the race from New
York to Irvington for the Cusmopolitan prize offered by John
Brisben Walker, who shortly after became interested in the
light steam carriage, and founded the Mobile Company. Three
of the Duryea machines were the only ones to finish the run the
154 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
same day, which shows how crude and unreHable the automo-
biles of those days were; the whole distance being no more than
fifty miles.
DuRYEA First in Race from London to Brighton
The Duryeas then took two of their machines to England
and entered them in the first automobile contest in that coun-
try; a race from London to Brighton. To the great amaze-
ment of the English and French spectators, one of the Duryea
cars finished the fifty-two-mile course more than an hour ahead
of French machines which had won races in France earlier in
the year.
If Charles Duryea, in later years, had been willing to adopt
the construction and arrangement of parts designed by Levassor
and preferred by the public, he might have become one of the
leading manufacturers of the world. But having proved that
his machine was faster and more dependable than others made
up to that time he persisted in mounting the engine in the rear
of the body and continued to provide a handle or tiller for steer-
ing and controlling the speed. Despite the trend of the me-
chanical times, he refused to build what the public wanted.
He organized several companies and made different styles of
motor-cars but never achieved success in business.
Other Gasoline Cars of Thirty Years Ago
While Duryea was working on his first machine, Elwood
Haynes, a scientific worker in metals and a machinist in Kokomo,
Ind., Henry Ford, a farmer's son and mechanic in Detroit,
R. E. Olds, in Lansing, Michigan, and Alexander Winton, a
bicycle repairman in Cleveland, Ohio, were all trying to make
bicycles or carriages that could be driven by small engines.
Haynes was fortunate in securing the aid of the Apperson
brothers, who had a machine-shop. Permitting Haynes to ex-
periment in their shop, they helped him with money, and when
he had finished his car staked the good standing of their firm's
name by calling it the Haynes-Apperson.
This first Haynes-Apperson was finished the same year that
Duryea's third experimental carriage was successfully tested.
THE RISE OF THE AUTOMOBILE
155
Ford, too, in the spring of that year made his first successful
automobile. It was a close race, but Duryea was the first to
bring his machines to public notice.
Although Olds made a three-wheel steam vehicle in 1887 he
did not bring out his gasoline car until about 1900. He then
HAYNES GASOLINE CAR OF 1895.
Elwood Haynes drove his first car, his own invention, in Chicago in 1895. He was stopped
by a policeman and told to get his "horseless carriage" off the street.
put on the market a little one-cylinder, two-passenger runabout,
with a curved dash like the dashboard of a sleigh and a tiller
for steering. It was the first cheap, American gasoline auto-
mobile, and sold for $6^0. It had speed, ran easily and quietly,
and soon became so popular that, for those days, it was manu-
factured in large numbers.
After selling out, Olds started a new company in Lansing
to make the Reo cars and trucks; the name being formed by his
own initials. As head of the Olds company he had trained a
number of bright young men who, later, organized automobile
companies of their own. One was J. D. Maxwell, who de-
156 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
signed and manufactured the Maxwell-Briscoe cars at Tarry-
town in the factory of the old Mobile Company. Roy D.
Chapin and Howard E. Coffin, two other pupils, became inter-
ested in the E. R. Thomas Motor Company, of Buffalo, brought
about its removal to Detroit, later reorganized it as the Chal-
mers Motor Car Company, and finally left the company to
form the Hudson Motor Car Company.
Ford's Rise from P'armer Boy to Multimillionaire
Henry Ford has produced about as many motor-cars as all
the other American manufacturers together. In the short space
of only fifteen years he rose from poverty to such wealth that
he is now rated as one of the richest men in the world.
Ford's great success is due to a combination of unusual
qualities. He had a strong leaning toward mechanics, and early
in his career became a firm believer in the policy of low prices,
large sales, and small profits. If he had taken up watch-making
— as he was inclined to do when a boy — he would have made
dollar watches. If he had been a merchant instead of an en-
gineer, he would have opened five-and-ten-cent stores through-
out the country. As it was, he outstripped other automobile-
makers by designing a strong, light, fast gasoline car to sell at
a low price, and then confining himself to the improvement of
the same model year after year.
When an article is manufactured in enormous numbers, any
general change in design costs a fortune and causes delay in
production. New drawings must be made, new patterns and
moulds are wanted for new castings, new dies for forging ma-
chines, even new manufacturing machinery must often be in-
stalled. Such changes involve an enormous expenditure, which
naturally increases the selling price of the product. Ford re-
alized this and avoided it. When he finally produced a model
that proved satisfactory and found that people were eager to
take advantage of his low price, he increased the size and out-
put of his factory year after year until he was able to build and
assemble 6,000 cars a day ! He now has such a huge market
and can make cars so cheaply that nobody can compete with
him.
THE RISE OF THE AUTOMOBILE
157
Henry Ford's father, a hard-working farmer who came to
this country from Ireland in 1847, was barely able to give his
son a grammar-school education. He wanted him to be a
farmer and raise potatoes, apples, and peaches, and he objected
to his wasting time in the little machine-shop he had fitted up
HENRY FORD IN HIS FIRST CAR.
on the farm. Even after Ford went to Detroit and worked for
several years as machinist, steam engineer, skilled shipyard
mechanic, and an expert at installing engines and machinery for
George Westinghouse and Company, his father tried to induce
him to return to farming by offering him forty acres of timber-
land. The son, then about twenty-four, accepted the gift, set
up a sawmill, sold the timber, and used the money to fit up a
shop on the land. There, in 1887, he started to make a little
steam automobile. After two years, his money gave out and
he went back to Detroit and earned his living as chief engineer
of the Detroit Edison Illuminating Company, a position he
held for seven years. Following a hard day in the power-house,
he would go to his little shop and work on a new kind of auto-
158 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
mobile until late at night. Not long after the appearance of
Duryea's motor carriage, Ford finally finished his first gasoline
machine and, in 1893, tested it on the road. To the surprise of
every one, his funny little car actually ran from twenty-five to
ONE OF FORD'S EARLY MODELS, THE FORERUNNER OF THE PRESENT
MODEL.
thirty miles an hour ! It was driven by a twin-cylinder, four-
cycle, water-cooled engine.
Five years later, after building a second and better car, he
formed the Detroit Automobile Company, with an authorized
capital stock of $50,000, of which he owned one-sixth. He was
employed as chief engineer at $100 a month. The company,
however, was not a success. Ford left it in 1901 and started
again in a machine-shop near by. Leland and Faulkener, a firm
of fine-machinery builders in Detroit, bought the plant and be-
gan making Cadillac automobiles.
Ford's next venture was the Ford Motor Company, formed
with $100,000 capital stock, of which he owned one-quarter.
THE RISE OF THE AUTOMOBILE
159
This company made the first Ford car of the present type in
1903. It has grown rapidly, until now it is the largest auto-
mobile company in the world, employing 50,000 men. Ford
had perfect confidence in the future of the business and person-
ally managed to secure ^175,000 with which he bought another
quarter of the stock, thereby obtaining control. In order to
TYPICAL PACKARD FOUR-CYLINDER CAR OF ABOUT 1904.
There was no body in the modern sense, no windshield, no protection for driver and
passengers.
get the best possible men to work with him, he gave an interest
in the business to James Couzens — later elected mayor of De-
troit— and to Horace and John Dodge, eventually the organ-
izers of the Dodge Brothers Motor Car Company. These men
shared in the building up of the company, and also in its huge
profits. Ford afterward buying back their stock at an enormous
price.
Ford, a close buyer of materials and parts, sought in every
way to hold the producing and selling costs of his cars at
the lowest possible figure, so that the retail price would be low.
It is said that years ago, when some fine gold stripes or lines
160 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
were painted on the bodies to relieve the solid-hlack finish, the
foreman of the striping-room went to Ford and demanded higher
wages on behalf of the men who did the striping. Ford thought
a moment, then asked: "How much does it cost to put the
stripes on ?" The foreman told him. "Then," said Ford, "we
will do without the stripes." And he discharged all of the
stripers.
How America Became the Leading Automobile
Country
The leadership of American automobile manufacture was
made possible only because our vast country has great natural
resources in its rich farm land, its forests, and its minerals.
The ease with which farm products and raw materials were
converted into wealth attracted many immigrants from Europe;
the population increased so rapidly that there are now more
than 110,000,000 people in the United States. Here, in a coun-
try where progress and opportunity run hand in hand, a man
received higher wages or made more money than elsewhere.
When automobiles were placed on the market he was able to
purchase and own one for himself. To-ciay, one in every seven
Americans is the proud possessor of an automobile; in fact there
are about seven times as many automobiles and motor-trucks
in use in the United States as in the rest of the world !
Such was the growing wealth of America that our manu-
facturers were able to sell automobiles as soon as they learned
the secret of successfully making them. With enough orders
assured, they began to use automatic machinery to produce the
different parts rapidly in quantity; just as they had done during
the bicycle craze. Instead of casting and boring the four or
six cylinders of an engine separately, they cast them in one
block, and then bored all of them simultaneously in one boring-
machine. The drilling of one bolt-hole at a time was super-
seded by multiple drill-presses, which drilled a dozen or more
holes at once. And so with every part. Frames are now formed
in huge hydraulic presses that shape a whole side member out
of steel in one operation; axles are forged in one piece in
powerful forging machines that cost upward of $100,000; gears
are cut, shaped, and ground from long bars, in automatic ma-
THE RISE OF THE AUTOMOBILE
161
chines. Abroad, the old method of making parts singly is still
in use in some plants.
In Europe every part of an automobile is usually made to
fit the other parts of the same car nicely. In this country all
the parts are duplicated, so that in assembling an automobile,
it does not matter what cylinder casting, piston, valve, gear, or
other part is picked out of a pile. It was Eli Whitney who in-
PACKARD AUTOMOBILE OF THE EARLY NINETIES.
It took automobile designers time to forget that their cars were more than "horseless carriages."
Even in this early Packard model the general design still suggests the horse-drawn type of
vehicle.
vented the principle of interchangeable parts; the story of that
great idea is told in another chapter on machine tools in this
book. Interchangeability made it possible to assemble en-
gines, transmissions, axles, and, finally, the whole car, rapidly.
Let us see what this means. In 19 12 it took fourteen man-
hours to assemble one Ford car; that is, it required the equiv-
alent of fourteen hours' labor by one man or seven hours' work
by two men. The cost was ^8.75. Two years later the aver-
age time for assembling had been reduced to two man-hours,
and the cost to $1.25! The machining of a whole cylinder-
162 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
block, boring and grinding the inside, drilling bolt-holes, grind-
ing valve-seats, planing off the base and head — twenty-eight
separate operations — took only forty-five minutes.
The Beginning of Big Production of Cheap Cars
It was Walter E. Flanders, an Ohio machinist, who showed
American manufacturers the way to produce cars rapidly in
large numbers. In the early days of the Ford Company he
sent in his card to Mr. Ford, who at that time found it hard to
secure crank-shafts rapidly enough. Flanders took an order for
1,000 and succeeded in delivering them on time. Some time
later, when Ford wanted to turn out 10,000 cars in a year, he
hired Flanders as production manager. Flanders immediately
stopped operations in the plant, rearranged the various depart-
ments and machinery, and informed all the companies from
whom materials, parts, and accessories were ordered just what
was expected of them. He then started to make as many
parts as he could, bought the rest, and began to assemble cars.
Every man was driven at top speed. Cars were put together
faster than had ever been possible before, and the last of the
10,000 was finished two days before the end of the year. Flan-
ders did not stay with the Ford Company, but started a com-
pany of his own.
"Progressive Assembling" in the Automobile Factory
When factories began to make automobiles by tens of thou-
sands a year, it became a problem how to put them together
fast enough in the smallest possible factory space. Ford and
other makers of low and medium-priced machines adopted what
is now called "progressive assembling." They installed mov-
ing chainways or conveyers, which carried the cars to different
groups of machinists. They arranged the stock-rooms for the
different parts or "units" around the assembling-room and built
tracks or overhead carriers to bring the units to the gangs of
workmen.
Rear axles, with the differential gearing and driving-shafts
all in place, are brought from the axle stock-room to the head
of the assembling track. The first working crew place them on
the chain or track, one after another at proper intervals. As
THE RISE OF THE AUTOMOBILE 163
the track slowly moves these along, the next crew fits front
axles; a third crew, the frames on the axles; a fourth crew bolts
the frames to the springs; a fifth sets and bolts the engines in
the frame; a sixth mounts the steering-gear and column; a
seventh the transmission or change-speed-gear; other crews con-
nect and adjust pedals, brakes, and so on. As the chassis nears
the end of the track, the wheels are slipped on and adjusted.
When the completed car reaches the end of the track it receives
a little gasoline. A man jumps into the seat and makes a brief
test of the car, whereupon it runs to the loading platform and
into a waiting freight-car for shipment.
In this process of "progressive assembling" each man, an
expert in his work, has just one task to perform. He stands in
one place and the particular "part" he needs is brought to
him, just as bricks are carried to a bricklayer. In so highly or-
ganized a system every parts department must keep ahead of
the assembling-room, so that there shall never be a shortage of
any part, bolt, or screw. Progressive assembling has enabled
America to make the lowest-priced, good automobile in the
world.
The Motor-Truck as an Aid in Transportation
The motor-truck has been rnentioned only casually; not be-
cause it is unimportant, but because nearly all the mechanism
of the motor-truck was developed first in the passenger auto-
mobile. The growth of the truck industry has always lagged
behind that of the passenger-car. Commercial cars are now
widely used in the carrying of passengers and freight. Motor-
buses are operated on regular routes in and between hundreds
of cities, and carry millions of passengers yearly. In 1923
there were 3,000 motor express and freight lines in this coun-
try. In that year more than 1,375,000 motor-trucks and light
commercial cars were registered in the forty-eight States, and
there were 131 truck-manufacturing companies as compared
with 112 passenger-car companies.
During the World War the United States shipped to our
army in France nearly 55,000 motor trucks and ambulances.
Field-guns and ammunition were hauled by tractors and trucks,
all the army supplies were transported from the base depots
164 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
to the front by motor-trucks, and the wounded were carried
to the hospitals in motor-ambulances. Motor-trucks have kept
open the channels of commerce during national railroad strikes
in England, France, and the United States; they have carried
instant relief to sufferers in great calamities such as floods, earth-
quakes and fires that burned large sections of cities; and they
have helped to relieve freight congestion when railroad systems
were taxed beyond their capacities.
Automobiles, motor-buses, and motor-trucks are now giving
such good service that they are taking the place of many electric
street-car lines and short steam-railroad branches. They
carry so much traffic that the building of such railways has not
only ceased, but some of them are being abandoned and the
tracks torn up. The faith in the power-driven road vehicle that
was so strong in the earliest inventors and engineers has thus
been justified by a century and a half of work and progress.
Vulcanization of Rubber by Goodyear
Goodyear's discovery of the method whereby rubber is vul-
canized had as profound an effect on the development of the
automobile as any other factor. Without the pneumatic tire
the automobile would be little better than the heavy, lumbering
vehicle with which Sir Goldsworthy Gurney and his contem-
poraries annoyed the countryside until curtailed by the Road
Locomotive Act. On the other hand, there could be no pneu-
matic tire without some process of vulcanizing the rubber, out
of which the tire is largely fashioned. Hence by discovering his
wonderful process of vulcanizing rubber, Goodyear made it pos-
sible for us to carry heavy loads on rubber cushions and literally
ride on air. Attempts are still being made to substitute springs
for air-filled tires. These inventions are called "spring-wheels."
They are complicated, and for the most part are unable to with-
stand the strain to which they are subjected when the vehicle
mounted upon them sways and rocks as it travels over a bumpy
piece of road. The truth is that without the pneumatic tire
automobile designers would have been severely handicapped.
The water-proof quality of the sap of certain trees, when co-
agulated by exposure to air and cured by heat and smoke, had
THE RISE OF THE AUTOMOBILE
165
long been known to natives of tropical countries. But it was
not until 1730 that rubber began to be used in civilized coun-
tries. About that time a group of French scientist-explorers
( 'i'ui!< V ,'/ Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co.
CHARLES GOODYEAR ACCIDENTALLY DISCOVERS HIS VULCANIZING PROCESS.
Goodyear said: "I was surprised to find that a specimen, being carelessly brought into contact
with a hot stove, charred like leather. . . . Nobody but myself thought the charring worthy
of notice." The outcome was the modern process of vulcanizing rubber, one of the greatest
contributions to technical knowledge.
brought some samples back from South America, and Doctor
Priestly, the famous British chemist, pointed out its property
of rubbing out pencil-marks. Hence it came to be known as
"rubber," and, because it supposedly came from the East or
West Indies, it was called "India rubber." During the follow-
ing century it was widely utilized as a coating in the manu-
facture of rain-proof coats, boots, and shoes. But the rubber
was soft and had no lasting qualities.
166 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
Like nearly all the great Ainerlcan inventors of early days
Goodyear was entirely self-taught. At seventeen he was a
clerk in a Philadelphia hardware store; at twenty-one he part-
nered his father in the business of manufacturing buttons,
spoons, scythes, and clocks. But from his earliest boyhood
rubber had fascinated him.
No dealer in rubber goods dared to carry a large stock on
hand. The rubber was sure to decompose, particularly in
warm weather. Macintosh, whose name is still applied to rain-
coats, used to caution his customers not to stand near a fire
when they were wearing his water-proof garments.
At first Goodyear attacked the problem of curing rubber
almost blindly. He worked by sheer inspiration, relying more
on accident than scientific research for success, as he himself
admitted. There was scarcely any other course to adopt. The
principles of organic chemistry were hardly known at that time,
and even to-day rubber remains one of our most complicated
substances.
Financed by Ralph B. Steele of New Haven, Goodyear made
several hundred pairs of uncured rubber boots. During the
winter months they lasted fairly well, but the hot summer sun
wilted them as if they had been made of candle grease. An-
other man would have stopped then and there, but Goodyear
was merely spurred on to further effort. Leaving his wife be-
hind to earn her own living, he went to New York and with the
aid of some chemicals given him by a kind-hearted druggist
again applied himself to his task. He and his family were con-
tinually in want, often he was thrust into prison for debt, but
eventually he succeeded in producing rubber with the addition
of magnesia and lime-water which, outwardly, was so good that
in 1835 h^ received prizes at the exhibitions. Unfortunately,
at the slightest touch of acid or vinegar the attractive surface
of his rubber would disappear and reveal a doughy mass beneath.
Goodyear believed in lucky accidents, and accidents, lucky
or unlucky, were plentiful enough in his life. It was a lucky
accident that caused him to decorate a piece of gum with bronze
and boil it in lime, thinking that lime would rob the gum of its
stickiness. In the process, part of the bronze was removed,
and his effort at ornamentation frustrated. To clean off the
THE RISE OF THE AUTOMOBILE 167
bronze that remained on the gum, he applied nitric acid. At
once the gum blackened. Goodyear threw it away. But an-
other lucky accident caused him to look at it again some days
later. The stickiness was gone ! In a few days he was pro-
ducing rubber cured through and through. With the aid of
William Ballard of New York the firm of Goodyear and Ballard
was founded. Then came an unlucky accident in the form of
the financial panic of 1836. The firm failed. Goodyear was
reduced to such straits that he had no money to pay his fare
from Staten Island to New York and pledged his umbrella with
the ferry-master, none other than Cornelius Vanderbilt.
At this period of his career Goodyear was so poor that he
and his family were on the verge of starvation. Again his luck
was with him. On the way to a pawnshop he met a creditor.
To his astonishment the man instead of asking for money ac-
tually offered it. Goodyear returned to his family with fifteen
dollars, advanced by one from whom he had no reason to ex-
pect even kind words. The fifteen dollars, however, did not long
keep him from the pawnshop. One after another his posses-
sions were pledged. When starvation again stared him in the
fa.ce his brother-in-law advanced him a hundred dollars, and
with this Goodyear returned to his pots and chemicals.
In 1837 Goodyear returned to New Haven, his native town.
His nitric-acid process, although not perfect, was so much better
than any other method of curing rubber that he succeeded in
selling patent licenses. For a time he prospered. He met
Nathaniel Hayward, sometime foreman of an extinct rubber
company. Hayward had devised a process of curing rubber by
placing it in contact with sulphur and exposing it to sunshine.
Goodyear thought the process had possibilities and bought the
patent, one of the few good business strokes of his life.
The remarkable effect of sulphur on rubber had already
been revealed by Leudersdorff, a German chemist. Hayward,
therefore, invented nothing radically new, and neither Hay-
ward nor the German chemist knew that accurately controlled
heat was necessary to complete the transformation of rubber.
Goodyear carried on Hayward's process, religiously packing
rubber with powdered sulphur and exposing the combination
to the sun. He termed it "solarization." He succeeded in
168 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
"solarizing" thin sheets with sulphur, but when he dealt with
thick coatings or masses the interior still remained soft and
pasty. It was Brockedon, an associate of Macintosh, who
coined the word "vulcanization" and applied it to the sulphur
process that Goodyear eventually developed.
In the meanwhile his troubles continued. The government
had given him an order for rubber mail-bags, but when Good-
year returned from a brief vacation he found the mail-bags a
vile-smelling, rotting mass. Life-preservers and other rubber
goods vulcanized or "solarized" by Hayward's sulphur process
were returned with bitter complaints by purchasers. Once
again Goodyear became a familiar figure in pawnshops. And
yet he could not forget the problem of curing rubber. "I had
hardly time enough to realize the extent of my embarrassment,"
he has written, "before I became intently engaged with another
experiment, my mind buoyant with new hopes and expecta-
tions." The man simply could not stop.
Again it was a lucky accident that led Goodyear to the true
secret of successfully curing rubber with sulphur. Let him tell
the story of the great experiment that he made in 1839:
"While on a visit to Woburn, I carried on at my dwelling-
place some experiments to ascertain the effect of heat on the
compound that had decomposed in the mail-bags and other
articles. I was surprised to find that a specimen, being care-
lessly brought into contact with a hot stove, charred like leather.
. . . Nobody but myself thought the charring worthy of no-
tice. My words reminded my hearers of other claims I had
been in the habit of making in behalf of other experiments.
However, I directly inferred that if the charring process could
be stopped at the right point, it might divest the compound of
its stickiness throughout, which would make it better than the
native gum. Upon further trials with high temperatures I was
convinced that my inference was sound. When I plunged
India rubber into melted sulphur at great heats, it always
charred and never melted. . . . What was of extreme impor-
tance was that upon the border of the charred fabric there was
a line or border, which had escaped charring, and was per-
fectly cured."
Now began a series of experiments to develop a commercially
THE RISE OF THE AUTOMOBILE 169
successful process, a process in which the heat would be properly
controlled. He made dozens of articles of rubber. He dressed
himself in rubber from head to foot. "How shall I recognize
Goodyear if I should meet him?" some one asked. "If you
meet a man who has on a rubber cap, stock, coat, vest, and
shoes, with an India-rubber purse without a cent in it — that's
Goodyear."
Two years of abject poverty passed. No one believed in
him. The winter of 1839-40 found the Goodyear family with-
out food or fuel. A friend mercifully saved them from starva-
tion. Yet Goodyear's determination was unabated. There
were minor difficulties to overcome; the proper kneading of the
rubber mass, the prevention of blisters in the finished product.
"I felt in duty bound to beg in earnest, if need be, sooner than
that the discovery should be lost to the world and to myseU,"
Goodyear has written of this period. "The pawning or selling
some relic of better days, or some article of necessity was a fre-
quent expedient ... I collected and sold at auction the school
books of my children, which brought me the trifling sum of five
dollars; small as this amount was it enabled me to proceed."
Borrowing a few dollars here and there Goodyear kept on
experimenting, burning with the desire to sweep away all ob-
stacles to commercial success. In the midst of his researches
he was carried off to jail because he could not pay a debt. In
a few months he was out again and, suddenly, found himself
on the highroad to success. He paid off ^35,000 that he owed.
He had devised something more than a process for vulcanizing
or curing rubber, and the world was ready to acclaim him.
"From the vulcanizing oven," he told every one "is removed
an article fundamentally changed in its properties as contrasted
with its ingredients. . . . My process works no mere improve-
ment of a substance, but, in fact, produces a material wholly
new." And with this statement every chemist will agree.
Although Goodyear made his great discovery in 1839, it
was not until 1845 that he patented his process. It was a costly
delay. Hancock, one of Macintosh's partners, had seen a
piece of Goodyear's rubber. What is more, he had smelled it,
and it smelled of sulphur. He, too, began to experiment with
sulphur, and finally discovered the Goodyear process inde-
170 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
pendently. He took out an English patent in 1843, and the
EngHsh market was thereafter lost to Goodyear.
Goodyear had patent troubles at home. He had to pursue
infringers at a great expense. With the assistance of Daniel
Webster, who received a fee of $10,000, Goodyear defeated
Horace H. Day. During the course of the trial Webster de-
scribed vulcanized rubber with an originality that deserves to
be remembered. He said that Goodyear's process "introduces
quite a new material into the arts, that material being nothing
less than elastic metal T
After the trial Goodyear took his family to Europe. He
spent 150,000 in displaying his rubber goods to the astonished
visitors of the international exposition held in Paris in 1855.
His extravagance and the dishonesty of an agent stripped him
of his last dollar. Once again he was dragged off to jail for
debt. When he was released he posted off to England to con-
test Hancock's rights, and lost. Broken in health, harassed by
debts, he pawned his wife's jewelry in order to buy his passage
back to America. At home he flourished again for a time and
resumed his experiments only to die in i860, when the over-
whelming news of his daughter's death reached him from Con-
necticut. Instead of a rich estate, he left behind him debts
amounting to $200,000.
It is rarely that an inventor works out a process with Good-
year's thoroughness. He took out patents for every possible
use of vulcanized rubber, but strangely enough overlooked its
highly important application in the manufacture ot pneumatic
tires. This was an oversight, for in his day the merits and ad-
vantages of pneumatic tires had already been recognized.
Invention of the Pneumatic Tire
The principle of the pneumatic tire was patented by Robert
William Thompson in England in 1845, in France the follow-
ing year, and in the United States in 1847. Thompson's patent
showed a non-stretchable outer cover and an inner tube of
rubber to hold air; substantially the tire of to-day. A set of
such tires with leather covers was made by a firm in Edinburgh,
Scotland; they were used on an English gentleman's brougham.
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172 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
and covered 1,200 miles. But Thompson's tires were in ad-
vance of their time and no one took them seriously.
When the bicycle became popular, about forty-three years
after Thom.pson patented his invention, the pneumatic tire was
revived by John Boyd Dunlop, a horse-doctor born in Belfast,
Ireland, who in 1888 and 1889 obtained English patents on a
bicycle tire. Dunlop, who knew nothing about the double-
tube tire invented by Thompson, deserved and received credit
for his independent invention. In his school-days he wondered
why a large farm-roller was easier to pull than a small one. He
reached the conclusion that the bearing surface of the large
roller distributed the weight. For years he occupied himself with
various forms of cumbrous spring wheels provided with flexible
rims that would flatten out on the road as they ran. When he
had grown to manhood he began making experiments with a tri-
cycle belonging to his nine-year-old son. He took a small disk
of wood and made a tube of sheet rubber one-thirty-seconci of
an inch thick, which he secured to the rim of the disk by a
covering of linen cloth, then filled the tube with air. The rear
wheel of the tricycle had a narrow solid tire. Tests were made
and it was found that the air tire was "faster" than the solid
one. Dunlop then made a pair of larger pneumatic tires, fitted
them with proper air-valves, so that they could be inflated and
covered the outer cloth with sheet rubber. He found, after several
hours' test, that there was not a scratch on the tread rubber.
Dunlop next made a full-sized bicycle tire, which he presented
to the Royal Scottish Museum in Edinburgh — where it is still
on exhibition — and began manufacturing tires for the market.
Not until a year or so later was it discovered that Thompson
had already patented a similar construction. Dunlop, however,
was a good business man. Undismayed by the discovery of
Thompson's old patent, he formed a company with 1^25,000,000
capital stock, which later made profits as great as ^2,000,000 in
a single year. Dunlop died at the age of eighty-one, in 192 1,
at Dublin.
Invention of the Clincher Shoe and Rim
A year after Dunlop's patents were issued, Charles K. Welch
patented a tire shoe based on fabric and having wire edges or
THE RISE OF THE AUTOMOBILE
173
"beads," and also a rim to clinch the shoe, so that no other
fastening was needed to hold the tire on the rim. Almost at
the same time William Erskine Bartlett, an American living in
England, patented a shoe with a thickened bead of fabric and
rubber to conform to the in-turned flange of such a clincher
THE LARGEST TIRE MANUFACTURED.
A Goodyear 48 inches by 12 inches cord truck-tire, for fast, heavy-duty trucks.
rim, so that it was not necessary to have wires in the beads.
The Dunlop Company bought this patent for ^1,000,000.
The thread or cord tire was patented by John Fullerton
Palmer in England. Instead of using woven fabric for the
layers of the shoe. Palmer wound parallel threads spirally, cov-
ered the first layer with a thin sheet of raw rubber, then wound
another series of threads over this at an angle to the first threads,
and so built up a shoe that was next vulcanized to hold the
rubber and all the threads together. The thread was wound
just as a fish-line is wound on a stick. This form of construction
produced a more flexible shoe and a "livelier" tire. It also re-
duced internal friction and heating of the tire as it was flattened
174 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
by the weight of the vehicle thousands of times in the course
of an hour.
Pneumatic tires were first applied to motor-vehicles by
Michelin and Company, a firm of French rubber manufacturers.
Michelin tried hard to induce Panhard and Levassor, Peugot,
DeDion and Bouton, and other French manufacturers who had
entered their cars in the first Paris-Rouen motor-vehicle trial
run, to equip their racing machines with pneumatic tires. They
declined, saying that rubber would not stand the stress of high
speed. So Michelin had a car built in his own works, fitted it
with his tires, and entered it in the trial. The result was not
satisfactory; but he persisted, improved his tires, and finally
convinced Panhard and Levassor that he was right.
CHAPTER V
MAN CONQUERS THE AIR
THE invention of a machine which would soar with out-
stretched wings, Hke a bird of prey, was a far more diffi-
cult mechanical problem than the construction of a balloon,
which has only to be filled with heated air to float up into the
sky. Yet the flying-machine engaged the attention of ambi-
tious inventors long before the hot-air or the gas balloon was
suggested as a means of travelling through the air. Even in
ancient poems there are tales of men who tried to fly — of the
Greek, Icarus, for example, who gave his name to the Icarian
Sea because he is said to have fallen into it after an unbelievable
attempt to fly with wax wings that melted in the sun. Scat-
tered through the books of philosophers and historians who
wrote during the Middle Ages are unintelligible references to
flying-machines built by daring adventurers and incredible re-
ports of actual flights. But even the most imaginative story-
tellers and poets never thought of rising into the air with so
simple a device as a balloon filled with hot air or a light gas,
until Joseph Montgolfier, of Annonay, France, actually made
such an ascent in 1783. The art of weaving had been known
for thousands of years. Any one might easily have made a
hot-air fabric balloon centuries before Columbus discovered
America. Instead, we find men dreaming of machines that
were imitations of birds, probably because the example of the
hawk and the sparrow was constantly before their eyes and
because Nature had not populated the air with living balloons.
It remained for the United States to realize this age-old
dream of flying, and for Europe to perfect the balloon and the
dirigible airship. Since this book deals primarily with Ameri-
can achievements, and since the United States had little, if
anything, to do with the development of the airship, we shall
tell only the story of the airplane and what America did to make
it a practical success.
175
176 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
The first thinking man who saw a bird in the air probably
asked himself: "Why can't I fly, too?" To be sure, he was
much heavier than the air, and he knew that he would fall like
a stone if he leaped from a cliff. But the flying bird that he
saw was also heavier than the air, and so far as he could see,
and so far as men for thousands of years after him could see,
it was necessary only to strap a pair of wings to the arms in
order to fly.
It takes more than a pair of wings to make an eagle out of
a man. Hundreds of daring men who wanted to fly broke their
necks before that truth was learned. An Eskimo would not
know what to do with a lawn-mower; so the first would-be fli-
ers did not know what to do with their wings. We have learned
much about what the Bible calls " the way of an eagle in the
air," and one of the things that we have learned is that we can
never hope to fly by flapping or spreading wings strapped to
the arms, simply because we have neither the muscles nor the
physical endurance. Look at the breast of a chicken, which is
just about able to fly over a fence — at the big, bulging breast
muscles. And then look at a man's chest. It is evident that
the bird has the breast-power to flap wings, and that the man
has not. To one who knows anything at all about birds and
how they fly, the winged angels that artists love to paint and
carve are laughable; for all their beautiful wings, they never
could fly with their weak breast muscles.
Moreover, men did not know much about the air in the be-
ginning. They could feel the wind; but they could not see it
as they could the billowing water of the sea. The air is very
much like the sea — never quite still. It has its whirlpools, its
upward currents and its downward currents, its countless swirls
and eddies. If the air could be seen, it would appear much like
the Whirlpool Rapids of Niagara. No man can hope to fly
unless he can keep his machine on an even keel in this heaving,
swirling, eddying ocean of air.
Plans for flying-machines were drawn up by some very able
men of olden times; but few of them published actual drawings.
One of those who did leave drawings which we can study and
understand, was the great Italian painter, Leonardo da Vinci,
who lived in the fifteenth century, about the time that Colum-
MAN CONQUERS THE AIR 177
bus was voyaging to America, and who was one of the most ver-
satile men that the world has ever known. There is no need
to describe Leonardo's machine, simply because it could not
have flown. It was the best attempt that had been made up
to his time. Leonardo did invent the parachute, however — the
ONE OF LEONARDO'S ROUGH SKETCHES FOR A MACHINE TO BE
DRIVEN BY FLAPPING WINGS.
umbrella-like device which performers at fairs use when they
jump from balloons. His parachute was not an umbrella, but
rather a framed, horizontal sail.
We know now that these plans of Leonardo's, and all the
plans that were drawn for generations after him, down to our
time, were practically worthless, chiefly because no way was
Drovided to balance the machine from side to side
Sir George Cayley Discovers How Birds Fly
It was not until Sir George Cayley, a remarkable English-
man who flew little models about the time of the American war
of 1 8 12, laid down the few correct principles of flying that
men really began to understand why birds, which are heavier
than the air, are able to fly. It was thought that soaring birds,
eagles, buzzards, and vultures, stay up by flapping their wings,
as a hawk does now and then; but Cayley was able to prove
with his models that flapping in itself has nothing to do with
support. The soaring birds flap their wings just to drive them-
178 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
selves along faster than they can fall, and they are held up
chiefly by the air pressure beneath their wings. A soaring bird
is like a skater on very thin ice. So long as the skater skims
along he is safe; but let him slow down or stop, and he breaks
through the ice. It is evident why an airplane is different from
a balloon or an airship — different not only in appearance, but
different in the way that it stays in the air. The balloon is
nothing but a bubble. It is lighter than the air, and, therefore, it
floats. An airplane is heavier thdn air and is a constantly
moving thing in flight; it must move or fall. All this Cayley
worked out very carefully in his own mind, and wrote books
about it, which are as good to-day as they were over a hundred
years ago when they were published.
Since an airplane must be in motion before it can fly, it
follows that a man in a machine cannot simply rise into the air
from his back yard. The machine must run along the ground
a few hundred feet, preferably in the teeth of the wind. Birds
also find it hard to leave the ground. Who has not seen wild
ducks flapping hard to lift themselves from the water ? Some-
times a vulture is kept in a cage open at the top. Since he
cannot get a running start he cannot escape. This, too, Cay-
ley knew.
Cayley Builds a Pair of Wings
If a bird has to struggle thus to leave the ground, how is a
man to do it ? Cayley was ingenious. After all, birds are
lifted by the air as they move along in a running start. Cayley
said to himself: "I will run along the ground, too, against the
wind, and then when I have speed enough, the air will lift me."
He made a pair of wings with 300 square feet of surface and
built a tail upon them. Every bird has a tail. Why ? To
balance his body fore and aft. Apparently, Cayley was the
first inventor who realized that a tail was necessary. From
this simple fact it is obvious how all the inventors who pre-
ceded him floundered around without discovering the first
principles of flight.
We would call Cayley's machine a "glider," because it had
no motor. A man simply seized the wings and ran forward
against the wind down a hill. Cayley said of this glider that it
MAN CONQUERS THE AIR 179
would bear a man up "so strongly as scarcely to allow him to
touch the ground, and would frequently hft him up and carry
him several yards together. It was beautiful to see this noble
white bird sail majestically from a hill to any given point of
the plain below it, with perfect steadiness and safety." Cay-
ley would set the tail or rudder so that the machine would ride
down the wind for a few yards and then settle on the ground.
HENSON'S "AERIAL EQUIPAGE" OF 1842.
This is the first airplane planned for commerce. A small model of this machine (the full size
was never built) is preserved in the South Kensington Museum. Except for ailerons, or
means of warping the wings, this machine hardly differs in its essentials from modern air-
planes of the monoplane type.
His was a fine attempt that did much to show others, who came
after him, how to attack this hard problem; but he could never
have flown in an engine-driven machine, simply because there
was no light engine. James Watt had just invented the steam-
engine, and Cay ley, far-seeing as he was, actually thought of
using it before he found that it was too heavy.
Cayley was the first man who knew that a man in a machine
must balance himself in the air — balance himself in every direc-
tion.
He was followed in 1842 by another Englishman, Henson,
who patented a twin-propeller, steam-driven machine — what
we would call a monoplane, a machine with a single spread of
wings. It had rudders, like our machines, and a tail. Indeed,
Henson thought of everything, except a way to balance his
flier. He knew that an airplane must be in motion before it
180 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
can fly, and he conceived the idea of running down an inclined
track to acquire this motion — an idea that the Wrights after-
ward carried out, as we shall see. A few experiments were made
with small models, and these showed Henson how important
is the matter of side-to-side balance. A puff of wind on one
side was enough to upset his model, and it was perhaps for
this reason that he never built the big machine that he patented.
Stringfellow Flies a Model in 1846
Henson had a friend named Stringfellow. For a time they
experimented together. Later, Stringfellow built models on
his own account. In 1846 he made a little model and mounted
a steam-engine within it. To launch the model he used a
stretched wire. One day he got up steam, placed the model on
the wire, and started the propellers. The model ran down the
wire, leaped into the air, and flew forty yards. We may imagine
Stringfellow almost dancing with excitement, and his unbounded
joy. This was the first time, after hundreds and hundreds of
trials, made in the lapse of centuries, that a power-machine, a
man-made engine-driven bird had actually flown for even a
short distance. There was nobody in the little machine — noth-
ing but the little engine. But it flew ! It flew !
If one surface could lift a given weight, then it would seem
that two surfaces ought to lift twice as much. This is not
strictly true; but two surfaces certainly can lift more than one
surface. Another Englishman, F. H. Wenham, carried this
principle far, and patented, in 1866, machines in which surfaces
were piled on one another. This is one reason why Wenham is
remembered in the history of man's conquest of the air. His
was the first biplane. He even realized how great is the resis-
tance of the air — the resistance that we feel when we run on
foot or ride fast on a bicycle. This resistance increases rapidly
with the speed. For instance, if a bicycle-rider doubles his
speed, the resistance is not twice as great, but four times as
great. Knowing all this, Wenham built his gliding machine
so that the pilot could lie flat on his stomach in order to cut
down the resistance— an idea that the Wright brothers after-
ward applied in their first, motorless, gliding experiments.
MAN CONQUERS THE ATR
181
But Wenham had not solved the problem of balance. One
evening, when the wind had died down, he took his glider out
STRINGFELLOW'S AIRPLANE OF 1868.
Stringfellovv made model after model in more than two decades. In 1868 he constructed this
steam-driven model, now preserved in the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C. It has
three superposed surfaces (an old idea of Wenham's), andwas driven hya small, high-pressure
steam-engine. This was the first airplane having superposed surfaces trussed and tied to-
gether in the modern manner. This model was able to fly about forty yards.
and climbed inside. A gust caught him, carried him along for
a few yards, upset him and broke his wings.
Penaud, Tatin, and Hargrave Also Fly Models
We have all seen boys sending into the air model airplanes
which are driven by twisted rubber bands. Penaud, a French-
man, built the first of these in 1871 and gave it a certain degree
182 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
of automatic control. He put most of the weight in front, so
that the model would naturally tend to dive down. But when
it began to dive its rudder would lift up its head; for the rud-
der was fixed at just the right angle to do this. Langley, as
we shall see, afterward adopted this rudder idea. Penaud in-
tended to build a large man-carrying machine; but he died be-
fore he could carry out his intention.
Then came Tatin, another Frenchman, who was much con-
cerned lest his model should fly off" into space, fall, and wreck
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HARGRAVE FLYING-MACHINE.
In 1891, Lawrence Hargrave, of Sidney, Australia, experimented with a compressed-air model,
driven by a compressed-air motor. It had no wheels for launching or alighting. The
model had a supporting surface of twenty square feet, weighed about three pounds, and
flew 128 feet in eight seconds.
itself. To restrain his model, he actually hitched it to a stake
by means of a cord. Just as a stone whirls at the end of a
string, so this model would whirl; only it did its own whirling.
He had a little compressed-air engine in his twin-propeller
monoplane, for such it was. After he started the motor, the
model would run around and around, gracefully rise into the
air and circle until all the compressed air was spent. This was
in 1879.
Lawrence Hargrave, an Australian, also built air-driven
models in 1891. He made many trials with different kinds of
MAN CONQUERS THE AIR 183
surfaces, and out of these trials came the box kite which almost
every boy has flown.
This was the state of flying when Americans began to invent
airplanes. They had all the ideas of Cayley, Stringfellow,
Wenham, Penaud, and Tatin to guide them, and it was but
natural that they should first make use of them before invent-
ing devices of their own. It must not be forgotten that despite
all Cayley 's teaching, despite all the experiments of Henson,
Stringfellow, and the rest, as yet no one knew the secret of air-
flying — how to balance a machine so that it will not be upset
in the wind or slip down sideways if a gust catches it under one
wing.
Langley Discovers Some New Principles
Doctor Samuel Pierpont Langley, secretary of our Smith-
sonian Institution in Washington, had long been fascinated by
the possibility of flying. Even as a boy he watched hawks on
the wing and wondered why they could fly. Late in life he de-
termined to make experiments. At first he built little models
like the older Englishmen and Frenchmen — frail little models,
driven by rubber bands, compressed air, and steam, which taught
him what the problem really was.
Langley was an astronomer, one of the great astronomers of
his time. Trained scientist, as he was, and not simply a clever
mechanic, like many of the men who had invented flying-
machines before him, he saw that we must know much about
the air and about wings before a carrying-machine could be
built. Consequently, he studied the wind and whirled plates
of different sizes and shapes in the air to discover how they
sailed. Here was a man who wanted important facts and not
simply guesses or opinions. He worked month after month
teaching himself about the wind and about surfaces, and how
much may be carried in the air for each square foot of wing.
Finally, he built a wonderful, steam-driven model, which was
somewhat larger than a condor, and which was the first heavier-
than-air machine that flew in America. On May 6, 1896, the
machine flew 3,000 feet at Quantico, Virginia. The model might
have flown for a greater distance, but Langley had purposely
limited its fuel supply, lest he should never recover it. This
184 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
was the longest flight that had ever been made up to that time.
Langley thought: *'At last I have succeeded. My work is
done. Let others take my facts and build a machine that will
carry a man." But who could rest after such a success ?
Langley knew exactly how a big machine ought to be built.
He had only to make a man-carrier like the model, only much
larger, of course. He simply could not rest. He had caught
the flying fever.
Even after he had flown his model, not once, but time and
time again, the world found it hard to believe that a man who
invented a flying-machine was not a little mad. A famous man
of science in Washington (his name was Simon Newcomb, and
he was one of the greatest mathematicians and astronomers of
his time) proved on paper, as he thought, that it was simply
foolish to make any attempt at flying. He argued that a
weight, such as a sack of oats, has length, breadth, and thick-
ness. Add just a few inches to the length, the breadth or the
thickness, and you can put much more oats, more weight into
the sack. Assume that this sack is carried through the air by
wing surfaces, with very little thickness. To carry a slightly
heavier sack, the surface must be greatly increased. The pro-
fessor reasoned that to carry a heavy load, wings of such size
would be needed that it would be impossible to build them.
And yet, all this time Langley was experimenting, and brave,
patient men in Europe were spending all the money on which
they could lay their hands to learn the secret of the eagle.
Our government became interested in Langley 's invention,
and Congress set aside $50,000, which Langley was to spend in
building a man-carrying machine. As may be supposed, the
army was in back of this appropriation of money. The gen-
erals knew that if they could send scouts up into the air they
could watch the enemy and see where he was preparing to strike.
Both the Union and the Confederate armies had used balloons
in the Civil War, and military officers had not forgotten the
fact.
Langley Builds a Big Man-Carrying Machine
Langley now proceeded very cautiously. Before building a
big machine he made more experiments with models — models
MAN CONQUERS THE AIR
185
about one-quarter as large as the man-carrying machine that he
had in mind. As a scientist, he felt that it would be unwise to
construct a large machine at once. He had to find out how
much a flat surface would lift when it was moving in the air
SAMUEL PIERPONT LANGLEY.
OCTAVE CHANUTE.
Dr. Samuel Pierpont Langley, a distinguished astronomer, was secretary of the Smithsonian In-
stitution when he began his aerodynamic studies, which resulted in the building of a small,
successful, steam-driven model, tandem monoplane. With the aid of a congressional appro-
priation, he built a man-carrying machine, which fell into the Potomac River because it was
improperly launched. The newspaper derision that followed and the failure of Congress
to give further encouragement literally broke his heart. Years later, Glenn H. Curtiss
modified and flew his machine successfully at Hammondsport, New York.
Octave Chanute's gliding experiments were conducted on the shore of Lake Michigan and be-
gan in June, 1896. Chanute experimented with many types of gliders, and finally evolved
a method of maintaining equilibrium which was not dependent entirely on the shifting of
the pilot's weight.
and whether it would lift more when it was moving fast and
how much more. Then he had to determine how big a pro-
peller must be in order to drive an airplane of a given size, and
how fast it must turn. Unless he knew these facts he could
not tell how powerful an engine would be needed to drive a
man through the air at forty, fifty, or ninety miles an hour.
Such investigations seem uninteresting and unexciting, yet, un-
less he had conducted them, Langley would have been working
in the dark. He never popularly received the credit that be-
186 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
longs to him for his patient, necessary fact-gathering. When
he had his facts and he knew exactly how big an engine he
needed to drive the airplane that he was going to build with the
money that Congress had set aside for him, no one could supply
a motor that was strong and light enough. "It can't be done,"
they said — all but one. And that one delivered an engine
which was light enough, but which did not have the required
power.
To find an engine — a gasoline-engine — was harder than
building the machine itself. Langley scoured the world for a
light, powerful engine. Finally his assistant and pilot, C. H.
Manly, built an engine that is still a marvel of strength and
lightness.
At last, Langley's big machine was finished. Like his smaller
models, it was what we call nowadays a "tandem monoplane,"
which means that it had two sets of wings, one set mounted be-
hind the other, each set a monoplane in itself. In the middle,
between the two sets of wings, were the pilot's seat and the
engine.
On September 7, 1903, the machine, mounted on top of a
house-boat, was towed into the Potomac River at Tidewater,
Virginia. It was to be launched against the wind from the
top of the house-boat on a track. All of Langley's smaller
models had been thus launched from house-boats. Manly took
his seat in the machine. The engine was started. The ma-
chine was released and shot down the track. The men on the
house-boat and on the tugboats in the river held their breath.
So did the newspaper men who had camped on the banks of
the river for days. At the end of the track a post that held up
the forward wings struck something, and the machine plunged
into the water instead of rising into the air. It bobbed up,
however, practically unharmed, and Manly bobbed up with it.
Langley made another attempt with the same machine on
December 8, 1903. This time the rear post caught, and once
more the machine dived into the water. Another experiment
should have been made, but the money of Congress was all
spent, and the newspapers were all saying, "We told you so."
The truth is that Langley's machine never had a chance to fly,
because it was never launched. It would be foolish to say that
MAN CONQUERS THE AIR
187
a ship would not sail because something went wrong with the
launching ways, which is exactly Langley's case. Years after-
ward, Glenn H. Curtiss took the Langley machine and flew it
at Hammondsport, New York, and thus showed how very
much wronged Langley had been.
Three years after his "failure" Langley died, a bitterly
disappointed man, knowing that he had built a machine, a man-
LANGLEY AIRPLANE, RECONDITIONED AND FLOWN BY GLENN H. CURTISS
OVER LAKE KEUKA, HAMMONDSPORT, NEW YORK, 1914.
carrying machine, that could fly. Fame and glory had slipped
from him. Even at this late day, the world in general is hardly
aware of what it owes to Samuel Pierpont Langley, of how
much he did to teach men how to fly.
Although Langley unquestionably built a machine in which
a man could fly, his method of maintaining balance has not
been followed. If the machine pitched or if it rocked from side
to side, the pilot could shift his weight to right it. Langley
also adopted Penaud's rudder in order to obtain a certain degree
of automatic stability. Li other words, the horizontal rudder
was mounted in back and was arranged so that it would auto-
188
REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
matically lift the nose of the machine if it dived, or drop it
if it lifted. Something better than this was needed. We shall
presently see how the Wright brothers met the need and made
flying practical.
How MOUILLARD, LiLIENTHAL, AND ChANUTE CoASTED
ON THE Air
The idea of learning how to fly by first using a pair of wings
and running with them along the ground, Cayley's idea, seemed
t^' .v-5^^
CHANUTE'S FIVE-DECKER OF 1896.
Chanute built many different types of gliders. Among them was this five-decker. Experiments
were made with this machine in 1896. The glider is notable because the wings could swerve
fore and aft, so as to bring the centre of lift always below the centre of gravity, thus pre-
venting pitching. The machine proved highly successful, and eventually led to the inven-
tion of a trussed biplane glider.
so safe that many inventors clung to it rather than risk their
necks in engine-driven machines. They reasoned that we must
first learn how to fly and get the "feel" of the air before attempt-
ing anything more. Mouillard, a Frenchman, was one of these.
He studied birds for thirty years in far-ofi^ Algeria where he
had a farm. Eagles, vultures, owls, birds of all kinds he watched
as they flew. He took dead birds, spread out their wings and
MAN CONQUERS THE AIR
189
traced their outlines on paper. For years he studied birds on
the wing. He wrote one of the most interesting books about
them. After many years of patient watching and thinking, he,
too, built a ghder — a pair of wings provided with a rudder and
with a handle-bar; this he would clutch, and would then run
Courtesy Smithsonian Institution, fl'ashiiir;ton.
THE TRUSS AS CHANUTE APPLIED IT TO THE GLIDER.
This glider, with which Chanute experimented in the later nineties, was a distinct improvement
over Lilienthal's. The pilot hung below the surfaces, which were trussed and held together
after the manner now generally adopted. Chanute saw that the maintenance of equilib-
rium was all-important. Hence he saw to it that, although the pilot was still required to
shift his weight in maintaining his balance, the air pressure itself should right the machine;
to this end he provided elastic wing margins, so that the centre of pressure could be varied.
Many successful glides were made in this machine.
along until he was lifted from his feet by the pressure of the air
beneath the wings.
It takes much money to carry out experiments. Mouil-
lard, being a farmer, and not a millionaire, had to give up his
experiments for lack of money.
Otto Lilienthal, a German, also thought that it was best to
learn how to fly with gliders. He had dreamed of flying even
as a boy. When he was still at school he built gliders with his
190 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
brother. All through early manhood the hope of flying in a
machine of his own was ever with him. He became an engineer
and a business man, simply to earn enough money with which
to experiment. He worked very hard and finally became what
we would call "well-to-do." Because he was a trained engineer,
he had valuable mechanical knowledge that others lacked. He
built wings, which were arched like those of a bird and which
had a rudder; for by this time (1891) every flying-machine in-
ventor realized that he must have something to steer with and
something with which to steady the machine.
Lilienthal coasted down the air hundreds of times by run-
ning down a sand-hill. Like everybody else, he found balancing
hard. If his machine tilted down on one side he would throw
his weight toward the other side to right it, so that as he glided
along he was constantly squirming and throwing his body
about. If the birds knew that he was trying to fly, they would
have screamed with laughter. It was an acrobatic performance
— this quick shifting of his weight. But one day, in 1896, when
he was about ready to build a motor-driven machine, when he
thought that he knew how to fly, and he took his latest glider
out for one last trial, he was not quick enough. The wind
caught him and upset him, and Lilienthal was killed. The same
fate overtook Percy S. Pilcher, an Englishman, who had been
fired by Lilienthal's example.
In America, gliding experiments were also made on the
shores of Lake Michigan by Octave Chanute and his assistant
A. M. Herring in 1896. Both Chanute and Herring were en-
gineers. Neither liked Lilienthal's way of throwing himself
about when his glider seesawed. First they copied Lilienthal's
machine, and then they built gliders according to their own
ideas. Toward the last, Lilienthal had glided with two sur-
faces— a biplane. Chanute and Herring made gliders that had
as many as five surfaces, one on top of the other, and they found
these gliders steadier than Lilienthal's, and, therefore, safer.
In the end, they adopted two surfaces, braced and tied to-
gether just as they are in a modern biplane. The man who
glided in a Chanute biplane had to shift his weight, just as
Lilienthal did, but not nearly so much. Chanute knew that it
would never do to rely on weight-shifting to keep a man-carry-
MAN CONQUERS THE AIR
191
ing machine on an even keel, but, like Lilienthal, he felt that a
better way of balancing would be found after men had learned
to fly.
Clement Ader and His "Avion"
Some inventors thought that it was simply a waste of time
to experiment with gliders. Why not build a big, power-
LILIENTHAL, THE GREAT EXPONENT OF GLIDING, IN FLIGHT WITH
ONE OF HIS BIRDLIKE CRAFT.
CLfiMENT ADER'S STEAM-DRIVEN "AVION."
machine at once, leap into the air with it, and thus learn flying?
Clement Ader, a rich Frenchman, reasoned thus. Like Lilien-
thal, he had made a fortune for the very purpose of becoming
a flying-machine inventor. Mouillard's description of birds fas-
cinated him. He must see them in Africa. Doctor Zahm, in
his Aerial Navigation^ says:
"Going to Algeria, he disguised himself as an Arab, and,
with two Arab guides, journeyed to the interior where he
watched the great soaring vultures, which he enticed with bits
192 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
of meat to perform before him their marvellous manoeuvres,
wheeling in wide circles, and without wing beat, from earth to
sky."
Home again in France, at the age of forty-two, Ader boldly
began the building of a man-carrying, engine-driven mono-
plane, which he called the Eole and with which, according to his
own account, he flew 150 feet on October 9, 1890. Then he
built another which he smashed after he had flown, as he said,
300 feet. The French War Department became interested in
his work and helped him build a third machine which he called
the Avion^ a name still applied to airplanes by some French
writers. It took five years to build the Avion^ and when it was
finished, it looked very much like a gigantic bat. It is hard to
say whether this Avion really flew; for the trial flights were pri-
vately made in the presence of French ofiicers in October, 1897.
Ader says that it flew, though, from his own account, it could
not have made more than a hop or two. At all events, the
Avion was smashed, and the French army lost all interest in it.
Ader had slaved forty years in getting enough money for
his experiment and in building one machine after another.
After spending $400,000, he retired from the field, bitterly dis-
appointed. His Avion was repaired, and is now to be seen in
a museum in Paris. Frenchmen point to it as the first man-
carrying machine that ever flew. Perhaps it did fly. But it is
certain that it was too unmanageable to be practical.
Maxim Builds a Giant Flying-Machine and Wrecks it
Hiram Maxim, a Maine Yankee who lived in England most
of his life, and who was one of the most ingenious mechanics
that ever lived (he invented the first machine-gun, among other
things), thought just as Ader did. Why bother with gliders.^
"Let's build a big machine at once," he said. And build one
he did. Even at this late day, Maxim's machine takes one's
breath away. Compared with Ader's machine, Maxim's was
a giant. Not until Curtiss built the America in 19 14, to fly
across the Atlantic, did anything larger appear. It could lift
more than a ton, not counting a crew of three and about 600
pounds of boiler-water; for this was a steam-driven machine.
WRIGHT GLIDER FLOWN AS A KITE.
'We began our experiments," the Wrights have written, "in October, 1900, at Kitty Hawk,
North Carolina. Our machine was designed to be flown as a kite with a man on board, in
winds from fifteen to twenty miles an hour. But, upon trial, it was found that much
stronger winds were required to lift it. Suitable winds not being plentiful, we found it
necessary, in order to test the new balancing system, to fly the machine as a kite without a
man on board, operating the levers through cords from the ground. This did not give the
practice anticipated, but it inspired confidence in the new system of balance."
THE FIRST WRIGHT GLIDER.
The first successful experiments of the Wright Brothers were made with motorless gliding ma-
chines. They began in 1901. The pilot lay prone in order to reduce the resistance of the
air. The horizontal rudder, or elevator, was placed in front. In September and October, 1902,
nearly 1,000 glides were made, several as long as 600 feet. The next step was the installation
of an engine.
194 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
Maxim was no impatient, reckless inventor, even though he
thought ghding a waste of time. He finished his machine in
1893, t)ut for years previously he had been studying propellers
and surfaces, and devising engines. All these pioneers were
worried by the difficulty of obtaining engines, and all had to
build their own. Maxim's steam-engine is still such a master-
piece of lightness and power that had he done nothing but plan
the engine we would have to regard him as a great inventor.
Of course, Maxim, engineer as he was, knew that he must
have a running start to fly. Therefore, he built a track half a
mile long and placed his machine upon it. He provided guard-
rails to prevent the machine from rising, because he first wanted
to run the machine along the track and test it out before ac-
tually trying to fly. Time and time again, the machine would
leave the track and strike the upper guard-rails, proving clearly
enough that it could rise into the air if Maxim would only let
it do so. He had spent $100,000 in building the machine, and,
bold though he was, he did not want to wreck $100,000 worth
of machinery in foolishly trying to fly before he was ready. One
windy day, he ran the machine out on the track to make a
test. He climbed in with one of his helpers and started the
engine. The propellers roared, and the machine rose from the
track, as it had often done before. But this time the great
bird tore the guard-rails and mounted into the air. Then it
crashed to the ground and was wrecked.
How THE Wright Brothers Began
Two young men in Dayton, Ohio, who kept a bicycle-shop,
reading all they could lay their hands on about flying-machines,
had learned with eagerness what Langley, Maxim, Lilienthal,
Chanute, and Herring were doing. They were Orville and
Wilbur Wright, sober-minded, cautious, level-headed sons of a
minister, who was himself of a mechanical turn. They were
not engineers or scientists, like Langley, Lilienthal, and Chanute,
but just practical mechanics.
"Let's build a glider," said one to the other one day. They
knew that they were attacking perhaps the hardest mechanical
problem in the world. Chanute had shown in his experiments
MAN CONQUERS THE AIR
195
on the shores of Lake Michigan that gHding was safe in his type
of machine. Hence, a Chanute ghder they made up their minds
to build.
They used to write to Chanute now and then, and the old
man would tell them all that he knew; for Chanute was one of
those rare, fine, unselfish men who try to do something for man-
THE PREDECESSOR OF THE MODERN FLYING-MACHINE.
"With this machine, in the autumn of 1903, we made a number of flights in which we remained
in the air for over a minute, often soaring for a considerable time in one spot, without any
descent at all," the Wrights state in their "Early History of the Airplane." "Little wonder
that our unscientific assistant should think the only thing needed to keep it indefinitely m
the air would be a coat of feathers to make it light !"
kind instead of making fortunes for themselves. Soon the
Wrights improved on Chanute. It will be recalled that even
in Chanute's glider the pilot had to shift his weight a little so
as to keep his balance, although not nearly so much as in Lili-
enthal's machine. The Wrights saw that this was all wrong.
Some better way must be found of balancing the machine.
Years before. Doctor Alfred Zahm, one of the first men who
studied flying-machines scientifically in this country, had
pointed out that some device must be invented to make the
196 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
air itself bring the machine back on an even keel a^ it tilted from
side to side, a device which would increase the air-pressure be-
neath the falling side of a wing and thus lift it back. But how
could the air be made to act thus ? The Wright brothers found
out.
To make the air lift the falling side of the machine, the
Wrights made their wings so that they could be warped a little
THE WRIGHT LAUNCHING-TOWER (1909).
A flying-machine must be in motion before it can fly. To acquire this preliminary motion the
Wright Brothers used an inclined rail. The machine rested on a little car, which was con-
nected by a rope with a weight that could fall in a tower. When the weight fell the car
was jerked down the track, and when sufficient momentum had been acquired the elevator
was tilted and the machine rose from the car. The machine after its flight landed on skids
attached to the underbodv._
at the rear. When a wing dropped, the pilot moved a lever to
bend the rear edge of the falling side down a little. This caused
the falling side to offer more resistance to the air. More re-
sistance means more pressure. Hence, the falling side encoun-
tered more air-pressure, and was forced up. At the same time,
the wing on the rising side was slightly bent up so that the air
had a little less surface to press against, with the result that the
rising side would drop. Simple as the trick is, it made the
flying-machine practical.
There are several ways of maintaining side-to-side balance
MAN CONQUERS THE AIR
197
on this principle. Instead of slightly warping the wing, flaps
are used, called ailorons^ a word which we have taken from the
French and which means "little wings." These flaps are now
always found on the wings of an airplane. They are hinged and
(Left) THE WRIGHT BR()rHI-;RS.
Wilbur and Orville Wright were the sons of a minister and engaged in bicycle-making when they
attacked the problem of mechanical flight. They were directly inspired by Chanute and
received helpful guidance from him as well as from Langley. After successfully experi-
menting with gliders they built the first successful man-carrying, power-driv'en airplane in
history.
(Right) THE FIRST PUBLIC FLIGHT IN THE UNITED STATES.
This was the spectacle that greeted the army officers and the distinguished sightseers who had
gathered at Fort Myer, near Washington, in 1908, to witness the first public flight of the
Wright machine. The pilot sat on the lower wing, fully exposed. In front of him stretched
the horizontal rudder, or elevator. Behind him roared the engine, driving twin propellers.
It was a machine built with no regard for what we now conceive to be engineering niceties,
but it flew, and its flying marked the dawn of a new period in transportation, and the realiza-
tion of a dream as old as mankind.
they move in opposite directions. As one flap is pulled down
the other is pulled up. When a pilot finds himself slipping down
on one side, he works a handle or lever, so that the flap on the
falling side drops and the flap on the rising side lifts. The fall-
ing flap is acted on by the air, just as it would act on a rud-
198 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
der, and lifts that side up, and, at the same time, the other side
drops because the air has a little less surface to press against.
Nearly all the inventors of the past knew that two rudders
were necessary — one, a vertical rudder, like a ship's, to steer
the machine from side to side; the other, a horizontal rudder to
guide it up or down. What the Wright brothers did was prac-
tically to give the machine a third rudder, which controlled the
side-to-side seesawing. That was a very great step — the last
step needed.
At Last ! A Man-Carrying Machine Flies !
Chanute used to watch the Wrights as they glided in this
machine of theirs, and he must have realized that these young
men knew what they were about. They kept on experimenting
with gliders for nearly three years (1900-03) and coasted down
the air hundreds of times. At last, they felt that they were
ready to make a trial with an engine. In 1903 they took one
of their best gliders — a biplane — and mounted a very crude
home-made gasoline-engine on the lower wing. The machine
was not to start from the ground on wheels of its own — the
modern practice. It had no wheels. In order to launch it a
car was used which was to run down a single inclined track.
After sufficient speed was acquired, the pilot was to tilt his
horizontal rudder so that the machine would rise from the car
into the air.
Many unsuccessful trials were made at Kitty Hawk, North
Carolina. Then came December 17, 1903, a day of historic im-
portance in aviation. Wilbur Wright took his seat on the
lower wing of the biplane. The car and the machine upon it
shot down the track. Before the end of the track was reached
Wilbur tilted the horizontal rudder. The machine soared off
into the air. The first flight lasted only twelve seconds; but
it was a real flight. Again and again the machine was launched
on that memorable day. Each time it stayed in the air a little
longer. The fourth time a distance of 852 feet was covered in
a little less than a minute.
The Wrights were not the kind of men to throw up their
hats and cheer, but we may imagine the joy that must have
been theirs. For hundreds of vears the best brains in the world
MAN CONQUERS THE AIR
199
had been racked to discover the secret of the eagle, and here
were two American mechanics, two bicycle-makers, who had
at last proved that a man can fly.
They kept on flying in improved machines from time to time
— sometimes at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, sometimes near
their home town of Dayton, Ohio. A few people saw them fly
SANTOS-DUMONT'S MACHINE OF 1903.
Alberto Santos-Dumont, a Brazilian, astonished the world with this crude biplane in 1906. The
machine ran tail foremost. Santos-Dumont sat in front of the wings. The "tail" could be
moved to act as a rudder. To maintain his balance, Santos-Dumont shifted his body.
On August 22, 1906, he made the first public flight on record in a power-driven machine.
He covered a distance of 200 feet at a speed of twenty-five miles an hour, and thus won a
prize of 3,CXX) francs offered in 1903 by Ernest Archdeacon, at a time when not even the
Wright brothers had flown successfully with an engine.
near Dayton, but the Wrights did their best to keep their suc-
cess secret. Theirs was a great invention, and they knew it. It
was so simple that anybody could copy it who saw it and who
knew of the work that Chanute had done, and Chanute had
printed and published all that he knew. They cast about for
a chance to sell their invention, first offering it to our govern-
ment. But the United States Government had had enough of
flying-machines. After their ofl^er had been rejected, they turned
to Europe. The Wrights next tried to sell their invention to
Great Britain, but were again turned away.
200 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
France Takes to the Air
Just at this time a few Frenchmen were doing their best to
fly, and some succeeded. The automobile-makers had per-
fected the gasohne-engine. It was still heavy, to be sure, but
lighter than any steam-engine and boiler. So the Frenchmen
ordered light gasoline-engines and put them in their crude
machines.
One of these men was Santos-Dumont, a Brazilian who had
lived for a long time in France. He had made some remark-
able voyages in balloons and air-ships of his own. He was a
daredevil — this Santos-Dumont, firmly convinced that every
man dies at some time that is fixed and that cannot be foreseen,
no matter what he did. He was no believer in "safety first."
No careful gliding experiments for him. Besides, what was the
good of them ? Had not Lilienthal and Pilcher been killed in
gliders ?
Santos-Dumont ordered a machine which looked like a big
box kite. It had a rudder in front (not a new idea), and this
rudder was a somewhat smaller box kite. He could move this
rudder in any direction that he wished, so that he could steer
himself up and down or from side to side. But he had no way
of balancing himself, although he could move his weight a little
from side to side. The wings were inclined at an angle to each
other, and this, too, helped a little to keep the machine on an
even keel.
Santos-Dumont ran over the ground in this machine, with
its wheels like those of a bicycle. On August 22, 1906, he hopped
into the air. A crowd watched him. It was the first time that
anybody had seen a public flight. The next day (October 23)
he flew 200 feet. There was tremendous excitement. News-
papers all over the world published articles about Santos-
Dumont. The Wright brothers must have been worried. But
when they realized that he had invented nothing that was not
well known, and that, above all, he knew nothing about bal-
ancing, the true secret of flight, they must have been relieved.
A dozen Frenchmen now caught the flying fever. There
was Henry Farman, a bicycle racer, Delagrange, an artist,
Bleriot, a manufacturer of automobile-lamps. All these men
MAN CONQUERS THE AIR 201
went to Voisin, the manufacturer who had made Santos-
Dumont's machine, and commissioned him to build biplanes
for them. Bleriot soon struck out for himself and made mono-
plane after monoplane. He must have smashed twenty ma-
chines before he ever flew. But even he had to learn the secret
of balancing from the Wrights. Levavasseur, who made a won-
THE "ANTOINETTE" OF 1909, MADE FAMOUS BY HUBERT LATHAM.
Levavasseur was a French engineer who became famous for his light aeronautic engines, many of
which were ordered by the pioneer French aviators. Later he turned to designing and build-
ing monoplanes. Hubert Latham was the pilot of these "Antoinettes" — beautiful birdlike
machines that aroused the admiration of all who saw them in the early days (1909). The
Antoinettes were historically noteworthy for their boat-like bodies — the first indication of
modern stream-lining.
derfully light motor, also tried his hand at building monoplanes
that could fly when the air was still — beautiful machines to
look at. He, too, had to learn the principle of balancing from
the Wrights later on.
Most of the men who ordered biplanes from Voisin did fly,
but only in very quiet air. The writer of these lines remembers
seeing Farman in one of the old Voisin machines — a big box
kite on wheels. Farman trundled out his machine one after-
noon just before sunset. A slight breeze was blowing, scarcely
202
REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
stronger than a zephyr. After critically studying the flags
lazily flapping against their poles, Farman decided that he
would not fly that day. The wind was too strong ! During
the World War, aviators over the battle front flew in howling
gales, which shows how quickly the trick of flying was learned,
lARMAN FLYING ACROSS COUNTRY IN 1908.
Henry Farman was a champion bicycle-rider when he took up aviation in 1907. His first ma-
chines, built by the Voisin Brothers, were simply boxlike or cellular structures on wheels,
without any mechanical means of maintaining side-to-side balance. The machine would
fly only in very light winds. This picture shows Farman flying in a somewhat improved
machine of the boxlike type between Chalons and Rheims on September 30, 1908. The
distance was twenty-seven kilometres, and the time twenty minutes. It was the first
town-to-town flight on record.
once the way was pointed out, and how stanch and powerful are
the machines of to-day.
These men, particularly Farman and Delagrange (it is use-
less to mention the rest), flew for miles at a time. They flew
across country and from town to town when the air was quiet.
They won prizes — cups and money. The world saw that at
last men could fly.
The Wrights Reveal Their Great Secret
Still the Wright brothers were hugging their great secret
to themselves. They must have been just a little alarmed.
Glenn H. Curtiss, a builder of motors and a champion motor-
MAN CONQUERS THE ATR
203
cycle rider, had been engaged by Doctor Alexander Graham
Bell, who invented the telephone, to help him build a flying-
machine, and they felt that Curtiss might hit upon their own
great secret. The United States Government now began to
wake up. The army was ready to buy a flying-machine if its
conditions could be met. The Wrights ofl^ered to supply one
BLERIOT ON A CROSS-COUNTRY' FLIGHT IN 190.S.
for $25,000. It was clear that now was the time to show the
world what they had been doing. In 1908, Wilbur Wright de-
cided to go to France and show the Frenchmen some real fly-
ing, while Orville was to stay at home and fly another machine
before the officers of the American army.
France gasped in amazement when it watched Wilbur's per-
formance in 1908. Farman, Bleriot, and the rest soon saw that
this machine of Wilbur's was better than anything they had
devised. Wilbur performed feats in the air and climbed to
heights that were beyond them. They promptly copied his
way of making the air lift the wings when they tilted over too
far. Some of them warped their wings just as he did; but most
of them adopted flaps or ailerons.
Our army was no less astonished at Orville's flying. Every-
body thought that the army's conditions were too hard. The
204 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
speed was to be forty miles an hour with a bonus of $2,500 for
every mile an hour above that. Orville wanted the bonus. If
the wind was so strong that it would slow up the machine, he
simply refused to fly, even though thousands had gathered to
see him in the air and oflicers were waiting with watches in
their hands to time him. He won his $25,000 for the machine
CURTISS FLYING OVER LAKE KEUKA, NEW YORK, IN 1909.
Glenn H. Curtiss had his own ideas about flying-machines. The Wrights had shown how lat-
eral stability could be maintained by warping the wings. Since wing-warping was a patented
invention, he used what have since become known as ailerons. They are little hinged
planes, nowadays forming part of the main wings, but in this early machine (1909) they are
mounted between the planes.
and also his bonus. The machine had more than met the
army's conditions.
Now that the Wrights had come into the open, what was it
that men saw? Nothing so very different from the machines
with which they were already familiar, so far as mere looks were
concerned. There were two wings — one above the other. That
was old. The horizontal rudder or elevator, by which the
machine was steered up or down in the air, thrust itself out in
front; but front rudders were old. There was a vertical rudder
in the rear, like a ship's rudder. That, too, was old. There
was a gasoline-engine between the wings to drive the machine.
MAN CONQUERS THE AIR
205
but there was nothing new in that. There were two propellers;
but twin propellers had been thought of by Henson more than
sixty years before. The only new idea was the method of bal-
ancing the machine from side to side, and even of that there had
been glimmerings. So, there was really nothing startlingly new
LOUIS BLERIOT.
GLENN H. CURTISS.
Louis Bleriot was a successful manufacturer of automobih-lamps when he became interested
in flying. Beginning in 1900, he tried one type of machine after another, and thrilled the
world with his many hair-breadth escapes. On July 25, 1909, he made the first flight across
the English Channel.
Glenn H. Curtiss was a crack motor-cycle rider and builder of light gasoline-engines when Dr.
Alexander Graham Bell invited him, in 1907, to provide the engines for light, strong machines
built on the tetrahedral-kite principle. It was thus that Curtiss became interested in aero-
nautics.
about the Wright airplane after all. Yet it was the first prac-
tical man-carrying flying-machine that had ever been made and
flown— one of the world's greatest inventions. We must not
think that the Wrights simply copied the ideas of other men.
It takes genius to know what is right, to find out why every-
body before failed; and the Wrights had that genius.
Man had at last grown wings. He was eager to try them.
Races were held. In 1909, Bleriot crossed the English Channel
and won a l5,ooo prize ofl^ered by the London Daily Mail.
Hubert Latham, in his Antoinette^ built by Levavasseur, had
206 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
made the attempt shortly before, but had failed. He used to
be the attraction at all the French flying meetings; for his
Antoinette was a beautiful, bird-like thing to look at. James
Gordon Bennett, of the New York Herald^ offered the now
famous Gordon Bennett cup and $5,000 cash for the fastest
flight. Prizes for long-distance flying and high flying were
awarded. It is safe to say that in a few years after the Wrights
flew publicly every prize was won, except that offered by the
London Daily Mail for a flight across the Atlantic Ocean, and
that was won in 191 9.
The Scientist Shows What Is Wrong with the
x^IRPLANE
Most of the early airplanes had been built by carpenters
and blacksmiths. As we look back at the old Wright machines
and those with which Farman, Bleriot, and Latham astonished
the world, we wonder at the dreadful chances that were taken.
Frightful accidents occurred because no one knew how strong a
machine ought to be to stand the blows of the wind. When-
ever a machine swoops down the wings are strained. Poor
Delagrange was killed when his wings broke, and so were many
others.
The engineer and the scientist stepped in. They made tests
in what are called "wind tunnels," to find out just how strong
machines ought to be; also to measure the resistance offered
by the air in flying and to discover the best way to cut it down.
A little model of a wing or strut or a body is built and held in
the tunnel. Then a stream of air is blown against it. The
pressure of the air against the model is carefully measured. One
o'jiape is compaiti with another, and that shape is finally se-
lected which offers tht least resistance.
Wind-tunnel experimeats with little models have shown that
not only is the wing lifted by the air-pressure beneath it, but
also that it is sucked up at the top. Indeed, the suction counts
for more than the lifting effect. It must not be assumed, how-
ever, that all the old theories aboyt the effect of air-pressure
beneath the wings were wrong. TheY were right, but not com-
plete. Thus, the wind tunnel tells much that can never be
learned in the air itself by a pilot.
MAN CONQUERS THE ATR
207
Wind-tunnel experiments on models prov^ed how great is
the resistance of the wind. To fly fast, it had to be reduced.
The early machines were masses of wires and struts that raked
the air. The pilot simply sat on the lower wing of a biplane
and watched the earth swim past between his legs. He offered
enormous resistance. The wind tunnels showed that it is
easier to move a correctly designed bulk through the air than
CURTISS HYDRO AIRPLANE OF 1911.
To Glenn H. Curtiss belongs the credit of having invented the flying-boat, here shown, the pro-
totype of all modern seaplanes.
to rake it with vibrating wires and with dozens of projections.
Builders were quick to learn the lesson. They built a hull for
the machine, what we now call a "fuselage," and gave it the
right lines so that it could part the air easily. It is a curious
fact that the hull should be rounded in front and not pointed;
yet the breasts of fast-flying birds are also rounded. The
pilot now sits in the carefully modelled hull with just his head
showing. The struts are carefully shaped to reduce resistance.
In this way it had become possible to fly at speeds of over a
hundred miles an hour even before the war. Now 250 miles
an hour are possible.
The old machines had wings covered with fabric that was
none too tightly stretched. When next you are in Washington,
look at the old Wright machine which is to be seen there in
208 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
the National Museum. The wings are covered with canvas,
which is not very taut. A man can stand on a modern wing —
its fabric is stretched so tightly. Nowadays we use the strong-
est linen and treat it with what is called "dope" and then var-
nish it. The dope makes the fabric as stiff as a board and
waterproofs it too, and the varnish protects it from the weather.
A hurricane will tear a roof off and toss it several hundred
yards. An airplane travels at hurricane speed; it must, there-
fore, stand hard air blows. Before scientific experiments with
models in wind tunnels were made, no one really knew how this
thing of wires, light wood, and fabric could be made to stand
the strain. The machine of to-day is as safe as a bridge, simply
because builders know how hard it will be struck by the air
and how lightness and strength can be combined.
An airplane burns about as easily as a match once it catches
fire. After all, it is all wood, for the most part, except the en-
gine. "Dope" catches fire as easily as oil. Why not make
the whole machine of metal — body, wings, and all ? Builders
thought of that long ago. But metal is heavy — much heavier
than wood. Some new metals have been discovered, chiefly
aluminum alloys, which will make It possible to do away with
wood and linen. A German engineer named Junkers actually
built a good machine of these new metals. When we fly about
in the air, some day in the future, just as we now roll along in
automobiles, it will probably be in an all-metal machine.
What the War Did for Flying
When the World War came, every European army had its
airplaneSo Yet In a few weeks all these machines, which were
considered to be the last word in airplanes, had to be thrown on
the scrap-heap. Every few months the Germans or the French
or the English would build a machine that was a little faster
than anything that had been flown before. Sometimes the
Germans had the fastest machines and sometimes the Allies.
This competition did more to develop the airplane In four
years than could have been expected In ten years of peace.
Air-fighters like Guynemer, Fonck, Ball, and Luf berry wanted
swift scouts in which they could loop-the-loop, do the " barrel
MAN CONQUERS THE AIR
209
roll" or the "dead-leaf" drop, dive tail first or spin around on
their beam ends. That meant stronger machines and better
machines in every way. It also meant more powerful engines,
THE WIND TUNNEL OF THE UNITED STATES NAVY.
In order to design airplanes which will offer the least possible resistance to the air, small models
of machines or parts of machines are suspended in a wind tunnel, and air at measured ve-
locities is blown against them. The effects are accurately determined by instruments
which measure the pressures sustained. Thus a shape Is arrived at which can be driven
through the air with the least expenditure of energy.
and when you use a more powerful engine you cannot mount
It in an airplane that has weak wings without making it unsafe
for the pilot.
The men who were sent out to drop bombs wanted machines
that would carry heavier loads. Curtiss had built the big Amer-
ica in 1914, a machine with a span of 133 feet, in which Porte,
an Englishman, hoped to cross the Atlantic and win the London
210 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
Daily M^/7 prize. When the war came, the British Government
bought the machine. One or two giant machines had been
built in Europe, among them the Sikorsky, which could carry as
many as eighteen passengers. On the whole, there was not
much experience in building giant weight-carriers before the
war. The Allies started in as soon as they could to construct
big machines which would carry heavy loads of bombs— good,
THE NC-4 ON HER TRANS-ATLANTIC VOYAGE.
The NC-4, American seaplane, at Ponta Delgada in the Azores, on the famous trans-.Vtiantic
flight of 1919.
practical machines that would travel several hundred miles into
the enemy's country, if need be. Caproni, the Italian, made
his reputation during the war with such big bomb-droppers.
So did Handley-Page in England and Caudron in France. The
Germans had their Gothas.
All this work did much to make regular passenger-carrying
in peace-time possible, so that when the war came to an end
companies were started to carry business men and tourists be-
tween London and Paris and other European cities. In Eu-
rope, thousands of people now use the airplane instead of the
railway when they can. Instead of travelling a whole day by
rail and steamer from London to Paris or Amsterdam, an Eng-
lishman in a hurry takes an airplane and covers the distance in
about four hours.
MAN CONOUERS THE AIR
211
The supreme feat, the teat that proves what may be ex-
pected of the airplane, was the crossing of the Atlantic Ocean
in 1 9 19. The Americans made the first crossing, but not in a
single flight. On the other hand, the English flew in a single
stage from Newfoundland to Ireland.
American naval oflicers first crossed the ocean, not with any
hope of winning the prize of $50,000 offered by the Daily Mail,
THE AIRPLANE THAT FIRST CROSSED THE ATLANTIC OCEAN.
On June 15, 1919, this Vickers-\''imy-Rolls airplane landed at Clifden, Ireland, after having
completed the first direct flight across the Atlantic from St. John's, Newfoundland. The
machine was piloted by Captain Sir John Alcock, and navigated by Lieutenant Sir Arthur
W. Brown. The ocean was crossed in a single stage at the high average speed of nearly 118
miles an hour — a speed made possible by the favorable following winds.
but chiefly to collect facts that would help others to cross the
Atlantic. Indeed, there was no chance of winning the prize.
The conditions of the Daily Mail required that a non-stop flight
be made, whereas the navy planned to fly from New York to
Newfoundland, then to the Azores, then to Portugal, and finally
to England. Our naval officers made long and careful prepara-
tions. They took every precaution conceivable to insure safety.
All the way across war-ships and destroyers were stationed to
send wireless weather reports to the men in the air and to help
them as much as possible.
Every care was taken to make the voyage of the three great
212 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
navy seaplanes NC-i, NC-3 and NC-4 a success. Commander
John H. Towers, captain of the NC-3, headed the little air fleet;
Lieutenant-Commander Albert C. Read was In charge of the
NC-4; ^^^ Lieutenant-Commander Patrick N. L. Bellinger
commanded the NC-i. The planes could hardly carry enough
Courtfsy U . S. Army Air Servic
THE MACHINE IN WHICH MAJOR SCHROEDER BROKE THE TWO-MAN
ALTITUDE RECORD.
In the modern fast airplane, as this picture shows, careful attention is paid to what is called
"stream-lining," which means that fuselage, wings, struts are so designed that the whole
parts the air easily. The old machines were a mass of projections that raked the air and
thus made high speed impossible. In this machine (a Le Pere), Major Schroeder broke the
two-man altitude record.
fuel to make one long flight to England, which Is one reason
why It was decided to cross In several stages.
On the morning of May 8, 1919, the three great sea-birds took
the air at Rockaway, near New York city. Later, the three
seaplanes met at Trepassey and made the final preparations for
the great flight. The real trip across the Atlantic therefore
began at Trepassey, Newfoundland.
On the evening of May 16, the three seaplanes leaped Into
the air for the long flight to the Azores. As they sailed along, a
destroyer below would send up a column of smoke by day and
MAN CONQUERS THE AIR
213
flash search-lights or star-shells at night, so that the men in the
air might know where they were. Thus the bold airmen flew
over the station ships below, one by one. They were nearing
the end of the jump to the Azores, 1,380 miles long, when they
ran into a thick fog. The pilots could see nothing. All about
Courtesy L'. S. Army Air Service.
COCKPIT OF A MODERN MILITARY AIRPLANE.
In the early Wright machines the pilot and his passenger sat on the lower wing with no protec-
tion whatever; they were not even suitably clad. They saw the earth swim past between
their legs. In modern machines, the pilot and his passenger sit in a boatlike cockpit with
only their heads protruding. They are protected not only by the cockpit but also by hel-
mets, goggles, and leather coats lined with sheep's wool.
them was this thick mist. They could not climb up out of it.
Everything depended on cool heads and stout hearts. At last,
the NC-4 managed to climb out of the fog and arrived at Horta
in the Azores, fifteen hours and thirteen minutes after she had
left Newfoundland. The NC-i and NC-3 both had to alight
on the water. Lieutenant-Commander Bellinger and his crew
were taken off the NC-3 by a steamer and landed at Horta.
The NC-i had been badly pounded by the waves, and her crew
worked desperately to keep her afloat before they were taken off.
214 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
The men of the NC-j had a terrible experience. All during
the night a rain-storm beat upon her and all the next day she
had to face a gale. She could not tell where she might be found;
her wireless apparatus could be used only in the air because the
current was generated by a little propeller driven by the wind
as she sped along, x^s for seeing her — she was about as easy
to see on the ocean as a speck of dust on a plate-glass window.
High seas began to break over her; the ribs of the lower wings
cracked and the fabric that covered them split. Finally, the
elevator was swept off. The hull leaked badly, so that the
pumps had to be kept going to keep the ship afloat. With a
shout the men greeted the sun, which all at once came out.
Thirty-five miles away they saw a mountain. In a desperate
attempt to reach land they let the wind blow the NC-j along
as it would a sailboat. Night fell again. Still the heavy sea
tossed the frail vessel about, and still the storm raged. By
daylight nothing was left of the lower wings except a few of
the heavier beams. Early in the morning San Miguel hove in
sight. Seven miles off Ponta Delgada, the battered NC-j was
sighted. A destroyer steamed out at full speed to help her.
But the men on the NC-3, for all the hardships that they had
endured, would not give up the ship. They brought the NC-3
into the harbor under her own power, "taxiing" over the waves,
a mere floating wreck. They had been in the water fifty-three
hours, making desperate efforts to reach port, and had suffered
hardships. Their sandwiches had become soaked with sea
water and could not be eaten. They had only a few pieces of
chocolate. Rusty water from the radiator was all they had to
drink.
Only the NC-4, commanded by Read, was fit to keep on,
and keep on she did. Early in the morning of May 26, 19 19,
she left Ponta Delgada, to which she had meanwhile flown from
Horta, and started on the 891-mile flight to Lisbon. She made
the run in nine hours and forty-three minutes. All Lisbon
cheered, blew whistles and waved handkerchiefs and flags when
she came down into the harbor. After a rest of three days,
Read started for England on the last leg of the flight. A leak
in one of the engines made him come down at Figuera, but after
making repairs he started again. On the afternoon of May 31,
llRlSrul. PASSENGKR-CARRVIXG AIRPLA.NK.
After the Great War ended, the leading manufacturers of airplanes .saw that the immense
amount of research that they had conducted in order that they might be able to build bombers
of enormous size and carrying capacity might be turned to commercial account. They im-
mediately began the building of passenger-carrying machines, of which this huge Bristol
"Pullman" is a type. The interior of this machine is reproduced in another picture.
INTERIOR OF A LARGE PASSENGER-CARRYING AIRPLANE.
The passengers sit comfortably in an attractively designed body (fuselage), which is electrically
illuminated, and on which there is even a small washroom. The carrying capacity is about
twenty.
216 REVOLUTION OF TRANSPORTATION
the NC-4 reached Plymouth. For the first time In history the
Atlantic had been crossed by air. The long flight of 4,500
miles across the ocean and up the European coast ended at the
very port from which the Mayflower had sailed three centuries
before.
The English Flight across the Atlantic
Three airplanes were sent over from England by as many
companies to make a non-stop flight from Newfoundland to
Great Britain in a single stage, and thus win the prize of $50,000
that had been ofl^ered by Lord Northcliffe, owner of the London
Daily Mail^ to the man who would first cross the Atlantic in a
non-stop flight. The money Itself hardly tempted the English
companies that sent machines and crews across; for the long
preparations and the wear and tear on the machines cost far
more than the $50,000 to be won.
Harry G. Hawker and Lieutenant-Commander H. Grieve
were the first to take the air from St. Johns, Newfoundland, on
May 19, 1919, In the great contest. Theirs was a Sopwith
biplane driven by a Rolls-Royce engine. It was a mere trifle
that prevented them from being the first men to cross the
Atlantic by air. Their engine, like most automobile engines,
was cooled by water. A strainer in one of the pipes leading
from the radiator clogged, so that the water boiled away.
Every one knows that when the cooling water gives out In an
automobile, the engine Is overheated and then stops. Realiz-
ing what had happened. Hawker changed the course back over
the main steamship lane and zigzagged about. At last a ship
was sighted and Hawker came down.
Nothing was heard of Hawker and Grieve for six days.
Every one thought that they had been drowned after losing
their course. They had flown 1,100 miles in fourteen hours
and thirty-one minutes when they met with their accident.
In a few more hours they would have sighted land. The two
brave air navigators arrived in London amid cheers. A con-
solation prize of $25,000 was given them.
One hour after Hawker and Grieve started. Captain F. P.
Raynham (pilot) and Captain F. W. Morgan (navigator) rose
into the air, also from St. Johns. They were not quite ready
MAN CONQUERS THE AIR 217
to leave, but Hawker and Grieve's start spurred them on.
Their Martinsyde airplane was so heavily loaded with gasoline
for the long voyage that it was wrecked before it left the ground,
and Raynham and Morgan were injured.
On June 15, 1919, the third machine took the air — a Vickery-
Vimy biplane driven by a Rolls-Royce engine and manned by
Captain John Alcock and Lieutenant Arthur Brown (the latter
an American).
Alcock and Brown's trip across the Atlantic was short but
terrible. Half an hour after they left Newfoundland, a part of
the wireless set gave way. They could not let a world, which
was literally holding its breath, know how they fared. Nearly
all the way over they were either in fog or flying between banks
of fog, so that they could not see the water most of the time. A
flying-machine always drifts from its course — how much, the
pilot notes by watching the waves of the sea or the ground.
But Alcock and Brown could not see the water, so that, for all
they knew, they were drifting away from the right course and
might never reach land again. Luckily, they caught a glimpse
of the sun, the moon, and a star or two, so that they could cal-
culate their position. Most of the time they sped along at a
height of 4,000 feet. Flying in a fog makes it hard for a man
to know whether his machine is on an even keel or not. When
Alcock once swooped down to within fifty feet of the sea to get
what he called his "horizon," which means his level, he found
himself flying almost on his back. And he never knew it until
he saw the water ! To be sure, he did not fly very long in that
position — only a few minutes probably. So thick was the fog
that the two men never saw the sun rise. Once they climbed
up to 11,000 feet and ran into hail and snow. Brown had to
stand up and chop off the ice from the instruments. Think of
that two miles in the air !
Alcock and Brown covered the distance of 1,960 miles be-
tween Newfoundland and Ireland in sixteen hours and twelve
minutes — less than the time that it takes the Twentieth Cen-
tury Limited to run from New York to Chicago, which is only
half the distance. The speed of the airplane was about 120
miles an hour, which is due to the fact that a following wind
helped the machine along by about 25 miles an hour.
PART II
COMMUNICATION
CHAPTER I
THE STORY OF THE PRINTED WORD
JOHANN GUTENBERG set up a printing-press at Mainz,
Germany, in the year 1450, and his "movable types" were
the wonder of his day. Until his time, books had been printed
from wooden blocks, each engraved with the reading matter
of a page. The modern amateur's movable types are better
than his. Gutenberg, who had to ink his type with a leather
ball, would have been delighted with a modern printer's hand-
roller. Far from thinking the amateur's cheap hand-press a
toy, he would have regarded it as a marvellous machine, with
its ink-roller passing over the type automatically, its ink-table,
its handle and leverage giving such strong, even pressure with
so little effort.
Gutenberg really printed his books on a wooden cheese-
press. His type was laid on a moving table, and inked with
the "printer's ball." A sheet of paper was laid on the type,
and the whole covered with a blanket. Then the type form was
pushed under a wooden plate, or "platen" — the part that presses
the paper against the type — and the platen was screwed down
tight. After a sheet had been printed, the platen was screwed
up, the type-table or "bed" drawn out, the type inked again,
and the operation repeated. Printing was hard work, requiring
strong muscles. The platen "wabbled," the press squeaked,
and a printer could make perhaps fifty or sixty imprints or im-
pressions an hour.
Yet it is generally conceded that all modern printing began
with Gutenberg. If Gutenberg could see one of our big news-
paper or publishing plants he would marvel at the fast type-
setting-machines and the great perfecting presses. All the
work of inventors since his day has been centred on printing
faster and faster, and cheaper and cheaper, and more and more.
The old gentleman would probably remark that the demand for
his printed books, in the year 1450, was more than he could
222 COMMUNICATION'
meei. It lias been so ever since; and for this reason the im-
provement of printing machinery has always fascinated the
inventor.
A job of printing begins with the setting of the type by the
compositor. Sometimes the page is printed directly from the
type, but electrotype plates are usually made from it- Then
comes the actual printing by what are still called "presses,"
aJthoogh they do not press paper upon the inked type itseh., as
did Gutenberg and printers for several generations after him.
Presses now are machines for rolling paper against printing-
plates. Composing-room, plate-making room, and press-room
are. the three great departments in a modem printing-estab-
lishment, and the story of the printed word can be followed by
taking up each in its turn, just as a job of printing passes
through a publishing-plant-
Gutenberg did not really originate printing, although he is
often given credit for it. He made it easier, quicker, and cheaper
by inventing "movable t>-pes." This invention is so important
that it marks the beginning of a great period in human histor>"
— the period oi modem educaticMi.
The first prmter lived so many centuries ago tnat aij trace
of him has been lost- His printing had to do, not with books,
bat with patterns on doth- He drew his pattern on a block
of wood, and thai cut it out to leave a raised design. He
dipped has cut block in dye, and pressed it on the cloth. As
far hatk. as the sixth centur>-, the Chinese learned to cut the
lettea^ for the page of a book on wood and print from the wood
by hand. The Japanese were printing books from wood-blocks,
too, in the eighth centmy; Europe began in the twelfth centur>'.
Pictures were printed from wood in two or more colors, such as
the famous Japanese "prints" which are so highly prized by
ooSlectors. Such printing did not demand machiner>'- -Any
skilfbl man could print, once the blocks were made.
"Movable Types" — The Fiilst Great Idea
But it took much time and money to make several hundred
pri' 'jcks for a book. Publishers could not profitably
iss.-_ ::../ books in so costly a way, and few readers could af-
THE STORY OF THE PRINTED WoRH 223
ford to buy them. The world's early hooks were written on
parchment, by hand, and only a few rich noblemen owned books,
much less libraries.
"Why not cut separate letters on small blocks ot wood, and
arrange them to print the words on a pager" was some inven-
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ttm i53ii bat crajarb: 5>: rarr tn gtdubi
bar an in mrnnc an HUiififrbt d ia\ =u
rm*rairialli'g>nt.-ig!iiubf biibf f)d
rair DO idcfti rnftbDn fiigr UnDiolirn
allE onC- mrrtb ufi im: ^:ii i^a btrJ rn
UTtit m rn mf nr }fih 5ii rra babt iu d>
(Left) THE OLDEST EX.VMPLE OF PRINTING FROM TiTE.
Obverse and reverse of a page printed by Gutenberg in 1445 or 1446. The specimen of Guten-
berg's work here presented is a German consideration of the end of the ^vorld and of
the Last Judgment.
(Right) WOOD BLOCK USED BEFORE THE IN'\'ENTION OF MO\'ABLE Ti'PE.
(From a wood-cut dated 1423, the earliest European dated wood-cut kno«"n.)
Q
niTrfmanr.iiMfriuiouTiiynimf-i'' rJi.immi ,-fff'
^JdnfTnprp-.f raws mala twnrr.ccKru?-*, -re' nmo ^<T4^
tor's thought. "Then separate the letters after printing and
torm the words tor the next page.^"
It was a great idea ! But it is hard to say who thought ot
it first, for the question has been discussed more than 400 years.
Johann Gutenberg, the German (born ij^q~ — died i46S\, has
been given most ot the credit, but the Dutchman Laurens
Janszooh Coster, of the city ot Haarlem (he lived between ij~o
and 1440) may have been the true inventor. Some historians
think Gutenberg merely improved movable types invented by
224
COMMUNICATION
Coster between the years 1440 and 1446, and that some of Cos-
ter's types were stolen and taken to Gutenberg, who copied
them. There is enough evidence in favor of Coster to make
out a very good case for him.
It is certain that the first books were printed from mov-
able types about i~\.^o. Printed books soon became more com-
from an engravun by Slradanus, circa 1585.
COPPER ENGRAVER AND COPPER-PLATE PRINTING-PRESS OF THE 16TH
CENTURY.
This is the old "cheese-roller" t}^pe of press.
mon, and even cheap, for those days. Hence, more people
learned to read, and more authors wrote books, until "news
books" were in demand, and then "news papers," of which the
first are believed to have appeared in Germany and Italy be-
fore the end of the sixteenth century. The oldest newspaper
known by name is the German Frankfurter Zeitung^ founded in
161 5. The first newspaper in the United States was Publick
Occurrences^ started in Boston in 1690.
The first movable types were large, because the early
printers copied the large letters of hand-written manuscripts.
Hence the page of an early printed book appears as though it
THE STORY OF THE PRINTED WORD 225
had been lettered by hand. Moreover, large letters were doubt-
less easier to cut than small ones. But hand-cut letters soon
gave way to metal type cast in a mould. A mixture of lead and
tin was used — type-metal, as it is still called. These metal
types wore better than wooden ones, and thousands of them
TYPECASTING IN ENGLAND IN 1750.
A method which remained in vogue practically until the invention of the linotype and
monotype in the 19th century.
could be cast from one mould. Printers made their own types
at first, but before printing was a hundred years old the mak-
ing of types became a business in itself. The first "type-found-
ers" set up shops in France about the middle of the sixteenth
century.
The first successful type-foundry in America seems to have
been established by Christopher Sauer, in Germantown, near
Philadelphia, in 1772. Several others had tried their hand at
casting types and failed. Among them was Benjamin Frank-
226 COMMUNICATION
lin, who was a printer, and wanted "sorts" or extra types of a
certain letter or kind which had run out. There was no type-
founder in America. Types had to come from London. Frank-
lin had seen types cast in London, but had not paid much atten-
tion to the way in which it was done. He made metal moulds
of the letters he wanted, although he does not tell very clearly
how, and with these he seems to have pressed satisfactory
letters out of cold lead. Later, he tried type-founding, but un-
successfully.
Until 1836, all types were cast by hand. Then an Ameri-
can, David Bruce, Jr., of New York, patented the first type-
casting machine, which did the work much faster. This ma-
chine had a small melting-pot filled with molten type-metal,
and a pump forced enough of the metal into a type-mould to
make a letter. This letter was quickly cooled, whereupon the
mould opened, dropping it, and another letter was cast. Bruce's
machine cast ragged types, which later had to be trimmed
smooth by hand. It had been in use for fifty years when Henry
Barth, of Cincinnati, in 1888, invented a machine that cast
nicely finished types at the rate of 200 a minute. Just at the
end of the nineteenth century an Englishman named Frederick
Wicks invented a rotary type-casting machine which would
turn out 60,000 types an hour, all perfectly finished and ready
for the compositor. This great speed was made possible by
using a hundred moulds instead of a single one, the moulds being
rapidly filled with the hot type-metal, one after the other.
The moulds in which types are cast are themselves interest-
ing. At first, they were simply plaster impressions of the letter
to be made, but as type became smaller, and more of it was
needed, the metal mould appeared. To make a type mould, a
die-cutter first engraved the letter upon the end of a rod of
steel. This was hardened, and called a "punch." The steel
punch was then pressed into a block of copper, and that was
the matrix in which the type was cast. Punches were made
as far back as 1582, and probably earlier, in England and Eu-
rope. Cutting them was done secretly for many years, and
one famous English type-founder, Joseph Jackson, in the eigh-
teenth century, learned the art by watching his master through
a hole bored in the wall of the workroom.
THE STORY OF THE PRINTED WORD 227
For printing small Bibles, die-cutters worked with a micro-
scope on letters so small that, with type of the tiny "brilliant"
size, twenty lines could be printed in an inch. A wonderful die-
cutting machine invented by an American, L. B. Benton, in
1890, has cut the Lord's Prayer, sixty-five words, on a piece of
metal one-sixth of an inch square — too small to print! It
(Left) OTTMAR MERGENTHALER, INVENTOR OF THE LINOTYPE.
(Right) ROTARY MATRIX LINOTYPE OF 1883.
This Mergenthaler machine, of 1883, was built in a dozen different types and proved moder-
ately successful. Finger-keys controlled a rotary type-wheel with projecting characters.
The characters were selected successively by the operation of the keyboard and indented
in a papier-mache strip. The matrix-strip thus formed was cut up into lengths and secured
to a flat backing sheet in such a way as to form a page or column matrix. Type-metal
was then cast into it and the plate obtained.
works upon the principle of the pantagraph, copying the actual-
size letter wanted from a larger model. When dies were cut by
hand, it took a year and a half to make all the letters for a new
font of type, but with this machine the work can now be done,
much more accurately, in five or six weeks. This machine ap-
peared just at the time it was needed to cut the thousands and
thousands of new punches made necessary by typesetting-
machines.
Wanted — A Machine to Set Type
Until 1886, when Mergen thaler's linotype was first ready to
use, all type was set by hand. Apparently no machine could
do the work of the human compositor, picking out of the 150
228 COMMUNICATION
compartments of his "case" the different letters to make words,
and Hnes, and "justifying" each line so that it would lock
tightly in the form from which printing was done on the press.
For that reason, the setting of type was the most expensive
step in printing.
The inventors' first idea was to make a machine that would
set printer's type — a good beginning, but a mechanical mistake.
The first patent taken out for a mechanical typesetter was that
of Doctor William Church, an American, who went to England
in 1 82 1 with a new printing-press, and in 1822 patented a
machine that cast type and then set the letters one by one. It
was not used very long. Other inventors tried to make ma-
chines that would set type, but not successfully. A machine
called the "pianotype" was actually used in England in 1840,
but the first typesetting-machine used to print a newspaper was
that of Charles Kastenbein, a German, in England, whose ma-
chine, after several improvements, set the London Times about
1874 — though it was not until 1879 that it fulfilled all promises.
It was used as late as 1908.
Although these machines would really set type, all had the
same shortcoming: they could not set it in lines as evenly justi-
fied as those of the hand compositor. Two machines were
needed and three men. One man sat and played upon the keys
of the typesetting-machine, and an endless line of type words,
with spaces between, came out. A skilful compositor then set
these words in a printer's "stick" by hand, and spaced the
lines out evenly so that they would lock up. After printing,
the type had to be distributed, ready to be set again. Distri-
bution is also one of the handicaps of hand typesetting. It is
a pretty sight to see the compositor's hand flying over his
case, dropping or "distributing" letters in their proper boxes,
so fast that the eye can scarcely see them. But, even so, it
takes time to do this work. Hence the early inventors devised
machines to set types, and other machines to distribute it after
it had served its purpose.
Of this kind, the most wonderful typesetting-machine ever
invented was the Paige compositor, devised by James W. Paige,
of Hartford, Connecticut, who spent more than twenty years
in perfecting it from 1873 on. Paige lost more than $1,300,000
(Left) THE FIRST MERGENTHALER BAND MACHINE.
This machine, of 1884, indented papier-mache matrices of lines which were then assembled to
form a stereotype matrix. It was equipped with a series of vertical bars, tapered end-
wise, each carrying a full alphabet of type and spaces. By means of finger-keys the
bars were caused to descend successively, side by side, each being arrested to bring its
selected character to a certain level. After the line of type was assembled and justified
the papier-mache matrix-strip was forced against it, thus producing the matrix for one
line. These lines were then assembled side by side to form a stereotype matrix. A good
impression was obtained, but the action was slow.
(Right) MERGENTHALER'S SECOND BAND MACHINE (1885).
This was the first machine to produce lines of type or printing-slugs automatically through the
action of finger-keys. It was provided with a series of vertical tapered bars, each contain-
ing an alphabet of characters or matrices and blank spaces of different widths. Finger-
keys caused these bars to descend one at a ume, so that the selected characters, one on
each bar, were brought to a common alignment. A sliding mould for the slug or line of
type was presented against the line of matrices, and this mould was filled with molten
metal from a metal pot at the rear, the matrices forming raised type on the front edge of
the slug in the mould. The slug was ejected from the mould between trimming-knives
into a galley. The matrix-bars were lifted to their original positions for a new arrange-
ment of type. This was a practical machine but slow.
230 COMMUNICATION
in trying to make it practical, and in 1921 entered a poorhouse
near Chicago. Mark Twain, a printer by trade, believed so
thoroughly in Paige's machine, that he also lost a fortune in
aiding him. The machine was beautiful in operation, but too
complex to work long without breaking down. It had 18,000
parts, and the patent specification in which it is described
is a large book. Paige's machine set type in one endless
line at first. Eventually, he succeeded in making it set jus-
tified lines, but never well enough for every-day work. All
his machines set specially cast types, each type having a special
combination of nicks in its edge so that it could drop into
a groove with projections that fitted only its nicks. While
type could be set with a Paige machine two or three times
faster than by hand, it took three men to set, justify, and dis-
tribute it.
Presently, one or two inventors hit upon the principle found
in the successful machines of to-day — the principle of making
the machine cast its own new type, and so cheaply that when it
has been printed from, it can be turned into the melting-pot,
doing entirely away with the bother of distribution. What new
type means is revealed by Benjamin Franklin's experience when
he returned to Philadelphia. He had worked as a printer in
London and, using new type, he started a printing-ofiice of his
own. Somebody advised him to get married, and even selected
for him a girl, whom Franklin thought "very deserving." Her
parents objected to him, saying printing was not a very profita-
ble trade, that Franklin's type would soon be worn out, and that
he would probably fail.
Not only did printer's type wear out, but when it did certain
letters became scarce, and printers wasted time in looking for
"sorts." Also, when a form containing new, partly worn, and
badly worn type with broken letters was put on a printing-press,
the pressman had to spend time "making ready," so that the
type would print evenly. Often he brought the form back to
have broken letters taken out. Since typesetting-machines,
which are really type-casting machines, have been introduced,
nine-tenths of all printing is done from new types.
THE STORY OF THE PRINTED WORD 231
The Type-Casting Idea Solves the Problem
Best known of these inventors was Ottmar Mergenthaler,
born in Wiirttemberg, Germany, 1854. When eighteen years
old he came to the United States. He had learned the machin-
ist's trade in his native land and had been a diligent student in
night and Sunday schools. Landing in Baltimore in 1872, he
went to work for his cousin, August Hahl, who had a machine-
(Left) LINOTYPE MATRICES ASSEMBLED FOR CASTING.
A line of linotype matrices and spacebands as they appear before the mould in which the slug,
or Hne-o-type is to be cast.
(Right) GROUP OF LINOTYPE SLUGS.
Large and small slugs composed on the same machine. Many different sizes and faces can be
composed by the operator without the necessity of his leaving his seat at the keyboard.
shop in Washington, D. C. Hahl made instruments for the
government departments. The United States Signal Service
was then making weather observations, and young Ottmar be-
came interested in building instruments for its scientists, work
that involved invention. He soon became known for his quick-
ness in grasping inventors' ideas, and from the scientific men
for whom he worked he learned their way of approaching prob-
lems.
In the chapter on the typewriter in this volume, mention is
made of James O. Clephane, a Washington court reporter, to
whom Sholes and Densmore sent their writing-machines to be
tested. Clephane found them all defective, and his criticisms
232 COMMUNICATION
were severe. He was an official reporter for the United States
Senate. His interest in the typewriter was practical, since he
wished to find some better way of putting the voluminous Senate
records in printed form. Several years after young Mergen-
thaler reached Washington, Clephane and a group of friends be-
came interested in a writing-machine invented by a Virginian,
Charles G. Moore. They put money into Moore's experi-
ments. In 1876, when they were discouraged, they told him
that unless he proved that his machine would actually write,
they could not help him further. This led Moore to bring his
writing-machine to August Hahl's machine-shop, which had
been moved to Baltimore. Young Mergenthaler examined the
apparatus. Moore thought it faulty in workmanship, but
Mergenthaler said: *'No — the fault is in the design." He was
so sure the machine could be improved that he advised his
cousin to undertake its perfection at his own risk. If Hahl
could make it work, he was to get $1,600, and if not, he was to
receive nothing. It was not really a printing-machine, for
Moore wanted to write the Senate records on a keyboard like
that of a typewriter, and print letters in lithographic ink on a
paper ribbon. This ribbon was then to be cut into lines, made
even by separating the words, as a printer justifies his line of
type, and the lines transferred to a lithographic stone, to be
printed.
Lithographic printing is different from type printing. The
letters to be lithographed are drawn or stamped upon a flat
stone with lithographic ink, which is oily. After having been
treated with chemicals, the stone is put in a lithographic press,
and dampened by water with the result that ink clings to the
design, but not to other parts of the stone, so that it can be
transferred to paper as in type printing. To harness the type-
writer and lithographic press together and print Senate reports
was a brilliant idea, but not practical. The lithographing was
hard and caused endless trouble. The idea had been Clephane's,
and when he saw that it would not work, he proposed another.
Why not a machine that would press letters into a strip oi papier-
mache^ to make a mould into which type-metal could be poured ?
Why not use these cast letters for printing? Mergenthaler
built such a machine, but even after a dozen changes it failed
THE STORY OF THE PRINTED WORD 233
to work. The papier-mache strips clung to the cast metal,
and there were other drawbacks. But the idea was sound —
that of a machine which would cast type in a matrix, or
mould.
Mergenthaler next built two machines in which whole alpha-
bets of steel types were carried on bars or bands, so that ?i papier-
mache matrix for a whole word, and later, a whole line, could be
cast at once. It was a little nearer, but not quite the right
thing. Out of these machines, however, came the "big idea,"
namely separate metal matrices, each bearing the mould for a
single letter, to be set in a line, like type, and metal poured in
to make a solid printing line. Mergen thaler's first machine
looked like a little church-organ, because it had a series of ver-
tical tubes, each containing the matrices for a letter of the alpha-
bet. By means of a keyboard the different letters were released.
Because the matrices were blown into line by a blast of air, this
machine was called the "blower." The principle proved cor-
rect, and 200 machines were made and sold. The first machine
was set up in the composing-room of the New York Tribune^
July, 1886, and the editor of that paper, Whitelaw Reid, gave
it the name "lin-o-type." From that point on, the story of the
linotype was one of improvement. Mergenthaler worked so
hard that by 1894, when his linotype was setting type for hun-
dreds of newspapers, his health broke down. A high-strung,
sensitive man, never very strong, he became consumptive, and
his last years, like those of Sholes, were spent in search of health.
He died October 28, 1899, in Baltimore.
The other great invention in composing-machines was be-
gun in 1885, just when Mergenthaler had built a successful
linotype. Tolbert Lanston was the inventor. Born in 1844,
at Troy, Ohio, he lived in that State and in Iowa until the Civil
War, in which he served as a volunteer. In 1865, he became a
clerk in the Pension Ofiice, at Washington, D. C, and there he
worked for twenty-two years, meanwhile studying law and
being admitted to the bar. He had always been interested in
mechanics, and at various times had invented an adding-
machine, a mail lock, a hydraulic dumb-waiter, an adjustable
horseshoe, and other things. When he turned his attention
to a composing-machine, the idea of casting instead of setting
234 COMMUNICATION
type had been proved correct. Lanston adopted it, and made
two interesting modifications. First, a machine which would
cast single types instead of a solid line of types, and second, a
separate machine for casting the type, operated by a perfo-
rated paper ribbon, so that if the compositor at the keyboard
were delayed, the composing-machine could run right along — a
most interesting basic principle which has been utilized by
many inventors.
Lanston's first idea was to stamp types in cold metal. After
five years' work along this line, he found it best to cast type
from melted metal. His first patents were taken out in 1887,
and ten years later, in 1897, the first machine was completed
and given the name "monotype," meaning that it casts letters
one by one instead of on the "lin-o-type" principle. Lanston
died in Washington, February 18, 19 13, after being stricken with
paralysis, which made him an invalid in his last years.
The monotype is really two machines. There is a keyboard
that looks much like a large typewriter. The operator writes
his "copy," and when each key is struck, two perforations are
made in a paper ribbon. This perforated strip of paper is
known as the "controller ribbon." The other part of the mono-
type is the casting-machine to which the controller ribbon is
fed. As the ribbon runs through the casting-machine, air
passes through its perforations; in an automatic piano this same
process causes the right note to be struck; in the monotype it
casts the right letters, one by one, at the rate of 150 a minute.
As each type is cast it is pushed in a line, and each finished line
is added to the last. It is therefore a typesetting-machine and
also a type-foundry, making display types up to 36-point, or
one-half inch, as well as body type, and so cheaply that, after
printing, the type is not distributed but simply thrown back
into the melting-pot.
Probably nine-tenths of all typesetting in this country to-day
is done on either linotype or monotype machines, and these
great American inventions are found in every country in the
world. They are alike in casting brand-new type for each job
of printing and in doing their work so cheaply that distribu-
tion is not necessary.
THE STORY OF THE PRINTED WORD 235
How Inventors Made Printing Plates
The type is set and locked up, ready for printing the page
of a newspaper or a book. Gutenberg would simply have put
the "form" on his press, printing from it directly. The world
has progressed since his day. We have fast newspaper printing-
machines, but none fast enough to print from one setting of type,
(Left) THE FIRST LINOTYPE TO SET TYPE FOR A NEWSPAPER.
Mergenthaler "blower" linotype first used by the New York Tribune in July, 1886. The
machine was called a "blower" because the matrix was blown by a blast of air. About a
hundred of these machines were built and installed in various newspaper-offices in the
years 1887 and 1888.
(Right) THE LATEST MODEL LINOTi'PE.
It sets type six times as fast as It can be set by hand. It has a range from five point to a full
thirty-six point. Equipped with six magazines this machine has a capacity of six different
body sizes, ten different faces, 850 different characters — all instantly available from the
keyboard, and any combination of which can be assembled in the same line.
in two or three hours, the hundreds of thousands of copies
needed for one edition of a present-day newspaper. Even if
there were a machine to do it, the type would be worn out
before the job could be finished. If a book is to be printed,
later editions may be needed from time to time, and to store
away the type for hundreds of books would take too much space
and metal. More than one hundred years ago, printers felt
the need of multiplying set type, and also to store away printing
plates for books in the most compact and economical form.
236 COMMUNICATION
Inventors have been busy meeting those needs for more than
a century, and their inventions will be found in the stereotype
and electrotype departments of the modern printing-plant.
The early printers found that, with a little plaster of Paris,
they could make a mould to cast as many types as were wanted.
Some unknown genius conceived the idea of making a plaster
mould of a whole page of type after it had been set up, and cast-
ing a plate to print from. This was the beginning of stereo-
typing. Solid printing-plates have been found dating back to
the beginning of the sixteenth century, made, perhaps, by Van
der Mey, a Dutch printer. But instead of casting plates in a
plaster mould, he soldered types together after they were set,
so that no letters would be lost.
In 1725, a Scotch goldsmith, William Ged, began lending
money to printers, and learned that much of their capital was
invested in type. Also, type had to come from London, and
they often ran out of certain kinds. He was advised to start
a type-foundry in Edinburgh. Instead, he got a form of type
and began experimenting to discover if printing-plates could be
made from it. After two years, during which he spent all his
money, he succeeded in pouring liquid plaster over the type to
make a mould, into which melted type-metal was then poured.
Compositors feared that Ged's stereotype plates would rob
them of work, and secretly battered them. This ruined the in-
ventor, and he died poor. The idea lived, however. Two other
Scotchmen, Alexander Tulloch and Andrew Fonlis, took out
patents in 1784 for a better process. They cast their stereotype
plates thin, as they are cast to-day, and fastened them to
blocks of wood. Later still, the Earl of Stanhope improved the
process, and stereotype plates became common. But because
they were flat, they could be used only for the comparatively
slow printing of books. Newspapers had to be printed faster
than books. In 18 13 David Bruce introduced stereotyping into
the United States, the first work cast in America being the New
Testament, in bourgeois type, in 18 14.
Inventors had found that newspaper type pages could be
locked rounded on the cylinder of a press, and as many as ten
printing cylinders used. These ingenious "type-revolving"
presses will be described later. But even then it was hard to
THE STORY OF THE PRINTED WORD 237
print from one set of type, in a few hours, as many newspapers
as people wanted. Some way of printing on more than one
press had to be found.
Only 3,000 or 4,000 copies of the famous London Times
could be printed on one press in the second John Walter's day
— he died in 1847. When there was important news, people
THE LANSTON MONOTYPE.
The Lanston monotype comprises two machines. On the one (that shown at the left) a key-
board is operated to perforate a paper ribbon. On the other (that shown on the right)
the type is cast, the previously perforated ribbon being passed through it, after the manner
made familiar by player-pianos.
wanted twice as many copies, but could not get them. Walter
tried setting the Times twice, and even three times, to print
more copies, but at a great cost. Suppose curved stereotype
plates could be cast from one setting of the newspaper pages —
as many presses as were needed could then be utilized. But
how to cast such curved stereotype plates was a problem.
In 1856, the third John Walter began experiments, aided by
an ingenious Italian named Dellagana. The Times was being
printed on a curious Applegath press with separate columns of
238
COMMUNICATION
type locked up on a polygonal, or many-angled cylinder, as
will be described later. Walter and Dellagana found that
papier-mache (several layers of damp paper, with a facing of
tissue-paper) could be pounded into type with a stiff brush, and
dried in an oven. Thus a paper mould could be made in which
printing plates could be cast. Flat plates of each column were
first cast for the Applegath press, but that press was displaced
THI'! MONOTYPE MATRIX-CASE.
One hundred and fifty matrices constitute a complete change of type on the casting-
machine. This case weighs only thirty ounces.
by one of American origin, one which printed from type locked
around a cylinder. Walter and Dellagana found a way to cast
a stereotype plate by making a papier-mache mould of a whole
page, bending it in a rounded casting-box and pouring in melted
type-metal. Almost any number of plates could be made, and
any number of presses supplied. In 1861, Charles Kraske, a
New York engraver, working with the Hoes, the American press-
builders, developed a method of casting curved stereotyped
plates, and the New York Tribune first used them in this coun-
try.
Thus for nearly fifty years, stereotype plates for newspapers
were all made by hand, although more and more of them were
constantly needed. It was hot, heavy, slow work. In 1900, an
THE STORY OF THE PRINTED WORD 239
American, Henry A. Wise Wood, invented a machine to make the
plates automatically — the autoplate. By hand it took a large
crew of men two hours to make the many stereotype plates
needed for a daily newspaper. To-day, with the autoplate,
they can be cast in ten or fifteen minutes, with no hand-work
FIRST AUTOPLATE MACHINE OF HENRY A. WISE WOOD (1901).
By hand it took a crew of men two hours to make the many stereotype plates needed by an
early newspaper. To-day, with the autoplate, they can be cast in ten or fifteen minutes.
beyond the pulling of control levers. The autoplate is really
two machines, a mechanism that casts seven or eight plates a
minute, and another machine that trims off rough edges so
that the plates fit and print perfectly. Newspaper columns can
now be held longer for final news reports, and big, complex,
costly presses begin to turn sooner than would otherwise be
possible.
When Wood's first stereotyping-machine was finished, the
newspaper publisher who had ordered it feared the opposition
of his stereotypers. To sell his machine, the inventor undertook
240 COMMUNICATION
to deal with the stereotypers. He showed them the machine
doing their work automatically, and told them that, while it
might displace some of them at first, in the end it would make
more work. He also reminded them that workers had never
successfully opposed machines. They offered to work with
him, even to guard the machine against accidental or deliberate
damage. Their labor organization really adopted the machine,
the first time, it is said, anything like this was ever done. The
autoplate is now used all over the world. There has been only
one strike against it, in Europe, which the inventor quickly set-
tled. And it has increased work, as he said It would, for there
are two or three times as many stereotypers employed in news-
paper plants to-day, because the machine has made it possible
for newspapers to grow in size and circulation.
The Electric Battery and Printed Pictures
Electricity also makes many printing-plates from one set of
type. Books and pictures have always gone together. Picture-
writing came before alphabetic letters. Hand-written books
(manuscripts) were often ornamented with pictures. When
movable types made books more plentiful, printers soon found
a way of illustrating them with pictures. The picture was
drawn on a block of wood, and the "high lights" were cut out,
leaving the shadows and lines raised for printing. This was
"wood-engraving," and most of the pictures in books, magazines,
and newspapers were illustrated with such engravings until
photo-engravings began to be used. At first, these "wood-
cuts" were small and crude, but they steadily improved. Great
artists often drew the pictures and even did the engraving them-
selves. Finer tools were made for cutting. Better wood was
found. Machines were invented to save the engraver work by
automatically cutting ornamental patterns and shading.
But some way was needed to multiply wood-cuts. It was
too expensive to cut more than one block. If used for printing,
the block soon wore out; besides it was often damaged. Stereo-
typing could not copy the most delicate lines in a fine wood-
engraving; moreover, the stereotype mould was made with wet
material, and that spoiled a wood-engraving by warping it.
THE STORY OF THE PRINTED WORD 241
Suddenly this problem was solved in an unexpected way.
Sevferal men hit upon the same idea about the same time —
something that seems to happen frequently in invention.
Probably the foremost was a Russian professor, named Jacobi;
but there were several Englishmen, among them Bessemer, who
afterward invented the steel converter. Then J. C. Jordan,
a Londoner, announced his invention within a few days of
Jacobi, in 1839. They all discovered that the electric battery
could be employed to make "electrotype" copies of wood-
engravings.
The electrotype is a first cousin of the silver-plated spoon.
These early inventors found that a coin or metal could be im-
pressed in wax, and the impression dusted with graphite powder
to make it conduct electricity; this was then used to gather a
film of electrically deposited copper, which faithfully copied
every detail. The process was soon widely used for making
duplicates of wood-engravings, as well as pages of type for the
finer printing needed in books. The thin copper shell was too
frail for a printing-plate, but when backed with molten type-
metal and mounted on a wooden block, it could be used to make
thousands, and often millions, of impressions, whereas a wood-
engraving would be worn down to a stump. The electrotype
process is used to reproduce each type page of a book on a thin
plate and to store the plate so that it can be used again and
again.
Improving Gutenberg's Wooden Cheese-Press
Although a job of printing reaches the press-room last, it was
the press that first interested inventors — probably because
printing on the early hand-presses was so slow and hard.
Gutenberg, and Coster, and printers who came after them
for 170 years, had crude wood-screw presses of the kind that
had long been used for pressing cheese and wine grapes. The
type was placed on a flat table or "bed," and inked, and then
a sheet of paper laid upon it. Type and paper were pushed
under a "platen," or fiat surface, and this platen was screwed
down from above to squeeze the paper upon the type. Nobody
made any better press until about the time the Pilgrims arrived
242
COMMUNICATION
at Plymouth Rock. Willem Janszoon Blaeu, of Amsterdam,
Holland (born 1571, died 1638), built a better wooden press.
He steadied the wabbly platen by passing the screw through
a small block which was guided in the wooden frame and by
suspending the platen from this block. Hence, the screw worked
more smoothly. Blaeu also lightened the labor of running the
type pages in and out of the press. His press, copied by others.
Courtesy R. Hoe y Co.
(Left) STANHOPE PRESS (1800).
About 1798 the Earl of Stanhope improved the old hand-press by giving it a cast-iron frame,
the necessity for greater power having arisen, a necessity which could not be met by the
old wooden-frame presses.
(Right) PETER SMITH'S PRESS (1822).
In place of the screw with levers Smith substituted a toggle-joint, at once very simple and
effective.
soon became known as the "new-fashion" press. Benjamin
Franklin worked with a press like Blaeu 's in London more than
a century later, and it is now in the Smithsonian Institution at
Washington.
The Earl of Stanhope made a hand-press of iron in 1798.
This was more powerful, and it printed larger pages. Even
Blaeu's "new-fashion" press required the strength of a plough-
THE STORY OF THE PRINTED WORD 243
man, but Stanhope lightened this work by a combination of
levers that helped the pressman considerably. Heavy and
cumbersome as it was, this was the first iron printing-press ever
THE COLUMBIAN HAND-PRESS.
The inventor was an American, George Clymer (1754-1834). This specimen, made in 1824, is
preserved in the Museum of Brunswick, Germany.
made. Printers tried to use Stanhope's powerful lever on their
old wooden presses, but it was so strong that it broke them to
pieces.
Then an American, George Clymer, of Philadelphia, in 1816,
244
COMMUNICATION
invented an iron hand-press without a screw, using a combina-
tion of three levers instead. This was the first real American
invention in printing. He put a cast-iron American eagle on
top of his press and called it the "Columbian." It was a very
Courtesy Deiitsches Museum, Munich.
FRIEDRICH KOENIG'S FIRST RAPID STEAM PRINTING-PRESS OF 1811.
Koenig presses of this type were first used to print the London Times. They were intro-
duced only after great opposition on the part of the paper's pressmen.
powerful machine for those days. The iron eagle was more
than an ornament, for it helped to lift the platen, after printing,
by serving as a counterweight. Clymer's press enabled printers
to work still faster; and it marked the beginning of a hundred
years' printing progress in which Americans were to lead.
Inventors kept on improving Gutenberg's cheese-squeezer up
to 1827, when an American, Samuel Rust, of New York, perfected
THE STORY OF THE PRINTED WORD 245
the Washington hand-press, still used to strike off fine proofs,
and still known by that name. With the press that Franklin
and printers long after him used, 250 impressions an hour was
fast work. Inventors made little progress until they rid them-
selves of the old "press" idea. The great newspaper printing-
machine of to-day is still called a "press," but it is no more
a press than a locomotive is an "iron horse." In the hand-
press the type was always rolled out for inking, and then
rolled back for printing. Why not ink it with rollers ? Why
not roll the paper too ^ Inventors began to ask themselves
these questions. Even the idea of unwinding a great roll of
paper and printing on that, as we print newspapers, maga-
zines, and books to-day, was suggested early in the nineteenth
century by Sir Rowland Hill, although he did not build a ma-
chine to carry out the idea. He was the Englishman who later
made possible the sending of a letter for two cents anywhere
in the British Isles.
The Steam-Engine Is Hitched to the Printing-Press
The first printing-machine that rolled the type, ink, and
paper was invented by a German, Friedrich Koenig (born 1774,
died 1833), the "Father of Steam Printing." He built a press
in which the type was laid on a flat bed, inked by rollers, and
passed underneath a cylinder that rolled the paper upon it, to
receive an impression. He built several such cylinder presses
to be turned by hand. In 18 14 he constructed two, turned by
a steam-engine, which were used for printing the famous Lon-
don Times, a newspaper whose publishers, the Walter family,
seemed always ready to encourage inventors who came to them
with good ideas. As we have seen, this newspaper was the
first to use typesetting-machines.
Koenig had gone from town to town in Germany, trying to
get help in building a press on his new lines, but nobody would
listen to him. So he went to England, owning nothing but his
idea, and worked at the printing trade for a living. Three
years passed before he could afford to build a model of his in-
vention, and several models were built before he undertook to
make a full-sized newspaper press. There was great excitement
246 COMMUNICATION
among the Times pressmen when they heard that a machine
was being made to do their work ! The parts were taken to
the newspaper-office and assembled secretly. The men threat-
ened violence both to Koenig and to his machine. On the first
night when the press was ready for work (November 28, 18 14)
the pressmen were told to wait, because important news was
Courtesy R. Hoe y Co.
TREADWELL PRESS OF 1822.
The bed-and-platen system of printing was, up to the middle of the nineteenth century, the
favorite method of printing fine books and cuts. The first "power" or steam-press upon
this principle was made by Daniel Treadwell of Boston, in 1822.
expected from abroad. They waited until six o'clock in the
morning. Then John Walter suddenly appeared with copies
of the paper, saying: "The Times is already printed by steam !"
He added that wages would be paid to every one of them
until they had found other places. There was no further
trouble.
In a sense, Napoleon did as much as Gutenberg to develop
printing, because he was a news-maker. During the twenty
years, from 1795 to 1815, when he was fighting all Europe, peo-
ple wanted to know where the world stood each morning, and
THE STORY OF THE PRINTED WORD 247
newspapers could not be printed fast enough. Koenig was
working to keep pace with the demand, and when he came forth
with his steam cylinder press, the proprietor of the London
Times encouraged him.
Koenig's press could print on only one side of the sheet at a
time. Hence it had to be run through twice to be printed on
both sides. But it was a great step forward, and inventors
busied themselves with his cylinder principle. Because news-
hunger was greatest in Europe, English inventors led the world
in printing-presses for thirty years. As early as 1790, an Eng-
lishman named William Nicholson had taken out a patent for
cylinder presses in which the type was placed either on a flat
bed, like Koenig's, or on the cylinder itself, the type being inked
by a roller built up of cloth and covered with leather. He was
far ahead of his time and other inventors had to carry out his
principle years later.
Inventors did not give up the principle of the "platen"
press that squeezed the paper upon the type like the old hand-
press. Bed-and-platen presses were invented, too, and an
American, Daniel Treadwell, of Boston, built a press of that
kind in 1822. The first was turned by a man; the rest by steam.
Instead of squeezing the platen down on the type, as in the
hand-press, the type was rolled under a fixed platen, and
squeezed up against it. Isaac Adams and Otis Tufts, both
Boston ians, invented an improved platen-and-bed press be-
tween 1830 and 1836, and such machines were in common use
up to the middle of the nineteenth century. They were some-
what cheaper than cylinder presses, and small printers could
afford them. At that time, many printers thought they could
print only fine book-work and engravings with flat presses.
A Young Carpenter Starts a Famous Printing-
Press Family
Leadership in printing-press invention swung to the United
States between 1830 and 1840, and has been held here ever since,
although the man who did most to make American printing-
presses known in every country on the globe was English by
birth. He landed in New York in September, 1803, looking for
248
COMMUNICATION
work. His name was Robert Hoe, the first press builder in a
famous printing-press family, and he came from Leicestershire,
England, where he was born, October 29, 1784. A country lad,
he had learned the carpenter's trade. When he landed, the
THE APPLEGATH PRESS OF THE LONDON TIMES (1848).
Applegath and a machinist named Cowper simplified the Koenig press. In 1848 they con-
structed for the London Times an elaborate machine entirely on the cylinder principle.
All the cylinders were vertical. The type was placed on a large upright central cylinder,
but the circumference presented, instead of a complete circle, as many flat surfaces as
there were columns in the newspaper, the form being therefore polygonal. Around this
central cylinder were grouped eight smaller vertical cylinders, which took the Impression.
The sheets were fed down by hand from eight flat horizontal feed boards through tapes;
then grasped by another set of tapes and passed sidewise between the impression-c\'linder
and the type-cylinder. Thus the sheets were printed upon one side. The speed was 8,000
impressions per hour on one side.
dreaded yellow fever raged in New York, then a city of only
25,000 people, deserted by everybody who could fly from the
epidemic. After walking penniless through the plague-stricken
city, keeping in the middle of the street to avoid catching the
fever, he applied for work to a seedsman, Grant Thorburn, in
lower Broadway. Thorburn liked his honest English face, and
THE STORY OF THE PRINTED WORD 249
took him in to board. Within a week Hoe had the fever, and
would have died had not the seedsman and his wife nursed him.
When Hoe was well again he obtained a position as a bridge-
builder in Westchester County, and later met and married a
sister of Matthew Smith, Jr., a carpenter and "printer's joiner,"
who built type-cases and hand-presses. Matthew's brother
Peter, in 1822, became the inventor of a better hand-press than
had been made up to that time. Robert Hoe went into partner-
ship with the Smiths.
Cast iron as a substitute for wood was just coming into use
for hand-presses. Hoe not only learned to work in iron, but
invented the first machine for planing iron ever built in this
country, and also imported iron-working machinery from Eng-
land. Until 1823, when Matthew Smith, Jr., died, the firm
built printing-presses and printers' supplies. Then Hoe took
charge of the business. About 18 19 he began building power-
presses, but at first he was not very successful. When Tread-
well's platen-and-bed press appeared in 1822, he saw its merits
and adopted it. For three or four years it stood without a
rival in this country.
Then two New York newspapers, the Daily Advertiser and
American^ imported from England the first cylinder press ever
used in the United States, an ingenious invention, patented by
Napier, an Englishman, who first introduced the "grippers" or
fingers that grasp the edge of a sheet of paper to carry it around
for printing on a cylinder press. Up to that time the paper had
been drawn in by tapes, working like belts, which was not as
satisfactory. Several years later, in 1829 or 1830, the National
Intelligencer^ a Washington newspaper, imported another Napier
cylinder press from England, but its publisher, having lost money,
was unable to take it out of the customs house. Major Noah,
the surveyor of the port, called in Robert Hoe to assemble it, and
let him make models of its parts. This press had to be shipped
back to Europe, because nobody would pay the duty on it.
Hoe saw that it was far better than anything then known in
the United States, and he began building presses like it. His
shop grew into a factory, with four big English draft-horses to
furnish the power, although eventually he was one of the first
American manufacturers to install an engine. In 1832, Eng-
(Left) RICHARD MARCH HOE (1812-1886).
The son of Robert Hoe, who invented the system of placing the type on a revolving cylinder.
(Right) HOE PRESS OF 1846.
The first press was placed in the Ledger office In Philadelphia, in 1846. The basis of Hoe's in-
vention consisted in an apparatus for securely fastening the forms of type on central cylin-
der, placed in a horizontal position. Around this central cylinder from four to ten im-
pression-cylinders, according to the output required, were grouped. The first of these
presses had only four impression-cylinders, and required four boys to feed the sheets. The
running speed was about 2,000 sheets to each feeder per hour, thus giving what was called
a "four-feeder" or "four-cylinder" machine a running capacity of 8,000 papers per hour,
printed on one side. (See ten-grouped-cylinder-press development, below.)
HOE TEN-CYLINDER ROTARY PRESS OF 1846-1848.
Capacity, 20,000 pages per hour, printed on one side. Journals which had been limited in
their circulation by their inability to furnish papers rapidly increased their issues.
About 1856 the London Times decided to discard its famous Applegath machines and ordered
from Hoe two ten-cylinder machines.
252 COMMUNICATION
lish cylinder presses had become so famous that he sent his fore-
man, Sereno Newton, to England to study them. Newton was a
very fine machinist, as well as a scholar and mathematician.
He came back with new ideas, and invented a cylinder press
so much better than any of the English machines then used in
this country that they were soon displaced. Robert Hoe was
so energetic that he would go without lunch, and sometimes
without breakfast, to have more time for work. On January 4,
1833, he died, in his forty-ninth year, broken down by over-
work, and left the business to his three sons, Richard March
Hoe, the second Robert Hoe, and Peter Smith Hoe.
Richard and Robert became the leaders, and the former the
Hoe family's greatest inventor. The three would dispute with
vigor about matters of management, and then always act to-
gether. They did everything together, even to buying and
using one carriage. Richard made improvements in his cylin-
der presses, yet the demand for news grew and grew, and no
matter how fast presses ran they could not keep up with it.
When the type from which a newspaper was printed had been
set up, there was in those days no way of making duplicate
plates by the stereotype process. With stereotype plates as
many presses can be utilized as are needed, but with type all
the printing had to be done on one press.
The Beginning of the Modern Rotary Press
One evening in the year 1846, Richard Hoe was thinking
about this handicap when an idea flashed in his mind. The
type for a newspaper page was locked up in a "chase," or iron
frame, and laid flat on the bed of the press, where it rolled back
and forth, and a cylinder rolled the paper over it sheet by sheet.
Suppose the type were fastened around the cylinder instead,
and the paper rolled against it — would not that mean twice as
many copies an hour? He sat up all night working out his
idea, and a few days later told an editor about his scheme for a
"lightning" press. He was given an order for such a press,
obtained a patent in July, 1847, and built a printing-machine
in which the type was locked up in curved chases, fastened on a
large cylinder; two smaller cylinders, carrying sheets of paper,
THE STjORY of THE PRINTED WORD 253
rolled against it for printing. To lock the type in a curve, he
had hit upon the principle of the wedge-shaped keystone .by
which square stones can be built into an arch. That is, he
used the brass rules between the columns of a newspaper for
keystones, making them wider at the top than they were at the
bottom. This was the "type-revolving" press, a new prin-
ciple that later led to the rotary press.
Where i,ooo newspapers an hour had been fast work for the
best cylinder presses, this machine printed 2,000. It was
quickly followed by another having four printing cylinders,
turning out 4,000 papers an hour. Then came one with six
cylinders in 1852, one with eight, and finally a ten-cylinder press
in 1855, which printed 10,000 complete newspapers hourly, and
for nearly twenty years was the champion press of the world.
Almost at the same time, in 1848, Augustus Applegath, an
Englishman, perfected a "type-revolving" press for the Lon-
don Ti?neSy after much experiment. This was a novel machine.
It had a large vertical cylinder upon which the type was placed,
not in a true circle, as in Hoe's press — which had a horizontal
cylinder — but with each column of the newspaper in a flat up-
right bed. Hence the printing surface was not a cylinder but
a polygon. Eight "cylinders," carrying sheets of paper, printed
against this many-sided arrangement of type. They had to be
covered with special blankets to make up for the irregularity of
of the printing surface. The sheets of paper were fed in hori-
zontally by hand, and a system of tapes turned them upright
for printing. It was an ingenious, but very complex press,
printing only 8,000 sheets an hour, on one side. Just one
Applegath press was ever built, it is said, as Richard Hoe's
rotary press soon displaced it. Some think Applegath the first
inventor of a type-revolving press, but Hoe's was certainly
better.
Ten thousand newspapers an hour were not enough ! Peo-
ple wanted more newspapers than could be printed on a single
press, no matter how many cylinders were used. To use more
presses, each newspaper would have to be duplicated in type for
each press, and that was too costly. Our Civil War had just
started. Think of the desire for news it brought !
The problem was solved with two new inventions. One
254
COMMUNICATION .
was the curved stereotype plate, already described, and the
otjier the use of a continuous roll of paper instead of single
sheets fed by hand.
Printing Newspapers by the Mile Instead of
THE Page
Sir Rowland Hill had suggested this forty years before, but
had made no machine to do it, nor had anybody else. An
BULLOCK'S PRESS— THE FIRST TO PRINT FROM A WEB.
In 1865 William Bullock, of Philadelphia, constructed the first press which printed from a con-
tinuous web or roll. His press had two pairs of cylinders — two form or plate cylinders,
and two impression-cylinders. The sheets were cut off by knives in cylinders. The sheets
were then carried through the press by tapes and fingers, and delivered by automatic
nippers placed on endless leather belts at such distances apart as to grasp each successively
as it came from the last printing cylinders.
American, William Bullock, of Philadelphia, in 1865, built the
first machine to print from a continuous roll or "web" of paper.
This was set up to print the New York Sun; it is said to have
been the first American press especially built for curved stereo-
type plates, although by that time the Hoe brothers were also
working toward the same end. The third generation of that
family was now active in the business. Richard March Hoe
died in 1886. His brother, the second Robert Hoe, outlived
him. The third Robert Hoe, born in 1839, lived until 1909,
and was among the inventors who built perfecting presses for
magazine and color work, as well as being a famous collector of
books on the art of printing. The business is now managed by
the fourth generation.
THE STORY OF THE PRINTED WORD 255
Bullock did not live long enough to perfect his press, for he
was caught in a belt and accidentally killed. His machine was
a long step forward, but he made a mistake that would surely
have been corrected had he lived. His press cut the web of
paper into separate sheets before printing, instead of afterward.
Therefore it had to have metal grippers and tapes which often
got out of order in the rush of printing newspapers. In 1871,
the Hoes undertook to correct this and other shortcomings in
their first "rotary" presses, as they were called. For one thing,
the paper was printed by Bullock's press so rapidly on one side
and then the other that it smudged. That was remedied by
the Hoes partly by improving the press and partly by the use
of rapid-drying inks. It was hard to obtain the cheap paper
received by newspapers in rolls of even strength and quality.
Paper-makers were led to study and improve their product.
Cutting the papers off the roll after printing was the right way,
but there were difficulties. Chopping off separate papers was
like chopping the belt that runs a machine, since the paper was
drawn through the press like a belt. This the Hoes overcame
by perforating instead of cutting the paper, and pulling the fin-
ished newspapers apart after they had passed out of the press.
These perforations can be seen on the edge of almost any news-
paper to-day.
After movable types, the next greatest single invention was
rotary printing, according to some of the newspaper press
builders. And after that, folding mechanism was the inven-
tion that did most to increase the output of newspapers. At
first, the printed sheets were taken from the press one by one
and folded by hand. In 1877, Richard March Hoe and Stephen
D. Tucker patented the "collecting cylinder," by which a num-
ber of printed sheets of paper were collected and delivered to-
gether, thereby greatly increasing the output of the press.
Then an odd genius named Luther C. Crowell appeared. He
was a sea captain, with no mechanical training, who, after he
retired, invented a machine to fold paper bags. Being told that
folding the newspapers from fast rotary presses was a problem,
he looked into it and found methods of folding and taking them
away as fast as they were printed.
Newspapers began to increase in size from four pages to
256
COMMUNICATION
eight, twelve, sixteen, and more. Moreover, an eight or twelve
page paper might be large enough one day in the week, while
the next day sixteen or twenty-four pages might be needed to
HENRY A. WISE WOOD'S PRESS FOR NEWSPAPERS.
This press prints 240,000 eight-page papers an hour. In the fast presses previously used the paper
was pulled through. Hence the speed attainable was limited by the tensile strength of
the paper. In this new press the paper is carried through, so that the speed is no longer
limited by the resistance of the paper to breaking.
print all the news and advertisements. Consequently, rotary
presses were not only made larger, but in "multiple" com-
binations.
The curved stereotype plate of a newspaper page is a half
circle. Two such pages are locked on a rotary-press cylinder.
Each cylinder is made wide enough to hold two pairs of plates.
THE STORY OF THE PRINTED WORD 257
or four pages, and two such cylinders, to print eiglit pages, are
known as a "couple." A press with four such couples was built
to take two separate rolls of paper. Called a "quadruple" or
"quad" for short, it could be used to print newspapers of four,
six, eight, ten, twelve, fourteen, or sixteen pages, as desired,
cut and folded for delivery, and even counted, as each fiftieth
paper was slightly raised above the others to serve as a marker.
This led to sextuple presses, also printing eighteen, twenty, and
twenty-four page papers; then came octuple presses, with eight
printing couples using four webs of paper, turning out sixteen-
page newspapers at a greater rate, and printing twenty-six,
twenty-eight, thirty, and thirty-two page newspapers. Even
larger than these are the double-sextuple and double-octuple
machines.
Newspaper presses had grown so big and fast that just
about 1 9 14, when the Great War made the world more eager
than ever for news, they had reached the limit of the strength
of paper; that is, they could print paper faster than it could be
pulled through without breaking; for the paper was used as a
belt. Henry A. Wise Wood undertook to overcome this diffi-
culty by building a press in which the paper would be carried
through instead of pulled through, making it possible to run it
faster without breaking. His first press was set up in the
office of the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin in 19 17, printing
120,000 sixteen-page papers an hour, or more than twenty-
five times as many daily newspapers as were read in all the
United States a hundred years ago, remembering that news-
papers then usually had only four pages. At such speeds ordi-
nary printers' rollers proved unsuitable. Printers' rollers were
made of glue-and-molasses composition, and were a wonderful
invention in their day, but rollers of a rubber composition were
needed for such speeds. It may be that newspapers cannot be
printed much faster, but it has been predicted that within the
next few years sixty-four-page newspapers will be turned out
at the rate of 100,000 hourly.
There are other kinds of printing that need their own variety
of presses. Magazines, for instance, cannot be printed on news-
paper presses. The newspaper is printed on absorbent "print"
paper, so that the ink does not smear. Magazines that are
258 COMMUNICATION
printed on smooth "coated" paper with better ink that does
not dry as quickly, and those using fine illustrations, need their
own special presses. The cover of a magazine in four or five
colors is printed from as many separate plates as there are
colors; that is, one plate for each color. As these colors are
printed, one after the other, the fine details of the picture must
"register" exactly, otherwise the whole cover is just a colored
blur.
At first, magazines were printed sheet by sheet on cylinder
presses, and cost twenty-five to fifty cents apiece. If they
could be reduced in price, many more readers could afford to
buy them, and circulations would grow. Also, newspaper pub-
lishers were beginning to print magazine sections and colored
supplements for their Sunday issues, and wanted presses for
such work. This demand interested the third Robert Hoe, and
several other American inventors. The Hoes built several ro-
tary presses to do fine, fast work for The Century Magazine be-
tween 1886 and 1890. Walter Scott is credited with building
the first press to print a colored newspaper supplement. The
New York World used the first in the early nineties to print its
famous "yellow kid" humorous section, the first "Sunday
comic."
One of the most important inventions in this field was
evolved by C. B. Cottrell, who did much to make five and ten
cent magazines possible. To overcome smudging in printing
both sides of a web of coated paper, he made his press print
one side, and brought it against a surface of clean white muslin
while the other side was being printed. This sheet of muslin
was constantly renewed — the "shifting tympan"as it is called.
After several failures, in 1892 he set up one of his presses to
print The Youth's Companion in Boston. The publishers
doubted the possibility of printing a fine magazine so rapidly.
Cottrell and his helpers ran off the week's edition. Still doubt-
ful, they would not accept and pay for the press until he and
all his men had been shut out and the regular pressmen had
printed the next week's issue themselves.
Cottrell was a business man when the Civil War ended, and
with Nathan Babcock, a skilled mechanic, took over a bank-
rupt foundry in Westerly, Rhode Island. One day, Charles
THE STORY OF THE PRINTED WORD 259
Potter, Jr., who sold old presses, came in to see their plant,
and suggested that they build presses. Together, they built a
Cottrell-Babcock-Potter press, with improvements suggested
by Cottrell, who had real inventive genius. After a while,
Babcock and Potter each set up a press-building plant for him-
self. Out of these three separate establishments much of our
modern magazine-making machinery has come. Besides his
shifting tympan, Cottrell made other improvements. He died
in 1893, seventy-two years old.
Magazine presses are now as wonderful as newspaper presses
in their speed. In one great Philadelphia magazine plant, 120
giant presses run day and night, printing more than 12,000,000
magazines a month, each with 100 to 200 pages, with fine col-
ored covers and illustrations, all bound and trimmed — twenty
mail-cars full of magazines daily. It is such speed and quality
of work that has made it possible to print magazines by the
million and sell them at astonishingly low prices.
Inventors Attack the Last of the "Cheese-
Squeezers"
There are also high-speed book presses which print, fold, and
deliver all the sheets for a book of several hundred pages, ready
for the bookbinder. The latest additions to the press family
are the automatic machines for printing letter-heads, pamphlets,
and circulars. It is predicted that soon, when these automatics
are in wider use, the last printing-machine that can rightfully
be called a "press" will disappear.
In hand-press days, "job "-work was printed on the same
machine as newspapers and books. There was probably very
little "job-work," because such printing costs are relatively ex-
pensive. When cylinder and rotary presses cheapened news-
paper printing, inventors turned their attention to job-presses.
Dozens of practical machines were invented for the job-printer,
machines operated at first by hand-lever or foot-treadle, and
later by power. These were truly presses, because they had a
platen that pressed the paper against the type. To make it
work faster than the hand-press, the platen was hinged to open
and close like a jaw, and the type was automatically inked by
260
COMMUNICATION
rollers, running down as the jaw opened, and up over an ink
table as it closed.
Until about 1900, such presses were fed a sheet at a time by-
boys or girls paid a few dollars a week. But wages began to
rise. Job-printers wanted presses that would feed themselves
and also turn out the work faster. Inventors soon met the
demand. At first, they devised machines that would automat-
jplgp^^^j^j.
7\«p8BSE£s^^».it'--^?»S3.J-..»saCX*. nfj. ai
i-
ILI^^^H
■iiOA
4^ 1
., <^mim^.^
><
tjm
^^^^SK
. -.1
Courtesy Paul Nathan. Courtesy C. H. Hoppe.
(Left) A STANDARD HIGH-SPEED AUTOMATIC JOB-PRESS.
(Right) THE AUTOPRESS FOR FAST AUTOMATIC JOB-PRINTING.
ically feed a regular job-press, but it soon became clear that
new principles were needed. A California printer named Hoag
has been given credit for making the first truly automatic job
printing-machine, the autopress, a distinctly new printing-
machine, with which speeds of 5,000 impressions an hour are
possible. The sheets are fed in and taken out automatically.
Another automatic job-press, the Standard, is the develop-
ment of Henry A. Wise Wood. It has a platen, but is built so
heavily that it has a speed of 3,500 impressions an hour. It is
fed automatically by a suction device which takes the sheets
from the under part of a pile, passes them through the press
rapidly one by one, and drops them out at the bottom.
Still another automatic, the Kelly press, is interesting as a
machine and also because it shows how wide a knowledge an
inventor may need. Its inventor, W. M. Kelly, had been a
compositor, pressman, type salesman, and an expert repairer of
THE STORY OF THE PRINTED WORD 261
typesetting-machines, and had sold printers' machinery and
supplies in India, Australia, South Africa, and other parts of
the world. In 191 2, he invented a device for setting and dis-
tributing the typewriter type used in business offices to print
circulars. A press was needed to go with it. He drew plans
for such a press and was advised to make it for job-printers
instead of offi.ce use. A small model was built, and a larger one
with an automatic feed was finished in 19 14. Since that time
it has been changed in many ways. It is a small cylinder press
with an automatic feed air being used to separate and feed the
sheets of paper. It has a speed of 3,600 impressions an hour.
The hand-feeder often missed an impression or spoiled a sheet.
The Kelly press stops if a defective sheet turns up or two sheets
stick together.
Our automatic job-presses were carried right up to the front
in France during the war, on American motor-trucks, and used
to print propaganda circulars which were dropped from air-
planes behind the German lines almost as fast as the printers
turned them out.
The last word in printing came from America, and was ad-
dressed to the countrymen of great-great-grandfather Guten-
berg, who has come down in history as the first word !
CHAPTER II
WRITING BY MACHINE
ONE July day in 1867, an odd genius came into the Mil-
waukee telegraph office and asked the chief operator for
a sheet of carbon-paper.
Now, carbon-paper was almost a curiosity then. About the
only use that had been found for it was to make several copies
quickly of newspaper despatches as telegraphers took them
from the wire and wrote them down in longhand.
The chief operator knew this visitor. He was Christopher
Latham Sholes, a man already famous in Milwaukee for the
many things he had done. At various times he had been a
printer, a newspaper-publisher, an editor, a member of the Wis-
consin legislature, commissioner of public works, and postmaster
of Milwaukee. Now he was the collector of customs in that
city. He was an inventor, could tell a good story, make a
good pun, quote poetry, play a game of chess. He was tall and
slender, somewhat frail, with long flowing hair, and clear bright
eyes that had a far-away look. Modest, gentle, kindly, a
stranger would not have thought him a fighter. Yet he would
turn like a lion to defend right against might, and all the more
quickly if the right happened to be weak or getting the worst
of it.
We want to know this man Sholes at the beginning of our
story, because he was the father of the typewriter. And the
telegraph operator, too, because he was present at the very be-
ginning of the first real typewriter. His name was Charles E.
Weller, a backwoods lad with little schooling, but an enormous
reader. Working first in a printing-office, he had become a
telegraph messenger, learned telegraphy and newspaper report-
ing, and was now studying shorthand, hoping to become a
court reporter.
What did Sholes want with a sheet of carbon-paper ? Young
Weller was curious. He knew that Sholes had already invented
a way to print the names and addresses of subscribers on the
262
WRITING BY MACHINE 263
margins of newspapers for mailing, also a machine that would
number dollar bills or tickets from one upward, or print the
page numbers in blank books.
"Come up to my office to-morrow about noon, Charlie,"
said Sholes, as he went out, "and I'll show you something that
may be interesting."
Next day young Weller was on hand. The inventor still
edited a newspaper up-stairs over the telegraph office. Charlie
expected to see something new, and he did.
With some pieces of pine board, an old telegraph-key, a
sheet of glass, and other odds and ends, Sholes had whittled out
and assembled together a little piece of mechanism which he
was showing to some gentlemen. Taking his borrowed sheet
of carbon-paper and a thin sheet of white paper, he slipped
them into his machine, against the piece of glass. Moving the
paper slowly with one hand, he tapped the telegraph-key with
the other. On the end of the telegraph-key was a letter "w"
cut in brass. Sholes's little device was a "writing-machine." It
wrote only the one letter over and over, like this:
wwwwwwwwwwww
But he said that with thirty or forty such keys, each having a
letter or figure, he could make a machine that would write
anything.
He had it clearly pictured in his mind and gave a lot of
technical details which Weller, who did not know much about
mechanics, found it hard to understand. All out of such a
patched-up arrangement that wrote "wwwwwww" ! But years
later the little machine seemed so important that Weller built
a model of it as nearly as he could. The original had disappeared.
Typewriter Inventors Began by Wanting to Help
THE Blind
Sholes was not the first inventor to conceive the idea of a
machine that would write, x^s far back as the year 17 14, an
English water-works engineer named Henry Mill took out a
patent for a machine which was said to "impress letters on
paper as in writing." Nothing more is known about it, how-
ever; nor about an "embossing machine" invented in France
264 COMMUNICATION
in 1784; nor of the first American attempt at a writing-machine,
called a "typographer," patented by a Mr. Burt, all records of
which were destroyed in a great fire in Washington in 1836.
A Frenchman named Progin patented a "typographic ma-
chine or pen," in which type-bars were used, a principle still
found in the typewriter as we know it to-day. An American
named Charles Thurber built a typewriter capable of actual
work in 1843. It wrote very slowly, but Thurber added other
useful principles — the carriage that holds the paper and slides
along as a line is written, and the way of turning the paper
when a line is done.
Several early inventors tried to build a typewriter that
would raise letters on the paper, to be read by the blind. One
of them, a Frenchman, Pierre Foucald, received a gold medal
for such a machine in 1850 — he was blind himself. Sympathy
with the blind was the idea with which nearly every typewriter
inventor started. Blind people were cut off from ordinary
reading and writing, yet needed them so much ! This sympathy
started another American inventor, Alfred E. Beach, an odd
genius too. He is remembered now as editor of The Scientific
American. Beach wanted to help the blind, too. Between
1847 and 1856, he built several writing-machines. They were
mostly made of wood, as big as a bushel basket, but incorpo-
rated principles that are still used. Beach's firm took out hun-
dreds of patents for inventors, and that made a great lot of
writing. Before Beach got very far, he saw that the real place
for his writing-machine was in business offices, doing just such
work as copying patent papers.
By this time there was keen rivalry between English and
American writing-machine inventors — a race to see which coun-
try would build the first real typewriter. Technical editors on
both sides of the ocean began to write about different machines
and the ideas which inventors were working out. It is easy to
imagine how warm the discussion grew when a promising type-
writer was invented in London in 1866 — but by an American
living there, John Pratt.
Pratt's machine had the whole alphabet on one plate.
When its "A" key was pressed, that letter swung in place, a
hammer hit it through the paper, and wrote the letter. It was
WRITING BY MACHINE 265
the best device up to that time, and everybody talked about it.
Some said the time would come — and soon, when a reporter
with a writing-machine would take down speeches as fast as
they were spoken. Why not, with the railroad, steamboat,
sewing-machine, electric telegraph, revolving printing-press, and
like wonders on every hand ?
These arguments flew so thick and fast that in July, 1867,
SHOLES'S FIRST, RUDE, ONE-LETTER TYPEWRITER.
Drawn from memor\- by Charles Weller.
Alfred Beach wrote an article for his Scientific American^ show-
ing the great value of a practical typewriter, and foretold what
it would do. He spoke as a typewriter inventor himself. So
many records and legal papers and letters had to be written and
copied as the world's business grew that pen-and-ink copyists
could not keep pace with the work much longer. A successful
typewriter meant a revolution almost as great as that caused
by the invention of printing in the world of books. Beach's
enthusiasm led him to predict that the schoolboy of the future
would be taught to write only his name with a pen — everything
else would be written by "playing on the literary piano." That
part of it did not come true, we know, but everything else did.
266
COMMUNICATION
When the real typewriter was finally born, it had several
uncles as well as a father. One of them was Carlos S. Glidden,
whom Sholes had told about his device for printing numbers.
It made such a deep impression on Glidden that he helped to
work it out. That gave Glidden another idea.
"If you can write numbers, why not letters?" he reasoned.
Sholes did not seem to see the point, so Glidden showed
THURBER'S TYPEWRITER OF 1843.
him the article about the typewriter in The Scientific American.
Sholes read it over and admitted that the idea was practical.
But not Pratt's machine.
"It is too complicated," he objected, "and badly made. I
know that I can build something better."
"Why not let us do it together?" suggested Glidden, and
Sholes agreed. They took in a third person, Samuel W. Soule,
who was something of an inventor too, but more useful as a
practical machinist. He could build a thing quickly after
Sholes made the idea clear, and often improve it. In fact, he
suggested something found to-day in nearly every typewriter —
the principle of having all the type strike in the same spot,
the principle of "converging type-bars."
Glidden and Soule were the men to whom Sholes was show-
ing his first one-letter model when Charlie Weller saw it. This
model was built only a week after Sholes reaci Alfred E. Beach's
NORWICH 3. rESnU&RV ■94b
CENT.
, WE HAVE, AT LENCTH CDMPLE-
rED ONE OF THIRBERS MECHANICAL D/lfiOC JAPMEHS. ALrWOVCH YOU
WIIL NOTICE IMP£«FECriOMS IN THE FORMATION OF THE LETTERi
lU fHii COMMDWICATIOW, VET THERE IS NOT A SINGLE OEFECr
WHICH DOES WOT ADMIT OF KU EASV AND PERFECT REMEDV. I
AM PERFECTLY iA*4*f^€TJ — WTtTI — Tt — B'E CAUSE — I — DTO — JTOT LOOV TOH — !
PERFECTION IN THIS Fl«ST MACHINE. THE OIFFICULTY lU THIS M A-
CKIUE IS THAT THE CAMS ARE NOT LARGE ENOBCH. THIS. OF
COURSE, CAM BE AVOIDED. I TMIMb' MR. K-ELLAR TOLO WMSa I
LAST SAW um TKAT IF I WOULD WRITE TO MIM I9JF0RMI.'JC HIM
WI^EU I SHOULD BE IN WASHINGTON ME MiCHT &E ABLE TO
MAKE SOME SUCCESTIOUS ABOUT A (fOME OOfllNC -M.Y STAY lU
WA.'SHmCTOM. I SHALL WISH TO -E-XWI8IT Ti^E tAAGmti^. TO SUCH
CEWTLEMEN AS wfCMT TAV^ — UWEJlSiT (M A THiiiZ OF THIS
■^St k-iwO. • DO HOT WlSt( TO— MA4^ A PB8U5 SHOW OF HV-
SELF OR MY MACHINE. I WANT -XO—SMW IT TO— M &W WHO CAN
APPRECIATE AMD UMDEWTAMO MACWAJERY. MB. ROeVWELL. OUB REP-
RESENTATIVE IN C0N&aE5S VOLUNTEERED TO GET -ȣ A fiOOM ^
I HAVE WRITTEN TO -WM- OM THE SUBJECT. SHLL r THmCHT iU
CONSEQI/ENCE OF YOUB MORE- TWOROUGM ACBSAINTANCE IM T«E
CITY THAT you UICWT BE ABLE TO M^V£ SOME SUCCESnOMS
WHICH MICMT 8£ eEHEFICIAL TO ME IN EJJHIBiriNC ME MACKIM6.
I WAUT A ROOM LARGE ENOUGH TO RECEIVE SUCd COt^PAMY AS
MAY WIStf TO SEE TKE MACHINE. I WkUT A BOOM WHSHB I
CAM SAFELY LEAVE IT WHBU I AM ABSENT ANO WHERE NO
°"^ *E LIABLE TO GO IN AND INJURE IT, EXCUSE THE
LIBERTY I HAVE TAKEN, AMD BELEVE ME
YOURS, TRULV. CHARLES TMKflBER.
MESSRS. fEUSR fc CRSgWOUCiH
PATEUT ATT0WIE6.
WTASHIMCrON. O.V
Courtesy U nder'.cood Typewriter Company.
SPECIMEN OF MACHINE-WRITING FROM THURBER'S
"CHIROGRAPHIE," 1845.
268 COMMUNICATION
article. The Inventor had studied previous typewriters to learn
their good points and avoid bad ones. He had so clear an idea
of what he wanted to do that the three partners started right
in to build the first typewriter in a little Milwaukee machine-
shop known as "Kleinsteuber's."
A Customer for the First Real Typewriter Before
It Is Built
Charlie Weller was right on their heels. He knew court
reporters had to write hundreds of pages of records by hand.
This was drudgery, and it made reports of trials so costly that
few people who went to law could afford them. A machine
which would write legal papers quickly and cheaply seemed about
the biggest thing he had ever heard of. If he became a court
reporter, he wanted one, and he wanted one so badly that
Sholes promised him the first machine that left the shop, to be
tried in actual court reporting. The work of building that first
machine progressed slowly, because every part was strange to
Kleinsteuber's machinists. But Charlie Weller walked a couple
of miles every day to see how the machine was coming along
and watched its growth with breathless interest.
That was the only name they had for it then — just "the
machine." What should it be called? "Printing-machine,"
said one, but the machine did not really print like a press.
"Writing-machine," said another, but that did not seem to fit
either; for it did not really write. Finally, Sholes himself in-
vented a name — the "typewriter." A strange-sounding word
then, but it came nearest to telling what the machine really did,
and is now the common name wherever English is spoken,
although in some other languages "writing-machine" is used
instead.
The first "typewriter" was finished three or four months
later, in the autumn of 1867. It did not look much like the
compact typewriters of to-day, yet there was the movable car-
riage, and the lever for turning the paper from line to line, and
the converging type-bars, and even the keyboard. Indeed it
was more like our typewriters than any writing-machine that
had been invented before.
The keyboard was like that of a piano. The keys were of
WRITING BY MACHINE
269
black-walnut wood, in two rows, with the letters and figures
painted in white. The letters of the alphabet read from A to
Z, the first half on the lower row of white keys, and the other
half on the upper row of black keys. This machine printed
MILWALKEC, W IS. APB IL 30.
1 a 7.1 .
FBIEND C
HARLI
E : -- ■
IN CONVERSAT 1 ON TO-N
GHT. W
TH
ALFRED.
1 LEA
OrJED THAT YOU STILL LIVED.
AND llL-<Wfc 1
(SAVE ME
ONE OF YOUB CARDS, BY WHICH 1^
hT ONL
r
LEARNED
THAT
YOU STILL LIVED. BUT T"|il
/rou L
veo AT S
T . LO
UIS. IN YOUB REOULAR BUS IN
ESS OF
PHO
- ro-- NO
PHO
NOCBAPHINO. 1 PBESUmE, Nf
I HAV 1
>ie
hEabD of
NOR
FROM THE NWCMINE FOR SO LCN8 A T
ME
YOU HAVE
ABCU
T CONCLUDED 'that THAT DOES NOT
L IVE
WHATEVER
MAY
BE THE CASE WITH OTHERS.
BUT IF
1
AM B IflMT
IN T
HAT CONJECTURE, YOU WOULD
BE ENT
RE-
LY MISIA
KEN.
IT NOT ONLY LIVES, BUI A
PPABEH
LY
AT PBESC
MT. 1
N A MOST VIGORpua CONDITION. TH
KIND OF
WORK
IT V/ILL 00, YOU OBSERVE It.
THIS SPE-
CIMEN. B
UT Tl
t AMOUNT OF LABOR WE HAVE
BEEN GOM-
PELlEO 1
0 PER
FORM AND THE AMOUNT OF MON
EZ TO
.X-
PENS, TO
OET
IT INTO ITS PRESENT CONOl-
1 ON CF
EF-
F IC IENCY
• "*s
aCEN FEAB3UL TO CONTEMPLA
SE. A
ID
1 MIOHT
ADO,
THE NUMBCB OF mORTIFYINS FAILURES |
*E HAVE
ENCOU
N-TERED. WHEN WE TH0U9HT Wl
MAO THE 1
THING EN
T IBEL
V COMPLETED IN 0000 SHAPE,
HAVE
BEE
-N EM IR
ELU T
00 NUMEROUS TO MENTION.
DUr WE
FEEL THAT WE HAVE SOT OUT
or THE
WOODS AT
LAST
THE MACHINL IS NO SUCH
TH IMS' AS
IT WAS,
WHEN
VCU LAST SAW IT. IN FACT
YOU WOULD
NOT BECO
ON 12E
IT AS THE Same thins «T «
LL . 1
SC-
ARCtLV K
NW. H
OW TO OESCR IBE IT; AND 1
PRESUM
1 T
IS NOT N
rCESSARY 1 SHOULO MAKE THE ATTEMPT.
T
1 3 ^ tJH ,
• HA I
WE CALL THE ■'CONTINUOUS
B OL L ' ■
MACH INE,
SO c
«IIED. BECfJSF IT WAS MADE
OB IG INAL-
LY 10 ACCOMMODATE THE ALirouATlC TELE3BA
RH COMPANY
BT PH INT
ING FROM A CONTINUOUS ROLL OF p
A PER;
IHA7 IS.
PARE
R OF ANY lENSTM. THIS ALT
ERES 11
E
WHOLE CH
ABAC-
ER or THE MACHINE. AND WE
FOUND AF- 1
TER 1 r y»
AS AL
lEREO THAT IHA STYLE ACLO'.
MOnATED
AL
-L VVAMS
OLTT
ED THAM IHt OLD 9TTLE. ANfl
SO WE
MAKE tjO
NOHl
E«t3-
OF THE HIND THAT /.YC MADE W
HtN YCL
WERE INT
ED IN IT. IT IS SMALLER, HAND
F-H,
NEATEB.
MOHt
CONVENIENT. WILL DO ALMOS
EVERY
POS
SISLE Kl
NO OF
WORK. THAN IT WAS on WOUI 0 ^0
N
rs OLO
FORK.
A
CONTRACT HAS BEEN MADE W
TH THE
,L- 1
lOU ARMS
MANU
FACTOBY OP THE REMINOTON'S AT IL
NEW YORX
, FOR
THE MANUFACTURE OF A THOl
5AN0 M
CH INES,
Wm ICH
ARE NOW IN PROCESS AND PB
06RESS
OF
CONSTRUC
T ION.
WL ARE MUCH ENCOURAOED ».
ITH TH
PROSPECT
OF T
HE Val;iE OF THE THINS IN VIEW OF
ITS
1 H
AVE NOTHINS PARTICULAR TO
SAY, A
MD
rou U-ILL
OBSE
RVE 1 HAVE SA lU 1 - . 1 IHUST TH 1
- MA Y-r 1 NO
YOU
WELL . YOURS, " ■ '
" '" —
- . _ .
C. L. S
HOLES. 1
Courtesy Underwood Typezcriter Co.
(Right) CHRISTOPHER LATHAM
SHOLES, FATHER OF THE
TYPEWRITER.
(Left) SHOLES RECORDS HIS
PROGRESS.
A typewritten letter from Sholes to
Charles Weller, referring to the
contract made with the Reming-
tons to build better typewriters.
The first typewriter wrote only
capital letters. They could not stand
the wear and tear of every-day use.
It was through the efforts of the
skilled mechanics of the Remingtons
that the typewriter was eventually
brought to commercial perfection.
only capital letters, but it had figures from 2 to 9. The letter
"I" was used for the figure "i," and the letter "O" for zero.
There was also a comma, period, semicolon, hyphen, question-
mark, dollar-sign, and diagonal stroke.
Sholes and Soule soon saw that something was wrong with
this keyboard. They were both printers. Letters in a print-
er's case were arranged so that those most often used are near-
270 COMMUNICATION
est at hand instead of the way they follow one another in the
alphabet. A printer would soon think of such a keyboard
arrangement for a typewriter. Sholes and Soule worked out a
four-bank keyboard, arranged as nearly like the printer's case
as possible. But they could not follow it exactly, because
some of the keys clashed with others. By changing these keys
to new positions they finally worked out a keyboard much like
that of the modern typewriter.
Something else has lasted all these years. Step into any
typewriter showroom to-day. The salesman will sit down at a
typewriter and rattle off a sentence to show how well it works.
That sentence is nearly always the same, and this is the reason.
When Sholes's first machine was ready to write, an exciting po-
litical campaign was in progress in Milwaukee. Almost the
first sentence written was, ''Now is the time for all good men
to come to the aid of the party," and it is still used to show
how typewriters work.
When Typewriters Wrote Only Capital Letters —
AND Stuttered
Charlie Weller got the first machine in January, 1868. By
that time he had become a shorthand reporter in St. Louis,
where the machine was sent. Lawyers were suspicious of short-
hand. What did the stenographer write with his mysterious
pothooks ? They could not read them ! So lawyers took scraps
of testimony in longhand, and depended upon these and their
memories for the record of a trial. Disputes as to what a wit-
ness had said were settled by the judge, who relied on his
memory.
Charlie Weller joined the only firm in St. Louis that did
shorthand reporting in the courts. There was not enough legal
work to keep him and his partners busy. So they took down
lectures, sermons, and political speeches in shorthand for the
newspapers. Some months before there had been a long im-
peachment trial, and one of Weller's partners had reported it
in shorthand. He had never written out his notes, however.
Soon after Weller received his strange typewriting-machine, the
report of this trial was needed. He wrote it out on the ma-
chine. This first typewriter wrote only capital letters, remem-
WRITING BY MACHINE 271
ber, and it wrote these out of line. The letters often "stut-
tered" or stuck. The lines were unequally spaced. A type-
writer ribbon could not be bought; a roll of silk ribbon was
bought at a dry-goods store, soaked several hours in writing-
ink, hung up overnight to dry, and placed in the machine.
But this first typewritten report of a trial in court answered all
purposes, because it was used as "copy" for the printer.
The first typewriter was followed by others. In their little
Milwaukee machine-shop Sholes, Glidden, and Soule began five
years of change, experiment, and improvement. After a better
keyboard had been worked out, they changed the wooden keys
to metal rods and set their type-bars in steel bearings. The
paper had rested in a flat frame against which the type struck
in writing. For this they substituted a rubber roller. Machine
after machine was built, and each seemed so great an improve-
ment on the last that, more than once, Sholes thought they had
reached perfection.
"The machine is done, and I want some more worlds to
conquer," he wrote Weller. "Life will be most flat, stale, and
unprofitable without something to invent." But there was
plenty of invention still ahead of him, as we shall see. The
typewriter had a father, and two uncles, and Charlie Weller
was a sort of nephew. Now it needed a godfather, and one
turned up in the oddest way.
James Densmore Buys an Interest in Sholes's
Invention
When Sholes's first machine would actually work, he wrote
dozens of letters upon it, sending them to friends and public
men. You can imagine what a curiosity a typewritten letter
was then. One of these letters fell into the hands of Mr. James
Densmore, a business man living in Meadville, Pennsylvania.
He was so impressed that he wrote Sholes right away, asking
if he could become a partner. Sholes talked it over with Glid-
den and Soule, and told Densmore he could have a quarter in-
terest in the business if he would pay all past expenses. Dens-
more accepted without even knowing how much the expenses
would be, sent the money when it was asked for, and thus bought
an interest in an invention he had never seen. He had un-
272 COMMUNICATION
bounded faith in the future of the typewriter, and this faith
was now going to help Sholes through a very trying period.
Several months went by before Densmore met Sholes and
saw the typewriter. Then he said it was "good for nothing
except to show that the idea is feasible." He had plenty of
faith in the idea, but pointed out defects in the machine and
urged that they be remedied. Soule dropped out, leaving Sholes,
Densmore, and Glidden to go on. Machine after machine was
built and sent out to be tried by shorthand reporters. The
machines broke down after steady use. Twenty-five or thirty
such machines were made, each a little different and a little
better. They wrote well enough for a week or two. Then
something would break or wear out. One reporter in Wash-
ington, James O. Clephane, ruined machine after machine and
found fault after fault, until even the gentle Sholes lost his
temper, saying: "I am through with Clephane!" But Dens-
more said: "This candid faultfinding is just what we need.
Where Clephane points out a weak lever or rod, let us make it
strong. Where a spacer or an inker works stiffly, let us make
it work smoothly. Then, depend upon Clephane for all the
praise we deserve." Years later Clephane helped Ottmar
Mergenthaler, the inventor of the linotype.
Sholes was a man with many fine traits of character. His
broad, open mind became interested in a dozen different things,
and his great heart made him countless friends. He was so
unselfish that he seldom thought of money, and in fact said he
did not like to make it because it was too much bother. For
this reason he paid little attention to business matters. He
made very little money out of his typewriter in the end, but
was not at all sorry, being quite as well satisfied to see his in-
vention spread all over the world and to be called "the father
of the typewriter." He lacked the patience to plod at hum-
drum work, and hard, persistent work was what the type-
writer needed. Without Densmore, he might never have kept
at the task.
"Just \<^hat we want!" said Densmore, the business man.
"Unless we can build machines that stand up, typewriters
that anybody can use, we might as well stop right here." He
would cheer Sholes up and set him working again. For more
WRITING BY MACHINE
273
than five years Densmore furnished money and encouragement.
They built fifty machines at a cost of ^250 each between the
fall of 1867 and the spring of 1873. The typewriter grew better,
but they had not been able to build and sell it by dozens and
hundreds.
Then they found out what was wrong. Neither Sholes nor
Densmore were machinists, much less mechanical engineers.
And the machinists they hired to do their work had never made
1
T
(Left) THE MACHINE THAT SHOLES BROUGHT TO ILION IN 1876.
The case is opened to show the keyboard. Note that the letters are arranged nearly as they
are in the standard keyboard of to-day.
(Right) PATENT OFFICE MODEL OF THE MACHINE PATENTED JULY 14, 1886,
BY SHOLES, GLIDDEN, AND SOULE.
parts fine enough for such a machine. Nor could they pass
expert judgment upon the mechanical principles of such a
machine.
Who would have thought of turning the job over to gun-
smiths ? Yet that is just what was done. As they seemed
to be making little headway, Sholes and Densmore took their
typewriter to one of the best mechanical experts in Milwaukee,
Mr. G. W. N. Yost, who afterward became a typewriter in-
ventor and builder himself.
"What do you think of it?" they asked. "What can be
done to make it stand up in steady, every-day work ?"
Yost suggested various changes and said the typewriter must
be built with the accuracy and skill needed in firearms. He sent
them to the Remingtons, at Ilion, New York. Sholes and Dens-
274 COMMUNICATION
more brought their typewriter to Ilion, in 1872, and received
the help of as fine a group of mechanical experts as could have
been found anywhere in the country at that time. Sholes had
spent all his money and even mortgaged his home. Densmore
was still full of faith in the machine, and in his partner, but knew
that something was wrong.
Up to this point, the typewriter had been the work of ama-
teurs. Now it ceased to be an experiment. The Remington
experts gathered round the machine, took it apart, talked it
over, found out what was wrong, and made improvements.
They had fine machinery and skilled machinists to carry out
their plans. In a few months they were building typewriters
that could be sold to any one. They would work, and not
break down, and could be built by dozens, hundreds — thousands,
if people wanted that many. The Remingtons were so pleased
with the machine that they bought it from Sholes and Dens-
more. It is said that Sholes was satisfied with cash, and so
got only 1 1 2,000. Densmore was a shrewder business man,
and took a royalty, which in after-years paid him many times
1 1 2,000 annually. But Sholes never complained.
"All my life I have been trying to escape being a million-
aire," he said humorously, "and now I think I have succeeded."
Going back to Milwaukee, he went right on making type-
writer experiments, helped by two sons. They invented a new
typewriter which was simpler, had fewer parts, was less likely
to get out of order, and was also "visible" — that is, the oper-
ator could see what he was writing as he struck the keys. This
afterward became a very important principle in typewriters,
and it is interesting to note that Sholes had it in mind from the
beginning, for his first machine that wrote only the letter
"w" had a glass top through which one could watch it write.
Sholes had never been a strong man. His health began to
fail under constant work at the desk and in the shop. He be-
came consumptive, and the last nine years of his useful life
were spent in search of health. Even when he was not strong
enough to sit up, his bed became his workshop. He died in
the early nineties, leaving six sons and four daughters.
Nearly every one who came in contact with Sholes while
he was working on his typewriter caught his enthusiasm. A
WRITING BY MACHINE 275
friend named Craig, who saw that all business letters would
some day be written on typewriters, brought Sholes to Thomas
A. Edison's laboratory in the early seventies, before he went to
Courtesy Undenrood Typewriter Company.
THE FIRST TYPIST— ONE OF* SHOLES'S DAUGHTERS.
The early typewriters of Sholes were made to be locked up when not in use.
Ilion. Edison examined his wooden model of a writing-machine
and took time to help him improve it mechanically. But Edi-
son was an inventor, too — not expert in the building of fine
machines by the thousand. He thought it would be a hard
thing to make commercially. "The alignment of the letters
was awful," he has said since. "One letter would be a sixteenth
276 COMMUNICATION
of an Inch above the others, and all the letters wanted to wan-
der out of line." Edison worked on it until the machine gave
fair results, and found an early use for typewriters in automatic
telegraphy.
Yost caught Sholes's enthusiasm, and Invented the first ma-
chine that wrote small letters as well as capitals, the callgraph,
which was ready about 1878. Densmore became a typewriter
manufacturer, making a machine bearing his name. Franz X.
Wagner was working with the Remingtons when Sholes came
to Ilion, and helped develop his machine. Then he worked
with Yost, and after that turned typewriter Inventor himself,
making the first front-stroke visible writing-machine sold to the
public. That was patented In 1894, and became known as the
''Underwood." Charlie Weller did not turn inventor, but his
belief in Sholes and the typewriter helped to make It known to
the pubhc.
Sholes always believed that his greatest Invention would
help women earn a living. He wanted to perfect the type-
writer, not to make money, but to abolish drudgery.
"Father Sholes, what a wonderful thing you have done for
the world !" said a daughter-in-law shortly before he died.
"I don't know about the world," was the reply, "but I feel
that I have done something for the women who have always
had to work so hard. This will help them earn a living more
easily."
How THE Typewriter Made Office Jobs for Women
Before the typewriter was Invented, few women were em-
ployed In business ofhces. If a refined, educated woman had
to earn her living then, or a girl wanted to earn money, there
were only teaching school, clerking in a dry-goods store, or a
place as governess or librarian — that was about all. Older
women kept boarders or lodgers. To-day, thousands of women
work In offices at tasks which were unknown before the type-
writer and other office machines appeared. The typewriter has
rightly been called the "great-grandfather of office machinery."
Because it is so common, we lose sight of Its wonders. What
would a telephone or electric light company have to charge for
service if Its thousands of bills were written out In longhand
WRITING BY MACHINE 277
every month, its letters written with pen and ink, its records
kept by old-fashioned bookkeeping methods ? The office work
might cost as much as the telephone service or electric current !
Gas and electricity would be luxuries that only well-to-do people
could afford. If all office machinery, including the typewriter,
were suddenly taken away from business men, they could find
some way to get along without them, of course. But they could
afford so few records that one of the greatest elements of busi-
ness efficiency and progress would be "lost. For it is upon the
cheapness and abundance of machine-made information and
communication that modern business grows. With his daily
reports from every department, his tables and figures, the busi-
ness man to-day guides his enterprise much as a ship is steered
through unknown waters by compass, chart, and soundings.
The mechanical method of gathering such information is one of
the striking things of our age — and it is all machine-made in-
formation, largely the product of girls and women who learn sim-
ple tasks. The young lady who will take the trouble to learn
just typewriting — not stenography — by a few weeks' practice
can now earn more as a copyist than her mother would have
been paid for teaching school a generation ago.
The First Remington Typewriter
When the Remingtons bought Sholes's typewriter, it was
agreed that they could put their own name upon it. Thus the
first typewriter actually sold to the public bore the name "Rem-
ington." It took more than five years to invent and build this
machine. Now eight years more were to be spent teaching
people to use it.
"Of the first Remington typewriters placed on the market
in 1874, only about 400 were sold," says Mr. C. V. Oden, a
veteran writing-machine man who has made the history of the
typewriter his hobby. "Many of the machines were returned,
some defective. But the real trouble was, that business men
did not yet realize how much of their work the typewriter could
do. The first efforts to sell machines were unsuccessful. Sales
rights were first given to an electrical company, and then a
scales company. A legal sham battle between typewriter in-
ventors was arranged in the belief that people would be inter-
278
COMMUNICATION
ested — but they were not. In 1882, a couple of years before I
entered the business as a boy, the firm of Wyckoff, Seamans
and Benedict was formed to sell typewriters. W. O. WyckofF
was a court reporter at Ithaca, New York. C. W. Seamans
had been typewriter sales manager for one of the previous sell-
ing companies. H. H. Benedict was a Remington-Arms man.
The education of the public began — a hard job. If you bought
HHH
Ipp
^^^^^^^1
1
1^
^H
^^^^^^■^^..
(Left) MADE FOR THE EXPOSITION IN 1876.
This mother-of-pearl ornamental Remington, one of the first typewriters made at lijon, was
shown at the Centennial Exposition of 1876, and hardly noticed by the public.
(Right) MARK TWAIN'S TYPEWRITER.
This is believed to be Mark Twain's famous typewriter upon which he copied "Tom Sawyer'
for the printer — the first typewritten book manuscript.
a typewriter and used it for letters, people to whom you wrote
jumped to the conclusion that you thought they could not read
pen-writing ! The machine was also looked upon as a luxury
or affectation. Mark Twain bought one of the first, in 1875,
and copied Tom Sawyer upon it, probably the first typewritten
book manuscript ever sent to the printer. But he asked us
not to let people know that he owned one of these machines,
saying that whenever he sent a typewritten letter to anybody
he was always asked to tell what the typewriter was like, and
how he was making out with it. 'Oliver Optic,' the beloved
boys' writer of that day, was more encouraging — he said he
WRITING BY MACHINE
279
could write about two-thirds as fast on the typewriter as with
a pen, that it was less drudgery, and that he hoped to do better
with more practice."
After the Remingtons had spent great sums, things took a
turn for the better about 1882. The new sales firm was enter-
prising. People began to buy and use typewriters. Each sale
made new customers. Soon the business grew so that better
■■
^^^^^^^^^^WH
^^^^H
^^^^R^
M
■h
' ^>^ #
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^'^■M
^S^^Sir)^
VVil
mm
1,
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^H
(Left) THE WAGNER TYPEWRITER OF 1894.
From this machine the Underwood was developed.
(Right) THE FIRST SHIFT-KEY REMINGTON TYPEWRITER (1878).
The machine wrote small as well as capital letters.
machines could be built. In 1886, the typewriter was separated
from other Remington enterprises and became a business in itself.
The Inventon of the "Visible" Typewriter
The first machine wrote only capital letters. People wanted
to write small letters, too — "lower case" as printers say. Cap-
itals are harder to read. This demand was met by the "double-
keyboard" machine, which had a separate key for each letter
and character, seventy-eight altogether, nearly twice as many
as the single-shift typewriter of to-day. Soon all typewriters
wrote both large and small letters — people would not have any
other kind. To obviate the striking of a separate key for each
letter, the shift-keyboard was invented. In other words, each
type-bar had two letters. The machine wrote small letters or-
dinarily, and if a capital was to be written the shift-key was
280 COMMUNICATION
pressed. There were single and double shift machines — and
are still. The double-shift machine has three characters on
each type-bar, so that with only twenty-eight keys it is possible
to have more characters than were possible with "double-
keyboard" machines like the caligraph.
Then the first typewriters were "blind." That Is, the
typist could not see the line he was writing, but had to raise the
roller or the carriage, which was hinged. This caused delay.
Franz X. Wagner went about a good deal among typists, and
knew that speed meant their bread and butter. So he invented
the first practical "visible" machine widely sold to the public.
We have seen that Christopher Sholes had realized the advan-
tage of visible writing. But Sholes's visible machine was ahead
of its time. People had been using typewriters ten years or
more when Wagner's invention was patented and the public
ready for It. Mr. John T. Underwood, who had been In the
typewriter supply business, saw that this new machine met a
real need. He bought the invention, gave it his own name,
and built a few machines by hand In a little three-room plant
in New York during 1894-5. Five years later he was building
tens of thousands. Manufacturers of "blind" typewriters be-
came alarmed. Clearly, the public wanted visibility. But to
change blind machines. It was necessary to install new and ex-
pensive machinery In the factories. Not until 1908 was the
last of the old blind machines transformed.
Then people wanted machines that could be carried about.
The reporter, author, clergyman, private secretary, and travel-
ling man needed typewriters far from office or home. One
company tried to meet this need by placing typewriters In
hotels, to rent at so much a day. But a typewriter that could
be carried about as easily as a satchel was the real solution.
One of the first typewriters light enough to be thus carried was
the Bllckensderfer, which fitted in a hand case. It was also
one of the first typewriters sold at a moderate price. To-day,
we have folding typewriters weighing only six or eight pounds,
skeleton copies of standard machines, costing about half as
much.
Still the public, like Oliver Twist, wanted more. And one of
the things It wanted frightened printers. The first inventors
WRITING BY MACHINE
281
thought the typewriter would take the place of a pen — write
letters and copy documents faster. But people quickly saw
that, by using carbon-sheets, they could write several copies of
a letter or document. By using thin paper more carbon copies
could be made, but not as many copies as were often wanted.
Courtesy Elliott-Fisher Company.
MODERN ELLIOTT-FISHER BOOK TYPEWRITER.
Then Edison invented the mimeograph, by which the typewriter
wrote a stencil on waxed paper, and from that thousands of
copies could be made. No wonder the printers were alarmed !
If a girl with a typewriter could make thousands of circulars,
who would want printed circulars ? But soon they saw that,
for every job of printing lost in this way, the typewriter brought
them several others.
People have wanted machines which would write more than
one language, and inventors have provided "type-plate" ma-
chines with all the letters on one plate or wheel, which can be
282 COMMUNICATION
taken off and another slipped on. To change from Enghsh to
Spanish, or from a small type suitable for letters to a very large
type needed in a sermon that is to be read, takes but a minute.
The Book Typewriter that Adds and Subtracts
Business men wanted typewriters that would keep books as
well as write letters — set down columns of figures, add them up,
give the totals, subtract, and so forth. Inventors busied them-
selves with the book typewriter. At first, bound books were
replaced with loose-leaf records which would fit a typewriter,
and "marginal stops" made it easy to write figures in columns.
Then little adding and subtracting machines were attached to
typewriters, so that a girl in making out a customer's bill, for
instance, typed all the different items, and added them as fast
as she wrote thein. If there were amounts to be deducted,
such as discounts, the machine would also subtract these.
Modern bookkeeping machines began to appear — super-
typewriters. They not only write in the pages of great business
record books opened flat, but put down many rows of complex
figures, adding and subtracting, giving names, dates, and other
items in one or more colors, making duplicates. Indeed, it is
too bad that Alfred Beach could not have lived to see this
"literary piano" with which, by playing on the keys, a girl can
do, in five minutes, more work than an old-fashioned bookkeeper
could do in an hour. If the bookkeeper made a slight mistake, it
took him sometimes another hour to find it; but if the girl makes
a mistake, the bookkeeping machine stops and points it out.
When the typewriter was young, people took offense at a
typewritten letter. Now they take offense if it is not type-
written ! That is, a mimeograph letter sent to a thousand
people will not be read with nearly as much interest as a thou-
sand letters separately typewritten. We all like to feel that
we alone have received the letter addressed to us. Hence the
automatic typewriter was invented. Another chapter of this
book tells what inventors have done by punching holes in
paper — a basic principle of great value. With the automatic
typewriter, the letter is written that is to be sent to a thousand
people — or a million, if you please. A roll of perforated paper
that looks as though it might be played in a mechanical piano
fits into a machine which operates an ordinary typewriter.
WRITING BY MACHINE
283
You write "Mr. David Crockett, Boonville, Ky.; My dear Mr.
Crockett — " on the keys of this typewriter, turn a switch, a
motor starts, and the roll of perforated paper writes the letter
Cnurti iv Ciiopti Eiuru.'iii^ anil Manulactunns Compunx
THE HALL-BRAILLE TYPEWRITER FUR IHE BLLND.
This machine writes Braille, and is to the blind what an ordinary typewriter is to those who
can see. A complete character or letter is made with one stroke of a key. As in the
ordinary typewriter paper is used, but is fed from a roll, and is not used in single sheets.
The carriage is equipped with a release, which permits movement of the platen to any
position without using the spacer.
that has been punched in it, each character one by one, just as
though the keys were struck by human fingers.
Because the typewriter and shorthand go together, inventors
long ago began thinking about machines to write shorthand
notes, doing away with the pencil. There are several such ma-
chines in use. They write on a narrow paper ribbon, have only
284 COMMUNICATION
about a dozen keys, and with them the trained operator can
take down words as fast as they are spoken. Some of them
abbreviate the words, and others write a word at a stroke, be-
cause several characters can be struck and printed at once.
Such machine-made notes have to be rewritten on a regular
typewriter, of course. There are also several typewriters for
"Th^ " hall-braille:" writer
GREATLY FACI.L ITATES TRAN-
SCR IB In^ 1n^ braille aS C O M P ^Fc tB 'wifhT
TH^ S L OVVf^ PROCESS 'OF' 'THE^ 8 R A 8 L L E
SLATE.
Courtesy Cooper Engraving and Manufacturing Company.
SPECIMEN OF WRITING ON THE HALL-BRAILLE MACHINE, AND
TRANSLATION.
blind people — typewriters that punch raised dots in the pecu-
liar alphabet used in books for the blind, and their writing is
read by touching it with the fingers.
The typewriter played its part in the great war, showing that
the world cannot get along without it. An American inven-
tion, it is made almost entirely in the United States. Only the
Germans ever seriously tried to build typewriters, and with
little success. Ship space was needed during the World War
for munitions and food, so the Allies stopped buying typewriters,
thinking they were not needed. But when the great armies
went into the field, it took an enormous mass of writing to direct
them — orders, despatches, letters, reports, records. Writing-
machines were taken from offices and sent to the front, and soon
there was a typewriter famine. When we entered the war, the
government took three out of every four new typewriters made.
WRITING BY MACHINE 285
Experts figure that in 1919 the world made 875,000 typewriters,
of which 775,000 were American. In ordinary times, every
other typewriter we make goes to some foreign customer.
The experts have also visualized the typewriter of to-morrow.
Again, it will be what people want. Already business men are
beginning to ask: "Why should we use muscle power to press
down keys when there are plenty of electric motors to do such
work?" The experts say that eventually typewriters must be
electrical — -that is, the operator will simply touch a key and a
motor will do the work of printing the letter. Blickensderfer,
who invented the first real portable typewriter, also built a
promising electrical machine in the early years of this century.
But it was never widely used. The machine was complex and
costly. The electric typewriter must be reasonable in price.
It is sure to come at the right time, because it will save human
strength, increase writing-speed, and be particularly good at
making carbon copies. When electricity operates the mecha-
nism, twenty or thirty copies will be possible. To do this,
however, the machine must write flat and not on a roller, for
which reason the experts believe that flat writing will charac-
terize the typewriter of to-morrow. But these are still guesses,
more or less — we shall have to wait and see.
Here at the end, there is just room to say a word or two
about typewriter speed and accuracy. Twenty years ago rival
manufacturers started a yearly contest for typists, each hoping
to prove that his machine would write faster than any other.
The winners began with seventy words a minute, steadily grow-
ing faster year by year until now the record is 143 words a
minute — which is faster than most people can read a book aloud.
To get speed, you must have a well-built machine. It has been
figured that one of these champion typewriters, writing 143
words a minute for a whole hour, touches the keys about twelve
times a second. But while the typewriter must make twice as
many motions as the typist, because the type-bars have to move
back as well as forward, and its carriage also moves, close study
of the work of the champions in these contests often shows not
a single mechanical error.
Father Sholes could certainly have appreciated that !
CHAPTER III
SENDING MESSAGES AND PICTURES OVER A WIRE—
THE STORY OF THE TELEGRAPH
EARLY in the nineteenth century a fifteen-year-old lad, the
son of a London music-teacher, saved all his pennies until
he was able to purchase a small, dry volume describing the elec-
trical discoveries of the Italian, Alessandro Volta. The book
was written in French, and the boy had to save more pennies
in order to get a French-English dictionary. Before long he
was able to read of Volta's experiments and, with the help of
his elder brother, began to practise them. Copper plates for
his home-made battery were absolutely necessary, and pennies
were now very scarce. One day a happy inspiration caused
him to make the copper pennies themselves serve the purpose,
and his battery was in operation.
Such was the introduction to electrical science of Sir Charles
Wheatstone, the inventor of the English telegraph. As a young
man he had won distinction by his experiments with sound.
By 1834 this work brought him an appointment to the chair
of experimental physics in King's College, London. Here he
continued his experiments with sound; but his most important
result at this time was his measurement of the velocity of an
electric current. At length there came to him in his laboratory
an army officer home on furlough, William Fothergill Cooke,
who was engaged on the invention of a telegraph. Cooke, lack-
ing the scientific knowledge necessary to complete his inven-
tion, appealed to Wheatstone for assistance. Wheatstone also
was experimenting with the telegraph, and the two entered into
a partnership. It resulted in the invention of the five-needle
telegraph in 1837.
The telegraph of Wheatstone and Cooke consisted, at the
receiving end, of a loop of wire, within which was suspended a
magnetic needle. By closing the circuit the needle could be de-
flected to the right or the left depending upon the direction in
286
THE STORY OF THE TELEGRAPH 287
which the current flowed. Five separate circuits and needles,
together with a sixth return circuit, were required. By 1845
Wheatstone had reduced his system to a single-wire circuit.
The repeated deflections of the needle were made to spell out
words by pointing to letters on a dial. Although much inferior
to the Morse telegraph — invented about the same time — Wheat-
stone's system was used in England for many years.
As with other great inventions the attitude of the public
toward the telegraph was cool; people regarded it as a new-
fangled complication. It required a dramatic incident to bring
it into prominent notice, and although the story has frequently
been told it is worth repeating.
Shortly after the telegraph had been installed over thirteen
miles of the Great Western Railway, a mysterious death oc-
curred in one of the outlying districts of London. A woman
was found dead in her home. At an early hour of the same
morning a man had been observed to leave the house and take
the slow train for London. To efi^ect a quick capture, some one
thought of the telegraph, and immediately the operator tele-
graphed a description of the man to the police in London. The
murderer was dressed in the garb of a Quaker, but since the
telegraph code contained no signal for the letter Q the operator
began to spell the word "kwaker." The London operator
asked to have this repeated and continued to do so until a boy
suggested that the whole message be sent. When this was done,
its meaning at once became clear. The man was arrested as
he stepped off the train and at his trial confessed to the crime.
The incident quickened public interest; the value of the tele-
graph had been demonstrated.
How Morse, the Artist, Began
It is surprising that the inventor of the modern telegraph
was a well-known artist who had very little training in science.
Samuel Findley Breese Morse, son of a Congregational minister,
was born in 1791 at Charlestown, Mass., not far from the birth-
place of Benjamin Franklin. He came from sturdy Puritan an-
cestors, and was educated at Andover and Yale. At college
Morse came under the influence of Professor Jeremiah Day, one
of the foremost men of science of his time. Morse became in-
288 COMMUNICATION
terested in the experiments in electricity. We find in his note-
books this statement: "If the electric circuit be interrupted at
any place the fluid will become visible." Later Morse asserted
that it was this "crude seed which took root in my mind, and
grew into form, and ripened into the invention of the telegraph."
At an early age Morse displayed a keen interest for paint-
ing. When a mere lad he painted water-colors. In college he
turned this ability to account by painting miniature portraits
which he sold to his fellow students at five dollars apiece. Be-
fore leaving Yale in 1810 he completed a painting of the "Land-
ing of the Pilgrims," and at graduation decided to devote his
life to art. To this end he became a pupil of Washington All-
ston, one of the best-known American painters of his day, and
in 181 1 sailed with him for England. In London he was ad-
mitted to the Royal Academy, and that brilliant artist, Benjamin
West, advised and befriended him.
Morse remained four years in England, making the acquaint-
ance of some of the most notable men of his time and winning
marked success in his chosen profession. During this time he
won a gold medal for his work in sculpture and in 18 13 exhibited
at the Academy a huge "Dying Hercules," which was classed
among the best twelve paintings there. But he had already
stayed abroad a year longer than his allotted time; his funds
were gone, his clothes threadbare. In 1815 he returned to
America, where his fame had preceded him. The people of
Boston flocked to see his work, and its cultured society gave
him a most cordial welcome. But no one would buy his paint-
ings, and poverty stared him in the face. Morse, supremely
interested in the big things of art, was now compelled to eke
out a scanty living by painting portraits.
After three miserable years in Boston, his uncle invited him
to Charleston, South Carolina. There he succeeded as a por-
trait-painter and soon accumulated ^3,000. With money in his
pocket and many commissions, Morse went to Concord, New
Hampshire, and married Lucretia Walker. He returned to
Charleston, but eventually left for New York, where he and
other artists founded the New York Drawing Association, of
which organization he was elected president. This led, in 1826,
to the National Academy of the Arts of Design. Morse deliv-
THE STORY OF THE TELEGRAPH 293
model in operation in the laboratory of the university. The pic-
ture printed on page 291 shows its general form. Upon a wooden
frame nailed to a table he mounted the electromagnet and
clockwork to move the tape, and to the pendulum he attached
both the armature of the magnet and the marking-pencil.
When the circuit was made and broken by a special device, the
pendulum swung back and forth so that its pencil marked the
moving tape, and the "signals" were read off.
This was a great step forward; but new difficulties retarded
the invention. It is impossible to send water through a pipe
for miles without great pressure. It is equally impossible to
send an electric current through a wire for miles without the
pressure we now call 'Voltage." In telegraphy weak currents
were used, and in sending an electric signal through great lengths
of wire the effect at the end of the long wires was so feeble as
to be practically imperceptible. To overcome this defect Morse
invented what is called a relay. It the invisible current would
not actuate a heavy receiver, at least it could be made to oper-
ate a weak spring armature of a very sensitive electromagnet.
A slight pull of the throttle of a powerful locomotive starts the
wheels moving; a feeble current of electricity will affect the
magnet of a relay in the same way. In a word, the relay acts
like the throttle of a locomotive, and thus moves local electrical
mechanism.
Morse now had all the elements of the modern telegraph.
This was in 1837 and in that same year Congress directed the
secretary of the treasury to inquire into the desirability of es-
tablishing a system of telegraphs in the United States. This
action fired Morse with still greater enthusiasm, and he deter-
mined to bring his invention to the attention of the public.
But, without funds and influence, he was helpless.
Morse Meets Alfred Vail
About this time Morse, while demonstrating his apparatus
to some visitors, made the acquaintance of a young man
named Alfred Vail, whose father. Judge Stephen Vail, was well
known, prosperous, and the owner of the Speedwell Iron
Works at Morristown, New Jersey. Young Vail immediately
foresaw the tremendous commercial possibilities of the tele-
294 COMMUNICATION
graph, and he suggested that Morse accept him as a partner in
the enterprise. This was the very assistance that Morse needed,
and he was only too glad to grant the request; particularly as
the elder Vail supplied |2,ooo for additional experiments and
offered his foundry as a workshop. Alfred Vail, possessing con-
siderable mechanical ability, at once took off his coat and went
to work with all the enthusiasm of youth. He made many im-
provements in Morse's instruments and very largely worked
out the Morse code of dots and dashes.
The ardor of Judge Vail, however, soon began to cool. Ridi-
culed by his acquaintances for the support that he had given
to this rash scheme, he now regretted his generosity. But at
last in January, i8j8, the telegraph was complete. A^ail sum-
moned his father to the workshop and the judge wrote this
message: "A patient waiter is no loser." He asked his son to
send it to Morse, who was at the receiver, stating that if he
could do so he would be satisfied. The test was a complete
success. The invention of the telegraph was achieved.
The Work of Publicity
Often more dif^cult than perfecting a new invention is the
task of properly introducing it to the public. So it was with
the Morse telegraph. Scepticism had to be overcome, financial
support secured, and the public educated to a realization of the
value of the telegraph. When placed on exhibition in New
York and Philadelphia, no one seemed interested. As, later,
they were to say of the telephone, the telegraph was only a
"scientific toy." But Morse's patent was filed as a caveat at
the United States Patent Office in 1837, and in December of the
same year he appealed to Congress for aid to build an experi-
mental line, pointing out that the chief purpose of his invention
was the public welfare and not private gain. He took his tele-
graph to Washington and finally succeeded in interesting the
Committee on Commerce of the House of Representatives.
The chairman of the committee, Francis O. J. Smith, resigned
his seat in Congress in order to become an active partner in the
enterprise. In 1842, a bill was introduced appropriating ^30,000
for the building of an experimental line between Washington
and Baltimore.
THE STORY OF THE TELEGRAPH 297
At length, February 23, 1843, Morse's bill for an appropria-
tion of 130,000 was again introduced in Congress. The project
suffered the severest ridicule. Many members regarded it as
the visionary scheme of a "crank" and were afraid to go on
record as even favoring it. Defeat seemed certain. But the
bill did pass the House by a narrow margin of eight votes, and
it went to the Senate. On the last night of the session Morse
anxiously waited in the gallery. One of the senators came up
to him and declared: "There is no use of your staying here.
The Senate is not in sympathy with your project. I advise
you to go home and think no more about it."
Broken in spirit, dejected, his last hope shattered, Morse
returned to his boarding-house, and, after paying his bill and
buying a ticket to New York, all the money he had to his name
was thirty-seven and a half cents. But the next morning while
he was at breakfast he received a visit from a young lady.
Coming towarci him with a smile, she exclaimed:
"I have come to congratulate you !"
"What for, my dear friend ?" asked the professor of the young
lady, who was Miss Annie G. Ellsworth, daughter of his friend
the commissioner of patents.
"On the passage ot your bill."
The professor assured her it was not possible, as he remained
in the senate-chamber until nearly midnight, and it was not
reached. She then informed him that her father was present
until the close, and, in the last moments of the session, the bill
was passed without debate or revision. Professor Morse was
overcome by the intelligence, so joyful and unexpected, and
gave at the moment to his young friend, the bearer of these
good tidings, the promise that she should send the first mes-
sage over the first line of telegraph that was opened.
"What Hath God Wrought?"
Morse and his partners now took up the work of construc-
tion. Ignorant of the difficulties confronting them, they un-
fortunately decided in favor of underground wires. After they
had exhausted more than two-thirds of the appropriation the
insulation proved defective and the underground system had
to be abandoned. Luckily, Ezra Cornell, later to be the founder
298 COMMUNICATION
of a great university, was associated with them. Upon his ad-
vice they hurriedly strung the wires overhead, insulating them
by the necks of bottles thrust through holes bored in the tops
of poles. This saved the situation.
On the day chosen for the public exhibition, May 24, 1 844,
Annie Ellsworth handed to Morse, sitting at the transmitter in
the Supreme Court room of the capitol, the words: "What hath
God wrought.^" This was immediately transmitted to Vail
in Baltimore, who in a few moments sent back the same mes-
sage, and the invention of the telegraph passed into history.
The public's interest remained lukewarm. As with Wheat-
stone and his English telegraph, something sensational was
needed to bring the new invention into prominent notice and
favor. It so happened that the national Democratic conven-
tion was then in session at Baltimore. Vail learned that Silas
Wright, of New York, had been nominated for the vice-presi-
dency, and telegraphed the news to Washington. Morse re-
ceived and handed the telegram to Wright, who was in the
senate-chamber. Wright declined the nomination, and Morse
instantly telegraphed back his refusal. The members of the
Baltimore convention, on being handed the despatch, would not
believe, and they adjourned until a committee was sent to Wash-
ington to report truthfully on the matter. Complete verifica-
tion of the telegraphic message convinced the American people
oi the immense importance of telegraph service.
Morse offered his invention to the government for ^100,000,
but although they voted $8,000 for maintaining the original
telegraph line, they declined to commit themselves further.
Disappointed, Morse then organized the Magnetic Telegraph
Company and set about securing funds for the construction of
a line from New York to Philadelphia. It was slow but sure
work. Little by little telegraph lines began to multiply. They
spread like a network over the Eastern States. Many com-
panies sprang up. Morse's patents were infringed and he was
compelled to file many lawsuits for his rights, which the courts
always upheld. There was plenty of telegraph business now,
yet no one seemed to be making money in it.
In 1856, Hiram Sibley organized the Western Union Tele-
graph Company, which some one likened to "collecting all the
THE STORY OF THE TELEGRAPH 2Q9
paupers in the State and arranging them into a union so as to
make rich men of them." The company succeeded, and a hne
was put through to the Pacific coast. The profits were enormous,
and through his patents Morse became a wealthy man. He was
honored with orders, decorations, and medals by the leading
nations of the world. He died in 1872, full of years and rich
in the esteem of his fellow men.
It was early discovered that messages could be read simply
by listening to instead of seeing the clicking of the armature of
THE FIRST MESSAGE SENT BY MORSE.
the electromagnet. Morse had considered the automatic re-
cording device of his receiver the most important feature of his
invention. Yet reading by sound was so much simpler and
easier that neither threats nor penalties could prevent the prac-
tice. Vail then devised the modern type of sounder, and also
made many other changes in telegraph apparatus.
The first great improvement was made in 1858 by J. B.
Stearns, of Boston. In that year he introduced duplex teleg-
raphy; a system by which two messages, one in each direction,
might be sent over a single wire at the same time. This he
accomplished by arranging relays at each end of the line which
would in each case respond to incoming signals, but not to out-
going signals. In that way a message could be received, and
another sent, at the same time over the same wire.
Edison and the Telegraph
One of the "brass pounders" to whom Morse's invention
gave employment was Thomas A. Edison. A telegraph opera-
tor with his extraordinary inventive gifts would naturally in-
troduce improvements. One of his earliest inventions was a
duplex telegraph of his own. In 1869 he went from Boston to
300 COMMUNICATION
New York. Arriving there he borrowed a dollar to tide him over
until he could get a position as an operator. While waiting he
spent much of his time about the offices of the Gold Indicator
Company in order to study their complicated system of indicators
and transmitters for distributing to the various brokers' offices
of the city the current stock quotations.
Edison had been waiting for three days, when an oppor-
tunity occurred to test his genius. As usual, he was sitting in
the company's office, when suddenly the complicated mecha-
nism which controlled the outgoing lines came to a dead stop.
Soon more than 300 boys, one fiom every broker's office on the
street, came crowding into the room. Pandemonium reigned
and the man in charge lost his head. Edison quietly walked
over to the instrument, studied its parts for a moment, and lo-
cated the trouble. A contact spring had broken off and fallen
between two gear-wheels, thus stopping the movement.
Doctor Laws, the superintendent of the company, arrived
and asked the foreman what was the cause of the trouble; but
the man was unable to explain. Edison then volunteered to fix
the instrument, and was told to do so at once. Seemingly by
magic, he deftly removed the spring, adjusted it, and set the
wheels moving again. Doctor Laws called Edison into his
office and offered to put him in charge of the "tickers" at I300
a month. Almost overcome with astonishment and delight,
Edison accepted the position. To one who just lately had
been compelled to borrow a dollar, the salary of I300 a month
was princely; but Edison, instead of taking it easy, worked no
less than twenty hours a day trying to improve the stock-
tickers of that time.
A stock-ticker is a telegraph instrument which automatically
records on a moving tape the quotations of the various stocks
listed on the exchange as rapidly as they appear. A man in
the exchange sits at a keyboard, circular in form and carrying
upon it all of the letters and figures used in stock quotations.
As he reads the quotations, he perforates a moving tape by
striking the keys just as in operating a typewriter. This tape
passes through a transmitter which operates a large number of
line relays and sends the signals to the tickers in the brokers'
offices, and also to distant cities.
■■ ^ o
^..m
B
SIMPLE TELEGRAPH SYSTEM.
I
^
■^^
^- A
bih:
DUPLEX SYSTEM OF TELEGRAPHING.
302 COMMUNICATION
After Edison had taken out patents on a large number of
inventions covering improvements on the tickers, General Lef-
ferts the president of the Gold and Stock Telegraph Company,
offered to buy his patents. Edison had intended to ask $5,000
and, if necessary, to come down to |3,ooo. But, when the psy-
chological moment arrived, he did not have the nerve to name
such a large sum, so he asked Lefferts to make him an offer.
The president of the telegraph company suggested the sum of
$40,000. "This caused me," said Edison, "to come as near
fainting as I ever got. I managed to say that I thought it was
fair." After that he opened laboratories In Newark.
Edison Sends Four Messages at a Time over the
Same Wire
Edison soon became involved in a multitude of inventions,
but one of his chief problems was an automatic and multiplex
telegraphy. George Little, an Englishman, had invented a
system of automatic telegraphy which worked well on short
lines but did not meet the exacting requirements of long-dis-
tance telegraphy. Accepting Little's principle of mechanism,
Edison converted it into a highly satisfactory system. In a
short time he was sending and recording 1,000 words per minute
between New York and Washington, and 3,500 words to Phila-
delphia. Like many other automatic systems, it included a
hand-punch for perforating a moving, tape which was passed
through an automatic transmitter. Wherever a hole came in
the tape an electric contact was made, and an "impulse" sent
to the line. At the receiving end an automatic recorder printed
the message on chemically prepared paper. Edison improved
every part of the system, and for some time it was in active use
on American lines.
Then came Edison's quadruplex telegraphy, which enabled
him to send over a single wire four messages at the same time,
two in each direction. In this system Edison combined two
sets of instruments. One set would respond only to a change
in the strength of the line current, while the other set would
respond only to a change in the direction of the current. Al-
though this system was sensitive to bad weather conditions and
was so delicately balanced as to be easily thrown out of adjust-
THE STORY OF THE TELEGRAPH
303
ment, yet it was of immense importance in extending telegraph
service. It has been estimated that in America alone quadruplex
telegraphy has accomplished a saving of from 1 15,000,000 to
$20,000,000 in line construction.
MODERN AUTOMATIC TAPE TRANSMITTER.
Typewriting by Telegraph
As early as 1846 Alexander Bain, a Scotchman, invented an
automatic transmitter employing a perforated strip of paper.
At the receiving end the dots and dashes were recorded on a
rapidly moving tape of chemically prepared paper by means of
an iron stylus.
The first real printing telegraph, one which actually printed
the message in Roman type, was invented by David E. Hughes,
of Kentucky, in 1855. Hughes was a master of music and a
born inventor. His ambition was to invent a telegraphic type-
304 COMMUNICATION
printer. Before he could accomplish such a thing it was neces-
sary to keep his transmitting and receiving instruments in per-
fect unison with each other. For a long time this had baffled
him. Finally, two darning-needles borrowed from an old lady
in the house where he lived gave him the clue. He arranged
a system of equally timed vibrating needles or rods, and in this
way solved his problem. Hughes's printing telegraph was used
for a time in this country, but was gradually superseded by
other systems. In England and Europe it still has a very wide
application.
Professor Henry A. Rowland, of Johns Hopkins University,
invented a printing telegraph which could send eight messages
simultaneously over a single wire. It was a beautiful piece of
work, but unfortunately was not adapted to the electric require-
ments of existing lines. It embodied, however, a principle which
has been frequently utilized in other systems. The transmitter
consisted of a keyboard, like a typewriter, and the recording in-
strument printed the message exactly as a typewriter does.
The recorder, too, was under the perfect control of the trans-
mitting operator. The pressing of any key sends an "impulse"
over the line which automatically prints on a sheet of paper
the corresponding letter. As in the ordinary office typewriter,
the telegraph operator also spaces, makes numerals, and shifts
the carriage in either direction and from line to line. These
features have now become standard in many systems.
Other men who have invented widely used systems more or
less similar to those already described are Baudot, Buckingham,
Murray, and Delany. The most remarkable system is the
Pollak-Virag telegraph. A tape is punched with a double row
of holes and passed through a transmitter in the usual way.
The impulses sent over the line are made to operate a delicately
hung mirror which can swing in every direction. Upon this
mirror is thrown a beam of light from an incandescent lamp.
As the mirror swings the beam is reflected to a sensitized sheet
of paper. Thus the signals in the form of light are actually
photographed. In its latest form, this telegraph has been made
to record its messages in legible writing. The speed of trans-
mission is over 100,000 words an hour. It is impossible to pre-
dict the future of such an instrument.
THE STORY OF THE TELEGRAPH
305
The Modern Multiplex
The multiplex system now in use on the Western Union lines
sends eight messages on a single line at the same time, and prints
them in typewritten form ready for distribution. Four mes-
sages are sent in each direction, and eight operators are re-
quired at each end of the line, four to send and four to receive.
This system is an adaptation of the Delany multiplex.
As you enter a large Western Union Telegraph office you see
row after row of these machines in operation. The click-click
(Left) A PAGE MULTIPLEX PRINTER.
(Right) AUTOMATIC TELEGRAPH PRINTER AT RECEIVING END.
of the transmitters mingling with the hum of vibrating tuning-
forks and rotating motors is almost orchestral. To and fro,
from city to city, nation to nation, shuffle messages. All are
important; the very purpose of the telegraph is to save time.
Four strips of moving tape are perforated by operators at
typewriter keyboards, after which the strips pass through the
respective transmitters. The electric "impulses" are sent to
the line through the segments of a rotating metal disk, over
which moves a conducting arm or brush. There are twenty of
these insulated segments, five for each transmitter, and at each
rotation one letter is sent to the line from each instrument. At
the receiving end of the line there is another disk exactly sim-
ilar to the first and rotating in exact unison with it. There-
fore, as the impulse from a particular transmitter is sent to
the line, the corresponding receiving instrument is at that same
instant also in connection with the line. These four impulses
are sent to the line in rapid succession and received at the
306 COMMUNICATION
other end in perfect sequence. As already stated, four mes-
sages are also being sent from the opposite direction at the same
time. The speeds of the motors which operate the rotating
disks are controlled by vibrating tuning-forks of exactly the
same pitch.
Since each operator can send from forty to fifty words a
minute the maximum speed for eight is from 320 to 400
words. The actual speed of the automatic systems, depends
upon and is limited by the speed with which an operator can
perforate a tape. High speeds are obtained only when the tape
has been prepared in advance by a large number of operators.
There are mechanisms for very rapid sending and receiving,
but as yet there is no magic method of preparing the tape.
A^ery recently, as described in the chapter on the telephone,
it has been made possible to send as many as forty telegraph
messages over a single wire at the same time. This system is
adapted only to long-distance transmission and has not yet
come into extensive use. There is no doubt, however, that it
holds great promise for the telegraph service of the future.
Elisha Gray Invents His Harmonic Telegraph
One of the most interesting figures in telegraph history is
Elisha Gray. Of Quaker parentage, educated at Oberlin Col-
lege, with a genius for invention coupled with marked mechani-
cal ability, he early turned his attention in life to electricity.
Gray became one of the original promoters of the Western Elec-
tric Company and from his many inventions amassed a fortune.
Many of these were telegraphic devices.
His most interesting invention was the harmonic telegraph.
At the sending end Gray placed a number of electromagnets,
each one of which kept in constant vibration a tuning-fork of
definite pitch. These vibrating tuning-forks, each of a different
pitch, were made to interrupt the line current and therefore sent
out a complex combination of impulses. At the receiving end,
the line current was passed about an equal number of elec-
tromagnets, over each of which was placed a steel reed. Each
reed was so tuned that it would respond and be thrown into
vibration by one and only one of the forks at the transmitting
end. Therefore, Morse signals sent through the contact points
THE STORY OF THE TELEGRAPH
307
of any one of the vibrating forks were received only in that cir-
cuit whose reed vibrated at the same rate. Gray sent as many
as nine messages over a single wire. The system has been since
improved so that it sends twelve.
Gray's ''telautograph" was one of the first of the facsimile
telegraphs. He made a pencil in the hand of the sender elec-
CIIICAGO SWITCHBOARD, WESTERN UNION OFFICE.
trically operate another pencil at a distance and, therefore,
reproduce handwriting.
Telegraphing Pictures over Wires
Although the art of telegraphing pictures is still in the ex-
perimental stage, very remarkable results have been obtained.
The first successful long-distance photographs were made by
Professor Arthur Korn, of Germany, in 1904. Professor Korn
took advantage of the fact that the element selenium is elec-
trically sensitive to light, and that its resistance changes with a
variation in the intensity of illumination.
Within a glass cylinder, which can both rotate and shift it-
self in the direction of its length, glows an electric lamp. Around
308 COMMUNICATION
the cylinder is wrapped the photograph about to be transmitted.
It is evident that the rays from the lamp will easily pass through
the light portions of the photograph, but not so easily through
the dark. By rotating and by shifting the cylinder in the direc-
tion of its length, the rays from the lamp will strike every por-
tion of the photograph in its spiral path. The beam from the
lamp, of course, passes through only one spot at a time.. If
that spot is comparatively light or transparent, the beam passes
through the revolving cylinder and falls upon the selenium cell.
Since selenium varies in conductivity with the amount of light
that happens to fall upon it at any given time, the amount of
current which passes through an electric circuit in which the
selenium is included also varies. At the receiving end is another
rotating and shifting cylinder around which a photographic
film is wrapped. The electric current is made to open and close
a shutter through which the beam of light is focussed upon the
revolving cylinder. The operation is clear enough. The se-
lenium cell of the sending instrument is now in the dark, now
in the light, depending upon the resistance offered to the beam
of light by the different portions of the photograph wrapped
around the transmitting cylinder. The current in the line
fluctuates with the amount of light that happens to fall upon
the selenium cell at any given instant. These fluctuations in
turn cause the shutter at the receiving end to open or close,
so that more or less light falls upon the rotating or shifting re-
volving cylinder. Hence the beam of light at the receiving end
traces a spiral record on the film, but a record which is now
black and now light. Develop the photograph of the receiv-
ing cylinder and it is now a duplicate, composed of fine lines,
close together, of the picture wrapped about the transmitting
cylinder.
In Paris, M. Belin experimented for a number of years with
a different system. He produced a negative in relief which he
wrapped about a revolving cylinder over which moved a stylus.
The stylus varied the electric current in the receiving circuit
with the light and shade of the picture. By a suitable mecha-
nism, Belin made this changing current vary the intensity of
light thrown on the receiving film.
A theoretically old but only recently applied scheme is the
310 COMMUNICATION
one by which photographs are telegraphed in code. Over the
print is placed a transparent sheet of celluloid, marked off in
quarter-inch squares. The light and shade of the print is then
carefully indicated on these squares by a system of code num-
bers which are telegraphed to the distant newspaper-office.
From this code a black-and-white reproduction of the picture
is quickly made for newspaper use. Pictures of the Dempsey-
Carpentier fight of July 2, 1921, were thus sent to Los Angeles
to be reproduced the following morning: fifty minutes were
consumed in telegraphing and an hour and ten minutes in de-
coding. The same pictures were also cabled to London, and
reproduced soon after the event.
Cyrus Field and the Atlantic Cable
Magnificent as the triumph of land telegraphy had been, it
was destined to be outdone in the telegraphic conquest of the
sea. To the clearness of vision and indomitable perseverance
of that little group of pioneers who, against every obstacle of
fate and man, accomplished the Herculean task of laying the
first Atlantic cable, the world owes a debt of gratitude it can
never pay.
In 1842, the first cable line in America was laid beneath New
York Harbor by Morse during those anxious days of waiting for
the recognition of his great invention. Another was laid be-
tween New York city and Fort Lee in 1845 by Ezra Cornell.
In 1850 John Watkins Brett laid the first successful cable across
the English Channel. Two years later England and Ireland
were connected by cable and, soon after, a cable was laid
beneath the North Sea to Holland. Morse, even before he
had perfected his original telegraph, with prophetic vision, pre-
dicted that some day men would telegraph beneath the Atlantic.
In 1852, an engineer named F. N. Gisborne conceived the
idea of connecting by telegraph New York and St. John's,
Newfoundland. By this the time of communication between
the two continents was to be shortened by two days. Part of
the line was to consist of a submarine cable across the Gulf of
St. Lawrence. Running out of funds, he applied to Cyrus W.
Field, a retired merchant of New York, for financial assistance.
Although Field had amassed a fortune, he was still a young
From FaUntine's Manual.
LANDING OF THE SHORE END AT TRINITY BAY, AUGUST 4, 1858.
tram I'altnttne'i Manual
SECTION OF THE ATLANTIC CABLE, CARRIED BY ADAMS & COMPANY'S
EXPRESS WAGON THROUGH THE STREETS OF NEW YORK.
312
COMMUNICATION
man, and the project strongly appealed to him. It soon oc-
curred to Field that of far greater importance to commerce was
a direct cable joining the Old World with the New; in other
words, a cable under the Atlantic. It became Field's great
obsession. Seldom has any man been fired with a more con-
tagious enthusiasm or a mightier determination.
He began work immediately. The British and American
Governments responded to his appeal for assistance, and ves-
.?h
From J'alj .:. \ M . . <,.'..
THE NIAGARA, VALOROUS, GORGON AND AGAMEMNON LAYIiNG THE
CABLE AT MID-OCEAN.
sels from each navy were detailed to make soundings of the
ocean bottom between Newfoundland and Ireland. The report
was exceedingly favorable, and Morse pronounced the project
entirely feasible. Sailing for England, Field organized the
Atlantic Telegraph Company, and set about securing financial
support. A quarter of the capital he supplied himself and had
no difficulty in obtaining the rest. He then enlisted the ser-
vices of Charles T. Bright, a young Englishman, as engineer
for the company; but even more important was the addition of
Professor William Thomson (afterward Lord Kelvin) of Glasgow
University as an enthusiastic member of the enterprise.
The next step was to manufacture the cable. Although the
distance to be covered was but 1,640 nautical miles, 2,500 miles
THE STORY OF THE TELEGRAPH 313
of cable were supplied. It consisted of seven copper wires in-
sulated with the newly discovered gutta-percha, wound about
with tarred hemp, the whole sheathed in a casing of heavy iron
wires.
To lay the cable England loaned the Agamemnon^ and the
United States the Niagara^ two of the largest warships then
afloat. On August 5, 1857, the two vessels, accompanied by
an escort of several smaller ones, steamed away from the Irish
SECTION OF THE ATLANTIC CABLE OF 1866.
coast amid much ceremony and with high hopes for success.
For a time all went well. The paying-out machinery on the
Niagara worked without a hitch. Nearly 400 miles of cable
had been laid down. Then, as the stern of the Niagara was
lifted on a high wave, the cable parted, and could not be recov-
ered. It was terribly disheartening. There was nothing to do
but return to port and abandon the enterprise, at least for that
year.
A half-million dollars had been lost, and many now believed
the task impossible, but a second attempt was made in the fol-
lowing June. Improved paying-out machinery was installed,
also a device for automatically releasing the cable if the strain
became too great. This time the departure from Plymouth was
made without ceremony. It was decided that the ships should
proceed to mid-ocean, splice the cable, and lay it down in op-
posite directions.
On the way out the fleet encountered a terrific storm. It
was so severe and lasted for more than a week that, day after
day, it seemed as if nothing could save the Agamemnon and her
precious cargo from being sent to the bottom. At length the
314
COMMUNICATION
fury of the gale spent itself, and the ships met in safety at the
appointed spot. The cable was spliced and the machinery be-
gan to pay it out. When scarcely three miles had been laid the
cable parted. The ships returned, respliced the cable and made
a new start. But at a distance of fifty miles, without warning,
the cable again broke. For the third time the gallant ships re-
AN OLD PRINI' ll.l.l STR/VriNG THE ARRIVAL Ol- 1111'. (.REAT EASTERN,
CARRYING THE ATLANTIC CABLE, IN NEWFOUNDLAND, JULY 27, 1866.
turned to the rendezvous, and another splice was made. They
proceeded very carefully. About 2oo miles of cable had been
laid. Optimism was running high. Every member of the en-
terprise felt that, at last, success would crown their efforts.
Then, without apparent cause, the cable snapped twenty feet
behind the Agamemnon.
Many of the stockholders were now in favor of abandoning
the project; but the counsel of Field and Thomson prevailed,
and it was decided to make a third attempt immediately. It
was destined to succeed. Although the precious cable was
threatened by icebergs and, in one instance, by a whale which
THE STORY OF THP: TELEGRAPH 315
grazed it in passing, the Niagara landed her end in Trinity Bay,
Newfoundland, August 5, 1858, and on the same day the v^^^-
memnon landed hers in Valentia Harbor. All through, telegraph
communication had been maintained from ship to ship, and
now for the first time in history messages were cabled from coast
to coast. Queen ^^ictoria and President Buchanan exchanged
Courtesy U. S. Signal Corps.
FORWARD CABLE MACHINERY, U. S. CABLE SHIP BURNSIDE.
greetings. On either ocean side the promoters were regarded
as heroes, and honors were heaped upon them. But in the midst
of these celebrations, when the cable was scarcely a month old,
the last message passed over it. Ignorance on the part of the
electrician in charge of the electrical requirements of cable
transmission resulted in the use of too high voltages, and the in-
sulation had been ruined.
The Great Eastern is Chartered for Cable Work
Undaunted, Field still persisted. However, with the Civil
War approaching at home, and the numerous disasters fresh in
the public mind, he took no part in the project for a number of
316 COMMUNICATION
years. In 1865, however, he organized another company, the
necessary capital again being mostly raised in England, and
chartered the famous Great Eastern, a mammoth ship too large
for the commerce of that day. The expedition sailed from Va-
lentia Bay in July of that year, and succeeded without mishap
in covering nearly two-thirds of the distance, when the Great
Eastern s machinery broke down. As she was tossed by the
Courtesy U. S. Signal Corps.
LANDING SHORE END OF CABLE FROM BURNSIDE, PHILIPPINE ISLANDS.
waves, the cable parted and was lost. Surely fate seemed
against the undertaking.
A man of less steadfast faith and courage would have given
up. But Field's purpose was unshakable. A new company
was organized and on July 13, 1866, the Great Easteryi started on
her second venture. This time it was crowned with success,
and in just two weeks the cable was safely landed on the New-
foundland shore. From that day to this the world has never
been without transatlantic cable service. With little delay the
Great Eastern sailed back to recover the lost cable of the previous
year. After hooking the cable twenty-nine times, and as often
losing It, the thirtieth effort brought it to the surface. It was
spliced with new cable and carried in safety to the cable station
at Heart's Content, Newfoundland.
Cyrus W. Field, after years of diasppointment, had finally
succeeded. It was an achievement worthy of monumental
THE STORY OF THE TELEGRAPH 317
honors. Thanks to his patient determination, submarine cables
now bind together in friendly intercourse the Old World and
the New.
Instruments Used in Submarine Cabling
The mechanics of submarine telegraphy are much more
complicated than are those on land. A long cable has its metal-
lic core, insulating sheath, and the salt water outside acts like
a huge Leyden jar or condenser. The current flowing in the
core induces, in the water, opposing currents which enormously
(Left) KEYBOARD PERFORATOR OF A CABLE OFFICE.
(Right) SIPHON RECORDER THAT RECEIVES THE MESSAGE.
retard the speed of transmission. Furthermore, the currents
are very weak. This is necessary because of the great resistance
of such a long conductor, and the fact that only comparatively
small voltages — not over eighty volts — can be used. In one
sense the success of submarine telegraphy really depended upon
the ability to devise an instrument delicate enough to detect
these feeble currents. It was accomplished by Sir William
Thomson's mirror galvanometer.
This instrument is essentially the same as our very sensitive
spot-light galvanometers of to-day. The current from the
cable was passed through a coil of many turns of fine, silk-covered
wire. In the heart of the coil in a little air-chamber, suspended
by a delicate fibre of silk floss, was a small round mirror. On
the back of the mirror were four tiny magnets. The magnetic
318 COMMUNICATION
field from the currents in the coil caused the tiny magnets to
turn the mirror one way or the other, depending upon the direc-
tion of the current. Upon the mirror was focussed a beam of
light which, in turn, was reflected to a white screen. As the
mirror rotated with the changing cable currents, this beam of
light moved back and forth on the screen tracing out the dots
and dashes of the code. In cable transmission, positive and
negative currents are alternately sent to the line; that is, the
cable current is constantly reversed. A deflection in one direc-
tion means a dot and in the other a dash.
So delicate a recording instrument is the mirror galvanom-
eter that the feeblest currents will operate it. When the first
two Atlantic cables had been successfully laid they were con-
nected together at Newfoundland and the current from a tiny
cell, consisting of a lady's silver thimble, a bit of zinc, and a
few drops of sulphuric acid, sent through them. Even the sig-
nals from this infinitesimal current traversed the ocean twice,
and were successfully received by the mirror galvanometer.
But, though this was a remarkable invention, it did not re-
cord the message. Again Sir William Thomson was equal to
the emergency and met it with the siphon recorder. The feeble
cable currents would not operate heavy sounders nor any of
the printing devices used on land lines. Whatever was to be
the recording device, it must require but very slight energy to
set it in motion. Just as its name indicates, in this second in-
vention Sir William Thomson used a real ink-carrying siphon
to record the message. The cable currents passed through a
coil of very fine wire, delicately suspended between the poles of
a strong permanent steel magnet. By means of slender fila-
ments the motion of this coil was communicated to the long arm
of a fine glass siphon. The short arm of the siphon dipped into
a reservoir of ink and the other end glided back and forth across
a strip of moving tape. Thus, as the currents corresponding
to the dots and dashes deflected the coil first in one direction
and then the other, the record was written on the tape in a
characteristic wavy line.
Cables are the arteries of international communication.
Seventeen of them pass beneath the Atlantic. Two cross the
Pacific. They thread the Mediterranean and the Red Sea to
THE STORY OF THE TELEGRAPH 319
India and the Far East. They creep beneath the arms of the
seven seas, and skirt the continents. In all, this small planet
boasts, approximately, i,8oo government and privately owned
submarine cables, measuring nearly a quarter of a million nauti-
cal miles. Over them pass 40,000 cablegrams a day. They
bring the remote regions of the earth into contact with the
great centres of life and commerce.
CHAPTER IV
TALKING OVER A WIRE. THE STORY OF THE TELEPHONE
ON the afternoon of June 2, 1875, in the hot stuffy attic of
Charles WilHams' electrical shop at 109 Court Street,
Boston, a man and an apprentice lad were hard at work over
a balky piece of electrical mechanism. For many weeks the
two had been engaged on the invention of a telegraph by which
they hoped to be able to send a number of messages over a
single wire at the same time. But it was something more than
this; it was to be a "harmonic" telegraph which would send, not
click-like signals, but musical notes. Despite every effort, the
device stubbornly refused to operate as its inventor had long
hoped and steadfastly believed it would. And yet on this mem-
orable afternoon, without knowing it, they were about to make
history. A new instrument was to take its place in human
affairs. Inventive genius was to be rewarded in the birth of
the telephone.
The man was Alexander Graham Bell, a young Scotsman
who had come to Canada in 1870 to seek health and fortune in
a new land. In 1872 he moved to Boston, and continued his
experiments with sound-transmission. His assistant was Thomas
A. Watson, an employee in the electrical shop of Charles Wil-
liams. As described by Watson, Bell was at this time "a tall,
slender, quick-motioned man with pale face, black side-whiskers
and drooping mustache, big nose, and high sloping forehead
crowned with bushy, jet-black hair." For generations his an-
cestors had been interested in human speech. Bell himself
was a master of the science of sound and an elocutionist of some
note. While a mere lad he and his brother Melville had in-
vented a talking device that gave a very good imitation of the
word "mam-ma." Melville made the lungs and vocal cords
and Graham the mouth and tongue.
Adopting the profession of his family, Bell became a teacher
of deaf-mutes. He taught a system of "visible speech" (teach-
320
TALKING OVER A WIRE 321
ing speech by lip-movement), invented by his father. After
completing his education he went to London where he made the
acquaintance of Sir Charles Wheatstone, the inventor of the
English telegraph. On this occasion he learned that the Ger-
man physicist Helmholtz had vibrated tuning-forks by means
of electromagnets. Fascinated, as he always was with any-
thing relating to sound, this fact deeply impressed Bell. If an
electric current could be made to vibrate a tuning-fork, why
should not a vibrating reed or fork be made to vary an electric
current so as to reproduce sound ? Reasoning in this way. Bell
conceived the idea of a musical telegraph. Why should it not
be possible to send as many messages over a single wire as there
are notes on a piano ? This was the idea with which Bell
started, and from it developed the telephone.
Shortly after coming to America Bell was engaged by the
Board of Education of Boston to introduce his system of visible
speech in a school for deaf-mutes that had just been established
in that city. His work met with great success, and he was soon
appointed to a professorship in Boston University. Later he
established a school of his own and, absorbed in his professional
work, he had little time to think of a musical telegraph. Still
the idea persisted.
How Bell's Two Pupils Helped Him
About this time there came into Bell's life two young people
destined to have a profound effect upon his future career. He
received as a private pupil a little deaf-mute, Georgie Sanders,
who lived with his grandmother in Salem. As part payment
for his services Bell went to live in the Sanders' home, where he
was allowed to have a workshop in the basement. He also
made a warm friend of the boy's father, Thomas Sanders, with-
out whose sympathy and financial assistance the invention of
the telephone would have been impossible. There also came to
him at this time another private pupil, Mabel Hubbard, a girl
of fifteen who had lost her hearing in infancy. Not only did
she take the keenest interest in his electrical experiments, but
four years later she became his wife, and her father, Gardiner
G. Hubbard, a prominent lawyer of Boston, did more than any
other one man to make a commercial success of the telephone.
322 COMMUNICATION
Gradually the idea of a musical telegraph thrust every other
thought from Bell's mind. He abandoned his school. Only
two pupils remained, Georgie Sanders and Mabel Hubbard.
Their fathers financed his work, for they had faith in Bell and
believed that his idea would bring fame to him and wealth to
them all. A new era would be inaugurated in the art of com-
munication.
In his laboratory at Salem, Bell worked incessantly. Sleep
was a secondary consideration. Sanders says: "Bell would often
awaken me in the middle of the night, his black eyes blazing
with excitement. Leaving me to go down to the cellar, he
would rush wildly to the barn and begin to send me signals
along his experimental wires. If I noticed any improvement
in his apparatus he would be delighted. He would leap and
whirl around in one of his 'war dances,' and then go contentedly
to bed. But if the experiment was a failure he would go back
to his work-bench to try some different plan."
Slowly there dawned upon Bell's mind a still larger idea.
"If I can make a deaf-mute talk," he said, "I can make iron
talk." At first only a dream, this idea of sending the spoken
word itself over an electrified wire grew into a deep conviction.
His interest in a musical telegraph began to vanish. With an
enthusiasm scarcely ever equalled. Bell set himself to the in-
vention of an actual talking telegraph. But Sanders and Hub-
bard had no faith in his new project, and refused further assis-
tance unless he should devote at least a part of his time to the
musical telegraph. Therefore he divided his time between the
two inventions, working faithfully for a portion of each day
upon his original idea. But his heart was in the telephone.
Bell's Experiments with a Dead Man's Ear
At the same time Bell had been trying to improve his system
of visible speech. In these experiments he used a speaking-
trumpet as transmitter, and a harp as receiver. In this way he
discovered that he could make sound waves plainly visible by
speaking against a drum or membrane to which he had attached
a short pointer, or stylus. Doctor Clarence J. Blake of Boston
suggested the use of a human ear, and provided for Bell's use
TALKING OVER A WIRE
323
one that he had taken from a corpse. Bell then constructed an
apparatus, of which the dead ear formed a part, and which
made it possible for the spoken voice to trace a record of its
vibrations in beautiful curves on smoked glass. In the gray
light of his basement laboratory Bell must have presented a
BELL'S "HARMONIC TELEGRAPH."
It was with this instrument that Alexander Graham Bell began the series of experiments which
finally culminated in the invention of the telephone. Instead of sending signals over a
wire, which would be received as intelligible clicks, Bell conceived the idea of sending musical
notes which could be identified by their pitch. Clock-spring reeds were vibrated electro-
magnetically, very much like the clappers of house-bells. One day a clock-spring became
attached to its magnet, with the result that a feeble sound was heard at the receiving end,
the current flowing continuously through the line. By accident the fundamental principle
of the telephone was thus discovered.
diabolical appearance as he shouted into this dead man's ear.
The inhabitants of Salem might well have thought that the
witches of old had come back to disturb once more their peace-
ful town. Here was a delicate ear-drum which, in response to
the sound waves of the human voice, set into vibration the
heavy bones behind it. "Why," he asked himself, "should not
a vibrating iron disk set an iron rod or an electrified wire into
vibration?" How this was to be accomplished, he did not
know, but he felt he was moving in the right direction.
Just at this point, while on a visit to Washington, Bell met
324 COMMUNICATION
the venerable Joseph Henry, who for a generation had been the
pioneer of electrical science in America. From Henry, Bell re-
ceived the utmost encouragement. Replying to Bell's state-
ment that he did not possess sufficient electrical knowledge to
perfect the telephone, Henry said: "Get it." This was just the
spur that Bell needed. He returned to his workshop with a
mighty determination to succeed.
Like Morse, of telegraph fame. Bell's early days were beset
with poverty. His professional income had practically van-
BELL'S ORIGINAL INSTRUMENTS NOW PRESERVED IN THE NATIONAL
MUSEUM, WASHINGTON.
The transmitter and receiver were of substantially similar construction. About one pole of a
permanent bar magnet was wound a coil of fine copper wire. In front of the pole was
mounted a soft-iron disk, to which the mouthpiece was attached. The sound waves of
the voice, striking the sending disk, made it vibrate. This vibration caused the line cur-
rent to vary. The disk of the receiving instrument vibrated in sympathy with these elec-
trical variations in the line.
ished. His two remaining pupils barely supplied him with the
necessities of life. Sanders and Hubbard provided funds for
his experimental work only. Writing to his mother at this
time, he says:
"I am now beginning to realize the cares and anxieties of
being an inventor. I have had to put off all pupils and classes,
for flesh and blood could not stand much longer such a strain
as I have had upon me."
This was in 1874. Bell was now established in the attic of
Williams' electrical shop in Boston. Sanders and Hubbard
were paying his assistant, Thomas A. Watson, nine dollars a
week, and the inventors were dividing their time between the
musical telegraph and the telephone.
TALKING OVER A WIRE
325
The Telephone is Invented
We now come to the memorable afternoon with which we
began this chapter. Alexander Graham Bell's telegraph com-
prised, among other things, clock-spring reeds which were vi-
brated by electromagnets, very much like the clappers of elec-
(Left) THE FIRST TELEPHONE THAT TALKED.
This is the transmitter used by Bell when on March lo, 1876, he telephoned to his assistant:
"Watson, please come here, I want you."
(Right) BELL'S EXPERIMENTAL TELEPHONE (1875).
After having discovered the principle of the telephone accidentally with the aid of his "harmonic"
telegraph, Bell instructed his assistant, Watson, to build this instrument. The armature of
the electromagnet had the form of a hinged iron lever, carrying a stud at one end, which
pressed against the centre of a stretched membrane of goldbeater's skin. Speech sounds
were actually transmitted with this instrument in 1875, but it served chiefly the purpose
of revealing the feasibility of the plan.
trie house-bells. Watson was sending, and Bell receiving. As
Watson pressed down the key at his end, to make the clock-
spring at the sending end of the wire vibrate, the contact points
fused together. As a result, the clock-spring was simply held
down by its electromagnet, just as an ordinary horseshoe magnet
attracts and holds a needle. Watson tried to pluck the spring
free. This made it vibrate over the electromagnet. Bell, with
326 COMMUNICATION
blazing eyes and alive with excitement, came rushing into the
room. A feeble sound had at last passed over the wire, and his
keen ear had caught it. "What did you do then?" he de-
manded of Watson. "Don't change anything. Let me see.'*
The first faint cry of the baby telephone had passed into his-
tory. In that moment a new epoch in the art of communica-
tion was ushered in. The fundamental principle of the modern
telephone was operating in that simple apparatus. By accident
the current was flowing continuously through the electromagnets
and the line. The plucking of the spring had varied the in-
tensity of this current and thrown into vibration the corre-
sponding clock-spring at the receiving end of the line.
The discovery, one of the greatest in all history, had been
made. The rest was a mere matter of detail and mechanical
perfection. It seems easy now. But the inventors worked for
forty long weeks before they made their telephone talk. The
very afternoon of the discovery Bell gave Watson directions
for making the first telephone. Watson says: "I was to mount
a small drumhead of gold-beater's skin over one of the receivers,
join the centre of the drumhead to the free end of the receiver-
spring, and arrange a mouthpiece over the drumhead to talk
into. I made every part of that first telephone myself, but I
didn't realize while I was working on it what a tremendously
important piece of work I was doing."
Forty weeks of patient experimentation and then, on March
10, 1876, Watson heard distinctly through the telephone-receiver
this message: "Mr. Watson, please come here, I want you."
It was a message that proved to be as immortal as Morse's:
"What hath God wrought?"
Progress now became rapid and certain. Watson says:
"The telephone was soon talking so well that one didn't have
to ask the other man to say it over again more than three or
four times before one could understand quite well, if the sen-
tences were simple."
The fates were kind to Bell. The stage had already been
set for the coming of his invention. The Centennial Exposition
was just opening in Philadelphia, and this afforded precisely the
opportunity that he needed. Bell had not expected to attend
the exposition himself. Overcome at the grief of his fiancee.
TALKING OVER A WIRE 327
when at the railroad station she learned that he would not ac-
company her. Bell rushed madly after the moving train and
climbed aboard.
Hubbard had secured for Bell a small table in an out-of-the
way corner of the Education Building for the exhibition of his
apparatus. No one visited him. No one was interested in his
invention. It was only a "toy." What if speech could be sent
over a wire ? Of what value could that be ? No one had the
vision to see the tremendous possibilities hidden within this
crude piece of mechanism. But Bell patiently awaited the
judges' tour of inspection. At last they came. It was just at
dusk. Tired and hungry after a long day of continuous inspec-
tion, they were in no mood to waste time over a useless plaything.
One or two approached the table, picked up the instrument,
fingered it listlessly. As the judges were about to pass on, there
was enacted a scene worthy of the brush and genius of a master
artist. Dom Pedro, the young emperor of Brazil, followed by
a company of gaily attired attendants appeared, and, rushing up
to Bell, greeted him with great fervor. Dom Pedro had visited
Bell's school for deaf-mutes years before and had been pleased
by his system of visible speech. He was intensely interested in
the new invention. Walking to the other end of the line, Dom
Pedro placed the receiver to his ear. Bell spoke and the em-
peror dropped the instrument, exclaiming: "My God, it talks."
There in the twilight stood the judges, awed and silent wit-
nesses of this picturesque but momentous event. One by one
they came forward, utterly forgetful of weariness and hunger,
each in his turn eager to test this latest marvel of science and
invention. There were Joseph Henry and Sir William Thom-
son, the latter declaring it to be "the most wonderful thing he
had seen in America." From that moment Bell's telephone be-
came the most popular exhibit of the exposition, and overnight
its inventor leaped to world fame.
Bell's original telephone was exceedingly simple. About one
pole of a permanent bar magnet was wound a coil of fine copper
wire. One end of the wire was grounded, while the other went
to the line. In front of the pole was mounted a soft iron disk
to which was attached the mouthpiece. The receiver was of
identical construction. The sound waves of the voice, striking
328 COMMUNICATION
upon the sending disk, made it vibrate. This vibration caused
the current in the line to vary. The disk of the receiving instru-
ment was vibratea in sympathy with these electrical variations
in the line. Hence the receiving disk vibrated exactly as the
sending disk vibrated when words were spoken against it. The
receiving disk therefore talked. In other words, Bell first
changed sound into electrical current, and then changed the
current back again into sound. The same instrument served
both for transmitter and receiver. But simple as these instru-
ments were, they worked on the same principle as those of
to-day.
Introducing the Telephone to the Public
Although the telephone had taken rank as among the most
wonderful bits of mechanism ever produced, the interest in it
was still only that of curiosity. No one could see any possible
use for it. Its inventor had won fame, not fortune. The pub-
lic, remaining sceptical, had to be educated. To this task of
winning popular favor Gardiner G. Hubbard immediately de-
voted himself. With an enthusiasm and a breadth of vision
rarely equalled elsewhere in the history of invention, he became
the apostle of the telephone.
Hubbard's first step was to arrange a series of ten lectures
to be given by Bell and Watson. The first demonstration was
given before the Essex Institute of Salem. Having no lines of
their own they obtained permission to use a telegraph line for the
occasion. Bell gave the lecture while Watson, located in the
Boston laboratory, provided the entertainment. At the re-
quest of Bell, Watson played various musical instruments, and
although not a singer, he was required to render such favorite
songs as "Auld Lang Syne" and "Do Not Trust Him, Gentle
Lady." The audience was delighted. Newspaper editors fea-
tured the performance. Invitations to repeat the lecture came
like a fiood. And yet the interest was chiefly that of curiosity.
Still these lectures did bear fruit. They acquainted the public
with the uses and purposes of the telephone, and on the small
admission returns Bell was able to marry and to sail for Europe
on his wedding trip.
On the occasion of one of these lectures Watson invented
TALKING OVER A WIRE
329
the first telephone-booth. In order to make hls^ audiences
hear, he was compelled to shout into the mouthpiece of the
By courtesy of Munn 'o Company. From ihe Scienti/ic American of March 31, 1877.
INTRODUCING THE TELEPHONE TO THE PUBLIC.
The public had to be taught the principle and function of the telephone. Hence Gardner Hub-
bard, Bell's father-in-law, arranged a series of lectures to be given by Bell and Watson.
The first demonstration was given before the Essex Institute of Salem, in 1877. Watson,
in Boston, played musical instruments and sang. The audience was delighted.
transmitter. This annoyed his landlady, and strained rela-
tions had already arisen between them. Knowing that on the
Boston-New York trial he would be required to use an extraor-
330 COMMUNICATION
dinary amount of lung power, Watson removed the blankets
from his bed and arranged them In a sort of loose tunnel. In
this soundproof booth he was able to shout as loudly as he
pleased without fear of being heard.
The Bell Company and the Western Union
While Bell was In Europe Hubbard organized the "Bell
Telephone Association," with Bell, Hubbard, Sanders, and
Watson as partners. The first out-of-doors telephone-line to
be established was between the Williams' electrical shop In
Boston and Mr. Williams' home In Somervllle. Then the un-
expected happened. A man from Charlestown, named Emery,
came Into Hubbard's office one afternoon In May, 1877, and
laid down twenty dollars for the lease of two telephones. It
was the first money ever received for a commercial telephone.
In the promise It gave of future rewards It seemed like a million
dollars. In that same month, too, the first crude exchange was
established In Boston. Six telephones were loaned to Mr.
Holmes, the proprietor of a burglar-alarm system, who installed
them In six banks and connected them to a central station.
Very soon exchanges were established in New York, New Haven,
Bridgeport and Philadelphia. By August, 778 telephones were
in use. The demand for them was so great that they could not
be supplied. They were also expensive to manufacture, and,
despite the appearance of prosperity, the company was on the
verge of financial ruin. The only member of the company who
had money was Sanders, and his fortune was not large.
Not realizing the value of his invention Bell had already
ofl^ered It to the powerful Western Union Telegraph Company
for $100,000. But the ''scientific toy" was rejected. The
Western Union never dreamed that Its monopoly of wire com-
munication could be shaken until several of Its New York pa-
trons removed the printing telegraph-machines from their offices
and replaced them with telephones. Alarmed at this Invasion
of their private domain, the Western Union sat up and took
notice. They at once organized the "American Speaking-
Telephone Company," with a capital of $300,000, and enlisted
the services of Gray, Edison, and Dolbear as electrical experts
and inventors.
TALKING OVER A WIRE
331
Bell's Rival Claimants
On March 7, 1876, Bell had been granted a patent on his
invention. This has been described as "the most valuable
single patent ever issued." It is a remarkable fact that on the
(Left) THE FIRST MAGNETO CALL.
The original method of calling a subscriber was by thumping on the transmitter diaphragm
with the butt end of a lead-pencil. Then Watson devised a special kind of "thumper,"
which was operated by turning a button on the outside of the telephone-box. He followed
this with the magneto-electric call-bell, still widely used on country lines, and of which
this is the first model.
(Right) EARLY "CENTRAL" SWITCHBOARDS.
ORIGINAL TELEPHONE EXCHANGE SWITCH BDARS
. PRGPEi\TY OP E.T.HOlyMEg. \
1 PiRg-? TElySPMONE EXSHAHC^B.
: ' BO^TOW, f.JAY. 1877. j
m
1^^ PI ^ w^ w^ w>.
THE FIRST TELEPHONE SWITCHBOARD.
E. T. Holmes, of Boston, proprietor of a burglar-alarm system, had six telephones installed in
six banks, and connected with a central station. This was in 1877. Hence the first "cen-
tral" was a switchboard by day and a burglar alarm by night.
same day that Bell filed his application for a patent, Elisha
Gray filed a claim for a similar one. Gray had risen from a
blacksmith's apprentice to a professorship in Oberlin College.
He had invented a musical telegraph that really worked, and
later he claimed to be the rightful inventor of the telephone.
The Western Union, seizing upon these claims, began suit
332 COMMUNICATION
against the Bell Company to establish the rights of Gray. Al-
though beset with poverty, the little group of telephone pioneers
fought the attack with the help of the ablest lawyers of Boston.
It was conclusively demonstrated that Bell was the rightful in-
ventor of the telephone. The Western Union officers made
peace and surrendered to Bell a monopoly of the telephone field,
retaining for themselves similar privileges in the domain of
telegraphy.
The result was magical. The Bell stock shot up to $i,ooo a
share. At this point the original promoters sold out their in-
terests, each receiving a comfortable fortune, and turned the
development of the business over to other men.
But rival claimants did not cease their fight. Back in 1861
Philip Reis, the son of a poor baker in Frankfurt, Germany, had
invented an electrical contrivance that would carry a tune but
could never be made to talk. It worked upon the principle of
a make-and-break telegraph and not on the variation in the
intensity of the electric current. Professor Amos E. Dolbear
improved this device and claimed to be the original inventor of
the telephone. But after a long legal battle the courts decided
against him. When produced in court his telephone refused to
work, and, in extenuation, one of Dolbear's attorneys vouch-
safed: "It can talk, but it won't." In all, Bell and his company
were compelled to fight more than 600 lawsuits to maintain
their rights. No other patent has ever been more bitterly con-
tested, and no claim to a great invention more clearly proven.
Back in the midnight of financial chaos and legal battle,
Edison invented for the Western Union a transmitter that made
their instruments vastly superior to those of the Bell Company.
The principle consisted in varying the electric current by vary-
ing the pressure between two contact points. In 1876 a poor
German boy, Emil Berliner, who had come to this country a
few years before, became fascinated with the telephone and
started out to invent one on entirely new lines. The result was
a transmitter identical in principle with that of Edison, invented
but two weeks earlier. Since, however, Edison was in the
service of the Western Union, Berliner's claims were entirely
ignored. But fourteen years later the Supreme Court of the
United States declared Berliner to have been the original in-
TALKING OVER A WIRE
333
ventor of the transmitter. Edison, without any knowledge of
Berliner's device, greatly improved it by substituting soft car-
bon in place of steel for the contact points. Professor David E.
Hughes of Kentucky invented a carbon microphone which
Francis Blake of Boston changed into a practical transmitter.
The Blake transmitter was as good as Edison's, and the Bell
Company bought it, thus placing them on an equal footing with
(Left) EARLY BLAKE TRANSMITTER.
Professor David E. Hughes invented a carbon microphone which Francis Blake, of Boston,
changed into a practical transmitter.
(Right) A TELEPHONE CABLE BOUQUET.
This picture shows a section of a 1,200-pair cable. Such a cable contains 2,400 wires, encased
in a leaden sheath less than three inches in diameter.
the Western Union. The idea of using carbon in the form of
small granules was that of the Reverend Henry Hunnings, an
English clergyman. An expert of the Bell Company named
White developed the transmitter into its present form.
After the W^estern Union had failed in their attack on the
Bell patents, public confidence was captured and business grew
so rapidly that a general manager became necessary. For this
post, Hubbard selected a young man named Theodore N. Vail,
the general superintendent of the Railway Mail Service, whose
granduncle, Stephen Vail, had built the engines for the first
steamship to cross the Atlantic. In executive ability and sheer
334 COMMUNICATION
genius for organization Theodore Vail has never had a superior.
He came to a bankrupt company whose affairs were in utter
chaos. But his enthusiasm was unbounded; his faith in the
possibiHties of the telephone never faltered. In his prophetic
vision he saw the future as few men have ever done. In 1879 ^^
said: "I saw that if the telephone could talk one mile to-day,
it would be talking a hundred miles to-morrow." Under his
direction funds were raised, legal battles fought, agents licensed,
exchanges established, and many hundreds of miles of wire
strung. It was his dream to make the telephone business a
national institution. His employees were infected by his enthu-
siasm. "It was work without ceasing, days, nights, Sundays,
and holidays." Without Theodore N. Vail the Bell Company
might have died in infancy.
Telephone Apparatus and the Switchboard
When the telephone came into public use one of Watson's
first tasks was to devise some sort of signalling mechanism.
"It began to dawn on us," he said, "that people engaged in get-
ting their living in the ordinary walks of life couldn't be ex-
pected to keep the telephone at their ear all the time waiting
for a call, especially as it weighed about ten pounds then and
was as big as a small packing-case." The original method of
calling a subscriber was by thumping on the transmitter dia-
phragm with the butt end of a pencil. Then Watson devised
a special kind of "thumper" which was operated by turning a
button on the outside of the telephone-box. He followed this
shortly after with the familiar hand-operated magneto-electric
call-bell, still widely used on country lines.
In the early days of telephoning this notice was usually
posted at stations: "Don't talk with your ear, nor listen with
your mouth." This was the period, too, when all the farmers
waiting at a country grocery would rush out and hold their
horses when they saw any one preparing to telephone. But
the improved transmitter banished the single instrument for
both talking and receiving and greatly increased the efficiency
of transmission.
The early "centrals" were exceedingly crude. The first
telephone switchboards were built on the plan of telegraph-
TALKING OVER A WIRE
335
switchboards. They were good enough for a few lines, but not
for thousands. Boys, not girls, were employed as operators,
and the service was wretched. The boys ran about like mad
and pandemonium reigned. It required half a dozen boys and
as many minutes to answer a single call. Impudence was a
BOYS, NOT GIRLS, MANNED I'HE EARLY CENTRALS.
It required about half a dozen boys and as many minutes to answer a signal call. J. J. Carty,
now vice-president of the American Telephone & Telegraph Company, was once a switch-
board boy. This is a contemporaneous picture of the Cortlandt Exchange, New York, in
1879.
telephone characteristic; there was a never-ceasing babble of
noise, and tedious delays were the rule.
Then came a respite. The boys were banished and girls
took their places. More important still, Charles E. Scribner,
the "wizard of the switchboard," took his place among the
ranks of the telephone inventors. Scribner connected himself
with the Western Electric Company of Chicago, the largest
manufacturers of telephone equipment in the world. To the
genius of Scribner more than to any other one man we owe
the modern switchboard. In his perfection of it he has taken
out more than 1,000 patents. It is one of the most intricate
pieces of mechanism known to science. In its completed form
one of these distributors of human speech may have as many as
2,000,000 parts.
336
COMMUNICATION
A Modern Exchange or "Central'*
Let us enter a modern "exchange" and see how a Scrlbner
switchboard operates. In any large exchange there are two
sets of operators, the "A" and the "B." In a New York city
exchange each "A" operator tends about 40 or 50 lines direct
from the subscribers, and connects them through trunk lines
with the other exchanges of the city. If 5,000 lines enter this
Copyright by Harris y E'wing.
(Left) ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL.
(Right) C. E. SCRIBNER,
Who has patented more than 900 telephone inventions.
exchange there must be about loo "A" operators. The "B"
operators handle the calls coming to this exchange from the
other exchanges of the city. If there are 50 other exchanges,
there will be ^o "B" operators besides i or 2 to handle calls
from the "A" operators of this same exchange.
On the horizontal shelf in front of the "A" operator is a
double row of cords, a pair for each subscriber she attends. In
front of these is a double row of small electric lamps. One of
these lamps is connected with the circuit of the calling subscriber,
and the other with that of the subscriber called. In front of
the lamps is a row of listening keys; and in front of the keys a
TALKING OVER A WIRE 337
row of buttons for registering on the subscriber's meter every
call he makes. At the bottom of the upright panel are the rows
of subscribers' "jacks" (contact sockets, connecting with the
lines), and under each jack is a tiny electric lamp. Above them
is a large number of trunk-line jacks, one set leading to each of
the other exchanges of the city. To the immediate left of the
operator's position is a group of circuit calling-keys, by which
she puts herself temporarily in connection with the "B" oper-
ators at the other exchanges of the city.
At each of the "B" panels are jacks for all the subscribers'
lines that enter that exchange. In one New York city exchange
there are as many as 10,199. If there are 50 "B" operators,
each subscriber's line is "fanned out" into as many branches,
one for each operator. Then, to one "B" panel come all of
the trunk lines from some other one exchange of the city, these
lines ending in a row of cords on the horizontal shelf. To the
next panel come all the trunk lines from some other exchange,
and so on. In front of the row of cords at each position is a
row of small electric lamps.
You lift your receiver from the hook, and immediately a
signal lamp lights. The operator answers when she sees the
light. Suppose your exchange is Cortlandt, and you are calling
Spring 1709. Immediately the "A'' operator who answers your
call presses the Spring Exchange button at her left, and gives
the "B" operator there the number wanted, whereupon the
*' B " operator makes the connection desired. After either of the
subscribers hangs up his receiver, the signal lamp In front of the
"A" operator corresponding to his cord will light. When both
of the lamps light she knows that the conversation is ended,
and removes both cords from their jacks. This lights the signal
lamp before the "B" operator in the Spring Exchange, and she
removes the trunk line cord from Its jack. The lines are now
free for another call.
If a subscriber Is not answered by central at once, the mov-
ing up and down of the receiver-hook flashes the signal lamp,
calling the operator's attention. This may be done by either
party.
338 COMMUNICATION
The Automatic Girlless "Central"
A little more than thirty years ago there lived in Kansas
City, Mo., an undertaker named Almon B. Strowger. Strow-
ger got the idea that the switchboard operator of his local ex-
change was in conspiracy with one of his competitors to ruin
his business by falsely reporting his line "busy." The only
remedy for such a difficulty, he concluded, was a "girlless" ex-
change. Therefore he began spending his odd moments in
devising such a switchboard. A few days later Joseph Harris,
a travelling man from Chicago, came into Strowger's office.
Strowger told Harris of his idea and showed him a " foolish con-
traption" made from a collar-box, some pins, and a lead pencil.
Harris was immediately interested. Later he said, "Others
laughed at the 'crazy' undertaker, but his fool contraption
didn't seem funny to me."
Strowger moved to Chicago, where, in 1891, together with
Harris and a number of others, he formed a company called
the "Strowger Automatic Telephone Exchange." Fortunately
they interested in their enterprise Mr. A. E. Keith, a young
electrical engineer from the Brush Electrical Company of Bal-
timore. To the genius of Mr. Keith is due the modern auto-
matic "central," or machine-switching exchange.
To tell the story of the early struggles of this company would
require a volume. We may simply say that intelligent effort
and indomitable perseverance have won the day. The factory
of the company in Chicago employs 3,000 workers, and covers
ten acres of floor space. Their system covers the earth. Dozens
of cities in this and other countries have used machine-switching
exchanges for more than twenty years. Already New York
city has begun to convert her system to the automatic basis,
and in a few years' time the "hello" girl will be only a memory.
How does the automatic exchange work ? The engineer in
charge of the installation work in one of our largest cities told
the author he had studied the system night and day for three
weeks, before he felt that he understood it. Indeed, to see the
bewildering maze of lines, switches, and relays, and then watch
their automatic operation, one is staggered by the revelation
of such human ingenuity and mechanical perfection.
TALKING OVER A WIRE
339
The subscriber's instrument differs from the usual one only
in having at its base a calling device known as a "dial." The
small finger-holes of the dial contain the digits from i to 9 and
o; sometimes, they also contain letters. Lifting the receiver
RICHMOND (VA.) SWITCHBOARD OF 1S82.
Boys were soon banished from the central switchboards and girls took their places. The switch-
boards were improved, so that connections could be more easily made.
from the hook causes the "line switch" to connect the calling
line to a device known as a "selector" and to send back the
"dial tone" which corresponds to "number, please?" Now,
instead of giving the number in the usual way, the subscriber
"dials" it. He puts his finger in the hole of the dial corre-
340 COMMUNICATION
spending to the first digit of the desired number, brings it
around to the stop, releases it, and repeates the operation with
each of the other digits. DiaUing the first digit causes the "first
selector" to pick out an idle "second selector" in the proper
thousand group. The second digit causes this switch to select
the particular hundred group wanted. The third and fourth
digits control the "connector switch" which joins the calling
line to that of the called subscriber. At the same time it sends
the ringing current over the called line. If the line is busy, au-
tomatically the "busy tone" comes back to the person calling.
Placing the receiver on the hook, when the conversation is com-
plete, instantly breaks the connection and clears the apparatus
for another call.
So completely has the mechanism been developed that both
hand and automatic systems may be used in the same city at
the same time. Every detail has been perfected: coin-boxes,
toll-calls, long-distance, and "information." But in handling
long-distance and toll-calls, and for certain other services, the
assistance of operators is still required to a limited extent.
The cost of installation is greater for the automatic than for
the "girl" exchange, but, once installed, its operation is more
economical. The automatic system insures greater speed, ab-
solute secrecy, and it is always "on the job." It never sleeps,
never has special hours, never grows weary. It represents one
of the greatest triumphs of telephone engineering, and its uni-
versal adoption is bound to come in the near future.
General John J. Carty's Inventions
In 1880 a nineteen-year-old lad entered the employ of Thomas
Hall at 19 Bromfield Street, Cambridge, Mass. Thomas Hall
kept an electrical shop and the lad was John J. Carty, now vice-
president of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company.
He has been identified with the principal achievements in
developing the art of telephone communication in this country.
He has largely created the profession of telephone engineering.
Only the other day, as we shall presently see, he startled the
world with the greatest triumph in the art of communication
that has ever been known.
TALKING OVER A WIRE
341
Of that early experience in Hall's electrical shop, Carty says:
"I swept out the place, cleaned about there, did errands, mixed
battery solutions, and got a great deal of experience in one way
or another." As the result of a prank that he and the other
boys of the shop played on the boss, Carty was "fired." His
BEHIND THE SCENES IN A GIRLLESS CENTRAL.
Girls are giving place to machines in telephone exchanges. The subscriber operates a dial on
his telephone and the automatic machines make the connection. This is one of the automatic
centrals developed by the American Telephone and Telegraph Company along lines origi-
nally laid down by Strowger.
next job was as "hello boy" in a telephone exchange in Boston.
"The httle switchboards of that day," he says, "were a good
deal like the automobiles of some years ago — one was likely to
spend more time under the switchboard than sitting at it. In
that way I learned a great deal about the arrangement and con-
struction of switchboards." Eventually Carty got in touch
with Scribner, and as a result of this and his own later experi-
ence became expert in the construction and installation of
switchboards. Later he was placed in charge of the switch-
board department of the Western Electric Company.
His first great triumph was to overcome the babble of weird
342
COMMUNICATION
underground noises that day and night played over the tele-
phone circuits. He did this by substituting a return wire in
BROADWAY AND JOHN STREET, NEW YORK, IN 1890.
As the use of the telephone grew the streets of cities were threaded with a maze of telephone
wires. This is a view of Broadway and John Street in 1890. The danger of these over-
head wires was such, and the interruption to telephone traffic in storms so intolerable, that
the telephone company laid its wires in conduits underground.
place of the earth, which had been used to complete the circuit
in all of the early lines. The result was magical. The tanta-
lizing interruptions disappeared, and quiet has since reigned.
TALKING OVER A WIRE 343
Vail then brought Carty to New York and assigned him the
task of putting the maze of overhead wires in underground cables.
This he did in record time and at half the former cost, devising
in the process cheaper and better cables. For the individual
batteries along the line, he substituted the central battery sys-
tem. The "bridging bell" by which several subscribers may be
put on a single line without their signalling apparatus inter-
fering with the talking of the others was Carty 's work. These
are but a few of his many services.
Telephoning across the Continent
The telephone system grew with marvellous rapidity. In
1892 New York was talking with Chicago. The service was
soon extended to Milwaukee, Omaha, and then it took a still
longer stride to Denver. But, like the famous beanstalk of
fairy lore, the genie of the telephone system did not stop.
Presently the dream of transcontinental communication be-
came a fact. Over the hills and valleys, across the plains, up
the mountainsides, through the sagebrush, and down to the
Golden Gate in less than a second is now a commonplace of
the telephone romance.
Of tremendous importance to telephony was the invention
of the "loading coil" by Professor Michael Pupin, of Columbia
University. In 1874 Michael Pupin, a poor Serbian lad of
fifteen, landed at Castle Garden, New York city, with only
five cents in his pocket, and utterly unable to speak the English
language. His first encounter with American life was in the
shape of a fistic combat with Battery bootblacks, in which he
demonstrated his superiority as an amateur pugilist. After a
short period on a farm, where he learned to speak English, he
returned to New York. Suffering the bitter experiences of
poverty and wholly without influence, Pupin slowly worked his
way through Cooper Union and Columbia University. He par-
tially met his university expenses by giving lessons in wrestling
and boxing. After further study abroad he came back to a
professorship at Columbia, and has been a member of the
faculty since 1888.
His first discovery was the "tuning principle" in wireless,
344 COMMUNICATION
an invention which he sold to the Marconi Company for a
large sum. His next and most important invention was the
"loading coil" which first made it possible to telephone cheaply
over long distances. It is not easy to explain just what is a
"loading coil," nor what it does. Tie a heavy rope to a post;
shake it with your hand ever so little, and a wave runs along
the rope back and forth. Repeat the experiment with a thread.
The thread must be shaken harder to obtain a similar wave.
Suppose you hang weights from the thread and then shake it.
Now it becomes easier to get a response, a wave. Pupin's coils
are somewhat like these weights. They "load" the line and
make it easier to send electric waves. The idea of so "loading"
a telephone line was not original with Pupin. No one knew
just where the coils should be placed. There were thousands
of possible intervals, and it would have taken years to de-
termine the correct intervals by actual experiment. Pupin
worked out a mathematical formula, after many weary months,
which told him exactly where the coils should be placed. The
telephone company is said to have paid Pupin $500,000 for his
American patent rights. He probably made as much more out
of his European patents. In New York City alone, the Pupin
coils save the telephone company $3,543,000 a year, because
they made possible the substitution of small wires for large ones
in telephone cables.
Another invention which has been of tremendous importance
in the development of long-distance transmission as well as in
many recent developments of the telephone, is the Lee De
Forest vacuum-tube amplifier. This marvellous little device,
described in the chapter on radio communication, has been
brought to a high state of efficiency. It was invented by Lee
De Forest in 1906, and patented a year later. It controls and
magnifies the electric current sent out through the line, and
following its introduction the human voice travelled from New
York to San Francisco with remarkable clarity and speed.
The transcontinental line, opened on January 25, 19 15, is
3,390 miles long. At frequent intervals are vacuum-tube
amplifiers, or repeaters. There are two circuits, each consisting
of 6,780 miles of "hard drawn" copper wire, weighing 2,960
tons. In the loading coils of each circuit are 13,600 miles of fine
TALKING OVER A WIRE 345
insulated wire only four thousandths of an inch in diameter. The
line is strung on 130,000 poles and crosses 13 States.
ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL OPENING THE NEW YORK-CHICAGO
LINE, OCTOBER 18, 1892.
On the historic afternoon of January, 1915, Doctor Bell in
New York speaking into an exact reproduction of his original
instrument, was clearly heard by Watson in San Francisco.
346
COMMUNICATION
Doctor Bell said again, as on that other historic day, thirty-
nine years before: "Mr. Watson, please come here, I want
you." And Watson replied: "It would take me a week now."
INTERIOR OF THE "CHELSEA" EXCHANGE, NEW YORK.
A modern multiple switchboard of this type may be 250 feet long. It is divided into "A" sec-
tions and "B" sections which are on separate sides of the room. The "A" sections handle
only connections to be made with the exchange's own subscribers. Calls for subscribers
connected with other exchanges are switched to the "B" sections. These manually op-
erated switchboards will soon be obsolete, their place being taken by automatic machines.
What a magnificent chapter brimming over with glorious
achievement and marvellous progress this incident closed !
By Wire and Wireless
Immediately following the triumph of transcontinental te-
lephony. General Carty and his staff of engineers began the
development of wireless communication in conjunction with
wire-telephoning. How this was accomplished is told in detail
in another chapter in this book dealing with radio. Success,
however, was rapid and certain. On September 29, 191 5,
TALKING OVER A WIRE
347
Theodore N. Vail, sitting at his desk in New York, sent his voice
by wire to Arlington, where it was amplified and transmitted
to the great wireless naval station. From there, radiating with
MODERN MANUALLY OPKRATKD TELEPHONE SWITCHBOARD.
This is a detail of a "B" board. The operator is engaged in connecting a subscriber from
another exchange with the subscriber called.
the speed of light in all directions, the boundless ether carried
the electromagnetic waves to Carty at Mare Island, California,
where he heard and conversed with Vail as easily as though
they had been in adjoining rooms. The following day messages
were picked up in Honolulu, 5,000 miles distant.
348 COMMUNICATION
In May of 19 16, Secretary Daniels, sitting at his desk in
Washington, with magic ease and speed conversed at will with
every naval station from ocean to ocean, and from the Gulf to
the Lakes. Not only this, but the secretary, by wire and wire-
less, also talked with Captain Chandler of the New Hampshire
oft the Atlantic coast, and kept in communication with him for
twenty-four hours.
In the spring of 192 1, under the direction of Carty, telephone
communication was opened by cable from Havana, Cuba, to
Key West, a distance of 115 miles, thence by wire to Washing-
ton, New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, and then by
wireless 29 miles to Catalina; a total distance of 5,500 miles.
This is the longest submarine telephone cable in the world.
Late in 19 18, Theodore N. Vail announced the invention of
the "Multiplex Telephone," by which five conversations might
be carried on over the same circuit at the same time, four in
addition to the one provided by the ordinary methods. Five
messages travel over a common pathway and yet are completely
separated at the other end. All this has been accomplished by
means of magical vacuum tubes, each so adjusted that it re-
ceives only the words (currents) intended for it, and sends
them along. Each voice current impresses itself upon its own
"carrier current" and passes over the common line; yet the
voices never intermingle. Millions of dollars are thus saved in
copper wire to carry separate voices.
Some Facts and Figures
The telephone "talk tracks" of the nation measure approxi-
mately 33,200,000 miles of wire, 60 per cent of which are in un-
derground cables. The copper in them weighs 700,000 tons; the
overhead wires are strung on 30,200,000 poles. The wires in
the underground cables along Broadway, New York city, if
put on poles would require ten pole-lines, each as high as the
Woolworth Building, with the cross arms two feet apart and
ten wires to the cross arm.
The people of this country talk with one another at the rate
of 18,250,000,000 completed telephone conversations per year,
in addition to 3,000,000,000 conversations originated but not
TALKING OVER A WIRE
349
completed. In New York during the busiest hour of the day,
from lo A. M. to II A. M., more than 450,000 calls are origi-
nated and answered by the operators in the various exchanges
of the city. In New York alone there are 950,000 telephones,
and 3,341,000 miles of wire, weighing 65,000 tons. The em-
LOUD SPEAKER INSTALLED IN THE AUDITORIUM THEATRE, CHICAGO,
DURING A CONVENTION.
The orator talks from the desk. A transmitter picks up his voice. The voice is amplified and
projected into the hall by the big horns above. It is possible thus to address audiences
numbering fifty and even a hundred thousand, if they could be packed into an auditorium.
Fully 50,000 persons have distinctly heard orations out of doors on this principle.
ployees engaged in the telephone service of the metropolis would
make a city of 28,300 population. About 4,000,000 directories
are distributed to the public each year. These directories weigh
7,800 tons, and require an army of 500 men to do the work of
distribution.
What the telephone means to the world no man can correctly
gauge. It has established a miraculous communication. It has
banished isolation. Ocean now sounds to ocean, and continent
350 COMMUNICATION
to continent. The business, political, and social life of the na-
tion and of the world courses over the telephone circuits and
spreads through the ether.
In less than a half-century the first feeble cry of the baby
telephone grew into a voice which could be distinctly heard
throughout the length and breadth of the nation.
CHAPTER V
SIGNALLING AND TALKING BY RADIO
OUT of the horn or "loud-speaker" of the radio receiving-
apparatus wells the voice of a baritone, singing the pro-
logue from "I Pagliacci." It is as if he were in the room.
How does his voice reach us ? No wires connect the receiving
instrument with the broadcasting station; it can not be a physi-
cal connection. The windows are closed; therefore, it cannot
be the air. Besides, if it were the air, we would hear the voice
in the street.
When we try to explain why we hear we are exactly in the
position of scientists long before wireless communication was
even a fantastic possibility. They were puzzled by light.
What is light ? Why does it reach us through the airless spaces
that separate the earth from the blazing sun and the twinkling
stars ? Why does it pass through glass in which there is no air ?
At first, it was thought that light possibly consisted of minute
particles shot forth by burning candles or glowing stars. Among
those who held this view was Sir Isaac Newton. Because the
theory could not account for the colors in the rainbow or the tints
reflected from mother-of-pearl and the crystals of chandeliers, it
was dismissed. Early in the nineteenth century, it was decided
that light must be a wave motion in something. But in what ?
The scientists had to imagine a medium through which light
travelled in waves, just as waves travel in water. This medium,
which they called the "ether," is supposed to pervade all space.
Everything is plunged in the ether, including the atoms of
which air is composed.
Rock a boat from side to side, and waves are set up in water.
Atoms must rock to set up in the ether the waves that we call
light. We can rock a boat a few times a minute and set up
waves in water, but an atom must rock many millions of times
a second in order to generate ether waves that we call light.
When light was thus explained, it became easy also to ex-
35 i
352
COMMUNICATION
plain Its many hues. Color Is to light what pitch Is to sound —
a matter of frequency of vibration. Violet corresponds to the
highest pitch we can hear; the deepest visible red to the lowest
audible pitch; and pitch, in turn, Is dependent on the number
of times something vibrates or rocks in a second.
All this and much more was known about light when Michael
JAMES CLERK MAXWELL.
HEINRICH HERTZ.
Maxwell was an English physicist who first mathematically demonstrated the possible existence
of the waves now used in radio communication.
Hertz was a German professor who experimentally verified Maxwell's prediction of the existence
of invisible electromagnetic waves in the ether of space — the waves now used in radio com-
munication.
Faraday (1791-1867), who, according to Du Bois Raymond, an
eminent German scientist, was " the greatest experimentalist of
all times, and the greatest physical discoverer that ever lived,"
began to study an electrical phenomenon which he called "in-
duction," and found out much about it that we now apply in
radio communication.
In the whole history of science and Invention, no more ap-
pealing example of devotion to truth-seeking, of self-denial, en-
ergy, and resourcefulness is to be found. Other great scientists
had the advantage of a solid education. Faraday had no edu-
cation whatever. In the collegiate sense. He even had to teach
SIGNALLING AND TALKING BY RADIO 353
himself how to read and write. When, as a bookbinder's ap-
prentice, he did learn to read, instinctively he turned to works
on chemistry and electricity; which books prompted him to
action. He repeated the experiments described in the books,
going so far as to make himself an electrical machine with a
glass bottle as a foundation. And all this before he was four-
DOCTOR EDOUARD BR.\NLY.
SIR OLIVER LODGE.
Long before the days of the crystal and vacuum-tube detector Branly invented a detecting de-
vice known as the "coherer." This device was simply a glass tube filled with metal filings,
which cohered when the current from the receiving antenna passed through them, and there-
fore became conducting, and which were "decohered" by tapping them. Marconi used
such coherers in his early receivers.
Lodge introduced the principle of tuning (syntonization) in radio communication.
teen. His copious, boyish notes of lectures that he attended
are still preserved in the library of the Royal Institution: mute
testimony of a dauntless spirit struggling against the enormous
odds of poverty and lack of education to acquaint itself with
the science of the day. Such was Faraday's thirst for knowl-
edge that he was willing to forego all hope of gain. He wrote
to Sir Humphry Davy asking for a post of some kind in the
Royal Society. "What can I do?" said Davy, when he read
his letter. "Do ?" queried the man to whom he addressed him-
self. "Do? Put him to washing bottles."
354 COMMUNICATION
But Davy did more than that. Faraday was engaged at
the pittance of twenty-five shilHngs a week to "attend and as-
sist the lecturers and professors for and during the lectures,"
and to make himself generally useful. His rise from a labora-
tory nonentity to the foremost scientific figure of his time was
rapid.
The part that Faraday played in the discovery of electrical
principles is dwelt upon in the chapter on electricity. In that
chapter Oersted's discovery is mentioned — the discovery that an
electric current in a moving wire can affect a magnetic needle.
Faraday began to think of the experiment. It proved that there
is some relation between electricity and magnetism. If an
electric current could influence a magnet, could a magnet, con-
versely, generate a current in a dead wire ? Faraday thought
so. It took him seven years to obtain the evidence that he
sought. One day he thrust a bar magnet into a coil of wire
with which an electrical indicator (a galvanometer) was con-
nected. The needle of the instrument swung in one direction
when the magnet was inserted, and in the other when it was
removed. A current had clearly been "induced" in the dead
coil, as the instrument proved. He found, too, that a moving
electrified wire could similarly "induce" a current in a dead
wire with which it was not in contact.
How was this phenomenon to be explained ? This seemed
to be a case of "action at a distance." Yet the effect of the bar
or of the current in the live wire had to be transmitted by
something. "Action at a distance" was a phrase that ex-
plained nothing. Faraday showed that the action, whatever it
was, always occurred along definite lines, but the "something"
by which the action was transmitted through space he could
not divine.
Maxwell Begins His Study of Electric Waves
IN Space
It remained for another great Englishman, James Clerk
Maxwell, to reveal the true nature of the "something," the me-
dium that transmitted electrical effects through space. Max-
well was primarily a mathematician. He reasoned rigorously
on paper with symbols and formulas. Unlike Faraday, he was
SIGNALLING AND TALKING BY RADIO 355
a graduate of a university, in fact, of two universities: Edin-
burgh and Cambridge. Maxwell was a born mathematician,
and at fifteen he was making contributions to higher mathe-
matics. He thought mathematics by day, and dreamed mathe-
matics by night. Doctor Garnett, his biographer, thus describes
his curious habits at one time of his life:
"From 2 to 2.30 A. M. he took exercise by running along the
upper corridor down the stairs, along the lower corridor, then
up the stairs, and so on until the inhabitants of the rooms along
his track got up and laid perdus behind their sporting doors, to
have shots at him with boots, hair-brushes, etc., as he passed."
So attracted was this profound mathematician by Faraday's
work, that an article of his contributed to the ninth edition of
the Encyclopedia Britannica remains to this day one of the
most eloquent and just appraisals of Faraday's position as an
experimental scientist.
It was the mathematical explanation of Faraday's discovery
of induction, the revelation of what the mysterious "something"
is that transmits electrical effects at a distance, with which
Maxwell's name is immortally linked. He read Faraday's de-
scription of the induction experiments with something like
deep, religious reverence. He saw how little the great experi-
mentalist relished the idea of "action at a distance."
Maxwell thought that electricity might possibly be trans-
mitted by that same ether which scientists had created in their
minds to explain the transmission of light. He undertook a
profound mathematical study of the way in which light flashes
through space. He was irresistibly forced to the conclusion
that light waves are electromagnetic waves. But Faraday was
also dealing with electromagnetic waves.
Might there not be electromagnetic waves that could be
seen, what was called "light," and also electromagnetic waves
that could not be seen ? Was that the explanation ? And was
the "something" that transmitted Faraday's effect through
space, nothing but the old, familiar ether ? The questions al-
most answered themselves. Maxwell boldly announced that
Faraday's "something" that "induced" electrical effects at a
distance was nothing but the ether. It was known that light
travelled at the stupendous rate of 186,000 miles a second.
356 COMMUNICATION
Maxwell predicted that if the electrical wave motion with which
Faraday experimented could be measured, it, too, would be
found to travel at the speed of 186,000 miles a second. He even
went so far as to maintain that the electric waves could be re-
flected and refracted like light.
Maxwell developed this view in a classic book of his called
Electricity and Magnetism, which appeared in 1873. Such was
his reputation in Europe as a leading mathematician of his
time, such was the convincing nature of his mathematical proof,
that his theory was accepted.
And yet, it was only a theory. No one realized this better
than Maxwell, but so sure was he of his conclusions that he
looked forward with confidence to the experimental proof of his
views. He did not live to see them triumphantly vindicated;
for he died in 1879 when only forty-eight.
Why can we see the electromagnetic waves that we call
light but not the electromagnetic waves with which Faraday
experimented in his induction researches ? For the same reason
that we can hear only a few notes. If a sound consists of less
than sixteen vibrations a second, we hear merely its separate
thuds; if it consists of 10,000 vibrations a second we hear
it as a very shrill, high-pitched note; if it consists of more than
32,000 vibrations a second we cannot hear it at all. Something
must rock or vibrate at least 400 million million times a second
in order that we may see what we call light. But the waves
about which Maxwell reasoned mathematically are produced
when something rocks or vibrates 10,000 to 3,000,000 times a
second. In other words, some electromagnetic waves could not
be seen because they were generated at frequencies so low that
the eye could not respond to them. Stated in another way,
Maxwell's waves cannot be seen because they are too long; for
the length of a single wave may be anything between a few
inches and a score of miles. On the other hand, the waves of
visible light are so short that from 30,000 to 60,000 of them are
compassed within an inch.
Hertz Invents an "Eye" to See the Invisible Waves
What was needed, then, was not only a way of generating
these invisible waves, but a kind of artificial eye which would
SIGNALLING AND TALKING BY RADIO 357
see them. After Maxwell had published his startling theory,
scientists in several countries tried hard to render them visible.
The successful man was Heinrich Hertz, a modest German pro-
fessor at the university of Bonn, who freely acknowledged his
debt to Maxwell, and who was so self-effacing that he went so
far as to declare that had he not experimentally confirmed
Maxwell's conclusions, another Englishman, Sir Oliver Lodge,
would surely have done so.
Hertz' experiment is so simple that it seems astonishing that
it was not made before his time (1887). He created electric
sparks, little flashes of artificial lightning in his laboratory. At
the opposite end of the laboratory he mounted what he called a
"resonator": a metal ring not completely closed, and therefore
provided with a little gap. When sparks crackled in the send-
ing apparatus, tiny answering sparks crackled in the gap of the
ring. This in itself did not prove that light and electromag-
netic waves are one and the same, as Maxwell maintained. But
Hertz proved that the waves were reflected from suitable sur-
faces just as light is reflected from a mirror.
The whole scientific world was aroused by Hertz' confirma-
tion of Maxwell's theory. In France, in England, in Russia
scientists began to study these newly discovered waves, which,
fittingly enough, were christened "Hertzian waves." To de-
tect them, artificial eyes were invented, far more delicate than
Hertz' simple open metal ring or resonator. Popoff, the Rus-
sian, at once began to study lightning; for lightning is a gigantic
spark which also sends waves that can be detected. Lodge, in
England, and Branly, in France, performed notable experiments,
all of which did much to add to our knowledge of the waves.
And yet, not one of these distinguished scientists realized
that waves in the ether might be used to send intelligible mes-
sages over a great distance. Perhaps they were too engrossed
in the purely scientific aspects of their work to bother about
the practical application of theories; perhaps it was because the
distance over which they could transmit waves — a few hundred
feet — did not fire the imagination. Long after radio communi-
cation was an established fact, Lodge wrote frankly that, so
far as he was concerned, he "did not realize that there would be
a practical advantage in . . . telegraphing across space. . . .
358 COMMUNICATION
In this non-perception of the practical uses of wireless teleg-
raphy, 1 undoubtedly erred."
It was Sir William Crookes who first saw that the waves
about which Faraday and Maxwell had theorized, and the exis-
tence of which had been proved by Hertz, might be practically
applied in signalling through space. In a memorable article
published in the Fortnightly Review in 1892, on "Some Possibili-
ties in Electricity," he wrote:
"Here is unfolded to us a new and astonishing world — one
which it is hard to conceive should contain no possibilities of
transmitting and receiving intelligence. Rays of light will not
pierce through a wall, nor, as we know only too well, through a
London fog. But the electrical vibrations of a yard or more
. . . will easily pierce such mediums, which to them will be
transparent. Here, then, is revealed the bewildering possi-
bility of telegraphy without wires, posts, cables, or any of our
present appliances. . . . What, therefore, remains to be dis-
covered is — firstly, a simpler and more certain means of gener-
ating electrical rays of any desired wave-length, from the short-
est, say of a few feet in length, which will easily pass through
buildings and fogs, to those long waves whose lengths are mea-
sured by tens, hundreds, and thousands of miles; secondly, more
delicate receivers which will respond to wave-lengths between
certain defined limits and be silent to all others; thirdly, means
of darting the sheaf of rays in any desired direction, whether
by lenses or reflectors, by the help of which the sensitiveness of
the receiver . . . would not need to be so delicate as when the
rays to be picked up are simply radiating into space in all direc-
tions, and fading away. . . .
"Any two friends living within the radius of sensibility of
their receiving instruments, having first decided on their special
wave-length and attuned their respective receiving instruments
to mutual receptivity, could thus communicate as long and as
often as they pleased by timing the impulses to produce long
and short intervals on the ordinary Morse code."
It would be difficult to present a more accurate picture of
radio communication both in principle, as well as in practice,
than this.
SIGNALLING AND TALKING BY RADIO 359
Marconi's First Experiments
Such was the "state of the art," as patent lawyers say, up
to 1896. Electric waves had been sent out into the ether and
"seen" by special "eyes" or detectors. Crookes foresaw the
possibility of telegraphing through space, but no one had ac-
tually done so. And then a mere boy began a series of experi-
ments that culminated in a complete realization of Crookes'
Courtesy Radio Corporation of America.
GUGLIELMO MARCONI, INVENTOR OF WIRELESS COMMUNICATION.
prophecy. He was Guglielmo Marconi, the son of an Italian
father and an Irish mother.
In 1896, Marconi, then but twenty-two, received his first
patent. In that historic document is disclosed what now seems
an obvious invention. At the sending station was the familiar
Morse key; at the receiving station the equally familiar receiv-
ing apparatus, in which a detector (Branly and Lodge's form
of "eye") was included. The Morse key was depressed.
Sparks passed. They sent out waves into the ether. The key
360 COMMUNICATION
was released. The sparks and the waves ceased. Thus long
or short trains of waves were sent out, corresponding with the
dashes and dots of the Morse code. The receiver responded
sympathetically. The eye or detector "saw" while the key
was down; it saw nothing when the key was up. It received
invisible telegraphic flashes.
Marconi had improved on Hertz* original sender so consid-
erably that when he demonstrated his invention before the
British post-office officials in 1897 on Salisbury Plain, he trans-
mitted signals four miles. And yet there was not a single
original element in his apparatus. This is not said to his dis-
credit. Morse's telegraph, indeed every epoch-making inven-
tion, is usually a new combination of old elements, producing a
new result. That Marconi is a great inventor, that he has the
imagination that always makes great inventors, is proved by
the mere fact that, for all their great attainments. Hertz, Branly,
Lodge, and Popoff" never dreamed of signalling through space,
although they were experimenting with the electromagnetic
waves almost daily for long periods.
Marconi discovered that his range could be increased if he
elevated the wire constituting part of the sending circuit and
connected it with the ground. Thus elevated, the wire looked
for all the world like the feeler of some gigantic insect, and hence
it came to be called an "antenna." Wires were similarly ele-
vated at the receiving station with corresponding good eff"ect.
In his early work Marconi even used kites to carry his wires
far up into the ether. The great transoceanic stations of to-day
have antennae that reach up several hundred feet; indeed, the
towers on which they are carried may be as tall as office build-
ings.
By the end of 1897, Marconi was signalling nine and ten
miles. "Half a mile was the wildest dream," said Sir William
Preece of the British post-office, in commenting upon the hopes
of the more optimistic who believed in Marconi.
Sir Oliver Lodge Discovers the Principle of Tuning
The sun sends out waves of what we call white light, which
is, nevertheless, a mixture of all the colors in the rainbow.
Sunlight is the equivalent of a noise. A red light is the equiva-
SIGNALLING AND TALKING BY RADIO 361
lent of a single musical note because it consists of vibrations of
one period only. Marconi's sparks were like flaming candles
or matches compared with the sun — much the same in color but
less dazzling. They were little noises. It occurred to Sir Ol-
iver Lodge in 1897 that a new principle might be introduced.
Why not send out a beam of wireless waves which would be the
Courtesy Marconi Company {London).
JOSEPH A. FLEMING. LEE DE FOREST.
Fleming, an English engineer and physicist, who first applied the "Edison effect" in receiving
wireless-telegraph signals.
De Forest invented the modern vacuum-tube, one of the most remarkable inventions ever
made in electricity.
equivalent of a musical note or of one color of light ? Hold a
vibrating tuning-fork near a piano, and only that string of the
piano which corresponds in pitch with the tuning-fork will vi-
brate in sympathy. Or, put on a pair of red spectacles and all
the world seems red. It is easy to see that Sir Oliver Lodge
had the principle of tuning in mind. He wanted to send out
waves of one electrical pitch only, and tune the receiving instru-
ment so that it would respond to that pitch and to no other.
This Lodge did by adjusting the sending and receiving apparatus
to what is called the "wave-length."
We have only to recall the waves of the ocean to realize the
possibilities. By "wave-length" is meant the distance from
362 COMMUNICATION
the crest of one wave to the crest of the next in the same train.
The distance is large for big waves and small for little waves.
The larger the waves or the greater the wave-length the more
slowly do they travel. This means that fewer of them strike
the receiver per second, whether the receiver be an eye, an ear,
a beach, or a wireless detector. If they are few, we have a
deep electrical note; if they are many, we have a high electrical
(1)) Continwous Wave.
Time
DAMPED AND CONTINUOUS RADIO WAVES.
A spark sends out damped waves, which die down. What is needed for radio telephoning is
a continuous wave which persists.
note. Lodge converted the wireless transmitting station into
something like a tuning-fork that sends out waves of one note
only. The receiving station could be attuned to that note and
could thus exclude the signals that came from stations that were
not using it.
This marked an enormous advance in wireless communica-
tion. A station could send one wave-length or electrical note
to another station. The receiving station, knowing on what
wave-length the transmitting station was sending, could "tune
in" or vibrate in electrical sympathy.
The wave-length in radio communication may be anything
from I to 50,000 metres. In radio communication, wave-lengths
are always stated in metres. Translate these wave-lengths into
ordinary language and compare them with other waves and
their extraordinary character becomes immediately apparent.
The waves of the ocean may measure a few inches or several
hundred feet. But the waves which are sent billowing through
THE SIMPLEST SOUND-WAVE.
Photograph made by Professor Dayton D. Miller of the sound-wave produced by a tuning-
fork in vibration.
THE WAVE PRODUCED BY A FRENCH HORN.
The photograph was made by Professor Dayton D. Miller, of the Case School of Applied
Science. It shows about the simplest type of wave produced by a musical instrument.
THE NOISE OF A BIG GUN.
A noise-wave is erratic, as this photograph shows; a musical note is always of more or less
regular wave conformation.
364
COMMUNICATION
the ether by a transatlantic radio station may measure from
four to twenty miles from crest to crest. For short distance
transmission the length of the wave may measure a few inches
up to several hundred feet. Since he was dealing with waves
ARC OF THE BORDEAUX STATION.
Within this casing is an arc which resembles the arc that glows over many a street corner. But
tliis arc is very much larger and is prevented from breaking or being extinguished by a
very complicated arrangement of magnets. Arcs of this type were used for radio tele-
phoning by the Danish engineer Valdemar Poulsen.
that varied so widely in length, Lodge had devised a method of
sending and receiving which had enormous possibilities.
Marconi's Progress
Marconi soon made arrangements with Lodge to apply this
method of tuning to wireless telegraphing, with the result that
he vastly increased the effectiveness of his system of communi-
cation. By this time, the Wireless Telegraph and Signal Com-
pany had been organized in England to buy Marconi's rights.
The Italian navy adopted wireless telegraphy. By 1898 Mar-
coni had established wireless communication across the Eng-
lish Channel, and had also reported the International Yacht
Races between Sandy Hook and the office of the New York
Herald ; both considered marvellous exploits at the time. The
SIGNALLING AND TALKING BY RADIO 365
principal steamship companies equipped their vessels with Mar-
coni wireless sets, and many a ship in dire distress was saved
by their means.
Greater and greater distances were covered. In 1900 Mar-
coni made a great advance. He devised a way of sending out
Courtesy Radio Corporation of America.
THE ALEXANDERSON ALTERNATOR.
This machine looks like an ordinary generator, such as may be found in every electric central
station. It is not an ordinary generator, however, but an Alexanderson alternator, es-
pecially built to generate the high-frequency currents used in radio communication. These
alternators have already given place to vacuum-tubes.
powerful prolonged trains of waves. He tuned his receiver to
the transmitter so that the detector was not easily affected by a
single wave, as heretofore, but only by a train of waves of suit-
able frequency, thus extending Lodge's principle. After having
succeeded in telegraphing with this system a distance of 200
miles, he decided to bridge the Atlantic. But he needed more
power. His chief engineer. Professor J. A. Fleming, designed
the stations. A less courageous spirit than Marconi's would
have been daunted by the accidents that occurred in erecting
tall aerials. Towers and masts were blown down by storms.
It seemed almost hopeless for a time to triumph over nature.
Finally, with the aid of kites flown at Newfoundland, Marconi,
366
COMMUNICATION
on December 21, 1901, received from Poldhu, Cornwall, the
three dots representing the letter "s."
Refinements were now rapidly introduced to make trans-
atlantic communication more efficient. Marconi invented a
magnetic detector, which made it possible to hear the dots and
dashes as musical notes of shorter or longer duration, and at
INTERIOR OF THE LAFAYETTE STATION, FRANCE.
The size of the wire is an indication of the amount of power that is radiated. To the right is a
high-power tuning-coil,
once the speed of reception was increased to 150 letters a min-
ute. Gigantic waves were shot out into space; waves measuring
from four to ten miles from crest to crest.
Professor Fleming Invents the Oscillating Valve
The sparks or miniature artificial lightning flashes that
Marconi used sent out waves that produced currents in the
receiving antenna. The current oscillations ran up and down
the wire at the rate of half a million to a million a second. The
ordinary telephone, connected with the antenna, cannot re-
spond to such rapid vibrations; hardly has the diaphragm begun
to move when it is struck by another impulse. It occurred to
SIGNALLING AND TALKING BY RADIO 367
Professor Fleming that something Hke a valve was needed, some-
thing that would let current pass in one direction but not in
the other. Thus every other oscillation that ran up and down
the antenna would be suppressed, and the telephone would be-
come more responsive.
In the early eighties Fleming held the post of scientific ad-
viser to the Edison Electric Light Company, organized to de-
Courtesy General Ehilni ( nn^any.
FIVE-WATT TRANSMITTING-TUBE COMPLETE AND DISMEMBERED.
velop and introduce Edison's system of incandescent lighting in
England. Naturally, he was thoroughly acquainted with Edi-
son's researches.
Fleming recalled some experiments which Edison had made
in 1883 and which had given the world what was known as the
"Edison effect." For some reason, Edison had sealed within
one of his incandescent-lamp bulbs a little plate of metal. There
was no contact between the metal and the filament of the lamp;
yet, when the filament glowed, a current would stream over
from it to the plate, but only when the plate was positively
charged. This was the "Edison effect." The discovery lay
368
COMMUNICATION
dormant twenty-one years, unapplied. It flashed upon Flem-
ing that this device of Edison's constituted the very valve that
he wanted. "Suppose," he reasoned, "I use this lamp in my
receiving circuit. Positive and negative currents rush up and
down the antenna. When a positive impulse passes through
the metal, current will stream over from the filament; but when
Courtesy Marconi Company (London).
VACUUM-TUBES IN A MODERN RADIO TRANSMUTING STATION.
the negative impulse immediately following strikes the metal,
nothing will stream over."
He made the experiment. It proved brilliantly successful.
Thus, in 1904, the Fleming "oscillation valve," as it has ever
since been known, was introduced in radio communication. It
was the first of the modern radio vacuum-tubes. By its means,
trains of very rapid oscillations were converted into spurts of
electricity, all travelling in the same direction. The result was
that the reception of telegraph signals was enormously improved.
In 1906, General H. H. C. Dunwoody, of the United States
Army, discovered that certain crystals (carborundum, for ex-
ample), also had the property of suppressing one-half the waves
that rush up and down the antenna. Because such crystals are
cheap, because there is no necessity for lighting a lamp, they are
SIGNALLING AND TALKING BY RADIO 369
widely used to this day. The cheaper radio telephone-receivers
in these days of radiated music and lectures are fitted with
such crystals.
Courtesy General Electric Company.
LITTLE AND BIG VACLTM-TUBES.
In one hand Doctor Langmuir is holding a small vacuum-tube of the type used in many radio
sets for receiving broadcast speech and music; in the other he is holding a large twenty kilo-
watt vacuum-tube used for generating waves in the ether of space.
De Forest's Remarkable Discovery
Remarkable as was Fleming's invention of the oscillation
valve, still more remarkable was the improvement made by
Lee De Forest, an American radio engineer, x^bout 1906 De
Forest inserted a tiny metal grid between the glowing filament
370
COMMUNICATION
of the lamp, or tube, and the metal plate. When the grid was
negatively electrified, current would not stream over from the
filament through the meshes and on to the plate; but when the
grid was positively electrified, the current rushed through the
meshes and the plate was charged. The introduction of a grid
between the filament and the metal plate does not seem much
Courtesy Radio Corporation of America.
"RADIO CENTRAL" AS IT WILL APPEAR WHEN COMPLETED.
Twelve lines of towers radiate from a central power-house, each line pointing to a particular
part of the world. Thus waves can be sent out which are destined for any country in Eu-
rope, Asia, South America, Africa, or the Southern Pacific. The towers, each about as
tall as an ordinary office building, carry the antennas.
of an improvement; yet De Forest's invention is as great as
that of radio communication itself. De Forest had only to
include his little grid in the receiving circuit. As it was now
positively and now negatively electrified, it assisted or arrested
the stream that tried to flow from the filament. He had only
to connect his metal plate with a telephone-receiver to hear the
signals with wonderful clearness. The little grid acted much
like the throttle of a locomotive: it set powerful local currents
in action, just as a locomotive throttle has only to be moved
one way or the other to start or stop a freight-train. What is
more, these currents in the receiving circuit were simply a
SIGNALLING AND TALKING BY RADIO 371
magnification of those that ran up and down the antenna. De
Forest could add another lamp or tube to the first and obtain
still louder effects. Thus, by adding tube to tube he could
Courtesy Radio Corporation of America.
THE TOWERS OF "RADIO CENTRAL," PORT JEFFERSON, LONG ISLAND.
One of the twelve lines of steel towers on which the antennae of the great station of the Radio
Corporation of America at Port Jefferson, Long Island, are carried. Each antenna con-
sists of sixteen bronze cables, stretched horizontally from tower to tower. When the sta-
tion is completed there will be 300 miles of cable. Each tower is 410 feet high, and the
cross-arm or bridge which supports the antenna wires at the top is 150 feet long.
magnify a signal millions of times. It is easy to see what this
meant in radio communication. Signals too feeble even for de-
tection by Fleming's valve could be clearly heard by a De
Forest tube or two; the receiving range was increased several
times. All the great feats of long-distance radio communica-
372 COMMUNICATION
tion, feats that involve telegraphing half-way around the world,
have been performed with this marvellous device, "the master
weapon of the radio engineer," as it has been called.
De Forest's invention was at once applied in long-distance
wire telephoning. Here was a device which made it possible to
amplify feeble voice-currents just when they were beginning to
vanish altogether. By inserting De Forest's tubes at intervals
in the line it became possible to telephone from New York to
San Francisco. It was thus that the electric current that car-
ried President Harding's oration on the occasion of the inter-
ment of our Unknown Soldier in Arlington, Virginia, was mul-
tiplied 3,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times. Amplified
10,000,000,000 times the President's words were heard by thou-
sands in Madison Square Garden, New York. Higher ampli-
fications were necessary in order that they might be heard in
other cities. A De Forest tube can magnify the ticking of a
watch until it sounds like a trip-hammer. Moreover, the tube
makes it possible to transmit over a single telephone wire half
a dozen different conversations without interference, each con-
versation being transmitted in waves of a definite frequency.
Armstrong and His "Feed-Back"
It was the World War that brought about the rapid develop-
ment of the airplane, and it also made the radio-receiving set a
household rival of the phonograph as a means of entertain-
ment. War, wherein the lives of thousands of men are guarded,
or imperilled, by superior scientific innovations, has always
stimulated invention. A case in point was Edwin Armstrong,
a young American, who held a major's commission. Even as
a boy he had been interested in wireless telegraphy. Indeed,
he was one of several hundred thousand American boys who
built their own wireless sets, formed wireless clubs, and com-
municated with one another. When he was old enough to
enter Columbia University he took the course in electrical en-
gineering. There he came under the influence of Professor
Michael Pupin, a man who has done as much as any other in
America to shape the course of modern telephoning and radio
communication. In 191 2, while still a student, scarcely twenty-
one years of age, Armstrong conceived the idea of making the
SIGNALLING AND TALKING BY RADIO 373
vacuum-tube of De Forest even more effective than it was.
We must remember that in the tube a current streams from a
LOLD-SPEAKER FOR LARGE AUDIENCES.
In order that the speech of an orator may be heard in Chicago or New York by thousands,
ampHfiers of this type are mounted in auditoriums. The speech may be transmitted either
over ordinary telephone-Hnes or by radio. The words of the distant orator are distinctly
heard within a distance of one mile from this amplifier.
glowing filament through a grid to a metal plate, and that in
the local circuit, of which the plate forms a part, magnified
currents are obtained similar to those received by the antenna.
374 COMMUNICATION
It occurred to Armstrong that he would take part of this
current and "feed" it back, thus obtaining still stronger effects.
If a machine-gun could take the bullets that it has fired and
discharge them again, the process would be similar to that con-
ceived by Armstrong. The invention was a wonderful success.
With the "feed-back" of Armstrong, amateurs easily received
signals from Germany, Honolulu, Darien, Norway, and the
Philippine Islands. Since he used but few expensive tubes, his
invention made it possible to manufacture receiving-sets of
extraordinary sensitivity at a cost undreamed of before the war.
How Radio Telephony Developed
It was well-nigh impossible to telephone with the sparks
that Marconi used. The waves they generated in the ether
were not of the right kind. The first requirement for radio
telephoning is a source of waves, constant in form; every wave
must be like every other wave in length and height. Varia-
tions in the amplitude of the waves will introduce disturbances
that prevent the effective transmission of speech. To appre-
ciate how important is constancy of wave form, we have only
to consider an ordinary swinging pendulum.
Set the bob in motion. The bob swings from side to side,
but each swing or beat is of less amplitude than the preceding
beat. Finally, the pendulum or bob "dies down." So it is in
radio when a spark is used. The electrical vibrations, or oscil-
lations, "die down." In a clock the pendulum is kept in motion
by the energy of the wound spring; each beat is equal in ampli-
tude to that of the preceding beat. These beats are continuous,
or undamped, oscillations. The same phenomenon is observed
in sound. Pluck the string of a violin and a short sharp note
is heard that lives and dies in an instant. Draw a bow across a
string and a note is heard that persists as long as the bow is in
action. The plucked string emits damped sound waves; the
bowed string undamped, or continuous, waves.
Marconi's damped waves, suitable enough for telegraphing,
were useless for telephoning. This becomes even more evident
when we consider the process that occurs when we telephone
over a wire. As we say "Hello," we mould the electric waves
that travel constantly through the wire into a "hello" pattern.
SIGNALLING AND TALKING BY RADIO 375
At the receiving end a diaphragm is caused to vibrate by the
waves, and because they have been moulded by the voice into
a "hello" pattern we hear the word "hello." The moulded
wave corresponds with the sound-groove in a phonograph record.
What we hear is not the actual voice but a reproduction in
either case. So it is in radio telephoning. Substitute the ether
for the wire and the rest of the process remains the same.
It can now be seen why it was difficult, if not impossible, to
telephone through the ether with electric sparks. They were
constantly dying down, and therefore could not be moulded by
the voice. The diagram on page 362 shows the difference be-
tween damped and continuous waves in radio communication.
Many devices were invented for the purpose of generating con-
tinuous or undamped waves by means of sparks, but in vain.
Reginald Fessenden, an ingenious American engineer, tried
using dynamos somewhat like those to be seen in modern
power-houses. Nearly all electrically illuminated houses are
supplied with what is called "alternating current." Water
flows in a pipe in one direction, but an alternating-current dy-
namo generates current that travels through the wire in two
directions, back and forth.
These alternations or oscillations of current are just what
we need in order to set up waves in the ether. The ordinary
alternating-current dynamo in the power-house is useless in
radio communication. It produces electric oscillations or alter-
nations that number about 120 a second, and rarely more than
500 a second. To generate waves in the ether something must
rock back and forth not less than 10,000 times a second, and
even as often as 3,000,000 times a second, as we have seen.
The construction of a dynamo, generating a current which would
swing back and forth in a wire with this increased rapidity, was
an engineering feat that required designing ability of a high
order. Fessenden pointed the way. Others improved on his
method. Among them was R. Goldschmidt, a distinguished
German radio engineer, and Doctor E. Alexanderson, a Swedish
engineer, who became a naturalized American.
Their dynamos sent out waves that did not rapidly die
away — continuous waves which could be moulded by the voice
into a pattern that a telephone-receiver would reproduce. But
376
COMMUNICATION
the machines were difficult to design and expensive to build.
It occurred to the Danish engineer, Valdemar Poulsen, inspired
by the suggestion of Duddell, an Englishman, that perhaps
arcs might be substituted— arcs such as those that glow in
many of our streets. Such an arc, he argued, was a permanent
spark, not constantly formed- and broken. But ordinary street
arcs could not be used. They would fail to generate oscilla-
'■%'i}0k,W
Courtesy fl'fsUrti Electric Company.
HOW PRESIDENT HARDING TALKED TO THE NATION.
When our Unknown Soldier was buried President Harding addressed a va'st audience in the
ArHngton Memorial, near Washington. But far vaster was the audience than that gath-
ered before him. New York and San Francisco heard him, too — thousands who were
hundreds and hundreds of miles away. This marvellous performance was made possible by
using the vacuum-tube as an amplifier and as a relay. The voice of the President was car-
ried by telephone to New York, where it was heard by a throng that filled Madison Square
Garden, and from New York was repeated, as shown on this diagram, in cities between the
Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
tions of many thousands per second. In 1903, Poulsen devised
a special arc that met the requirements, and when that was done
radio telephoning became easy.
But although dynamos and arcs are used both in radio
telegraphy and radio telephony, the vacuum-tube of De Forest
has already taken their place; for the tube can be used not only
to receive and amplify the feeble waves that come from some
far-distant station, but also to generate continuous waves.
The time is rapidly approaching when dynamos, arcs, and
sparks will all give place to tubes. Only continuous waves will
be used, even for telegraphing over short distances. The same
SIGNALLING AND TALKING BY RADIO 377
transmitting station will, therefore, serve both for telegraphing
and telephoning, just as receiving instruments now reproduce
the dots and dashes of the Morse code and the human voice.
As soon as a method of generating continuous waves, waves
that would not die away, was discovered, it became easier to
transmit speech through the ether. Since Reginald Fessenden
was one of the earliest of these successful experimenters, it was
but natural that he should have been the first to transmit speech
by continuous waves. As early as 1903 he had succeeded in
telephoning a distance of about a mile. In 1906 he increased
this distance to ten miles. From that year on, as the action
of De Forest's vacuum-tube was better understood, progress
was rapid. In 191 5 a record was made. The human voice was
transmitted from Arlington, near Washington, D. C, to Hono-
lulu. And now we have radio broadcasting stations by which
music, lectures, news, and stock-market reports are sent out
for hundreds of thousands to hear.
In a sense, broadcasting has always been with us. Every
radio station radiates its messages, whether they be telegraph
signals or spoken words, into space. Any one who has the
proper electromagnetic ear can hear them. But not until 1920
was broadcasting placed upon a permanent commercial basis.
It occurred to a few imaginative engineers of the Westinghouse
Electric and Manufacturing Co., that interest in radio communi-
cation might become even greater than it was if songs and
band music were broadcast. The experiment was timidly made.
"Did you hear us ?" the announcer at the station asked. "Did
you like it? Do you want more of it?" The response was
overwhelming. In a few months factories were working night
and day trying to meet the demand for home radio telephone-
receiving sets. Broadcasting stations were established in nearly
every large community, chiefly by newspapers, department
stores, and radio manufacturers.
Some indication of the radio future thus ushered in is given
by the feats of the present day. Already opera is broadcast.
Zanzibar, Florida, Minneapolis, and St. Louis will all listen,
some day, to Metropolitan Opera. The remotest ranch, the
solitary ship at sea, will be present at the first performance of a
Broadway theatrical performance; at least so far as the ears
378 COMMUNICATION
are concerned. Fairy-tales for children ? We have them now.
The imagination conjures up a radio mother of the future,
crooning bedtime songs and telling bedtime stories on a pre-
scribed wave-length to 10,000,000 children who may live any-
where between Alaska and Florida. Education by radio ? Its
present rudimentary beginnings will be totally eclipsed by lec-
tures delivered to millions of students by the professors of some
radio university located in London or New York. Symphony
orchestras will play to whole continents, peninsulas, and islands.
Here is an invention that will cause space to shrivel up,
that will convert a whole country, even half the planet, into
a single huge auditorium. No prediction of radio's future can
be so wild, so fantastic, that even the most unimaginative en-
gineer will dismiss it as impossible of realization. Look at a
map of the United States and try to conjure up a picture of
what home radio will eventually mean. Here are hundreds of
httle towns set down in type so small that it can hardly be
read. How unrelated they seem ! Then picture the tens of
thousands of farmhouses on the prairies, in the valleys, along
the rivers — houses that cannot be noted. It is only an idea that
holds them together— the idea that they form part of the United
States. One of them might as well be in China and another in
Labrador were it not for this binding sense of a common national-
ity. All these disconnected communities and houses will be united
through radio as they were never united by the telegraph and
the telephone. The President of the United States delivers
important messages in every home, not in cold, impersonal type,
but in living speech; he is transformed from what is almost a
political abstraction, a personification of the republic's dignity
and power, into a kindly father, talking to his children.
The telegraph and the telephone have been called "space
annihilators" in their day. Space annihilation indeed! We
never really knew what the term meant until the time came when
thousands hstened at the same time to the voice broadcast
through the ether just as if they were all in the same room.
Somehow the world seems to contract into a little ball on which
Patagonians, Eskimos, Chinese. Americans, Kaffirs, and Apaches
are next-door neighbors.
CHAPTER yj
PUTTING SUNLIGHT TO WORK
The Story of the Camera
NOT until the nineteenth century was the first true photo-
graph made, the accomphshment ot an unknown young
man who earned but never received a place in the Pantheon
of Paris, of which edifice he made the first camera picture.
Here is the story:
The lens-maker of Paris, Chevalier, stood in his shop one
day in the year 1825. A young man, shabby, evidently poor
and hungry, entered and timidly asked: "What is the price of
your new camera obscura with the convergent meniscus glass ?"
A meniscus is a lens shaped like a saucer or a watch crystal; one
surface curves in, the other curves out. Chevalier named the
price, but it was clearly too high for the stranger, who said re-
gretfully: "I have succeeded in fixing the image of the camera
obscura on paper." The lens-maker sighed, thinking him yet
another fool trying to do what Niepce could not do after long
years of experiment. The young man pulled from his pocket-
book a piece of paper and laid it on the counter. ''That is
what I can obtain," he said. Chevalier was amazed. On the
paper he saw a view of Paris, sharp as a camera-obscura image,
showing the roof and dome of the Pantheon.
The camera obscura had been known to the old Greeks as a
dark room, or box, with a hole in it. A ray of light from each
point outside came straight through the hole to the opposite
side, making an inverted picture of, say, a house across the way.
The camera to which the young man referred had been the sci-
entific toy and serious problem of men of science since the six-
teenth century, when Porta, an Italian philosopher, popularized
it in his book on Natural Magic. In his enthusiasm Porta had
said: "Now we can discover Nature's greatest secrets." His
prediction was to come true.
379
380 COMMUNICATION
The young man in Chevalier's shop had fixed that wonder-
ful image which had delighted man for centuries. His picture
was a view of Paris as seen from his lodging. The stranger
gave Chevalier a flask of fluid, told him how to use it, and left
the shop distressed that he could not afl^ord the new camera
obscura. Though he had promised to return he was never seen
again, and Chevalier, forgetting the directions, lost the precious
secret. The unknown inventor of photography had passed by,
and his secret with him.
Four things, in order of discovery, were essential to photog-
raphy: the power of sunlight, the clear image of an object, the
plate sensitized to register the image, and chemicals to fix the
image.
Miracles of Sunlight
The power of sunlight tans the skin brown — Nature's pho-
tography— turns old linen white, fades delicate dyes, and makes
modern photography possible. Light is so regular and universal
that the magic and wonder of it, which men once worshipped,
is unheeded. To-day science revives that reverence, as we
learn that the earth came from the sun, that fuel is ancient sun-
light, that fossil energy, ages old, heats our homes, runs our
mills, drives the peaceful artillery of traffic on roads and steam-
railways.
Nature is a sunlit factory where sunshine transmutes water
and carbon dioxide into green chlorophyll, the wonderful basis
of plant life. Sun-power thus builds plants, whose seeds and
fruits feed us, whose fibres (cotton, linen, and the rest) clothe
us, and whose wood gives us shelter, furniture, and a myriad
useful devices. Sunshine is the color-artist of flowers, fruits,
and vegetation, and it becomes the delineator of natural scenes
in photography. Doctor Holmes wittily labelled his amateur
photo-print: "Taken by Holmes and Sun." Whence the magic
power of light ? It lies in the rhythmic impact of waves, too
small and frequent for conception, trillions of times a second,
and shorter than a forty-thousandth of an inch.
All waves carry power. Ocean waves ceaselessly beating
the shore, grind rock and shell into fine sand. Rock strata,
miles thick, and sandy shores skirting every sea, were built by
PUTTING SUNLIGHT TO WORK 381
wave-power ages ago. Air waves, too, carry power. A powder
plant blows up; its air waves strike and break windows miles
away. A bugle vibrant with a thousand air waves a second
tingles the ear with a note of music. Fanning four strokes a
second we feel four separate puffs; a hundred times faster the
puffs would be heard, not separately, but as a note, high as a
boy's voice. If the fan strokes numbered 400 trillion times a
second the ear could not respond, but the eye would see the
waves as red light. In the surf we may feel sea waves forty
feet long; at the concert we may hear air waves four feet long,
a tenor voice; with the eyes we may see waves of red light, each
shorter than a forty-thousandth of an inch. The length of the
wave varies with the color of light or the pitch of the music.
The magic of light waves is unique. Sea waves grind shells,
air waves shatter windows, but light waves can break up a
molecule of matter. This last is the secret of the photo-
graphic power of sunlight, and the first element essential to
modern photography.
How Images Are Formed
The next essential is the image. We rarely think of a view
as the image in our eye; we regard it as distant. We actually
see, however, only what is inside our eye; the picture on the
retina. The retina is that wonderful screen in the back of the
eye on which is formed the vision of the outside world, instantly
perceived by our sense of sight. Eyesight is Nature's instan-
taneous photography. If we open our eyes the world enters to
inform and entertain. Mother Nature gave us twin cameras:
our two eyes. Every glance is Nature's photograph in natural
color, such a wonderful picture that for ages man did not dream
of recording it.
Until we form an image we cannot hope to take a picture of
nature. But nature is full of images, made in three ways: by
a tiny hole, by a lens, or by a concave mirror. In a darkened
room through a keyhole come light rays from a barn; each point
sends a ray straight through the keyhole to the wall opposite,
forming there an inverted image of the barn. This is the prin-
ciple of the camera obscura, and in some such way it was dis-
covered. Any aperture is an image-maker; the smaller the
382
COMMUNICATION
aperture the better defined but the fainter the image. Under
the fohage of a tree are many bright spots, each really an in-
verted picture of the sun. This is very plain in an eclipse,
when a myriad crescent suns are pictured on the ground, each
formed by a tiny opening in the foliage. The pinhole camera
gives remarkable photographs. It needs but a light-tight box
with a tiny hole in one side and a sensitive plate in the other.
From Tissandit'r's '"Handbook mul 1/ islory of Phntogrciphy ."
HOW SILHOUETTES WERE MADE BEFORE PHOTOGRAPHY WAS INVENTED.
Lenses also make images. The lens makes a brighter image
than the pinhole, for it gathers more light. For centuries the
camera image was the wonder and delight of the nature-lover.
It was so faint in detail that, about 1550, Cardan, at Niirn-
berg, decided to enlarge the hole and insert a glass ball. Thus
he gave us the first camera lens and a brighter image. Place
a white card behind a lens and see the image of the scene in
front. Nature is full of such lenses and of images formed by
them. Every drop of rain, mist, spray, or dew is a lens, and
forms images of all things within sight. The sun thus prints
its picture on every dewy leaf or petalled flower. The lens
made photography possible with the materials known a cen-
PUTTING SUNLIGHT TO WORK 383
tury ago, and the image has improved only as the lens has been
perfected.
Concave mirrors are a third kind of image-maker used, as
yet, chiefly in photographing the night sky and the sun. The
brilliant scintillations of a rippling lake are countless images of
the sun formed by the curved mirrors of the water surface be-
tween the ripples.
Recording the Image
To hold that beautiful image formed by the camera required
a third essential: a sensitized plate to take the impress of the
image. The image in the old camera had first awakened ad-
miration, then determination to capture it. Men knew that
sunlight changed the color of the skin — darkened it. The efl^ect
of sunlight on many substances was also well known to the
ancients. The Chinese tradition says that sunlight can photo-
graph nature on a surface of ice. The Greeks knew that opals
changed color in sunlight, and Vitruvius placed his paintings in
north rooms to preserve their colors. Lacking perhaps the
vision or the spirit of experimental adventure the ancients
stopped there, and photography waited long centuries for its
triumph.
In 1760, Tiphaigne de la Roche, in his wonder book Giphantie
(anagram of Tiphaigne, the author's name), tells of a magical
country where, by means of a prepared canvas coated with a
wonderful material, they had succeeded in fixing the image in
the mirror. "The mirror," he says, "represents images faith-
fully, but retains none; our canvas reflects them none the less
faithfully, but retains them all. . . . This impression of the
image is instantaneous." In imagination the author realized
the problem, and foresaw in brilliant fancy the instantaneous
photography to be.
In the Middle Ages many wise men studied the dark art of
magic and alchemy. Among them, the alchemist Fabricus
delved into the ancient lore and sought the alluring secret by
which he might transmute the metals, cure diseases, 'and pro-
long life. One day in his laboratory he chanced to mix com-
mon salt with a solution of nitrate of silver. With astonishment
he watched the forming of a milk-white cloud, then saw it turn
384 COMMUNICATION
black in the sunlight. He studied this wonderful thing. In his
Book of Metals, printed in 1556, he says that with a lens he
made an image on a surface of the white precipitate (now known
Courtesy United States National Museum.
PRINT M.\DE BY CONTACT OF A LEAF WITH SENSITIZED PAPER.
Leaf-print such as Wedgwood made in 1802.
as silver chloride), and that the image was black or gray ac-
cording as the image was light or dark. Here Fabricus ends,
leaving us expectant. But the serial story had to wait nearly
200 years for its next chapter.
One sunny day in 1727, in Coblitz, Doctor Johann H.
Schultze stood by his window, a glass in his hand. The glass
PUTTING SUNLIGHT TO WORK 385
held a curious mixture, silver nitrate solution and powdered
chalk. He held it up to the light and the surface promptly
turned black. Shaking the mixture created a fresh white surface.
He made shadow prints with paper patterns on the liquid sur-
face, reshaking when he wished to produce a new pattern.
This astonishing experiment seems to have served the good
doctor only to amuse his friends. Photography was in his
grasp. He let it slip however, and a hundred more years were
yet to pass before the first fixed photograph was made.
Fifty years later, in 1777, the Swedish chemist, Karl Wil-
helm Scheele, proved that blue and violet were chemically many
times more effective colors than yellow or red. A wealth ot
curious bits of information was being gleaned from experiment
about this time, but the first use of the process of recording
images seems to have been by Professor Jacques Alexandre
Charles, the inventor of the hydrogen-gas balloon, and the first
to ascend in it. Professor Charles lectured at the Louvre on
physics, and, for experimental purposes, about the year 1780,
made silhouettes of his students, using silver-salt paper. The
shadow protected the salt from darkening. Within a short
time the white silhouette also darkened in the light.
Wedgwood and His Contact Prints
The next notable experimenter was Thomas Wedgwood.
He was the son of the great English potter and maker of beau-
tiful porcelain, and was one of five children. Three sturdy boys
tried the mother's nerves, and the father sent them away to
school. There they learned the usual classics, much as the
father doubted the wisdom of such studies. Finally his feelings
became so strong that he took his sons from school and engaged
a tutor. The tutor, of a scientific turn of mind, had been in
touch with silver-nitrate experiments for some years, and from
him the boys undoubtedly learned much about the sciences and
useful arts. Then Thomas Wedgwood went to hear Humphry
Davy lecture at the Royal Society, and later began experimenting
under his instruction. A brilliant company met during these
days at the Wedgwood home: James Watt, inventor of the
steam-engine; Thomas Wedgwood's sister who later became the
mother of Charles Darwin; Samuel Taylor Coleridge; Joseph
386
COMMUNICATION
Priestly who discovered oxygen, and Sir Humphry Davy who
invented the miner's safety-lamp, and other notables.
Wedgwood's experiments were the making of sun-prints.
He placed leaves of plants on paper wet with silver nitrate.
In the shadow of the leaf the paper remained white; the exposed
paper turned dark in the light. The result was a leaf picture
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(«ibM
JOSEPH NICEPHORE NIEPCE. LOUIS JOSEPH DAGUERRE.
Niepce made the first photographs on tin coated with bitumen of Judea.
Daguerre discovered by accident that mercury vapor could develop a metal plate sensitized
with iodine, and thus gave the world the daguerreotype.
in white on a dark background. These pictures were shown
only by candle-light, for the same light that created them also
destroyed them. He then made pictures on leather, and found
they formed faster — almost discovering tannin as a photograph-
ic accelerator. After many trials Wedgwood obtained clear
images by the solar microscope. About 1802, he announced,
with Davy, his success in making such photo-prints (contact
prints) on paper, leather, and glass, with exposures of three
minutes in sunlight, and several hours in the shade. But, as
Humphry Davy wrote at the time: "All that is wanting is a
means of preventing the lights of the picture from being after-
ward colored by daylight." Vainly did Wedgwood seek some
chemical, some process, to make the picture image lasting. He
PUTTING SUNLIGHT TO WORK 387
halted on the very threshold of the new art for want of some-
thing to dissolve off the unaffected silver salt.
Thus matters stood in 1813, when Niepce began his experi-
ments which resulted in the first fixed photograph. The third
essential, the sensitized plate which would take the impress of
the image, had been attained. The next step was to discover
how to fix the image.
Niepce Fixes the Image
Joseph Nicephore Niepce was born at Chalons, France, in
1765. A dreamy lad with a poetical turn, he was in no hurry
to choose a career. Timid, studious, gentle, industrious, he
and his brother played at making machines. With their pocket-
knives they cut out devices of wood, cranes, and other appli-
ances. To their delight they worked well. The storm of the
Revolution in 1792 swept Nicephore into the army as a sub-
lieutenant. In Sardinia his valor won him a place on his gen-
eral's staff. Stricken by the epidemic at Nice he was nursed
back to health by the devoted and charming Marie Agnes
Romero, whom he later married. Back again in the little home
at Chalons he joined his brother in experiment and invention.
They perfected many ingenious things. For their work on
dyes for military fabric they were liberally rewarded, and for a
new type of pump they won a special vote of thanks from the
French Academy. They also invented and built a successful
motor-boat, and ran it on the Saone River at Chalons.
Printing from stone, so well known to-day, was new to Niepce.
Its discovery inspired him to learn the new art. Lacking ma-
terials he took some stones intended to repair a near-by road,
polished them, and made printing-plates of them. Those
stones paved the road to modern photography; for it was his
desire to make printing-plates by sunlight that led him to the
camera. In 18 16 he varnished a piece of tin, placed on it a
paper drawing made transparent by varnish, and exposed it to
sunlight to study the effect. In the summer of 18 17 he sent his
brother his first metal prints, saying: "I have not varied my
experiments enough to feel beaten. I am by no means dis-
couraged." That year frequent cloudy weather, many visitors,
and much visiting hindered him, and — the last straw — he broke
388
COMMUNICATION
his precious camera-lens. ' In despair he said: "I would prefer
to live in a desert."
But he did not give up. His grandfather's solar microscope
made good the lost lens, and he obtained a crude image of a
pigeon-house seen from the open window of his workroom.
"There are great difficulties," he admitted; ''but with work and
By courtesy of National Museum, Washington.
(Left) FIRST PORTRAIT MADE IN AMERICA.
Miss Dorothy Catherine Draper, taken by her brother, Professor John WilHam Draper, M.D.,
LL.D., of the University of the City of New York, early in 1840.
(Right) COPY OF A PRINT MADE BY NIEPCE.
This was made on tin sensitized with bitumen of Judea, which Is soluble in essence of lavender,
but which becomes insoluble when exposed to light.
patience one can accomplish much." Indeed his patience was
remarkable. Nine more years he labored. Finally, success
came from learning the curious out-of-the-way fact that bitumen
of Judea, which is soluble in essence of lavender, becomes in-
soluble when exposed to light.
Coating his tin with the bitumen he exposed it in the camera.
He was overjoyed that the lights of the picture became insolu-
ble and white; the rest he washed away with the essence of
lavender. After fourteen years of monotonous experimenting
PUTTING SUNLIGHT TO WORK 389
he had, at last, succeeded. His positive was crude, faint, and
ruciimental; but nevertheless the image was fixed and perma-
nent. Gossips at des Gras, his property near Chalons, had
whispered that Niepce was beside himself ''working in a vacuum
without result"; but success proved him a genius with a great
vision. In his crude picture lay the germ of modern photog-
raphy.
Quietly Niepce had wrested from the unknown the secret
of fixing the image of the camera. His other works are lost.
His photography remains. It cost him the fortune left him by
his father, and twenty years of dreaming and toilsome experi-
ment. Unfortunately he did not live to share the daguerreo-
type triumph of 1839, but undoubtedly photography had come
to the world, about 1827, in the simple country home on the
banks of the Saone, and des Gras became the radiant point of
one of the most magical of the arts, one of the most versatile of
the crafts.
Another Frenchman, Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre, a
revenue ofiicer who became a scene-painter for the Paris theatres,
was experimenting along the same lines as Niepce. The lens-
maker of Paris, Chevalier, was their mutual friend, and he in-
formed Daguerre that Niepce had "for a very long time occu-
pied himself with reproducing engravings by the action of light
on certain chemical agents." Daguerre's first letter to Niepce
was thrown into the fire. "Another Parisian trying to pump
me," he exclaimed. Their mutual aims, however, at length
brought them together in partnership. Many more years were
needed to perfect practical photography, for it required seven
hours to photograph a landscape, though a monument strongly
lit up by the sun could be taken in three.
Meanwhile, in 1837, two years prior to announcements by
Daguerre and Fox Talbot, whose discoveries in photography
practically coincided with those of the Frenchmen, an English
clergyman, Reverend Joseph Bancroft Reade, an amateur
astronomer and microscopist, made a contribution to the de-
velopment of the camera. It came about through his desire
to save the expense of a draftsman for his microscopic work.
To this end he adopted and began to practise Wedgwood's
experiments. On the leather of his wife's light-colored gloves
390
COMMUNICATION
he photographed a flea, enlarged 150 times in a solar micro-
scope. The exposure was five minutes of sunlight. His wife
objected to giving up her second pair of kid gloves. "Then I
will tan paper," said Reade. This he did so successfully, with
an infusion of nutgalls, that tannin became a developer in
modern photography.
Courtesy United States National Museum.
(Ltft) PORTABLE DAGUERREOTYPE CAMERA USED IN 1851.
One box slides into another for focussing.
(Right) DAGUERREOTYPE DEVELOPING- BOX (1850).
Mercury developing-chamber used in daguerreotype process.
Reade learned from Herschel that hyposulphite of soda,
discovered in 1799 by Francois Chaussier, would dissolve the
unchanged silver salt on the exposed plate, and Reade was
thus prepared to fix his photograph. Not an ounce of "hypo"
could be found in all London, so Reade had a chemist named
Hodgson make up some for his experiment. Joseph Bancroft
Reade is credited by Sir David Brewster, Captain W. de W.
Abney, and the jurors of the Paris Exposition of 1856, with
being the first to make a paper negative, to fix the image with
"hypo," and to use tannin as a developer. Reade gave his
wonderful discoveries to the public as a free gift, holding that
"the pleasure of discovery" was "a sufficient reward."
PUTTING SUNLIGHT TO WORK 391
In January, 1839, the same month in which Daguerre an-
nounced his success, a wealthy EngHshman named Fox Talbot
made a similar announcement. The details published the fol-
lowing month, however, showed nothing new in the art. His
"photogenic drawing" was much like Wedgwood's of many
years before. His "Calotype process" included the use ot
iodide of silver on a paper support. He also improved the
paper negative to permit many copies or positives to be made
from it. This was, perhaps, his chief contribution. Talbot
admitted his debt to the prior, successful work of Reade; and
the latter, in return, credited Talbot with the idea of a latent
image. '*I threw the ball, and Talbot caught it." said Reade.
"It is sufficient reward to me that he publicly acknowledged his
obligation, . . ." for "an essential part of his patent." Tal-
bot's patent was later upheld by the court apparently on the
slender thread that Reade's admittedly prior work had not
been printed, but only publicly described in lectures. Talbot,
however, brought the new art before the public, and with his
wealth, ingenuity, and persistence did much to establish mod-
ern photography by improving the negative.
What a Silver Spoon Taught Daguerre
When Niepce died his son, Isadore, joined Daguerre In ex-
periments which, in 1837, called for capital. Failing in an at-
tempt to start a stock company, Daguerre decided to cede the
invention to the French Government for a life pension of 6,000
francs for himself, and 4,000 a year for Isadore.
A happy accident started them on the road to final success.
One day Daguerre chanced to lay a silver spoon on a metal
treated with iodine, and soon found the spoon's image printed
on the Iodized metal. Hastily polishing a plate of silver he
exposed it to Iodine vapor, to form silver iodide. A camera
image was then Impressed on It: a shadowy picture on the plate
almost too faint to see. A second, equally fortunate circum-
stance completed the success. One day he took from his cab-
inet a plate left by Niepce, and was surprised to find a faint
latent Image had been developed. Some developer had been
at work! His cabinet contained many chemicals; one of them
was responsible. He began the search. Each night he put a
392
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fresh plate In the cabinet taking it out in the morning with one
of the chemicals. He repeated this until all the chemicals were
out of the cabinet, and as luck would have it he placed a fresh
Courtesv United States National Museu
BOX USED FOR SENSITIZING THE DAGUERREOTYPE PLATE WITH IODINE
AND BROMINE.
STICKS USED FOR BUFFING DAGUERREOTYPE PLATES BEFORE THEY
WERE SENSITIZED.
plate in the empty cabinet to make sure of his experiment. To
his astonishment he found the plate developed. Examining
the cabinet he found some mercury had spilled, and its vapor
PUTTING SUNLIGHT TO WORK
393
had been the developing chemical he was seeking. As we have
seen, "hypo" had been suggested by Herschel and used by
Reade to remove the unchanged silver salts. By its use, also,
Daguerre, after years of determined experiment, obtained the
first daguerreotype.
The Triumph of Niepce and Daguerre
The success of Niepce and of Reade had been a triumph of
the laboratory. That of Niepce and Daguerre was to be a
Courtesy United States National Museum.
(Left) WILLIAM HENRY FOX TALBOT.
In 1841 he announced the discovery of his calotype or talbotype process. He devised the first
process of instantaneous photography after Archer had succeeded in producing collodion.
(Right) LEACOCK ABBEY, FOX TALBOT'S HOME.
From a photograph made by the Talbot process.
public one. If we must fix one moment as the dawn of the
art of modern photography, without naming the first discov-
erer, we may set August 10, 1839; with Paris as the honored
city. On that day the French Academy of Fine Arts met with
the French Academy of Sciences. Eminent men filled the hall.
Daguerre, the scene-painter of Paris, was present, the centre
of all eyes. With Paris waiting, and throngs of artists and stu-
dents in excited crowds packing the approaches to hear the
first news of the new art, Arago announced that Niepce and
Daguerre had successfully produced a permanent photograph.
Nature had printed her image on silver ! Paris, and later the
394 COMMUNICATION
world, buzzed with excitement. Delaroche enthusiastically
begged a plate from Daguerre, and showed it everywhere.
"From this day the art of painting is dead," he exclaimed.
Delaroche was wrong. Instead of superseding painting, the
camera was to sustain and advance it.
The world seemed to awaken at once to the possibilities
of photography. Opticians began experimenting; lenses and
cameras were exhibited in shop windows; modern photography
had arrived. The history of invention here records a rare hap-
pening. As already told, France pensioned the inventors, and
secured the precious secret. She also gave it a free gift, not
her first, to the fine arts of the world.
Among the interested experimenters of the time was M.
Bayard, bureau chief of the Ministry of Marine. Some weeks
before Arago announced Daguerre's process, Bayard gave an
exhibition in the studio of Comte O. Aguado, making a positive
proof on paper, direct in the camera. He first placed a prepared
plate in the camera, and to the chagrin of his aids, who knew
the plate was blackened, he pretended to inspect it by opening
wide the camera door, exposing the plate to daylight. "Bah !"
he said, "it's all the same." Hastily putting some iodide of
potassium over the exposed plate, he put it back in the camera.
To the surprise of every one, except Bayard, the resulting pho-
tograph was a positive made direct in the camera by over-
exposure. This extraordinary fact may yet assume importance
when the quest for instantaneous direct positive photography
becomes more insistent.
America Begins to Photograph
In 1839, the year of publicity, the news of the discovery of
photography crossed the Atlantic. To America came the Lon-
don Literary Gazette with word of Daguerre's success. The
effect was electric. Within two or three days successful pho-
tographs were made by Draper, Morse, and Wolcott, separately.
Professor John William Draper was a doctor of medicine, pro-
fessor at the University of New York, and an author of note.
He at once bought supplies, and, by the Daguerre method, pho-
tographed a church. Soon afterward, he made a "sunprint"
of his daughter, Dorothy Catherine, using a five-inch lens of
PUTTING SUNLIGHT TO WORK
395
seven-inch Focus, and setting the tocus sharp tor the violet ray;
for achromatic or non-color lenses were still unknown. So that
under a brilliant New York sun was the first human portrait
taken by Professor Draper. So lightly was portraiture then
regarded that the French reports do not mention Draper's work
at all. Meanwhile, Samuel F. B. Morse, the inventor-to-be of
From Tissandier's " History and Handbook of Photography"
A WET-PLATE PHOTOGRAPHER AT WORK IN THE FIELD.
the telegraph, successfully photographed his daughter, and later
charged sitters tor portraits in order to make money to resume
his work on the invention of the electric telegraph. xAbout the
same time, in the first week of the new art, Alexander S. Wol-
cott, also of New York, produced a portrait using a reflector
eight inches across, with a twelve-inch focus, instead of a lens.
Daguerre refused to have his portrait taken by the process
he invented, until one day a persistent American secured the
support of Daguerre's family, and together they induced him
to make one sitting, the only picture he ever permitted.
Daguerreotypes became common; but the sittings were so
tiresome, the conditions so bad, the plates so slow, that it was
not easy to find any one willing to sit for a portrait, or pay
396 COMMUNICATION
twenty shillings for a poor likeness. The result was, at best,
"a ghostly thing — a shimmering phantom." Our poor fore-
fathers had to pose out-of-doors for an exposure of twenty min-
utes' duration, and the torture of their immobility under the
dazzling rays of the sun is a quaint and amusing characteristic
of the early daguerreotypes. Indeed, so slow was the perform-
ance that a photographer making his own portrait had ample
time to remove the lens cap, leisurely take his seat, pose him-
self, rise in about twenty minutes, and go to the camera to re-
place the cap — all without disfiguring the picture. To register
the eyes faithfully seemed difficult, and early portraits show the
"sitters" with their eyes closed. The face was generally pow-
dered with flour. In fact the failure of the new art was averted
only by later improvements. About this time, H. L. Fizeau
devised a means of gilding the image and making it more per-
manent. But photography would not have succeeded had it
not been possible to obtain good results in a moderated light.
Further improvement came in two ways. Professor Petz-
val, of Vienna, "speeded up" the plate by perfecting a camera-
lens which made a sharp image with good light-gathering power.
In 1840, Professor John F. Goddard, then lecturer in science at
the Adelaide Gallery in London, cut the exposure time from
twenty minutes to twenty seconds at one stroke by the use of
bromine in place of iodine; thus making bromines an institution
and photography an assured art. Professor Goddard also in-
vented the polariscope, and with characteristic generosity freely
gave his secrets to the world. Later, when he suffered distress-
ing poverty, his friends, and the friends of his art, willingly
made up and subscribed to a fund ample for his old age, and
they coupled the gift with appreciation worth, perhaps, more
than the annuity.
In 1843, Mungo Ponton gave a new turn to photographic
processes. He found that in an alkaline bichromate of potash
solution, gelatine became insoluble when the mixture was ex-
posed to light. The shielded parts were dissolved off, thus
leaving the picture clear; an excellent process for making paper
positives, and the basis of modern "process" engraving. After
Ponton's work, Poitevin, in 1855, invented a new process based
on the bichromate idea. After exposing the gelatine -coated
PUTTING SUNLIGHT TO WORK 397
paper containing the bichromate of potash, the paper was
bathed in hot water to dissolve the gelatine untouched by light.
The lights of the image made the gelatine insoluble. Mix finely
powdered carbon, or any other colored pigment, with the gela-
tine, and carbon photo-prints and other mono-color prints are
possible. Sir John Herschel, about 1839, gave us the ''cyano-
type," or the now world-wide art of the "blue print"; the mod-
ern link between the engineer and finished project, the designer
and the finished machine.
The Invention of the Collodion Process
In the year 1847 there lived in Switzerland, in the town of
Basle, two chemists, Schonbein and Bottcher. Dipping cotton
into nitric and sulphuric acids they made a new explosive, "gun-
cotton," soluble in ether and alcohol. This solution was, and
still is, used on cuts and burns. We call it "collodion," mean-
ing adhesive. A London sculptor, Frederick S. Archer, ad-
mired this delicate film and sought to sensitize it for use in his
camera. For a time he spent his leisure and money in vain,
until, one day, he tried mixing his sensitizing material direct in
the liquid before pouring it on the film. Success was instant
and complete. The collodion process leaped into popularity
everywhere, and Archer's service to the world was immeasur-
able, for a great industry and art resulted. In 1851, in the
March issue of The Chemist^ he gave his priceless secret to the
world without patent or reward. Useful as his process was, he
died poor, leaving his wife and three children destitute. The
London Punch, in its issue of June 13, 1857, made a witty ap-
peal for aid. In camera phraseology. Punch said: "A deposit
of silver is wanted (gold will do), and certain faces, now in the
dark chamber, will light up wonderfully, with an effect never
before equalled in photography. . . . Answers must not be
negatives." A quick response brought ample means; the
Queen herself approving a private pension of fifty pounds ster-
ling a year. The collodion wet-plate process is so suited to color
photography and color printing processes that its use is still
popular, although in general the dry plate has superseded it.
During the siege of 1870, Paris was cut off from the world.
M. Dagron called the camera to the rescue, borrowed a Chinese
398 COMMUNICATION
invention, carrier pigeons, and organized the famous "pigeon
post." French cameras photographed news and personal des-
patches to such small size that a single pigeon carried 50,000
messages, which together weighed less than a gram. The collo-
dion negative was stripped from the plate, rolled into a small
quill, affixed to the wing, and the bird with its precious message
released. Flocks sent out of Paris in balloons flew back with
similarly concealed messages. At the destination the film rolls
were carefully removed from the quill, put in water to unroll,
then placed between two plates of glass and enlarged on the
screen by magic-lantern, while clerks copied the messages.
More than two and a half million despatches were sent in this
way. One of the picturesque memories of Paris siege days is
that of the gendarmes opening large baskets and setting free
pigeons, each bird carrying thousands of despatches made by
the camera.
Taupenot and the First Dry Plate
The wet-plate process was clumsy for field-work. A "porta-
ble" outfit was a formidable affair, with its tents, tools, dishes,
bottles, apparatus, and solutions, a veritable "push-cart" proc-
ess, so that, in 1855, it had been hailed as a happy event
when Taupenot, a Frenchman, produced the first "dry plate"
by coating glass with collodion and albumen. Eleven years
later Hill Norris made an improvement by coating collodion
plates with gelatine dissolved in water and alcohol, developing
with gallic acid and nitrate of silver.
Then came a great step forward. In 1871, Richard L.
Maddox, a physician of Woolston, England, used gelatine in
place of collodion, and bromine in place of iodine. His method
— the "gelatino-bromide dry-plate process" — is in use to-day,
the basis of modern photography. The great feature was the
use of a sensitized emulsion which could be poured on the plate
and dried.
About 1878 a bank clerk in Rochester, New York, was an
interested amateur. It took enthusiasm to become an ama-
teur with clumsy wet plates. But George Eastman's vision
foresaw that photography might grow into a huge business.
Fitting up a little shop he conducted many experiments,
PUTTING SUNLIGHT TO WORK 399
after hours. Gelatine and silver bromide plates were then
being tried in America and abroad. John Carbutt of Phila-
delphia had introduced the use of coated, celluloid cut film, and
Eastman's experiments led him to the making and selling of
dry plates.
Goodwin, Eastman, and the Modern Roll-Film Camera
A new era was on. Glass plates, heavy, bulky, expensive,
and brittle, were still used. Could Eastman replace them with
something better ? Eastman tried paper, but the fibres showed
when greased — a process necessary to obtain a negative. He
tried a film of gelatine, to be stripped off like a skin. The film
was transparent enough, but hard to manage. Success came
at last by using celluloid, the process for which (unknown to
Eastman) had been patented by Hannibal Goodwin in 1887.
Lines had been laid down which were to make the camera a
plaything for the world's leisure, and a wonderful tool for its
serious work. Eastman named his film camera the "kodak,"
and by his enterprise gave the word a meaning no child would
mistake, and made it, perhaps, the best-known coined word in
the world.
The kodak — a box with a roll shutter — was portable and
easy to manage. Its instantaneous shutter was at first oper-
ated by a string. The films were perforated; the exposures
were numbered; the container could be removed to insert new
film. It was, in effect, the modern film camera, crude as East-
man later regarded it. The motto, "You press the button, we
do the rest," made the kodak a veritable genius of the lamp, and
each kodak-owner an Aladdin of pictures. Possessing a kodak,
any amateur could make a fadeless picture of New York Harbor,
for example, with a fidelity no artist could equal in a lifetime of
work. This great achievement, making the new art accessible
to all, is largely to be ascribed to the enterprise of George East-
man.
Hannibal Goodwin was a clergyman in Newark, New Jersey.
In 1887 he devised a process for making celluloid film, which
he demonstrated to the industry. He filed a patent applica-
tion, but this was not issued until a later and conflicting ap-
plication had been filed and, on appeal, granted. As for
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Goodwin's patent, although it had been applied for first, it
was not granted until his funds, and those of his friends, were
exhausted. A bitter legal fight was waged in the district court
for more than ten years, the courts eventually confirming the
prior right of Goodwin.
From Tissandier's " History and Handbook of Photography. "
THE AMATEUR TRAVELLING EQUIPMENT IN PRE-KODAK DAYS.
Explosive gun-cotton turns to peaceful uses quite naturally,
and combines with camphor to produce the photographic film.
It is a big industry. The Eastman Company alone could
girdle the earth in a month with film; it uses every week forty
tons of gun-cotton and three of pure silver (a twelfth of all
our new native silver). Cotton, treated with nitric and sul-
PUTTING SUNLIGHT TO WORK
401
phuric acids, becomes soluble in wood alcohol. Washed and
churned, -it forms a syrup-like preparation which is then formed
into sheets, two-hundredths of an inch thick, thirty inches wide,
and lyOOO feet long. Dried and coated with sensitizing chemi-
cals, its thickness is controlled so nicely that it does not vary
one eight-thousandth inch. In the dust-free atmosphere of a
GEORGE EASTMAN.
Inventor of the modern portable
roll-film camera.
GABRIEL LIPPMAN.
He helped to lay the foundations
of color photography.
wonderful laboratory equipped for the complete control of indoor
climate, and with light which permits visibility without fogging
the film, this enormous industry flourishes and provides a story
full of interest and adventure. Here researches are made on the
behavior of chemicals under the action of light, so as to make
photography a pastime for any boy, and perfect the motion-
picture film to be the world's greatest instructor and enter-
tainer.
Giving Eyes to the Camera
A lens is supposed to be needed to form an image; but a
pinhole suffices, and beautiful pictures have been made by
home-made pinhole cameras. With a given pinhole, images of
varying size can be formed. Focussing is not required and the
402 COMMUNICATION
picture is not distorted at the margins. Equal definition all
over the plate is obtained for the same hole-to-plate distance,
so the swing-back can be used for architecture. The pinhole
gives equal separation or expression of detail all over the pic-
ture. There is no critical sharpness, however, and there may
be no moving figures in the view. A long exposure is required,
so that instantaneous photography would be out of the ques-
tion. The lens in the aperture, however, has made the image
bright enough and sharp enough to affect the chemicals and
give us the modern photograph. As explained at the beginning
of this chapter, for centuries the aperture of the camera was
open, until, in 1550, Cardan enlarged the hole and inserted a
glass ball, giving us the first camera-lens. It was not very suc-
cessful, but experiment following experiment the modern high-
speed camera-lens was the result.
The lens is the silent partner of the sensitized plate. Curved
by the grinder, a piece of glass enforces nature to record her
image on the camera-plate and thus make photography possible.
It seems easy to bring a beam of light to a focus; with a burning-
glass, for example. Seen closer, however, such a focus is not a
fine sharp point of white light, but a colored, hazy spot. Why ?
White light is a mixture of colors; each comes to a focus at a
different distance. Blue rays bend easily in a lens and focus
nearer than red. If the blue is focussed to a sharp point the
other colors not in focus form circles around the point of blue.
This blurs the image in an ordinary lens. The story of making
a lens giving an uncolored focus of white light would fill an
entertaining volume. The bending power of a given glass de-
pends on its shape; the more curved the greater the bending.
Complex lenses correct the excess bending of the blue and the
too slight bending of the red, so as to focus all colors at the same
distance; that is, at the plate. Such a lens is ''achromatic";
meaning, without color. The production of such a lens was one
of the first steps toward modern photography.
But a camera-lens must have more wizardry. A landscape
has three dimensions in nature; the camera-lens must reduce it
to two. A pinhole camera has no focus; hence the picture may
be formed at any distance. A far tree focusses nearer an ordi-
nary lens than a near tree, and the designer must so design his
PUTTING SUNLIGHT TO WORK 403
lens for near and far sight that all trees focus sharp at the same
distance from the lens. But the modern short-focus lens almost
succeeds. It has "depth." Lens magic compresses Nature's
third dimension — distance — to zero.
A third thing a lens must do. Each point of a lens receives
from every point of a scene a ray of light, and in turn must send
a ray to every point of the picture. Countless ray cones thus
interlace in almost infinite complexity. Lens magic must dis-
entangle this to weave the beautiful image on the camera plate.
To do so without distortion, making a sharp, clear image in true
colors only, without unduly blurring near and far objects, is
surely a fascinating possibility of lens magic.
A good lens demands the utmost in computation from the
designer. One such camera lens — the Goerz — is said to have
cost years of labor of several experts, and many thousands of
dollars, simply to design and produce the first model lens. To
shape the lens thus computed is a triumph of the glass-worker's
skill; the craftsman can grind a lens true to plan with no error
as great as a half-millionth part of an inch. We may yet im-
prove the lens; but it is, to-day, a masterpiece, gifted with re-
markable powers.
Curing the Camera's Color Blindness
The camera was born color blind; it recorded only blue and
violet, and these only as tints of gray. What a drab world it
would be without the gaiety of colors, and yet that was the
world photography gave us. It hardly responded to green, and
not at all to yellow, orange, or red light, which three might well
have been black. For half a century this seemed incurable.
Blue sky showed white, the red schoolhouse and the yellow sun-
flower both showed black in the picture. By spectacles we cor-
rect the lens of the human eye for defective curvature, but so
far we have failed to cure its color blindness.
How then could we cure the color-blind camera plate ?
Happily the camera has a detachable "retina," whose sensitive-
ness depends not on physiology but on chemistry. The task
was one for the chemists. They did not fail us. The way out
came most unexpectedly. While Doctor Vogel was experiment-
ing in 1873, trying to stop the spreading of light on his plate
404 COMMUNICATION
during exposure, he found to his astonishment and delight that
the plate, which he had bathed in aniline red, had actually regis-
tered the greens. With quick insight he saw that the camera's
color blindness might be curable, and that he had accidentally
stumbled on the remedy.
A big discovery lay wrapped up m the fascinating riddle.
How could aniline red make his plate sensitive to green ? The
answer gave the clue to success. Red and green — complemen-
tary colors — together make white, or at least light gray. Take
red from white, green remains; take green from white, red is
left. A rose is red in white light because it reflects only the red
part of the light. What becomes of the green ? The green is
absorbed, digested, feeding energy to the rose. A green leaf,
however, reflects green, absorbs red. So when Vogel's plate
dipped in red dye absorbed the green rays, the plate became
sensitive to the color absorbed, not to the color reflected. He
was justly thrilled with the idea of making plates sensitive to
any color. To master the method was not easy, for the ''opti-
cal sensitizing" of the plate, as we now call it, was then virgin soil.
The road thus opened wide by Vogel led to success thirty
years later, but in 1873, only one in six of his plates worked well.
Gelatine gave even more trouble. Tinting collodion dulled it
for other useful rays and made it too slow. The discouraging
results were ridiculed by the British Journal of Photography ^
but failure was not to be thought of.
Two years later, an English army ofiicer. Colonel Water-
house, found that eosine dye sensitized the plate for yellow-green.
In France, Becquerel found that chlorophyll, the green colorant
in plants, made plates respond to orange-red. This was indeed
progress. The camera now responded to all colors but red.
Hot on the trail, Vogel, Schumann, Eder, and others tried
out hundreds of dyes. A few proved useful, and these pointed
the way. Erythrosin is still used to make plates sensitive to
yellow-green, for landscape and similar work. It was far too
soon to name the new plates "orthochromatic," or "right-color"
— meaning that the resulting tints of gray varied true with the
brightness of the colors in the scene — for the plates were still
unresponsive to red. Only in 1904, when Konig discovered pina-
cyanol, was a nearly "panchromatic," or all color-plate made.
PUTTING SUNLIGHT TO WORK 405
With it came pinachrome and orthochrome "T" dyes. These
were too fugitive for dyeing fabric, but this very fault became a
prized virtue in sensitizing camera plates to certain colors.
Bathing a plate ten minutes in ammonia water and alcohol with
a millionth part, by weight, of pinacyanol — an astonishingly
small quantity — the plate becomes sensitive to green, yellow,
orange, and red, and incidentally needs but one-fourth the ex-
posure time.
The experimenters were now well on the way to give the
camera the same -color sense as the eye. But the blues were
still too active; deep blue showed white, bright red was dark.
Here a simple bit of common sense solved the problem. A
yellow screen in front of the lens cut out some of the blue;
an obvious, easy, and successful device. This meant longer ex-
posure, for blue prints quickly, and to screen out any of the
blue slowed ciown the process. Screens may call for four times
the usual exposure, but the result is worth while. Panchro-
matic plates are slower; their one defect. The battle-fleet is
only as fast as the slowest moving ship; so the panchromatic
plate is only as fast as the slowest registering color: red. Dicy-
anin, a rare blue dye, was later found to be sensitive to the
longer red rays. By manipulation, worked out at the Bureau
of Standards, W^ashington, in war time, was photographed
through haze or light clouds by using only the redder rays of
the scene, the haze blue being absorbed by the screen. Clear
pictures were taken "through the clouds" at heights of nearly
two miles with an exposure of only a hundredth of a second.
Thus far photography has meant producing gray lights and
shades corresponding in brightness to the brightness of the
colors of the original scene. To produce a photograph in natural
colors, however, was a dream long before simple photography
was achieved, for the charm of the old camera obscura image
was its natural color.
And Now Photography in Natural Colors
In Goethe's Farbenlehre (Treatise on Color) of 1810, Thomas
Johann Seebeck tells of a color spectrum he exposed to moist
chloride of silver paper and how, after about twenty minutes,
he observed the sensitized paper take on all the colors of the
406
COMMUNICATION
spectrum falling upon it. J. M. Eder names this the first record
of natural color photography. It is appropriate that it should
be the spectrum; that natural and visible gamut of colors in the
sequence of their natural wave-lengths or frequencies.
In 1840 John Herschel successfully repeated Seebeck's ex-
periment. In 1847 Edmond Becquerel made impressions in
color on silver coated with subchloride of silver, heating it in
From " Kromskop Color Photography," by Fred. Ives.
(Left) MULTIPLE BACK KROMSKOP CAMERA OF IVES.
The letters "R," "G," "B" stand for "red," "green," and "blue." Three negatives were
made, each registering only its own color.
(Right) THE IVES LANTERN KROMSKOP.
The red, green, and blue images were projected on the screen, and these blended into a single
perfect reproduction in natural colors of the object photographed.
the dark, exposing it in the solar spectrum, and obtaining the
colors. He thus photographed in full color drawings and ob-
jects as well as the spectrum. They vanished in daylight, but
some specimens, preserved in the dark since 1850, were said to
be still perceptible as late as 1912.
Niepce de Saint Victor, the nephew of Niepce, was a clever
and ardent student of photography, especially of color photog-
raphy. He was lieutenant in the municipal guard at Paris.
At his quarters in Saint-Martin he made a work-table of his
camp-bed, using the shelves for chemicals and apparatus. The
police-room was his laboratory. By day he experimented, at
PUTTING SUNLIGHT TO WORK 407
night with helmet and sword he guarded the city. The quar-
ters were burned in the Revolution of 1848, but he pursued his
work on color plates until he succeeded not only with the reds,
blues, and greens, but at last with the yellows. These he re-
corded in very beautiful color photographs on a single plate,
but the pictures made by Niepce de Saint Victor were not per-
manent. The jury of the 1862 International Exhibition exam-
ined and reported upon a dozen of his color photographs, about
three and one-half inches by two and one-half, figures with
colored draperies, and stated that, "each tint in the pictures
exhibited . . . was a faithful reproduction of the original.
Amongst the colors were blues, yellows, reds, greens, all very
vivid. Some of the tints gradually faded and disappeared in
the light whilst under examination, and a few remained perma-
nent for some hours. The possibility of producing natural
color thus established is a fact most interesting and important,
and too much praise cannot be awarded to the skilful research
which has been to this extent crowned with success." At the
Paris Exhibition of 1867 Niepce exhibited specimens which
lasted a week in diffused daylight. Gold and silver are said to
have been reproduced in their natural metallic lustre, and a pea-
cock's feather showed the brilliant tints and shades of the original.
It was in Paris, on February 2, 1891, that Gabriel Lippmann
announced his perfected process of color photography, based on
the principle which had been the unknown secret of the success
of Seebeck, Herschel, Becquerel, and Niepce de Saint Victor.
Zenker and Rood are credited with the true explanation of their
results. Lippmann's process gave us such magical permanent
color photographs, without colorants of any kind or color screens,
that its interesting principle is worth understanding. A simple
illustration will assist.
If an incoming wave strikes a vertical sea-wall the wave is
reflected back to the sea. Its crest meets the incoming crest of
the next wave at a certain distance from the sea-wall. The
distance depends on the interval between waves. Coming regu-
larly forty feet apart, the reflected crest meets the incoming
crest twenty feet, let us say, from the sea-wall. Crest meeting
crest, doubles the wave intensity at this point. An instant
later, at the same place, trough joins trough, extending their
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spread. At ten feet from the sea-wall, however, the outgoing
crest meets the incoming trough and cancels it, and an instant
later the incoming crest cancels the outgoing trough, thereby
forming a calm region. The effect, called "interference," gives
us "standing waves." This is, perhaps, clearer if we pluck regu-
larly at a tightly stretched clothes-line. We see the wave run
to the post at the other end and, reflected back, meeting the
THE FIRST EASTAL;N KODAK (1888).
This kodak took round pictures, two and one-half inches in diameter, and was loaded at the
factory for one hundred exposures.
later arriving crests at definite distances, one wave-length apart.
We then see a series of vibrating sections — standing waves —
between fixed points of rest along the rope. Something like
this occurs in the Lippmann film principle.
Suppose we place a sensitized film on a polished metal mir-
ror, and on it photograph a yellow spot. What occurs ? A
wave of yellow light passes through the film and is reflected
back. The crest of the wave meets the crest of the next in-
coming wave at a certain distance from the mirror. Crest meet-
ing crest, the wave action at this point is more intense. Crests
PUTTING SUNLIGHT TO WORK 409
would meet a half wave-length from the plate if the light were
not delayed at the mirror surface (actually, it is delayed). In
the film, however, at regular intervals, one wave-length apart,
are a score or more layers of intense wave action, separated by
layers of calm, and these alternate layers have fixed positions.
The silver salts in the active layer are darkened, but not in the
calm layers.
The developed plate of our photograph will now reflect only
the yellow part of a white-light beam, for the score of layers
just a yellow-light wave apart act to select and reflect the color
which made them. Other colors act in the same way. Each
color makes layers separated by a distance equal to its own
wave-length. With care beautiful color photographs are possible
by the Lippmann process, which naturally has its limitations.
Curious as it seems, color printing is easier than color pho-
tography. Printing uses three plates, and the three colors
blend on the paper to form the others needed. This "three-
color" process of printing suggested "three-color photography";
it was thought that three gray negatives, one for each primary
color, with three-color screens to match, could be used to give
the efi^ect of natural colors. Viewing any illustration in color,
with a lens, you see three colors; and sometimes black is added.
How this really wonderful effect is produced is as simple as it
is interesting.
Scientists, in studying color, found that the endless variety
of color sensation is caused by three primary color sensations
arising from the nerve structure and action of the eye. The
primary color sensations are really violet, green, and orange-
red, although in three-color printing excellent results are ob-
tained with the supposedly three primary colors, red, yellow,
and blue.
If we photograph through a screen which lets only red pass,
we record in grays, darker as the red light is brighter. So for
yellow and blue, the grays give in reverse the brightness of
these colors. Three printing plates, one from each negative,
are used to print in the colors of the three screens used in taking
the pictures. On the print paper the colors superpose and mix
in the eye to reproduce the colors of the original. It is hard to
realize that we need but three colors, at most four, to give all
the natural colors of an original scene.
410 COMMUNICATION
Using the three-color idea, Frederick Ives, of Philadelphia,
made a very striking invention, applying also the binocular
effect. He made three gray transparencies, using three appro-
priate color screens, and in an ingenious apparatus he combined
the three pictures by a system of lights and mirrors. He thus
gave to the observer not only the colors of the original by syn-
thesis, but, by a pair of each element, he gave a stereoscopic or
solid effect to the view. More precisely than concisely Ives
named his device the "stereophotochromoscope."
In 1897, Professor Joly, of Dublin, introduced a color proc-
ess by which three sets of colored lines were ruled on a plate,
close together, and colored alternately red, green, blue. Thus
he had three color screens on one plate. A sensitized plate, back
of such a screen, took a composite gray picture recording in all
parts of the plate the intensities of each of the three colors.
Under the red lines of the screen the grays recorded in reverse
the red elements, and so on with the other colors. By contact
a copy was made in which the brightness corresponds with that
of the original. Viewing the resulting picture, when developed,
through a similarly ruled screen — but one having the natural
visual primaries, matched line for line — the original colors ap-
peared by the blending of the three elementary colors.
Messrs A. Lumiere and Sons in 1907 made a brilliant appli-
cation of the composite trichromatic screen principle in a most
novel process. They used tiny balls of starch, clear, and so
minute that the naked eye could not distinguish them. They
dyed some of them red, others green, the rest blue, mixing all
until they appeared gray. They then spread the colored starch
grains on the plate. Only twenty-six per cent of the grains
were blue, for blue photographs inordinately well; thirty-eight
per cent were dyed red, for red photographs slowly. Thus did
the Lumieres correct for the unequal photographing power of
these colors, and the process, called the Lumiere autochrome,
produced beautiful plates.
The principle involved is interesting. Each red grain is a
tiny color screen under which forms a spot of dark gray, dark
in proportion to the brightness of the red element of the scene
at that point. Likewise for the yellow and blue grains. After
development, but before fixing, the darkened silver under each
PUTTING SUNLIGHT TO WORK 411
grain is dissolved. The unchanged silver left in each spot is
then darkened and the plate is fixed. Seen through the same
colored grains with which it was taken, the picture shows the
true colors of the original scene, each color now having its in-
tensity at all points determined by the transparency of the gray
under each colored grain.
Such photographs are viewed, like stained-glass windows, by
transmitted light. Wondertul as is the work of Gabriel Lipp-
mann and the Lumieres, inventors are still trying to produce a
direct true photograph in natural color. Perhaps a three-color
makeshift is the most we may expect in the immediate future.
Our own eye vision, in fact, consists of three-colored sensations
combined in varying proportions to produce other colors. But
to create a sensitive molecule, which, like the chameleon, will
turn the hue of the incident light, but unlike the chameleon, will
hold that color — that is the alluring dream and task for the
photochemist ot to-morrow.
Giving the Camera Binocular Vision
The camera was born with one eye; hence it produced a
flat, one-eye view. Perspective and dimmed outlines gave some
effect of distance, but solidity, or the third dimension (distance),
was absent. Place a finger between this book and the eye, look
at the book first with one eye, then with the other. The two
views differ but do not conflict when seen together. The brain
combines them to give a solid effect, called "binocular," "two-
eyed," or "stereoscopic" (solid-seeing) vision. By it we judge
distance and solid form.
Euclid, in 300 B. C, defined stereoscopic vision. But it
was not until 1838 that Wheatstone gave us the first stereo-
scopic device, which, with twin mirrors, picture-holders, and
eye-pieces, permitted seeing at the same time both right-eyed
and left-eyed pictures of an object. These gave the effect of
relief. Early cameras with two lenses for taking such double
(two-eyed) views were invented very early. A similar effect is
obtained by double pictures (two exposures), to accomplish
which the camera is moved a few inches to one side; that is, the
distance from the pupil of one eye to the pupil of the other.
The camera first photographs the scene as viewed by one eye,
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and secondly as viewed by the other. Seeing these together
through a stereoscope, the effect is one of sohd relief. If we
can take two exposures a few inches apart, we can do so with ex-
posures many feet apart. One such view of Blackwell's Island
Photograph by Phillip P. Quale'.
A BULLET PIERCING A SOAP-BUBBLE.
The exposure time was of the order of o.oooooi second. The bullet, an American spitzer, 30
caliber, had a speed of 2,700 feet per second. The spatter in the background is due to the
soap solution flung out when the collapse initiated by the piercing of the bubble by the
projectile was completed. The photograph shows clearly that the collapse of the soap-
bubble is a slow process compared with the speed of the projectile.
has been photographed from an East River bridge with two ex-
posures spaced thirty feet apart, and towns have been snapped
a mile or two up in the air at intervals of half a mile. Such
views give powerful solid effect as of models on a table. Quite
remarkable effects are obtained by such twin photographs in
astronomy. The moon wobbles slightly and does not always
PUTTING SUNLIGHT TO WORK 413
present exactly the same face, so we can photograph the moon
at each extreme of the swing and secure vivid stereoscopic
effects on the kmar mountains. In this manner John A. Whip-
ple, in i860, took two photographs of the moon, February 5
and April 6, with an exposure of five seconds. The moon
changed its position and the two views mounted in a stereoscope
showed no longer as a flat disk, but as a solid ball with moun-
tains having three dimensions. By photographing Mars, rotat-
ing on its axis, two hours apart, or Jupiter, twenty-six minutes
apart, pairs of pictures of these interesting planets are made
which vividly show the spherical forms.
Photography without Lens or Camera
Can any one imagine photographing without the aid of
camera or glass lens; merely by holding up a sensitized plate to
the scene ? Yet such was Tiphaigne's magic mirror. A stereo-
scopic effect on a single plate was also produced through the
rare ingenuity of Lippmann. In fact, Lippmann improved on
the fly's eye. He embossed both sides of a sheet of celluloid
with minute convex surfaces, tiny lens-shaped protuberances
on the two sides, which, matching up, form a myriad of trans-
parent micro-lenses. Each little lens has a surface toward the
scene slightly more curved than the back. The back is sensi-
tized and is exposed by holding it vertically, facing the scene.
Each one of the lenses prints a complete image on its back
surface, as may be seen in a microscope. Examined closely by
reflected light, nothing appears to the naked eye. Held up and
seen by transmitted light, the effect is magical. One sees the
scene, natural size, in full stereoscopic relief, exactly as if one
looked through an open window at the original scene. Each
tiny lens contributes its share to the entire picture, and by mov-
ing the eyes the effect is extraordinarily realistic. This is
photography without the aid either of lens or camera, and pro-
ducing a binocular effect without a stereoscope: a sensational
achievement.
Photography the Artist of Printing
Printing calls for illustrations. Once these were printed
from wood-cuts, hand engraved with great care and effort.
414 COMMUNICATION
Senefelder found it possible to print from stone, without etch-
ing-surface printing. When photography arrived, the way was
open to produce scenes and faces with fidelity and engrave them
by photo-chemical methods. Books and magazines are to-day
filled with fine pictures photo-engraved from camera pictures.
Drawings are photo-etched on zinc in much the way Niepce
devised. The coating becomes insoluble where the light falls.
The negative, transferred to the zinc surface, reverses the lights
and darks on the zinc. Etching with acid removes the portions
which must not take the ink. The lines of the original drawings
are represented by lines on the plate, which take the ink and
transfer it to the paper.
The printing of lines is easy, but scenes and faces present
new problems, for they show varying gradations of shades of
gray, not merely black and white contrasts. "Grays" are half-
tones, and half-tone engraving is an art of vast importance to
modern printing. Grays vary from almost black to almost
white, because gray is a mixture of white and black. Printer's
ink is black, the paper is white. Note how the genius of the
printer and photographer blended the black of the ink and white
of the paper to produce the varying grays of the picture.
Look at any half-tone illustration in this book, and you see
only grays. They appear gray not because gray ink is used,
for a magnifying lens shows that the picture is made up of jet-
black dots of varying size on the white paper. This is the
secret. The ink dots are so small that they blend with the
white of the paper as gray. Small dots give light gray, for
more of the white paper shows; large dots give dark gray, for
more of the black ink appears. But the bare eye sees only
tints and shades of gray, no pure black, no pure white, though
the lens tells a different tale.
How easily this is done is a surprise to the novice. A nega-
tive of a scene is made through a glass screen ruled with inter-
secting fine lines; say 150 lines per inch each way, 300 inches
of ruling per square inch making 22,500 transparent squares, or
windows, formed by the intersecting lines in each square inch.
The lines stop the light, but through each tiny window passes
a point of the picture, the ray falling on a prepared copper-
plate. The sky on the negative, of course dark, lets but little
PUTTING SUNLIGHT TO WORK 415
light pass through. For the sky, therefore, the tiny points or
dots are small on the copperplate. When the plate is etched
with acid the small dots are left standing, becoming peaks on
the engraved plate. These peaks, inked by the roller, alone
touch the smooth paper which takes off the ink, as you see
through the lens. The sky is thus printed light compared with
the darker shadows of the scene.
The ruling of line half-tone screens is an art which we owe
largely to the Levy brothers of Philadelphia. It is one of the
surprises of photography that cross-ruled lines can break up a
picture into dots, and that the negative can vary the size of
these dots to give all the tints and shades of gray needed to
print a picture on paper. Some fine screens contain as many
as 400 lines to the inch, so that in each square inch there are
66 feet of ruled lines, and 160,000 square windows, or more than
5,000,000 clear windows used to produce a single full-page illus-
tration in a book. Each window controls the size of one tiny
dot, and does its part in making the picture.
Getting Rid of the Dark-Room
A great sensation was produced among photographers by a
recent achievement in photography, ranking in interest with
color-sensitizing itself. In 1921, Liippo-Cramer announced in
the Photographische Rundschau his discovery that the red dye
*'phenosafranine" quenches the light-sensitiveness of exposed
plates without injury to the undeveloped image. An exposed
plate bathed a minute in phenosafranine solution — i part in
2,000 — becomes dead to all light except blue, and retains only
one eight-hundredth of its original blue sensitiveness. Lumiere
and Seyewetz developed such a plate without fogging, near a
paper screen lit up from behind with a sixteen-candle lamp.
Phenosafranine "desensitizes" the plate, the exact inverse of sen-
sitizing it. How it does so without injury to the latent image is a
fascinating mystery, inviting research. The discovery is recent
and full of interesting possibilities. By using dyes we may
modify, perhaps, the color sensitiveness of the plate so as to
make color filters needless. The dark room itself may be en-
tirely abandoned and plates developed in full yellow light under
observation. Possibly, even, the developing-room may be lit
with a composite white light made of three pure colors, none
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of which affect the plate, after desensitizing it to these same
three pure colors. In France daylight photography of the
stars has been accomplished to stars of the third magnitude,
by the use of filters cutting out the bkie and with red-sensitized
Phntograph by Ycrkcs Observatory.
GREAT NEBULA IN ANDROMEDA.
An example of the scientific use of photography.
plates. Without waiting for the rare moments of a total eclipse
we may yet record starlight bent from its course by the action
of the sun according to Einstein's theory.
Photography of Invisible Light
The camera plate records rays to which our eyes are blind.
Ether waves may vary widely in length from millions of miles
to one ten-billionth of an inch. Of this vast range of waves
PUTTING SUNLIGHT TO WORK 417
the eye can see only those waves not larger than 33,000, nor
smaller than 72,000 to the inch. The eye and the camera plate
are strictly true radio-receiving sets tuned to receive only cer-
tain frequencies or wave-lengths of electromagnetic waves of
light. The sensitized plate registers waves varying from 25,000
to 50,000,000 to an inch. For such wide ranges glass is unsuita-
ble, for it is as opaque as iron to very short waves; hence various
materials displace glass for the optical parts through which the
rays must pass. Photographs are easily made with invisible
light. Every different kind of atom can produce a character-
istic series of colors or rays differing from every other, just as
every musical instrument produces different quality of sound
or wave-form. Many such light rays are invisible, and can be
studied only by photographing them.
Wonderful Photography of the Su
N
The astonishing astronomical uses of photography deserve a
volume. The work of Doctor George Ellery Hale of Mount
Wilson Observatory will illustrate some of its possibilities.
He picks out the light of a given element, say calcium, from
sunlight, and with those rays alone he photographs the sun's
surface, giving us a map of the calcium cloud distribution on
the solar disk. Imagine photographing the distribution of a
metal in a circle 800,000 miles in diameter. He can likewise
photograph the hydrogen distribution. More bewildering still
are his photographs of the sun's atmosphere at different levels,
each picture showing the clouds at but one level. This bit of
scientific magic seems incredible. It is as though we took a
snapshot through two lines of soldiers and photographed the
third line only. By dispersing sunlight into its component
colors. Doctor Hale picks out just the rays coming from each
level in the sun's atmosphere, and from a single element in that
atmosphere. Photographs of such rays alone give him a map
of a single element at a single level of the solar surface.
Undreamed of power was given to the camera by Rontgen's
discovery of X-rays, in 1895, t>y which we can now photograph
through solid wood, metal, or stone. These light-waves are
a thousand times smaller than visible light-waves; 50,000,000
end to end would measure just one inch. Such rays from high-
418 COMMUNICATION
power tubes of recent design, using an electric current 0/300,000
volts, photograph through stone walls more than 200 feet away.
The camera plates are prepared by mixing finely powdered
tungstate of calcium crystals with the silver bromide crystals,
and the plates are thus made fifty times faster than before.
For example, by using calcium tungstate intensifying screens, a
man's hip-bone may be X-rayed in a fraction of a second where
once it took forty-five minutes. Altogether the photographing
efi-'ect has been increased thousands of times in recent years.
We can photograph the inner mechanism of a metal clock; or,
through several inches of metal, show fiaws for which railroad
wrecks were once the only test. With the X-ray, the body be-
comes as transparent as glass; its anatomy an open book. It
is a daily practice to photograph the interior of the body to
aid the physician and surgeon. Foreign matter, diseased con-
ditions, fractures, and bone settings are readily studied and
their treatment planned. Signs of tuberculosis and abscesses
are easily noted. The dentist thus studies the teeth, their posi-
tion in the gums, and even the teeth yet uncut embedded in
the jaws. An X-ray of a boy showed not only a gall-stone, its
shape and location, but showed the successive layers which
made up the gall-stone itself. In fact, the X-ray has already
rendered priceless service to the world, and we have hardly
begun to realize its remarkable powers.
After our fiying trip through the history and possibilities
of photography we now see that its uses are boundless, its future
limited only by faith, knowledge, and effort. A century ago
no dreamer dared predict miracles such as any boy can now
work with a camera. In this age of invention no art contrib-
utes more than photography. All arts add to its perfection. In
turn they are given a new tool with countless uses. From the
stone pictures of ancient Egypt, painstakingly cut by chisel and
mallet, is a long road to the instantaneous motion-picture of
to-day. The uses of photography defy listing; they cover all
science, art, and industry; they comprise all professions, occu-
pations, and recreations. Sages once sought by magic phrases
— cryptograms — to gain magical power over nature. But the
chemical formulas of the dark room are the true cryptograms,
translating nature into forms to enlighten and guide mankind.
CHAPTER VII
PICTURES THAT LIVE AND MOVE
THE genii of the Laboratory gave us a mechanical memory
of sounds in the phonograph, and a chemical memory of
things in the form of the photograph. The motion-picture goes
further and gives us an optical memory of movement, a ma-
terialized memory of events in actual motion. What we have
seen we can recall. Memory, like the film, sensitized and ex-
posed, retains the scene. Projection on the screen is like recol-
lection in the brain. We have given the motion-picture appa-
ratus the power of memory and recall. We may select what it
remembers and what it recollects; the film producer does one,
the theatre manager the other. What this magical memorizing
device means to the world we hardly realize. The "movie" can
picture even the impossible, for when we reduce events to a strip
of celluloid we can manipulate the events to produce any desired
effect on the screen.
Ancient Dreams of the Movies
All inventions have had their prophets. In a wonderful
book of philosophy. On the Nature of Things ^ by a wise Roman,
Lucretius, written about 65 B. C, occurs this remarkable
passage:
"Do not thou moreover wonder that the images appear to move,
And appear in one order and time their legs and arms to use;
For one disappears, and instead of it appears another,
Arranged in another way, and now appears each gesture to alter.
For you must understand that this takes place in the quickest time."
This seems to have inspired Plateau who first seriously engaged
in research on making pictures appear alive with action. An-
other prophet was the astronomer-chemist. Sir John Herschel,
the discoverer of "hypo," which fixing agent he thought might
solve the last problem in the invention of the photographic
419
420 COMMUNICATION
process. In i860, the Photographic Times quotes Herschel as
saying: "What I have to propose may seem to you like a dream,
but it has at least the merit of being possible, and indeed at
some time realizable. Realizable — that is to say, by an ade-
quate sacrifice of time, trouble, mechanism, and outlay. It is
the representation of scenes in action by photography." He
further describes in some detail how these may be made to
move on the screen. His remarkable forecast of discovery
seems most nearly realized in the motion-picture "news week-
lies" of to-day.
The modern type of motion-picture is an American inven-
tion based on the well-known principles of some simple house-
hold toys. These toys were developed by scientific men in
England and Belgium. "Living pictures" were on probation
during the period from 1829 to 1890, when, at length, success
began to come to the efforts of a host of ingenious inventors.
From that time on progress was rapid, and it is chiefly American
business enterprise and inventiveness that has developed the
motion-picture into the most wonderful art ever evolved by
man. It is already the world's incomparable traveller, his-
torian, entertainer, and schoolmaster; it has become more in-
teresting than the printing-press and its art, more eloquent and
intelligible than the spoken word.
Why Motion-Pictures Show Continuous Motion
Twenty centuries ago it was known that vision does not
stop when an object is removed from sight; the vision persists.
Ptolemy's book on optics tells of it, describing a rotating disk
with a series of spots which illustrate such persistence. All our
lives we blink our eyes, shut off the view, yet do not interrupt
sight. The light sensation is not lost by the twinkle of the
eye, so we hardly realize that our eyes are shut every few
seconds of our waking hours. If we swing a lighted cigar in
the dark, the point of light becomes a long bright continuous
red streak of light. It appears continuous by the phenomenon
of "persistence of vision," which holds the picture long enough
for it to appear as a flaming circle.
Motion-pictures were foreshadowed by toys known many
years ago. One simple toy, invented by Sir John Herschel,
PICTURES THAT LIVE AND MOVE 421
showed that vision persists. Challenging a friend, he said that one
could not see two sides of a card at once; his friend spun a coin,
showing head and tail sides to the eye at once. Herschel, how-
ever, produced a cardboard disk, an invention of a Doctor Paris,
and called the *' thaumatrope." On one side of the disk was pic-
tured an empty bird-cage, and on the other side, a bird. Twirl-
ing the disk by means of strings attached to the sides, Herschel
made the bird appear inside the cage. A very early form of the
"thaumatrope" actually showed motion. One side of the disk
showed merely an arm holding a bottle, the other a man with-
out his good right arm. On the left side was a string, on the
right side a string with a piece of rubber thread attached to it
and extending to a second point on the right side of the disk.
Twirling the disk in the usual way showed the man holding the
bottle above his head; on stretching the rubber, however, the
bottle moved toward the man's mouth.
A Blind Scientist Helps on Motion Pictures
Doctor Roget made the first picture toy showing motion, and
this was later perfected by Plateau and Faraday. Joseph An-
toine Plateau deserves high place in the annals of motion-picture
history. He produced the first really successful illusion of
motion to the eye by means of a series of pictures illuminated
from behind. He studied the persistence of vision and hit
upon sixteen pictures per second as the proper number to make
the movement appear continuous. When about twenty-eight
years old he gazed at the sun for twenty seconds, an unwise
sacrifice in the interest of science which cost him his eyesight.
Later, temporarily regaining the use of his eyes, he invented his
famous "phenakistoscope," a forerunner of the motion-picture
projector of to-day. He became professor of physics at Ghent,
but at forty-two became totally blind. Many interesting ex-
periments were conducted by his family under his directions,
some of his best work being done while he was sightless.
Crude as we would regard it to-day. Plateau's device was
one of great ingenuity. A semblance of continuous motion was
produced by sixteen pictures on the edge of a disk, shown in
quick succession by an intermittent light from behind. He
even proposed stereoscopic effects by having two sets of pic-
Courtesy Unitfd States National Museum.
THE "ZOETROPE" OR "WHEEL OF LIFE."
In 1833, W. G. Horner devised the "zoetrope," an open drum within which was a series of pic-
tures. As the drum was turned the eye saw, through vertical sHts, one picture at a time
in such rapid succession that the effect of continuous motion was obtained.
Courtesy United States National Museum.
THE PERIPHANOSCOPE OF 1833.
It was used with a mirror. The succession of pictures was viewed through the small openings
in the disk, thus well applying the persistence of vision.
PICTURES THAT LIVE AND MOVE 423
tures made from eight solid models, each in a distinct pose.
By viewing with the left eye the series made tor that eye, and
with the right viewing the other series, the effect ol motion in
solid relief is possible.
In 1833 W. G. Horner devised the "zoetrope," or ''wheel of
life"; an open drum, inside of which was a series of pictures;
for example, a man in the successive poses of a dance. As the
drum turned on its axis the eye saw, through a series of vertical
slit openings, one picture at a time in such rapid succession that
a girl rope skipping, a boy jumping, horses galloping, or a lumber-
jack chopping wood appeared in action — a striking effect of
persistent vision. The pictures were the beginnings, fragment-
ary but genuine, of the "movies" of to-day.
Before the motion-pictures we know to-day could be invented,
two things were needed. Firsts a sensitive chemical affected at
once on exposure to light; second, a transparent and flexible
film to hold the chemicals, record the image, and carry the pic-
ture through the projecting lantern. The quick-acting chemi-
cal was needed to photograph moving objects which would blur
unless the exposure were very short. The chemicals with
which early dry plates were coated — the gelatino-bromide emul-
sion of 1878 — were hopelessly slow. Even a quick exposure
lasted a second. In a second an express-train travels many feet,
so fast that it would appear as a mere blur on the negative. To-
day supersensitive chemicals snap a scene in a thirtieth or a
thousandth of a second, or, with spark lighting, in less than a
millionth of a second.
But a transparent film was also needed for the motion-
picture to show on the screen a thousand pictures a minute, and
the pictures had to be taken by the camera at the same rate.
It was hard to see how glass plates could ever project the sixteen
or eighteen pictures a seconci required for continuous and smooth
motion. Doubtless something might have been done with
glass after a method proposed by BettinI; but the celluloid
film, clear, light, and transparent, invented by Reverend Hanni-
bal Goodwin in 1885, was the perfect material. Its discovery
first stimulated Marey of Paris, then others, to the remarkable
success which quickly followed. The physical basis of the mo-
tion-picture is the film; its soul is light.
424 COMMUNICATION
In 1861 Coleman Sellers, of Philadelphia, patented the first
project for a motion-picture of something like our modern type.
His "stereophantascope" was a toy with an endless flexible band
bearing a series of step-by-step images of motion. He made a
model as a toy for his children, photographed his own two boys,
one driving a nail, the other riding his hobby-horse. When the
children grew up this forerunner of the machines of to-day was
relegated to the attic with the rocking-horse and other toys.
The First Public Motion-Picture Show
The "birthplace of the movies" was Philadelphia. At the
Academy of Music, on February 5, 1870, Henry Heyl, of the
same city, publicly exhibited on the screen a series of posed
pictures showing the movements of a couple executing a waltz.
While certainly the first life-sized exhibition of animated screen
pictures, it was not produced by the photography of moving
persons. The wet-plate process of that day required time ex-
posure, and the dancers, one of whom was Mr. Heyl himself,
assumed the six successive pose phases of a waltz movement.
The pictures, repeated three times, were placed around the edge
of a disk, while Mr. Heyl used a step-by-step motion in strict
time with the waltz music of the orchestra.
At the Sacramento race-track, about 1872, some lovers of
fine horses, among them Leland Stanford, were discussing the
motions of running horses. The point at issue was whether a
horse ever has all four feet off the ground at once. Stanford
contended it had; others disputed it, saying that the horse
would have nothing to support it if all four feet were off the
ground. A wager was made, which they sensibly decided to
settle by photography. Stationed at San Francisco was Eadward
Muybridge, of the staff of the United States Coast and Geodetic
Survey and in charge of their photographic surveys. The horse-
men made up a purse and engaged Muybridge to settle the point
by the camera. Wet plates were not easy to handle, and in-
stantaneous photography was out of the question. Muybridge
placed a long white sloping screen along one side of the track,
and a battery of twenty-four cameras along the other side. As
the horses ran by they broke threads stretched across the track,
and these successively operated the camera shutters. In all a
PICTURES THAT LIVE AND MOVE
425
half million plates were used, some of the exposures being as
short as one five-thousandth of a second, too short for the details
of the picture, but showing the horse more as a profile or silhou-
ette. The resulting photographs proved conclusively to the
interested horsemen that a galloping horse does, at times, have
all four feet off the ground.
Muybridge was an important link in motion-picture historv,
Courh-sy Stanford UnkrrsUy. PJo Jho. Calunn:;.!.
MIA'BRIDGE'S PHOTOGRAPHIC STUDY OF A RUNNING HORSE.
From time immemorial artists and scientists had disputed the question whether or not a horse's
legs in running all left the ground together at any stage. To obtain a scientific answer
Senator Leland Stanford financed a series of elaborate experiments conducted by Eadward
Mu}-bridge. Photographs were made with a battery of cameras, with shutters successively
operated as the horses dashed by. Thus for the first time the movements of a running horse
were analyzed. That all four feet leave the ground the pictures here reproduced prove.
even though he began with the aim of producing separate pho-
tographs for individual study. He gave keen attention to the
evident possibilities of his experiment. His book. The Horse in
Motion, excited nation-wide interest. Its publisher, J. B. Lip-
pincott, of Philadelphia, was a lover of fine horses, and gave
funds for continuing further work in that city. The outcome
was Animal Locomotion, a monumental work in eleven volumes,
containing 100,000 pictures of horses, athletes, birds in flight,
and other living subjects. The pictures showed the work and
play of men, women, and children of all ages; how pitchers throw
the baseball, how batters hit it, and how athletes move their
bodies in record-breaking contests.
426
COMMUNICATION
Making Animal Pictures Move on the Screen
Muybridge tried to induce Edison to combine the phono-
graph with a device of his own called the "zoopraxiscope."
With this invention Muybridge had already projected pictures
at rates between twelve and thirty-two pictures a second to
From "The Horse in Motion" by Eadzvard Muybridge.
HOW MUYBRIDGE MADE HIS PICTURES.
In order to analyze the movements of running animals and men Muybridge devised a battery
of cameras, the shutters of which were electrically opened and closed. Thus photographs
were made of a running animal at intervals of twenty-seven inches; the exposures were
about two thousandths of a second each, and sometimes one five-thousandth of a second.
illustrate his lecture on animal movements. Edison, busy as a
bee, was unable to spare the time, so Muybridge perfected his
own device, and exhibited it at the Paris Electrical Exposition
in 1 88 1, many years before the kinetoscope. That year Muy-
bridge met Doctor E. J. Marey, a Frenchman keenly interested
in graphics. It was a meeting of two enthusiasts. Together
they founded the science and art of "motion analysis," which in
the hands of Frank B. Gilbreth was destined to become an ac-
cepted method of great power in the study of motion economy.
Edison later met Marey, and, inspired by the Frenchman's en-
thusiasm, he perfected the kinetoscope.
PICTURES THAT LIVE AND MOVE 427
Who was this Doctor Marey, and what was his part in mo-
tion-picture evolution ? He was a member of the French Acad-
emy, devoted to the subject of the graphic method, and author
of the greatest work on that subject, under the title of La
Methode Graphique. Stirred by Pierre Jules Janssen's photo-
graphic gun, which took intermittent pictures of the transit of
Venus across the sun's disk in 1874, Marey, eight years later,
constructed his own "photographic gun" by which, with a
single lens, he could take twelve pictures in quick succession on
plates evenly spaced on the rim of a disk. In this way he re-
corded the phases of the flapping of a bird's wings. Marey was
perhaps the first to use a single lens and, in 1887, probably the
first to use celluloid film after its invention by Goodwin. His
work is classic; his influence on American invention profound.
About 1889 another Frenchman named Raynaud exhibited
on the boulevards of Paris his "praxiscope," under the name ot
''Theatre Optique," using a series of lantern scenes painted on
a band of gelatine. A light beam passed through the gelatine
pictures, reflecting them to the eye by means of mirrors. The
device was in successful use in Paris and fairly popular until the
present motion-picture machine displaced it.
Experiments Forecast the Coming of Motion-Pictures
Mr. Friese-Greene, early in 1890, was experimenting on
taking photographs in rapid sequence, and speaks of "exposing
a negative on a travelling band 3,000 times in five minutes."
He says: "My blood was fired with enthusiasm, for I thought
of taking a scene in Hyde Park, or in the City, where the cease-
less stream of life is never ending, by the machine camera, one
day, and producing in the course of a few hours a paper which
can be delivered to the public showing, true to nature, all the
movements of life, or anything that might be of interest which
was photographed at the time." It is understood that he was
not necessarily speaking of motion-pictures in our sense, but
rather "series pictures" to be separately inspected at leisure.
His interest reminds one strongly of Herschel's forecast of i860,
"the vivid and life-like reproduction, and handing down to the
latest posterity of any transaction in real life, a battle scene, a
debate, a public solemnity, a pugilistic conflict, a harvest home,
428
COMMUNICATION
a launch, indeed anything, in short, where any matter of in-
terest is enacted within a reasonably brief time, which may be
seen from a single point of view."
Thomas A. Edison could always be counted upon to play
his part in the mechanical evolution of new inventive arts.
When the time seemed ripe for success he gathered the threads
From Edcr s "Ausjuhrlichfs Handbnch der Photographic.'"
THE PRAXI SCOPE.
About 1889 Raynaud exhibited in Paris his "praxiscope." He used a series of lantern-sHdes
painted on gelatine. Light passed through the gelatine pictures, and this was reflected to
the eye by means of mirrors. The disk was very popular until the present motion-picture
was invented.
of the needed elements. His chief contribution to the motion-
picture was perfect photography and precise mechanism.
Stampfer, in 1833, and Devignes, in i860, proposed the use of
film; Marey used it in 1888, and the same year Le Prince pro-
posed the perforation of the film, with a sprocket for the film
movement for which he had filed a patent application in 1886.
In 1876 Donisthorpe had exhibited his "kinesigraph," in which
a strip of views was exhibited by intermittent beams of electric
light. In 1889 Anschiitz, of Prussia, exhibited his electrical
tachyscope; at first a disk rimmed with pictures, later a strip
PICTURES THAT LIVE AND MOVE 429
of pictures illuminated from behind by an electric spark as
each picture passed the eye.
The Edison laboratories appear to have begun work on the
kinetoscope as early as 1888, under the direction of W. K.
Dickson. The device was patented in 1893. It was really a
peep-show in which a single observer could view scenes in mo-
tion for more than a minute. The photography was excellent;
the mechanism worked smoothly. The film moved continu-
ously and carried a series of very small photographs, each one
lit up by an electric spark for one seven-thousandth part of a
second, in some machines about one-half of this time, both
speeds being such that the image was sharp and clear. The
machine was probably the last, as Plateau's was the first, to use
intermittent illumination with steady movement of the film.
To-day all film moves by jumps both in camera and projector
— unless we except the newly perfected ring-prism and disk-
prism devices of C. Francis Jenkins.
Edison's experiments were prolonged by his attempt to
produce a cylinder picture record after the manner of his then
successful phonograph cylinders. Cylinder picture records were
made as early as 1888, showing the antics of John F. Ott, a
mechanic in the Edison shops. The kinetoscope was not adapted
to screen-showing in the theatre, and the type later adopted
was that of the Jenkins projector which is now used the world
over, and which makes use of powerful light sources and an in-
genious intermittent mechanism for the film movement.
Jenkins Invents the Motion-Picture Machine of To-day
So matters stood in the early nineties, with inventors like
Reynaud, Muybridge, Marey, Edison, Jenkins, and others at
work. The nature and principle of improvements which had
to be adopted to make the full-size theatre projector a success
and the camera a practicable portable instrument were gener-
ally known. Mr. Jenkins says that no one inventor ever in-
vented anything, that many hands and heads at work gradually
evolve the successful machine. Notwithstanding this, the pri-
ority of producing "the first successful form of projecting ma-
chine for the production of fife-size motion-pictures from a
narrow strip of film containing successive phases of motion,"
430
COMMUNICATION
was awarded to C. Francis Jenkins, of Washington, D. C, by
the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia, after a searching inquiry
into the true priority of invention of the motion-picture machine.
For this invention the Institute awarded him the Elliott Cres-
son gold medal.
C. Francis Jenkins was once a stenographer in the Treasury
Department, attached to the Coast Guard. Active and inge-
By courtesy of University of Penitsybania.
(Left) PORTRAIT OF EADWARD All YBRIDGE PAINTED BY ELSA KOENIG
NIETSCHE.
(Right) C. FRANCIS JENKINS.
Jenkins invented the first practical projector for throwing on the screen hfe-sized pictures
from films taken of living moving objects.
nious, he was interested in representing motion on the screen
about 1 89 1. After work each day, he experimented in his
shop. Taking ordinary spool film, sold as a supply for kodaks,
he cut it into narrow widths and spliced it with a film cement
of his own devising. His unwearied efi^orts overcoming one
obstacle after another finally resulted in his now-famous "phan-
tascope," which he showed privately to his friends about 1891
and later. In June, 1894, ^^e success of the "phantascope"
was such as to justify a public demonstration. Back to his
home town he carried the new machine; Richmond, Indiana,
saw the first motion-picture feature — a "first national produc-
PICTURES THAT LIVE AND MOVE 431
tion." It was a stretch of film picturing a dancer, then appear-
ing at a local vaudeville house in Washington, and the film was
taken on the present site of the New Willard Hotel. Much to
Jenkins's disappointment, his mother, good Puritan that she was,
objected to the subject; the father, however, displayed due
appreciation, both of the subject and the invention. The town
newspaper, the Richmond Telegraphy in its issue of June 6, 1894,
told in head-lines the news of the first public motion-picture
given by the new machine.
The positive film in the Jenkins or any other modern ma-
chine is really a series of magic-lantern slides. It is the star per-
former; for the screen is fixed, lights and projector stationary,
audience seated. The film alone moves. Its wonderful mo-
tion gives a timed sequence to the screen pictures, and this se-
quence is the soul of the motion-picture art. Let us study a
moment the original Jenkins phantascope of 1894, later de-
posited in the National Museum. An electric motor turns a
wheel rimmed with pegs to fit in holes on the edge of the film.
As the pegged wheel, or sprocket, turns, it unwinds the film
from the upper spool into the beam of light which throws the
picture on the screen. The film, passing before the lens by jerks,
stops only long enough to let each picture appear an instant on
the screen, then passes quickly, giving way to the next picture,
or frame.
How simple all this seems ! Yet the film is at once a troupe
of players and their automatic manager. Each film picture
dashes into the spot-light, stops an instant to give the audi-
ence a view of its image, then gives way to the next. It is a
mechanical feat to jump sixteen or eighteen times a second
during an entire evening's performance. The entrance and exit
of each picture are concealed by a curtain called a "shutter,"
a metal disk which shuts off" the light during change of pictures,
as does the curtain for the real stage. Of course all this is the
principle of the magic lantern during its heyday: picking up
a slide, placing it in the lantern runway, flashing it on the screen,
removing it, and placing it on the used pile. But to change the
"slide" sixteen times a second — to present to the spectators,
50,000 separate pictures at the rate of a thousand a minute,
is surely a triumph of machine design and operation.
432
COMMUNICATION
FIRST JENKINS MOTION-PICTURE PROJECTOR OF THE TYPE NOW IN
GENERAL USE.
HIGH-SPEED JENKINS CAMERA.
Pictures have been taken with this instrument at the rate of 100,000 a minute.
All this was evolved through the phantascope of 1894.
Jenkins took his machine to the Cotton States Exposition at
Atlanta, where only a few hundred were interested enough to
see it in operation — a common fate of new things. The follow-
ing year, in France, the Lumieres projected pictures on the screen
PICTURES THAT LIVE AND MOVE
433
with their cinematograph, using a perforated film. Jenkins,
by his invention of the phantascope and his pioneer work, has
earned a secure place in motion-picture history. He has per-
fected the sending of still pictures by radio. His later work
deals with the broadcasting of motion-pictures by radio; a re-
markable possibility. The author has recently seen the shadowy
outlines of his own fingers moving across the screen, crudely
transmitted by radio — ^the beginnings of a new art.
MOTION-PICTURES ON PAPER DISKS.
Motion-pictures for the home on a number of paper disks, each having a radial sHt to permit
the projecting mirror access to each series in turn on the principle of the spiral staircase.
The Beginning of the Motion-Picture Industry
When motion-picture cameras were first used, those who
had "rights" took a lively interest in the subjects to be filmed.
In the nineties, William H, Sehg and others went from town to
town taking, here a local fire company in full action, there a
passing train or some simple street scene, later exhibiting the
pictures in local halls. The "Empire State Express" — a
thriller of those days — thundering across the screen to the rat-
tle of the snare-drum, always brought applause. But film sub-
434 COMMUNICATION
jects were fewer than thpse of the magic-lantern shdes, and the
young art actually seemed destined to an early collapse; inter-
est died down and its dramatic future was unforeseen. During
the Cuban War, however, moving-pictures of battleships
ploughing through the sea and troop-ships carrying returning
soldiers revived the waning popularity.
About 1894, Alexander Black had the genius to conceive and
execute a magic-lantern play. To-day we would find it tame.
But during its hour, "Miss Jerry" was hailed with delight, and
the novelty of it attracted wide attention. In no sense a
motion-picture play, it was a link between "living pictures"
and the modern motion-picture play. Mr. Black says he was
trying to tell stories by photographs. A group of camera stud-
ies tossed together and named "Ourselves as Others See Us"
was his starting-point. To produce a picture play was another
matter; the pictures had to develop the plot progressively and
tell the story in a long series of separate photographs.
In "Miss Jerry" there was no attempt to produce the illu-
sion of motion, but rather to blend one picture with the next.
Mr. Black projected about three pictures a minute by a stereop-
ticon with a dissolving-view attachment. Camera and scenery
were adjusted so that each new picture registered on the screen
accurately with the preceding one; only the actors moved from
one position to another. The whole story was told in 250
pictures in about an hour and a half, and a text thrown on the
screen filled in the gaps in the story. The settings were not
natural, but made on a regular stage. Artificial as it would
doubtless seem to us, this was an advance toward the modern
camera play with its marvels of realism.
Early film plays were chiefiy comedies full of slap-stick and
camera trick work, well known in principle before the motion-
picture arrived. In the late nineties, however, Melies, a French
producer, devised many new motion-picture tricks which have
scarcely been excelled. In 1900, Zecca, a Pathe director, pro-
duced in France one of the first true photoplays, "L'Histoire
d'un Crime." With it the photo-drama arrived, and follow-
ing Henri Lavedan's scenario of "L'Assassinat du Due de
Guise," the photoplay became a fine art, speedily arousing the
highest enthusiasm.
PICTURES THAT LIVE AND MOVE 435
Producing a Photoplay
To the motion-picture "all the world's a stage." All na-
ture is its scenery; all men and women its players. The scenario
writer may call for an ocean, a forest, a river, a volcano, or an
Oriental city. The location man or scenic artist must produce
just what is called for: Alaska snows, Sahara sands, a New
York tenement, or a thousand scenes from as many lands.
The historical expert must know all the proper names in the
language and not fail in giving accuracy to the details of an
event.
Building up a motion-picture play is not unlike, in prin-
ciple, the construction of a house. It is finished bit by bit; a
hundred parts are separately developed in a hundred places,
without seeming order or sense, until final assembling. Be-
tween "shots" the big studio is a bedlam of building, rehearsals,
coaching, dressing, and business — all working toward the fin-
ished, well-rounded "big-feature" play. The director paints
his great scenes with living characters; under his direction the
players become as mannikins, rehearsing for the final action,
every actor tense with the team-work a photoplay demands.
When ready, the director shouts "Camera! Action!" Now
every move must be perfect; for the cameras are registering the
scene for the world and posterity. Little wonder the motion-
picture studio attracts thousands; here the young actor and
actress will find opportunity, inspiration, and instruction wait-
ing on them; and yet, even after success is attained, they must
be prepared to work very hard.
A veritable army of workers is needed to produce the sets
for a modern scenario; practically all kinds of building crafts-
men and artists. The resources of centuries of theatre lore are
at hand, with countless new devices added. From the scenario
the director plans all "sets," or scenes, and their construction
in the studio calls for considerable skill. The film of "Broken
Blossoms" had to be perfect in local color to satisfy the artistic
sense of the director. Newly made rooms in the studio must
be "aged" by adding signs of wear and old stains. The prop-
erty-man from his museum of accessories — his old curiosity-
shop — must produce anything from a pair of snowshoes to a
436 COMMUNICATION
jewelled crown. His ingenuity is tested and dependable; the
word "can't" is not in his lexicon. Either he has everything
or he will make it or get it. From private homes, museums,
junk-dealers, pawn-shops, curio bazaars, and a thousand sources,
he harvests in his properties, without which his realism would
fail.
The life of the player of the studio is adventurous compared
with that of the theatre actor. In the 500 scenes which a mod-
ern "superfeature" may call for, some are sure to involve haz-
ardous exploit. Outdoor scenes must be played so as to seem
real, and not like acting. Hubert M. Kittles, substituting for
the high-salaried "star," was in bed for weeks with broken
bones after a realistic motorcycle race, in which the story called
for a real tumble. Having been a racer he said: "I won't do a
thing half-way," and he refused to slow down as he passed the
camera. His fall was as genuine as were his resulting injuries,
while the hero whose place he took went unharmed. The
principals in "Way Down East" are reported to have had pneu-
monia following exposure during the now-famous snow-storm
and ice scene. Mary Pickford insisted on acting through the
pelting rain in "Lovelight," the director shouting instructions
from the shelter of his umbrella. Fairbanks, diving through
the court-room window in "The Nut," was seriously injured.
In the "Pride of the Clan" the rescue scene from the sinking
boat almost ended in disaster, because of the effort of the star
to save her pet kitten.
On the screen, danger is not always make-believe. William
S. Hart was hit by a china vase, thrown in place of one of papier-
mache, called for by the director. Wild animals give thrills
not in the scenario. Public opinion, however, does not tolerate
deliberate sacrifice of life, as in an actual scene showing a horse
and buggy falling off the cliff road. But sometimes startling
effects come by chance. A picture play once showed a run-
away fire-engine team dashing into the camera, fortunately
without damaging the film, and the public had an unusual
thrill. Films of real danger and reckless exploit are frankly
advertised as such. Probably in none was the risk so evident
as when Williamson fought and killed in deep water the barra-
cuta, a shark-like fish, his only weapon being a knife.
PICTURES THAT LIVE AND MOVE
437
On the other hand, the danger is often more real than appar-
ent. A camera man at a great risk once secured a modern
battle scene in Mexico; though genuine enough, it was rejected
as too tame for the public. A battle picture has become a
standard symbol which even realism dare not violate. But the
camera men, whom we know only by their wonderful screen
Courtesy Paramount Picture's.
PROPERTY DEPARTMENT LAYING OUT A DESERT AT THE LASKY STUDIO.
pictures, run serious risks. Like soldiers they are under orders,
and must be ready to take any scene from its best point of view;
from the cables of the Brooklyn Bridge to following an automo-
bile race at a hundred miles an hour.
Miraculous Effects Not Always What They Seem
The play requires the action of the players, but incidental
effects must often be manufactured. If a cyclone is needed,
an airplane propeller may be used, and the effect on flimsy struc-
ture is startling. If a blinding sand-storm be part of the story,
handfuls of sand or confetti showered before the camera lens
produce a realistic storm. It the scene be laid in the interior
of a steamer's cabin, the effect of rolling and tossing must be
438 COMMUNICATION
produced; in this case, since the stage is nailed down, the
camera man must rock his camera while exposing his picture so
that the film gives the realism. Whether the camera man can
or can not get near enough, and though it be too dark for pur-
poses of photography, the final downward plunge of the doomed
vessel must positively be shown on the screen. He therefore
"shoots" the ship as long as he is able. The scene is later
completed in a small tub with a tiny model. On the screen, of
course, the exciting incident appears convincingly real.
In a recent screen romance a stork flew over a house and
dropped a little white bundle down the chimney. In the studio,
the scene was only a two-foot house with a tiny cardboard
stork moved across the scene by wire. A wild-west story shows
a "close-up" of the town music-hall. On the screen it appeared
full size; in the studio it was eighteen inches wide. There is
no limit to the ingenuity used in preparing films. The " Thief
of Bagdad " shows the magic carpet of the Arabian Nights in full
visual realization, and the cloak of darkness working its mystify-
ing effects.
The genius of the motion-picture camera can perform mir-
acles. It can put back the clock, recall the setting sun, and
retrace chronological incident step by step in bewildering ac-
curacy. When we reduce events and actions to a strip of pat-
terned celluloid, we become wizards, and with a pair of scissors
and a little film cement we can reverse history. We can cut
out sections so that cause and effect are no longer connected,
and magical appearances or disappearances result. A con-
demned man ponders alone in his cell. Suddenly two spectres
appear seated beside him, charging him with his crime. To
produce this effective illusion, the film technic is simple. The
camera stops turning, the two spectres enter the scene, sit down
by the condemned man, and the camera starts again. The
entrance is omitted, only the sudden apparition is apparent.
We can transpose events at will, or invert them so that events
move backward in time. In a pillow fight, the awakening of
the children and the bursting pillows when projected with re-
versed film invert the story, so that the feathers rush back
into the pillow-cases, the pillow-cases go to their places, the
children lay down their heads and return to sleep. The camera
PICTURES THAT LIVE AND MOVE 439
can be turned upside down to show men walking like flies on a
ceiling, or turned through ninety degrees to show an actor
walking up a wall. With suitable devices men appear flying
through space, the background disappearing. A set may show
the side of a house lying flat on the ground; by crawling along
the ground the actors appear on the screen as if climbing ver-
tical walls in most dangerous exploits.
The camera may also be slowed down, so that when the re-
sultant film is projected at full speed on the screen, the time
between pictures is so brief that the players move with im-
possible rapidity. On the contrary, by turning the camera
crank taster the pictures projected at normal speed show the
"slow motions" which so amuse or surprise us. Double ex-
posures introduce weird efi^ects. Actors converse with them-
selves in dual roles, both characters being shown on the screen
at the same time. Mary Pickford "doubled" Little Lord
Fauntleroy and his mother, "Dearest." Buster Keaton, in
trick comedies, uses many clever devices; one comedy showed
him taking the part, simultaneously, of the entire orchestra,
the minstrel troupe, and the audience. The film section, taken
for each, is separately exposed, the portion of the scene to be
reserved for the next exposure being cut off by a mask before
the camera-plate.
Natural Colors in Motion-Pictures
The regular stage play still has the advantage of color in
costumes and scenery. Successful colored motion-pictures have
been shown, and may find their way slowly into general use.
At first, like magic-lantern slides, films were colored by tedious
hand-work. As in printing and photography, so in the kinder-
garten days of motion-pictures came the striving for natural
colors. The task of coloring lantern slides is not easy, but
coloring a motion-picture film presents considerable difliculty.
A thousand pictures must be colored for each minute of the screen
picture showing, or 120,000 for an evening's entertainment.
The cost is enormous. The projection of a lantern slide may
stay on the screen for half a minute, but a single unit of the
motion-picture series lives before an audience but the twentieth
part of a second.
440 COMMUNICATION
A better natural color effect came with color photography,
which would have been more successful but for the slow action
of red on the sensitive film. A thirtieth of a second exposure
by the camera is as much as can be allowed. In this time blue
colors register easily, green not quite so well; but red, at least on
ordinary film, registers scarcely at all. A black-and-white
film picture of an orange grove shows the fruit black.
Dicyanin is now used to sensitize the film, so that the slow-
ness of the red is conquered, and the road to real color motion-
pictures is wide open. So sensitive is dicyanin that photographs
may be taken from the clouds in one two-hundredth of a second
from a height of over a mile.
Attempts, somewhat successful for quiet scenes, have been
made to produce color effects photographically. In London
and Berlin, about 19 12, George A. Smith showed pictures in
color taken by the kinemacolor process. Alternately through
red and green gelatine, ordinary, uncolored film pictures were
taken to record in varying shades of gray the green and red
elements respectively. These pictures were projected on the
screen alternately through the color screens. The red and green
pictures thus appeared in turn on the screen so fast that they
blended in the eye to produce the natural colors. Unfortunately,
since an object moving across the scene was not in the same
position in the red and the succeeding green picture, the object
appeared fringed with red on one side and green on the other;
a serious defect in any color process intended for motion-
pictures.
To obviate the failure of the red picture to register with
the green picture following, Arturo Hernandez ingeniously
placed the red on the face of the film and the green on the
back, exposing them to the scene simultaneously by a clever
system of reflectors. Promising as this and other two-color
methods were, the three-color system gave more perfect results.
In 1 861, Maxwell showed that red, green, and blue pictures
of a scene could be made to reproduce all the natural colors on
a white screen. A. Sauve patented a cinematograph process
based on Lippman color photography. In 1913, however,
Gaumont came out with a three-color scheme by which, either
across or along the film, three simultaneous exposures were
PICTURES THAT LIVE AND MOVE
441
made, of the red, green, and blue elements of the picture. The
film itself was not colored, but the projector sent the light beam
through appropriately colored screens; the three pictures, super-
posed simultaneously on the screen, gave a beautifully natural
color effect.
Public appreciation of true color realism is great enough to
justify rapid extension to all motion-picture work. "The Great
THE NORMAN CASTLE WHICH WAS ERECTED FOR DOUGLAS FAIRBANKS'S
PRODUCTION "ROBIN HOOD."
An example of the lengths to which modern producers go in building elaborate and expensive sets.
Adventure," a 1922 "superfeature" filmed in England, screens
in full natural colors. The definite approval of colored pictures
by the public will effect not a few changes in the studio. There,
at present, the powerful lights are too brilliant for white gar-
ments to be worn; even for wedding-dresses, yellow and other
neutral colors alone are used. When color photography comes
into general favor, all sets, including scenery, properties, acces-
sories, and costumes, will have to be made in natural colors;
everything must be true to life, and harmonious in combination
and contrast. This will entail a further expenditure of millions
442 COMMUNICATION
of dollars, and call for a new form of artistic skill. In the color
play, " Wonders of the Wasteland," artistic attention was given
to the costume and scenic colors, with great success.
Making Motion-Pictures Talk
To add sounds to the motion-picture was an early dream of
inventors. The many difficulties in connection with it even
prevented Edison from perfecting the kinetophone, novel and
ingenious though it was. Sounds must be loud enough and
rendered with proper modulation to satisfy the audience. They
must be exactly timed with the moving lips, the shot of the gun,
or whatever sound source is pictured. To give all the natural
sounds, speech, and music which accompanies the drama on
the regular stage, would be very costly. Perhaps cost is the
greatest obstacle at present until public demand insists on
greater realism, or until a far-seeing producer brings us the
new art.
Edison's kinetophone was a bank of several phonographs
conforming with the pictures by electrical means. They were
assembled behind the screen, and presided over by an attendant.
It was not a success. The discriminating ear was too accustomed
to the superb enunciation and tone quality of the legitimate
actor to enjoy the thin voice of a mechanical substitute. And
yet, the kinetophone was the beginning of a new art that will
surely attain the perfection of the motion-pictures themselves.
A very ingenious system of sound rendering was developed
abroad in which a steadily moving film records the speech-
waves as lights and shades, the varying brightness correspond-
ing to the variations in the sound-waves. In the projector a
hght beam passing through the film is varied in brightness in
the same manner, and it actuates a selenium circuit so that it
carries more or less current following exactly the original sound-
wave form.
The trend of machines to-day is toward automaticity, and
the sound rendering must be as automatic as the pictures them-
selves. Probably for several reasons the sounds will not be pro-
duced actually on the stage. Light outspeeds sound, and the
synchronism of sound and action on the stage would be de-
stroyed in the rear of the theatre. Again, the softer letters of
PICTURES THAT LIVE AND MOVE
443
speech are completely lost even a few feet from the stage. The
appeal to the ear must be fiawless. Beginnings have been made,
and the science of acoustics is now so well able to analyze all
sounds and record their curves that the future movie hero of
Photograph by Uniud Artists.
DIRECTING A MOTION-PICTURE PLAY.
The director's stand In one of the scenes taken of " Robin Hood." One thousand two hundred
"extras" took part in this scene. Douglas Fairbanks at the megaphone.
the screen may have a vocality comparable to that of his more
substantial brother, the actor.
Diagrams That Move as if Alive
An astonishing kind of motion-picture work is the animated
diagram, or cartoon. A thousand or more sketches are drawn
by hand, each sketch differing a little from the preceding one,
and the movie camera snapshots each drawing once or twice.
When thrown on the screen in quick succession the diagrams
appear to move as if alive. The animated diagram is the old
zoetrope, or wheel of life, raised to a new art by the camera
to give it scope and speed. To prove that it could be done
444 COMMUNICATION
Windsor McKay made some 10,000 hand-drawn sketches, show-
ing the playful antics of "Gertie, the Dinosaur," among her pre-
historic cousins, rooting up and devouring trees, tossing rocks,
and drinking up a small lake. It took McKay a week to draw
the sketches needed to show one opening of "Gertie's" mouth.
Hand-drawn diagrams of surgical operations show each cut
of the knife, and its effect on the inner tissues and organs is
seen more intelligibly on the screen than by a direct view. A
complex process is made perfectly clear and memorable by this
method. The wonder of the animated diagram is that expert
knowledge is made more vivid in a fraction of the time required
by words alone. The film diagram of the Quebec bridge dis-
aster was more graphic than a photograph, and the three-minute
film-story showed the cause and method of collapse, not as the
casual observer saw it, but as the technical expert disentangled
the inside story after weeks of study. How the Hudson River
tubes were set in place, the movie diagram explained in a few
minutes. West Point students, formerly taught the making
and use of bombs by a course of lectures, were found to gain a
clearer knowledge of the subject from a fifteen-minute animated
film summary than from the whole course of lectures.
A perfect system was needed to convoy our soldiers to France
during the Great War. This was rehearsed and perfected by
animated diagram. Each ship became a graphic element on a
table-map. As the ships were moved through a manoeuvre, the
movie camera snapshot each formation in a series which showed
the entire movement. Trained oiiicers then viewed the fleet
in action on the screen as each ship did its bit in every emer-
gency— a dress rehearsal to make perfect a naval enterprise
unequalled in history. Imagine the strategy of football put
into a film diagram with scarcely a word of explanation. Can
we imagine the effect on the inside perfection of the plays ?
To-day, an inventor may show his device by a sketch which
comes to life on the screen, performing as if actually built and
in full natural operation in a manner that photography alone
could not show. A thousand uses are being developed for this
new art which, for the purposes of designers, inventors, lectur-
ers, students, and teachers, is without rival for explanation,
clearness, and interest
CHAPTER VIII
FROZEN MUSIC AND SPEECH— HOW EDISON INVENTED
THE PHONOGRAPH
PAGANINI is still revered as the greatest of violinists. A
hundred years ago he moved audiences to tears. The
world rang with his praises. How does he compare with the
great violinists of our day ? Was he so astounding to those
who heard him because he was indeed a greater artist than any
who have since played a Guarnerius or a Stradivarius, or sim-
ply because he was the first to acquire a skill which we would
consider adequate ? We can never know. His music is stilled.
And what of the matchless voice of Malibran, of Chopin's deli-
cate rendering of his own nocturnes, of Garrick's moving in-
terpretations of Shakespeare ^ We must rely upon the cold
printed words of contemporary enthusiasts and critics. How
was English spoken in Shakespeare's day ? Would we under-
stand the actors who played in the Globe Theatre in Queen
Elizabeth's time ? Perhaps — perhaps not. We have no stand-
ards of comparison. We can only guess from rhymed poetry,
from the accents of blank verse how Shakespeare pronounced
the English tongue. What would we not give if we could revive
the voice of Patrick Henry and thrill, as his hearers once did,
to his "Give me liberty, or give me death !"
When we deal with sound we deal with a fleeting thing. It
dies a moment after It is born. For what is sound ? Nothing
but a disturbance of the air. We speak, and from our mouths
and lips come puffs, but puffs so wonderfully formed, so in-
finitely varied in frequency and strength that nothing short of
a miracle happens. We receive these puffs on our ear-drums;
we translate them; we give them the meaning that they are
intended to convey; in a word, we hear. Because he expressed
himself in mere disturbances of the air, in pressure-waves or
puffs, the great orator or singer or musician of the past lived
only for his own time. When he died he became but a tradi-
tion.
445
446 COMMUNICATION
Dozens of inventors had attempted to immortalize the artist
of sound long before Edison succeeded literally in embalming
human speech and musical notes and revivifying them at will.
There was Leon Scott, for example, who invented the "phon-
autograph" in 1857, sometimes erroneously referred to as the
forerunner of the phonograph. But what was it ? Nothing
but an instrument by which the puffs of air that we call sound
were made to vibrate a marker, which in turn played on a piece
of smoked paper and thus traced wavy lines in soot. Scott had
invented merely a way of enabling sound to trace a symbol of
itself — a method of sound-writing. His wavy lines scratched
in soot were no better than printed words when it comes to
informing us how the great singers of his day trilled their notes;
for it was impossible to make the wavy lines talk or sing again.
It was not until Thomas A. Edison invented the phonograph,
in 1877, that the world was enriched with an apparatus which
did for speech exactly what the photographic camera did for
light. How original was the invention is shown by the course
in the United States Patent Office of the specification in which it
was first described. A patent is not granted in this country
unless the invention that it discloses is new — new in the sense
that it is markedly different from any related device that may
have been known or used before. Edison filed his application
for a United States Patent on December 24, 1877. A patent
was issued to him on February 19, 1878. Not a single "refer-
ence," as it is called, was cited against him, which means that
the examiners of the Patent Office had been unable to find a de-
scription of anything even remotely like his phonograph in all
the technical literature that they were required to ransack in
accordance with the regulations.
How THE Idea of the Phonograph Came to Edison
Curiously enough, the idea of the phonograph came to Edi-
son at a time when he was more interested in telegraphy than
in anything else. During the summer of 1877 he had been en-
gaged in the invention of a telegraph-repeater — a labor-saving
device which was intended to record in a central office telegraph
messages received from many outlying country districts, and to
transmit them mechanically to their destinations at more than
FROZEN MUSIC AND SPEECH
447
human speed. The need of such an instrument was apparent.
A telegraph operator could send only thirty-five or forty words
a minute. If scores of messages received by a central station
could be repeated by some machine at a speed of a hundred
words a minute, for example, there would be an enormous sav-
ing in time, money, and labor. It was but natural that Edison,
the man who had done so much to improve telegraphy, should
be fascinated by the possibilities of a repeater.
The repeater with which Edison was experimenting during
THE TELEGRAPHIC FATHER OF THE PHONOGRAPH.
This is the telegraph repeater with which Edison was experimenting at the time that the idea
of the phonograph occurred to him.
that eventful summer of 1877 bore a curious resemblance to
the modern disk-phonograph. Upon a revolving metallic plate
was a disk of paper; above it an electromagnet carrying an em-
bossing point. When the electromagnet was connected with a
telegraph circuit the pivoted arm of the electromagnet moved
up and down, and the embossing point indented upon the re-
volving paper disk the dots and dashes as they came in over the
telegraph line. By reversing the operation these dots and dashes
could be automatically repeated over another telegraph line
more rapidly or slowly. Edison tested this apparatus at vary-
ing rates of speed. When the disk turned very fast he noticed
that a musical note was given out.
Why was the musical note produced ? The little embossing
point had been made to vibrate like a tuning-fork as it passed
rapidly over the indentations. The ordinary scientific mind
448
COMMUNICATION
would have been quite satisfied with this obvious explanation
and would have passed on. But Edison's is one of the most
imaginative minds of which we have any record. An ordinary
occurrence is to him what the pressure on a trigger is to a loaded
gun. Something like a mental trigger must have been pulled
Courtesy United Slates Nalional Museum, Washington, D. C. Courtesy Columbia Phonograph Company.
(Left) LEON SCOTT'S "PHONAUTOGRAPH" OF 1857.
This is usually regarded as a precursor of the phonograph. It had little in common with talk-
ing-machines, for it could only register sound. '^J1ie sound projected against a diaphragm
was recorded on a moving cylinder around which paper covered with lampblack was wrapped.
A lever or stylus was attached to the diaphragm, and this stylus traced the record on the
smoked paper.
(Right) THE ORIGINAL TREADLE GRAPHOPHONE OF 1887.
In this the principle of Bell and Taintcr's patent was applied.
on that memorable day; for he wrote down the following ob-
servation in his note-book:
"Just tried experiment with diaphragm having an embossing
point and held against paraffine paper moving rapidly. The
speaking vibrations are indented nicely and there's no doubt
that I shall be able to store up and reproduce automatically at
any future time the human voice perfectly."
Evidently he must have shouted against the diaphragm
with encouraging results.
A musical note emitted by the rapid passing of a point over
indentations on a piece of paper. And trom this flashes the
FROZEN MUSIC AND SPEECH 449
idea of preserving "for any future time the human voice per-
fectly!"
The idea preyed upon him for days. It crowded everything
from his mind. It took mental shape. He could see in his
mind's eye exactly how a machine would look that would first
record and then reproduce the human voice. The machine
must be built then and there.
Edison's First Experiments with Paraffine-Coated
Strips
He knew that he must have a diaphragm of some kind.
Even our ears have diaphragms, our ear-drums; for there must
be something with a surface large enough upon which the puffs
of air may beat that come from lips or musical instruments.
He coated some strips of paper with paraffine-wax, and these
coated strips he passed by hand, up and down, behind a dia-
phragm to the centre of which a little steel point was fastened.
"Hoo, hoo, hoo!" he shouted against the diaphragm, where-
upon the little point would embed itself more or less in the coat-
ing of paraffine. He reversed the motion of the coated paper
slip and listened. Very faintly there came back his original
"hoo, hoo." He had made the diaphragm vibrate exactly as
it had done when he had shouted against it. He had made it
puff the air, made it set up pressure-waves, like his own.
Paraffine was too soft. The record was easily destroyed.
Perhaps some hard wax would answer. To find such a wax
meant many months of patient searching and testing, and he
was all aflame with eagerness to obtain immediate results.
Perhaps tinfoil would do — something soft and pliable, yet more
permanent than paraffine. On August 12, 1877, he made a
rough drawing of a device, which was destined to be the first
phonograph, and wrote upon it " Kreusi — Make this." A fac-
simile of this historic sketch is reproduced on page 451.
The Kruesi to whom this brief command was given was the
late John Kruesi, a faithful and able instrument-maker and co-
worker for many years. It was Edison's custom not only to
give him the precise instructions that he needed, but also to
place a limit upon the amount of money that was to be spent.
450 COMMUNICATION
In this instance Kruesi was informed that he could spend ex-
actly eighteen dollars.
Kruesi had made many a model for Edison, but this was the
queerest that he had ever been ordered to build.
"What's it for?" he asked.
"I want it to record talking," said Edison.
"It's a crazy idea," was Kruesi's comment.
Rumors of Edison's new machine spread in the laboratory.
The men who worked for Edison had seen him accomplish
/^^^^^^^
(Left) EDISON RECORD ENGRAVING TOOL.
After eight months' experimenting Edison made perfect sound records with a sapphire cutter
(upper view), and reproduced them with another sapphire which had a bail-shaped tip
(lower view).
(Right) MODERN EDISON DIAMOND-POINT REPRODUCER.
wonders, but this notion of a machine that would talk like a
human being proved too much for ready acceptance. Carman,
the foreman of the machine-shop, said: "I'll bet you a box of
cigars that it won't work." To which Edison replied: "We'll
see.
The First Trial of the Phonograph
In a few days Kruesi finished his model and laid it on the
table of the "old man," as Edison was even then called, although
he was scarcely thirty years of age. Edison looked the model
over to see if his instructions had been carried out. Kruesi
stood beside him, curious and amused. He watched the "old
man" turn the handle — a test of the machine's free-turning
ability. He saw him take a sheet of tin-foil, wrap it around
the cylinder and fasten it with a strip of lead laid in a groove
cut for that purpose. By this time the entire laboratory staff
had gathered around the table, watching the proceedings with
ever-increasing interest and offering facetious advice.
FROZEN MUSIC AND SPEECH
451
Edison calmly proceeded to adjust the speaking mouth-
piece. Then he turned the cylinder by means of the crank and
shouted into the mouthpiece:
"Mary had a little lamb,
Its fleece was white as snow,
And everywhere that Mary went
The lamb was sure to go."
The fateful moment had arrived ! Edison saw that there
were indentations on the tin-foil. He expected to reproduce
-_S=.
^K^-l
'8' f^-^-zy
(Left) EDISON'S ORIGINAL SKETCH OF THE PHONOGRAPH.
Reproduction of page of Edison's note-book in which he recorded his first conception of the
phonograph.
(Right) EDISON'S FIRST WORKING DRAWING OF THE PHONOGRAPH.
Reproduction of Edison's sketch of the first phonograph with instructions to Kruesi, his
modeller, to "make this."
only an encouraging fragment of a word here and there, or to
obtain a few recognizable squeaks at best, something to show
that at least he was on the right track. Amid the joking and
laughing of his men he turned back the cylinder, adjusted the
reproducing diaphragm, and once more rotated the cylinder.
Back from the tin-foil came a thin, small voice:
"Mary had a little lamb "
452 COMMUNICATION
Not a word was missing ! The phonograph was born !
Amusement, laughter, incredulity gave place to an awe-
stricken, intense silence. Then the wonder of it dawned on
Kruesi and the rest. Edison himself was amazed. A new strip
of tin-foil was put on the cylinder. Again, perfect reproduc-
tion.
Now the reaction set in, and the men joined hands and sang
and danced around Edison. It was a memorable day — and
night also — at Menlo Park Laboratory, for the entire staff
stayed until dawn, taking turns at speaking, singing, laughing,
and whistling into this first crude little phonograph, and listen-
ing to their own voices with childish delight and enthusiasm.
How THE World Received the Phonograph
T^he next day Edison took the model under his arm and went
over to the office of the Scientific American^ in New York, and
told the editor, Mr. Alfred E. Beach, he had something to show
him. Placing the model on a table Edison put a sheet of tin-
foil on the cylinder, turned the crank, and recited ''Mary had
a little lamb." He then adjusted the reproducer and rotated
the cylinder. Again the voice and words were reproduced loud
enough to be heard all over the room, to the intense amazement
and awe of Mr. Beach and the bystanders who had come flock-
ing around. Of course, there was an incessant demand for
more demonstrations, and they were given until the crowd
grew so great that Mr. Beach became anxious about the carry-
ing capacity of the floor.
The following morning the newspapers were filled with the
news of this astonishing invention, and the fame of it spread
quickly throughout the world. Edison was deluged with let-
ters, telegrams, and cables from every part of the globe. Every
one wanted to see, hear, or possess this latest marvel.
So great and insistent was this demand that Edison was
compelled to manufacture and sell tin-foil phonographs. He
made some improvements over his first model and decided on
two sizes of which he had a quantity made in the little shop
of Sigmund Bergmann, a former workman who had been manu-
facturing some of Edison's telegraphic apparatus in New York.
These first phonographs with tin-foil records were mostly
FROZEN MUSIC AND SPEECH
453
used for exhibition throughout the country. So great was the
interest aroused that vast numbers of people flocked to hear
the mysterious and wonderful machine that recorded and re-
produced the human voice, music, and other sounds. The
royalties were large. In Boston alone |i,8oo was collected in
one notable week.
The wildest accounts of the phonograph were printed in
both the American and European newspapers, but the palm for
^^^^^^^^bs^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^E^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^H
^^H^ W r H MMimUB R 11 il
I
I 1 1
i
II
Hi u 1 i ff u
1
1
mm , liMimiiii
^^^H
A HILL-AND-DALE RECORD MAGNIFIED.
A microphotograph of a tenor voice recorded according to the Edison "hill-and-dale" method.
imaginative mendacity must be awarded to the Figaro of Paris.
"It should be understood," said the author of that extraordi-
nary specimen of journalism, ''that Mr. Edison does not belong
to himself. He Is owned by the telegraph company which
lodges him in a superb New York house; maintains him in lux-
urious style, and pays him a huge salary so as to profit by his
discoveries exclusively. The company employs men who never
leave Edison for a moment — at table, on the street, in the
laboratory. Hence this wretched man, guarded more closely
than any criminal, cannot devote a moment's thought to him-
self." Then followed a description of Edison's "aerophone," a
454 COMMUNICATION
description which would have done justice to Jules Verne.
"You speak to a jet of vapor," the readers were told, and "your
voice is carried for a mile and a half."
France recovered its poise when the phonograph was ex-
hibited before the Academy of Sciences on March ii, 1878, by
Count du Moncel. At the request of du Moncel, Edison's
French licensee, Puskas, seated himself in front of the phono-
graph and spoke into the mouthpiece: "The phonograph is
highly honored at being presented to the Academy of Sciences."
The chairman demanded silence. Puskas fitted a large paste-
board horn to the reproducer, and then, to the great astonish-
ment of the audience, the phonograph expressed its pleasure
at being introduced to the Academy in Puskas 's rather nasal
American-French. A member of the Academy refused to be-
lieve his eyes and ears. "There is some trickery about this,"
he said. "A machine can't reproduce an accent. This is
simply a piece of ventriloquism." Du Moncel then took his
seat at the phonograph and said in his best Parisian: "We
thank Mr. Edison for having sent us his phonograph." Du
Moncel's words were repeated in all their Parisian purity, and
the sceptic was convinced.
Public interest in Europe and America was maintained only
for about a year and a half. The phonograph with the tin-foil
record was largely an exhibition machine. Its sale could be
limited at best because it was not easily operated by hand. In
the meantime, Edison had begun his experiments on the elec-
tric light, and did not take up the phonograph again for nine
years.
Yet he realized its possibilities. In an article which he
wrote for the North American Review for June, 1878, he thus
prophesied its future:
"Among the many uses to which the phonograph will be
applied are the following:
"i. Letter-writing and all kinds of dictation without the aid
of a stenographer.
"2. Phonographic books, which will speak to blind people
without effort on their part.
"3. The teaching of elocution.
"4. Reproduction of music.
FROZEN MUSIC AND SPEECH 435
"5. The 'Family Record' — a registry of sayings, reminis-
cences, etc., by members of a family in their own voices, and
of the last words of dying persons.
*^^. Music-boxes and toys.
* '7. Clocks that should announce in articulate speech the
time: for going home, going to meals, etc.
"8. The preservation of languages by exact reproduction
of the manner of pronouncing.
"9. Educational purposes: such as preserving the explana-
tions made by a teacher, so that the pupil can refer to them at
any moment, and spelling or other lessons placed upon the
phonograph for convenience in committing to memory.
** 10. Connection with the telephone, so as to make that
instrument an auxiliary in the transmission of permanent and
invaluable records, instead of being the recipient of momen-
tary and fleeting communications."
Edison Resumes Work on the Phonograph
After nine years of intense application to the invention
of the electric incandescent lamp and his complete system of
electric light, heat, and power, Edison resumed work on the
phonograph in 1887. He entirely changed the mechanism to
use a cylindrical wax record, and thus created a more prac-
tical type of phonograph which could be used by every one.
About this time his laboratory at West Orange, New Jersey, was
completed, his plans including the building of a factory in which
the improved instrument was to be manufactured in large
quantities.
Edison realized that exact uniformity of speed is essential to
record and reproduce speech and music satisfactorily, and that
a hand-operated phonograph could not, therefore, become a
commercial success. He invented a mechanism which could
be operated mechanically at a given, regular speed.
This second type of phonograph was at first equipped with
a battery-driven electric motor, which rotated the cylinder, but
the electric motor was afterward superseded by a clock-spring
motor of the type now used in all phonographs and talking-
machines. As a material for the records, tin-foil was entirely
EDISON PHONOGRAPH OF 1888.
This was the type of machine which was first bought by the public. The hand-turned crank
soon gave way first to an electric motor, and then to a spring-motor of the type now used.
Photograph by Columbia Graphophone Company.
THE GRAPHOPHONE OF THE NINETIES.
FROZEN MUSIC AND SPEECH 457
abandoned, and in its place a cylinder of wax, or wax-like ma-
terial, was decided upon.
In the early stages of development Edison experimented
with paper cylinders covered with paraffin or other wax-like
materials. Here, however, he found himself following in the
footsteps of two other inventors, Chichester A. Bell and Charles
Sumner Tainter, two Washington men who had been working
on the phonograph during the time that Edison was so intensely
busy with his electric light. A patent had been issued to Bell
and Tainter on a cylindrical record blank made of paper coated
with certain combinations of wax, and they had also patented
various other improvements.
About this time a corporation called The American Grapho-
phone Company was formed by some Philadelphia capitalists
to exploit the Bell and Tainter patents. This company equipped
a factory and entered upon the manufacture of talking-machines
and of wax-covered paper-cylinder records.
Edison's exhaustive experiments with wax-covered paper
cylinders had convinced him that the waxy material must be
comparatively hard. But here he encountered a difficulty. If
the paper cylinder was coated with hard wax it would not ex-
pand and contract, as the temperature of a room rose or fell,
at the same rate as the paper cylinder itself. Either the paper
cylinder would warp or the wax coating would crack. There-
fore, he abandoned this plan and came to the conclusion that a
cylinder must be made entirely of wax.
The Development of the Wax Record
To this end he instituted a long series of experiments in
the development of a perfect all-wax cylinder. At one time
he did not leave his laboratory for five days and nights. His
laboratory note-books of this period disclose the vast amount
of work that he did in making up and testing innumerable
combinations of waxy materials obtained from all parts of the
world. Progress was slow but sure. Difficulties were elimi-
nated one by one, and gradually a successful all-wax record
blank was evolved.
There were other problems to be solved. The record on
wax was gouged out by a small metal chisel fixed to the dia-
458 COMMUNICATION
phragm, and the reproducer was equipped with a similar chisel.
The chisel proved to be unsatisfactory. After having been re-
produced a few times, records were practically unintelligible,
because parts of the sound-waves were cut away. Moreover,
the chisel could not satisfactorily record or reproduce hissing
sounds, such as words in which the letter "s" appeared. Edison
determined to remedy the defect, and began the most patient
and persistent series of experiments that he ever conducted.
For eight long months he experimented in thousands of ways,
to record and reproduce such words as "sugar," "scissors,"
"specie," etc., and, at last, succeeded. At the same time he
obtained perfect articulation.
The new method of recording depended on the utilization
of a minute and peculiarly shaped sapphire for engraving sound
vibration in a groove of the wax cylinder. Another sapphire
served for reproduction, but a sapphire which had a ball-shaped
tip so that it could not cut the record. The recording tool is
shown on page 450 in profile and end-on views respectively.
The Attempt to Use the Phonograph for Dictation
During this period a corporation called the North American
Phonograph Company had been formed by Philadelphia capi-
talists who aimed to exploit the phonograph for general business
dictation. After having vainly tried to introduce wax-coated
paper cylinders, made in accordance with the Bell and Tainter
patents, the company negotiated with Edison for the right to
use his all-wax cylinders. Edison received a large sum for his
rights.
The phonograph at that time did not possess the necessary
refinement to take the place of a stenographer. The company's
predestined failure was hastened by the death of its chief pro-
moter, and Edison, being the principal creditor, took back his
phonograph patents. He founded the National Phonograph
Company, and decided to concentrate his energies on the re-
cording and reproduction of music. He reorganized his fac-
tories, equipped them with new machinery and tools, and pro-
ceeded to exploit a field in which he has ever since occupied a
prominent position.
It was impossible to think of selling original records to the
FROZEN MUSIC AND SPEECH 459
public. One such record made by a first-class artist might
cost several hundred dollars, even in that day. Clearly, some
method had to be invented of duplicating the original precious
record — some method comparable with printing a newspaper
from type.
Duplicating the Original or Master Record
This problem presented great difficulties, for the sound-
waves cut in the surface of the wax were only about one-thou-
sandth of an inch deep, or about the thickness of tissue-paper.
The millions of infinitesimal waves in a record must be dupli-
cated so as to be inicroscopically identical with their originals
and be free from false vibrations and other defects. Obviously,
wax duplicates could not be made from a wax original or "mas-
ter." So it became necessary to discover other means. After
a vast amount of experiment, Edison succeeded in electroplating
a metallic "submaster," or matrix, from the original. Into
this matrix melted wax was poured. The resultant wax-casting
was an exact duplicate of the original.
Even more remarkable was another method of duplicating
the original or ''master." In a chamber from which the air
was exhausted, Edison revolved the "master" between two
leaves of gold, which was electrically vaporized. The gold vapor
was deposited on the wax master in the form of a film about
one eight-hundred-thousandth of an Inch thick. It would take
800 such films to form a pile as thick as a sheet of the finest
tissue-paper. Upon such a gold film a heavy backing of baser
metal was electroplated, and thus a substantial mould or matrix
was made.
The second type of phonograph with wax-cylinder records
carrying music was brought out about 1888, and found a music-
hungry world awaiting it. Up to that time the phonograph
could not be purchased by the general public. Comparatively
few people had ever seen or heard it; for the old tin-foil instru-
ment had been used only for exhibition. The factories were
humming day and night for years to fill the great demand for
the improved machine.
460
COMMUNICATION
The Invention of the Disk Record
Emile Berliner, a German who had emigrated to this country
and who played a conspicuous part in the development of the
telephone, devised a method of making records which was some-
what different from Edison's and which depended on the use
of disks. Edison made his sound records by causing the en-
EMILE BERLINER, INVENTOR OF THE "LATERAL-CUT" DISK.
graving tool to rise and fall, for which reason his method is
technically known as the *'hill-and-dale." Berliner, on the
other hand, thought It would be better to cause the tool to swing
from side to side in the groove, for which reason a disk was
more serviceable than a cylinder. Because the tool is moved
from side to side, Berliner records are called "lateral-cut."
Berliner's way of making the master record was also different.
Instead of using an all-wax plate he employed a disk of zinc,
covered with wax. The music was recorded on this wax sur-
face, characteristic indentations being made, and then acid
FROZEN MUSIC AND SPEECH
461
was applied which etched the record on the zinc, thus making
a metallic "master" from which impressions could be taken.
The results, so far as the reproduction was concerned, were
good but not perfect. After experimenting for some time
Berliner felt that he needed the help of a more expert mechanic
than himself. He took his machine and records to a little ma-
chine-shop in Camden, New Jersey, owned and operated by
FIRST PUBLICLY EXHIBITED GRAMOPHONE OF EMILE BERLINER.
The original was first exhibited in the Franklin Institute, May i6, 1888, and is now in the
National Museum, Washington, D. C.
Eldridge R. Johnson, and left them there for certain repairs
and changes to be made. After he had left the shop Johnson
made a study of the device and soon realized its great possi-
bilities. The further he progressed with his study, the more
enthusiastic he became. He joined forces with Berliner. To-
gether they proceeded to make the needed improvements and
refinements in the machine and records until at last they had
completed a model of the familiar disk type of talking-machine.
This was the beginning of the Victor Talking Machine Company,
of which Mr. Johnson is the president, and has been the direct-
ing spirit to this day.
These events occurred about 1896 or 1897. In the mean-
while, Edison had sold upward of one and a half million cyl-
inder phonographs and more than a hundred million of the
cylindrical records. Although he had no difficulty in selling
462 COMMUNICATION
cylinders, the demand for disks was insistent, probably because
of the records which many great artists had made on disks. Ac-
cordingly, about 1907 or 1908 he began a series of experiments
which were to end in the production of a "hill-and-dale" disk
record; for to the hill-and-dale method of recording Edison had
been wedded from the beginning. His earliest patents had
been granted for disk records, and he was but reverting to orig-
From a photograph by Columbia Graphophone Co.
MICROPHOTOGRAPH OF A "LATERAL-CUT" RECORD.
inal ideas. After an immense amount of experiment his disk
phonograph was completed and put on the market.
How Records Are Made for the Public
Although the principle of the phonograph is now well known,
the art of making records is deliberately shrouded in mystery.
The particular composition of the wax-like "master" employed
by a manufacturer is kept a profound secret. Few "outsiders"
are permitted to see even the making of a record — certainly no
one connected with a rival company. The proceeding is complex
and calls for much skill, technical knowledge, and experience.
Imagine a great tenor, a popular operatic idol, about to
immortalize his rendering of Verdi's "Celeste Ai'da." Before
him is the mouth of a horn; behind him the orchestra. Even
he does not see the actual recording equipment; for the small
end of the horn is located either behind a curtain or a partition.
The musicians are poised between heaven and earth, for some
of them sit on shelf-like benches, so that their heads are not far
FROZEN MUSIC AND SPEECH
463
from the ceiling. So cramped are the quarters that often they
assume positions at which a concert audience would gasp in
amazement. For example, the trombonists sometimes turn
their backs to the conductor; they follow him by keeping their
eyes glued on mirrors by which his expressive beating of time
is reflected. The loud instruments— the ponderous brasses—
MAKING A PHONOGRAPH RECORD.
are always placed in the rear so that their metallic blare may
not drown out the finer tone of the strings, which are always
to be found in front. The tenor soars up and down the scale
directly into the yawning mouth of the horn. He gives his full-
throated best; for he knows not only that his rendition of
"Celeste Aida" will be heard by thousands, perhaps by millions,
but that the luscious top notes, upon which his reputation
hangs, will be compared with the equally luscious top notes of
other tenors who have sung "Celeste Aida" into the phono-
graph before him, and who will sing it into a recording-horn
years after he is dead. A mistake — and the record must be
464
COMMUNICATION
made over again. Therein the tenor has an advantage denied
him when he appears in public. The purchasers of his record
never know that he may have tried more than once to produce
just the effect that he had in mind when he sang a particularly
soul-stirring phrase.
The original record thus made, the "wax-master," is turned
Couitesy Columbia Graphophone Company.
THE PHONOGRAPH IN THE OFFICE.
Although Edison very early predicted that the phonograph would supplant the stenographer in
business, it was not until late in its development that the instrument was widely introduced
in offices. Here a modern dictating graphophone is shown. The machine is ready at any
time to record anything from a fleeting idea to a business letter.
over to the factory to be duplicated a thousandfold, even a
millionfold.
Thus "Celeste ATda" or the latest dance music reaches the
backwoodsman or the Fifth Avenue mansion. Trills, roulades,
scales, disembodied from a perishable personality, countless
million puffs of air have been solidified, so that they can be
transported to Alaska or Zanzibar. It seems like a miracle
even now, when the strains of music made in some American
seaboard town are heard all over the world, when mere recorded
sound is as much an article of commerce as a barrel of sugar.
PART III
POWER
CHAPTER I
PUTTING STEAM TO WORK
HISTORIANS tell us that the average freeman of ancient
Greece had five slaves or "helots." They were the ma-
chines of Greece. Engineers have estimated that every Ameri-
can has thirty slaves working for him, thirty tireless slave-
machines that never rebel at the hopelessness of their lot and
that feel nothing of the wear and tear of their slavery. Because
the Greek slaves were only human, with human shortcomings,
the best flour-mill in Athens, in the time of Pericles, produced
but two barrels of flour a day. With slave-machines, a single
Minneapolis mill of our time produces in a day 17,000 barrels
of flour. There were no helots in the Europe emancipated by
the French Revolution, but there was just as much hard, back-
breaking labor in the towns as ever there was in old Athens.
Before the slave-machines were invented a skilled English work-
man, during the early part of the last century, could make thirty
needles a day. Now a girl, mistress of a slave-machine, pro-
duces 500,000 needles a day, and has little to do but watch the
slave-machine cut, sharpen, and perforate the needles.
If this is the age of the slave-machine the steam-engine has
made it so. Before the invention of the steam-engine, Europe
and America had few machines and few factories, certainly no
factories of the kind that now belch smoke from a thousand
cities. Until the coming of the steam-engine it mattered little
whether a country possessed coal deposits. Now nations bar-
gain for coal and are even willing to fight for it. Coal means
power, industry, and wealth; two hundred years ago, it meant
simply fuel to be burned on the hearth. Because of the steam-
engine, Great Britain became the world-dominating commer-
cial nation that she is to-day. Fuel is her life-blood. It is
also the life-blood of the United States; for even our waterfalls,
numerous as they are, could not supply us with the power we
now require if they were all harnessed.
467
468 POWER
It is difficult to think of the world as it was before the steam-
engine. There were no railways, no steamships, no great blast-
furnaces where steel is made, no cheap clothes, no electric lights,
no machines to till the soil and reap the enormous harvests.
Life was only outwardly different from what it was in the days
of Julius Cassar. Greeks and Romans travelled either on wheels
or on horseback or in sailing vessels; a method of locomotion
which, well into the nineteenth century, had not greatly been
improved upon by Englishmen, Frenchmen, or Americans.
The Greek and Roman farmer did his own spinning and weaving,
forged his own tools, and with his own hands made everything
he needed; so did the European and American farmer up to
the introduction of the steam-engine.
Steam proved the great liberator of mankind. Before we
learned how to use steam, human energy was exploited for thou-
sands of years. The steam-engine enabled men to use the en-
ergy locked up in coal, thereby releasing from drudgery, bond-
age, and misery an army of workmen who, if politically better
off than the Greek helots, toiled as long and as hard. Eight
hours is the accepted working-day now, but that working-day
would be almost unthinkable without steam-driven, labor-saving
machines. Brain is doing more work than brawn. Machines
have lightened human labor and given men time to think.
When at last the steam-engine made it possible to use the
energy in fuel, invention flourished as never before. Power was
given to the world. At once a thousand opportunities of us-
ing power suggested themselves. Then it was that the slave-
machines were invented; machines that were nothing but steel
fingers, hands, fists, and arms; machines hundreds of times
stronger, faster, and surer than human hands and arms; machines
that would strike a blow more powerful than a hammer wielded
by a Hercules, dig up tons of earth at a single scoop, whisk
material from place to place in the twinkling of an eye, and
fashion wood and metal for a million purposes with never-
failing, uncanny skill.
The steam-engine made the coal-owning countries indus-
trially and even politically great, and made their people machine-
inventors, machine-users. It follows, almost as a matter of
course, that because the United States is the largest coal-owning
PUTTING STEAM TO WORK 469
country, the steam-engine proved enormously Important In Its
development; and, in truth, not until the steam-engine was
introduced, not until American coal could be converted into
energy in American factories, not until American inventors had
steam at their command to operate the many machines that
they had devised, did the United States take Its place in the
front rank of great industrial nations.
Not one of the remarkable men to whom we owe the steam-
engine could have foreseen how their inventions would change
the drift of civilization. They built castles in the air, as in-
ventors do, but their castles were hovels compared with the
magnificent structure reared on the foundation of their discov-
eries. They thought only of meeting the needs of the moment.
And, In the beginning, these needs were merely the pumping
of water out of coal-mines.
England's Need of a Pump to Keep Mines Dry
Long before Columbus discovered America, Englishmen
mined coal. They dug with picks and shovels what coal they
found at the surface, and when that was burned they dug
deeper and deeper. Englishmen still speak of coal-mines as
"pits"; the word comes down from a time when great holes
had to be made to reach the coal. When the holes could be
dug no deeper. It became necessary to sink shafts — holes with
more or less straight sides. Dig a hole or a shaft, and sooner
or later a spring is struck and water bubbles up. The pump,
a very old Invention, had to be applied to draw up the water
so that the miners could work. Sometimes the pumps were
driven by hand, but more often by horses. They were crude
pumps, so crude that they drew up but little water, and that at
great expense in money and in man or animal power. Eng-
land's forests had been hewn into for both wood and charcoal.
Even before Queen Elizabeth's time it had become necessary
to pass laws for the protection of timber. England's plight was,
therefore, desperate. Unable to obtain wood enough, con-
fronted with the difficulty of mining coal for lack of adequate
pumps, it seemed as if England could save herself only by im-
porting from abroad the fuel that could not be obtained at
home. By the end of the seventeenth century mine after mine
470 POWER
had to be abandoned because the water rose faster than the
pumps could draw it up.
What England needed was a pump that would draw water
as fast as it welled up. The first genius who saw the oppor-
tunity but who could not make the most of it, was an imprac-
tical schemer and dreamer. He was nimble-witted, restless, at-
tractive Denis Papin, a French physicist, born about 1647, a
man who had more ideas than he could possibly carry out in a
life-time, and who rarely finished anything that he began. He
invented a method of cooking at temperatures higher than that
of boiling water; the safety-valve; a dozen different air-pumps
and devices for raising water; and he also wrote about the possi-
bility of travelling in carriages driven by steam. Not much is
known about him. His was a roving spirit. When he tired
of Paris he went to London, and when he wearied of London he
betook himself to Italy or Germany.
Papin Shows How Steam Can Create a Vacuum
About 1670, when Papin was living as a young man in Paris,
the great Dutch mathematician and mechanician, Christiaan
Huygens, who lectured there at the time, made him his assis-
tant. Huygens was experimenting with the air-pump, and
clever, imaginative Papin was just the man he needed to help
him. These experiments of Huygens gave Papin the idea of
pumping water in many ingenious but not very practical ways;
for there is not much difference between an air-pump and a
water-pump.
In those days the air-pump was discussed as eagerly as we
now discuss radium or the latest invention. Scientists mar-
velled at the air-pump. For generations they had been taught
that "nature abhors a vacuum," and that for this reason water
was sucked up as the piston was pulled out of a common syringe
— the oldest and simplest form of water-pump. The vacuum-
pump taught them that the air we breathe has weight, that it
presses on everything around us, ourselves included, because it
has weight, and that when the piston of a syringe is pulled out
water rushes up simply because the pressure of the heavy outer
air forces it into the empty barrel of the syringe. Scientists
began to measure the air to ascertain its weight. Samuel Pepys
PUTTING STEAM TO WORK
471
in his diary states that Charles the Second once attended a
meeting of the Royal Society and laughed uproariously at the
silly members "for spending time only in weighing of air and
doing nothing else since they sat." This helps to explain why
Charles was popularly called the "merry monarch." Perhaps
GENERATING STEAM
Courtesy Deutsches Museum.
HOW PAPIN CREATED A VACUL^ BY CONDENSING STEAM.
Papin, in 1690, proposed a thin, open-topped cylinder fitted with a piston provided with a rod
on which was a latch. Water in the cylinder was externally heated and steam generated
to force the piston up where it was retained by the latch. When the fire was removed the
steam condensed so that the piston fell with such force as to enable it by an attached rope
to lift a weight.
he would not have laughed so heartily if he could have known
that out of these early air-weighing experiments, conducted by
earnest scientists in several countries, would come w^ays of giv-
ing men machines to do their hardest work, of curing their dis-
eases, and of making life easier and happier.
Now Papin knew just how an air-pump worked — knew that
the air pressed on everything around us and that its pressure
served to explain why water is forced up into an ordinary hand-
472 POWER
pump. It has never been possible to obtain a perfect vacuum;
it was still less possible in Papin's day. Like his master Huy-
gens and many others, Papin was always trying to obtain a
better vacuum. In 1687, he turned up in London with a new,
startling method, and showed the scientific men of the day a
device in which steam produced the vacuum.
The apparatus was simple enough; merely an ordinary up-
right cylinder in which a piston could rise and fall. Papin
placed a little water in the cylinder and heated it with an out-
side flame, just as he would a kettle. The water boiled away
into steam, and the expanding steam forced the piston up and
drove out the air through a hole in the piston. Papin then
took away the flame, closed the hole in the piston, and allowed
the hot cylinder to cool ofi^. Soon the steam condensed, which
meant that it shrank back again into water. There was little
or no air in the cylinder, only a little water at the bottom.
The outer air or atmosphere, by its sheer weight, pressed the
unresisting piston down to the bottom of the cylinder.
Papin talked and wrote about the possibilities of thus
creating a vacuum by mere steam, but did nothing more. Two
hard-headed, practical Englishmen heard about his method of
producing a vacuum, and it set them thinking of England's
flooded coal-mines and of a machine which would pump them
dry. One of these Englishmen was Thomas Savery, and the
other, Thomas Newcomen; they became friends and partners
in business. Their names were so identified with the invention
and introduction of the first useful steam-engine that in the old
books the one is rarely mentioned without the other.
How Savery Applied Papin's Principle
Very little is known about Thomas Savery beyond the fact
that he was a military engineer, that he had a mechanical turn
of mind, and that he was called "Captain" Savery, although he
was never a captain of anything. He is first heard of in 1698,
because in that year he received a patent for what he called a
nre-engme.
Savery 's "fire-engine" was the first practical steam-pump
or steam-engine ever invented. It had a vessel into which steam
was admitted by a pipe from a boiler to drive out the air. When
PUTTING STEAM TO WORK
473
the air was driven out of the vessel the steam was shut off.
Savery then poured cold water over his steam-filled vessel.
The steam condensed. Hence a vacuum was created: Papin's
principle. Savery then opened a pipe leading to the water that
was to be raised. At once water rushed into the vacuum,
forced up by the sheer weight of the atmosphere. The water-
SAVERY'S ENGINE.
NEWCOMEN'S ENGINE.
valve was now shut off and the steam turned on again to drive
the water out of the vessel. So, the vessel was alternately filled
with steam, cooled to condense the steam and produce a vacuum,
and filled with water forced up by air-pressure. Savery used
two vessels and worked them alternately. Note that Savery 's
pump had no piston and that he pushed the water out of a vessel
by the direct pressure of the steam. His process must have
been very slow; but he showed how Papin's discovery might
be applied to raise water.
Savery explained his steam-engine to mine-owners. They
saw it actually pumping water on large estates, but its perform-
ance did not convince them that it could pump water out of a
474 POWER
mine. It is said that only one mine-owner bought a Savery
engine. High steam-pressure was necessary; as much as 150
pounds to the square inch. Savery did not use safety-valves;
hence some of his engines blew up. Perhaps the mine-owners
had heard of these explosions and thought it best to keep on
using horse-driven pumps.
Newcomen Also Applies Papin's Principle
Thomas Newcomen, about whom few personal facts are
known, was born in 1663 and died in 1729. Newcomen was
either an ironmonger or a blacksmith, and he conceived the idea
of creating a vacuum in much the same way as did Savery,
though his engine was much more practical. He also used steam
and not air to force water directly into and out of a vessel, but
it was utilized to operate a pump-handle not very different from
that still to be found in many a country kitchen. His cylin-
der or vessel contained a piston, like Papin's. Newcomen first
drove out all the air in his vessel or cylinder by steam, and then
shut off the steam; then he let water spray over the hot cyl-
inder; both ideas were taken from Savery. The steam con-
densed or shrank back into water. Thus a vacuum was created
within the cylinder, whereupon the outer air pressed the piston
down. This piston was connected with one end of a walking-
beam, the other end of the walking-beam being connected with
a pump-rod. The weight of the pump-rod pulled the piston up.
Atmospheric pressure forced it down after the vacuum was
created. So the walking-beam would rock and work the pump-
rod and draw up water. By opening and closing the valves
at the right time the pump was kept in operation.
One day Newcomen noticed that the engine was working
better than usual. He investigated and found that water had
leaked directly into the cylinder during the condensing period.
At once he saw what had happened. The water did not have to
cool first the hot cylinder and then the steam; it could cool
and condense the steam directly. After that he always sprayed
water into and not on the cylinder.
When Newcomen began to think of selling his engines to
mine-owners, he met an obstacle in the form of Savery 's patent.
PUTTING STEAM TO WORK 475
Like a sensible man he proposed a partnership, and Savery
readily agreed to the proposal. Probably Savery was glad
enough to make the agreement; the mine-owners would have
none of his "fire-engine," and the one developed by his partner
was clearly more practical. Besides, Newcomen's engine did
not work with high-pressure steam that might blow up a boiler,
but with steam at a pressure a little greater than that of the
atmosphere itself, which is slightly less than fifteen pounds
to the square inch at sea-level. Savery 's engine had to work
in the mine itself within a distance of twenty-six feet of the
water; Newcomen's could be erected at the mouth of the
mine.
The partnership of Savery and Newcomen was successful
almost from the beginning. The first Newcomen engine was
installed in 171 1. It proved so successful that in a few years
Newcomen engines were to be found in nearly every mine in
England. The invention restored wealth to dozens of mine-
owners who had given up their mines as lost, and saved others
from ruin. We are apt to belittle it now because it seems almost
ridiculously crude in these days of wonderful machines, but it
was one of the greatest achievements of human ingenuity.
Like all inventors, Newcomen had his rivals and opponents
who set out to appropriate his ideas and criticise his work.
One of these was Desaguliers, who published a book in 1744,
entitled Experimental Philosophy^ and in this Newcomen's
engine was brushed aside as of no great importance. It was
Desaguliers who spread abroad the story that Humphrey Pot-
ter, a boy whose duty it was to control the steam and water by
hand, hit on the idea of opening and closing the valves of
a Newcomen engine by the simple expedient of strings worked
from the beam. Thus the beam, as it rocked, automatically
opened and closed the valves at the right time. Such a con-
trivance we now call a "valve gear." It takes more than ordi-
nary engineering ability to design a valve gear which will work
in the right way, and it is not likely that a boy possessed that
ingenuity. A picture of a "self-acting" engine, built by New-
comen in 1 71 2, has come down to our time. It clearly indicates
an automatic method of opening and closing the valves. Desa-
guliers' story may be attributed either to malice or ignorance.
476 POWER
Papin Hears of Savery's Success
Leibnitz, the great German philosopher, used to write now
and then to Papin, then living in Cassel, Germany. In one of
his letters, written in 1705, he told Papin of the wonderful suc-
cess of Savery, and sent him a picture of the original Savery
engine — the one which the mine-owners of England could not
be induced to use, but which had proved useful on large country
estates. It is easy enough to imagine Papin's emotions. What
a chance he had lost ! He knew that Savery's principle of
creating a vacuum by chilling steam in a cylinder was nothing
but the practical application of his own idea. He now had
nothing to show for a whole life frittered away in experimenting
first with this type of vacuum-pump and then with that. Per-
haps it was envy, perhaps regret, perhaps the natural bent of his
active mind that prompted him to design an improvement on
Savery's engine. At all events, he made some unimportant
changes in it, and showed how the water that it pumped might
be used to drive a water-wheel. He failed to realize that his
first piston-engine might still be developed into something highly
practical; instead, he took up the Englishman's abandoned
pump. Following his usual practice, Papin was quite content
with talking and writing about his perfection of that engine,
and proceeded at once to construct a man-driven paddle-wheel
boat, in which he hoped to reach the mouth of the river Weser
on his way to London. The boatmen at Miinden took his
boat from him, claiming that he had infringed their time-
honored, exclusive privilege of navigating the river, and left
him with so few belongings that, when he finally reached Lon-
don, he was penniless. The Royal Society gave him some
money, but he died in total obscurity, in 171 2, just after the
first Newcomen engine, embodying his piston and operating on
his vacuum principle, had demonstrated its tremendous pos-
sibilities.
James Watt's Introduction to the Steam-Engine
For about seventy years the engines of Newcomen and
Savery, unchanged in principle, improved but slightly in pro-
portions, pumped water out of English coal-mines. Then,
PUTTING STEAM TO WORK 477
suddenly, the steam-engine became more than a pump; it be-
came a machine that moved the wheels of industry and revolu-
tionized the whole art of manufacturing.
This sudden conversion of the engine was brought about by
James Watt, an instrument-maker by trade, but a real scien-
tist by inclination and self-education. No single man in his-
Courtesy IV. and T. Avery. Ltd., London.
(Left) MATTHEW BOULTON.
Matthew Boulton was James Watt's partner, financial manager, and disciplinarian. Without
him Watt would hardly have been able to perfect the steam-engine.
(Right) JAMES WATT, INVENTOR OF THE SEPARATE CONDENSER FOR
STE.\M-ENGINES.
tory did so much to change civilization. With him begins the
modern industrial era, the era of the factory, the era of machine-
made conveniences. Because of his engine Watt must be re-
garded as one of the world's great figures.
James Watt, a Scotchman, was born in 1736. He plied his
trade of instrument-maker first in London and then in Glasgow.
He had not served a full term of apprenticeship, and therefore
could not be admitted as a member of a Glasgow guild; the
equivalent of a modern union. Since he was unable to earn
his living in the city itself, the university granted him permis-
sion to open a shop on its grounds, and appointed him its in-
478 POWER
strument-maker. One day a professor of the university gave
Watt a classroom model of Newcomen's engine to repair. As
any good mechanic would have done, he soon performed the task.
But James Watt was something more than a skilful mechanic;
he was a thinker, a man with a scientific mind that did not rest
until it found out the why and the wherefore of things. When
he had repaired the damage he put water in the boiler and started
the engine. In a few minutes the water in the boiler had van-
ished; the engine had consumed it all in the form of steam.
Watt was astonished. The engine consumed steam faster
than the little boiler could supply it. It might be that the men
who built Newcomen engines had also been astonished at the
steam consumption of their engines; if so they certainly never
bothered themselves much about it; probably they simply ac-
cepted the fact as something from which there was no escape.
Watt, however, investigated. He found that the steam con-
densed against the cold walls of the cylinder. When fresh steam
was turned on it had first to warm the cylinder again, and in
the process more of it was condensed. Clearly, the cylinder
must always be kept hot, so that as little steam as possible
would be chilled into water and the cylinder would not have to
be warmed again by incoming steam after each stroke of the
piston. But how ? Watt pondered over this question for weeks.
One day, as he was walking in the university grounds, the
idea flashed upon him. Why not condense the steam in a sepa-
rate condenser, connected with the cylinder by a short pipe ?
That ought to make it unnecessary first to cool the cylinder in
order to condense the steam, and then to warm it again with
new steam.
Watt Invents the Separate Condenser
He constructed a model in which this idea was carried out.
What a wonderful, tense moment it must have been when he
opened the valve between the condenser and the cylinder ! He
saw the piston forced down by the pressure of the outer air.
The separate condenser worked just as he had imagined it
would.
Watt might have stopped then and there and still have gone
down in history as a great inventor. But he went farther.
PUTTING STEAM TO WORK
479
He was so concerned with keeping the cyhnder hot and the
condenser cool that he made improvement after improvement.
He actually placed his cylinder within a larger one and filled
the space between with steam, thus inventing what we call the
Courtesy IV. and T. Avery, Ltd., London. Courtesy South Kensington Museum, London.
(Left) EARLY WATT ENGINE WITH SEPARATE CONDENSER.
Drawing probably made under Watt's direction.
(Right) ORIGINAL EXPERIMENTAL MODEL OF THE SEPARATE CONDENSER
MADE BY WATT IN 1765.
Watt was struck by the enormous steam consumption of Newcomen's pump, which was due to
the fact that the steam condensed against the cold walls of the cylinder. When fresh steam
was turned on, it had first to warm the cylinder again, and in the process more of it was con-
densed. Watt thereupon conceived the idea of condensing the steam in a separate vessel
connected with the cylinder by a short pipe.
Steam-jacket, and making it difficult for the cylinder to cool
even by exposure to the air. Moreover, he placed his con-
denser in a pit filled with cold water, so that it would condense
the inrushing steam quickly and not become warm itself.
These accomplishments inspired Watt to perform other experi-
480 POWER
ments. The cylinder of Newcomen's engine was open at the
top. Watt gave it a cover or "head," through which the piston-
rod passed. This enabled him to force the piston down by
steam from his boiler, instead of by the pressure of the outer
air. Step by step he developed a real steam-engine, a vast
improvement on the engine in which the weight of the air
pushed the piston.
All these points Watt covered in his first patent, taken out
in 1769. He demonstrated them by the use of small models
constructed mostly by himself. Too poor to assume the cost
of a large engine, he finally persuaded John Roebuck, proprietor
of the Carron Iron Works, to go into partnership with him, by
offering him two-thirds of all profits. An engine was partly
built; but there were many difiiculties to be overcome in con-
struction, particularly the construction of large cylinders of
even bore; for in that day there were no accurate iron lathes.
Roebuck's affairs became involved, and work had to be sus-
pended before this engine was ever put to use.
Partly through financing Watt's steam-engine. Roebuck
finally became a bankrupt, and in settling his affairs not one of
his creditors considered the invention which had brought about
his ruin worth a farthing. Had they only known ! Here was
an invention worth all the money in England, an invention
destined to revolutionize humanity. Instead, they held it of
so little worth that Watt was permitted to retain his rights.
The Partnership of Boulton and Watt
Watt became so discouraged with the diflficulty of obtaining
properly bored cylinders that for a time he had to abandon
the steam-engine. He was now reduced to poverty, and finding
it difficult to borrow more money for his invention, he was com-
pelled to seek employment to provide for his family. Then,
as good luck would have it, he met Matthew Boulton, a strong-
minded man with a good business head, and wealthy. Boulton
was so impressed with the value of the invention that he readily
supplied the necessary capital, and the manufacture of engines
was begun on a large scale. The engine proved a marked suc-
cess; and the firm of Boulton & Watt finally made a large
fortune.
PUTTING STEAM TO WORK 481
It Is hard for us to realize, in these days of fine machine-
tools, what difficulties had to be overcome by the young firm
of Boulton & Watt. No one could bore a cylinder accurately
in those days, which is evident from the following account that
Watt has given us of one of his early tests:
"A cast-iron cylinder, over eighteen inches in diameter, an
inch thick and weighing half a ton, not perfect, but without
any gross error was procured, and the piston, to diminish fric-
tion and the consequent wear of the metal, was girt with a
brass hoop two inches broad. When first tried the engine goes
marvellously bad; but upon Joseph's endeavoring to mend it,
it stood still, and that, too, though the piston was helped with
all the appliances of a hat, papier-mache, greases, black-lead
powder, a bottle of oil to drain through the hat and lubricate
the sides, and an iron weight above all to prevent the piston
leaving the paper behind in its stroke. After some imperfec-
tion in the valves was remedied, the engine makes 500 strokes
with about two hundredweight of coals."
Boulton, in 1776, wrote that: **Mr. Wilkinson has bored up
several cylinders almost without error; that of fifty inches di-
ameter, which we have put up at Tipton, does not err the thick-
ness of an old shilling in any part." This would be considered
inexcusably coarse work in these days, when errors of more
than one ten-thousandth of an inch are not tolerated in the parts
of some fine automobiles. The Mr. Wilkinson, of whom Boul-
ton wrote so approvingly, was John Wilkinson, famous in the
history of machine-tools. Wilkinson's was probably the first
metal-working tool capable of doing heavy work with anything
like acceptable accuracy.
The Newcomen engine was now doomed. Watt kept on
making improvements. He found that it was wasteful to
leave the steam-valve open while the piston was pushed from
one end of the cylinder to the other. The pressure of the steam,
as it came from the boiler, was more than enough to push the
piston. He discovered that the valve could be closed soon
after the piston started, and that the steam in the cylinder
expanded and continued to drive the piston on. Hence he in-
vented what has ever since been called the "cut-ofF," which
means that when the piston has completed only about one-
482 POWER
fourth of its stroke the steam is automatically cut off from the
boiler and permitted to expand so as to drive the piston for the
remaining three-quarters of the stroke. Of course, the steam
cools in thus expanding, but it -is doing useful work as it cools.
Hence the cut-off makes it possible to convert a large amount
of heat into work; heat which would otherwise be wasted if
it were carried into the condenser or the open air.
Later Improvements by Watt
After a time Watt brought out a double-acting cylinder
into which steam was admitted and allowed to expand alter-
nately on opposite sides of the piston, as in all modern condens-
ing engines.
The firm found it hard at first to convince a mine-owner
just how much work a Watt engine could do. Many of the
mine-owners used horses. Indeed, horses had done most of the
pulling and lifting of the world up to Watt's time. So that
Boulton or Watt had to interpret their claims in terms of horse-
power. "This engine will do the work of forty horses," they
would say. In order to live up to any such claim Watt first
had to find out how much work a horse really could perform.
He made some crude measurements which led him to conclude
that in one minute a horse could lift 33,000 pounds through
a distance of one foot. A horse-power, then, is 33,000 foot-
pounds per minute, as engineers say. This measure of engine
performance has been used ever since, although engineers are
not satisfied with its accuracy.
Boulton was a good salesman. He sold engines on the
strength of the fuel they would save. Mine-owners wanted
to keep their fuel bills low. Newcomen's best engines con-
sumed thirty-five pounds of coal in one hour for each horse-
power. By studying heat and how to make the most of it,
by inventing the separate condenser, and by making other im-
provements, Watt reduced this coal expenditure to eight pounds.
In our best engines of to-day the coal consumed amounts to
little more than a pound an hour for a horse-power hour. Even
this is considered wasteful, because not more than thirteen per
cent, of the energy in the coal is utilized.
PUTTING STEAM TO WORK
483
The Invention of the Compound Engine
As the steam expands and cools in a cylinder the cylinder
also cools. It ought to be hot, otherwise the next measure of
steam will waste some of its heat in warming the cylinder
again. Here we have exactly the same situation that Watt
found in the Newcomen engine. If Watt could keep the cylin-
Courtfsy JV. and T. .-ti-ery. Ltd., London.
WHERE WATT'S ENGINES WERE MADE.
In January, 1796, the Soho Foundry, still in existence, was dedicated with considerable cere-
mony and a "rearing feast" given to the engine-smiths and other workmen. On this oc-
casion Matthew Boulton made the following speech:
"I come now as the Father of Soho to consecrate this place as one of its branches; I also come
to give it a name and a benediction.
"I will therefore proceed to purify the walls of it by the sprinkling of wine, and in the name of
Vulcan and all the Gods and Goddesses of Fire and Water, I pronounce the name of it Soho
Foundry. May that name endure forever and ever, and let all the people say Amen, Amen."
der of a Newcomen engine warm by leading the steam into a
separate condenser, the same principle should apply to his own
engine. In other words, allow the steam to enter one cylinder
without cutting it off, and, after it has pushed the piston as far
as possible, let it pass into a second, larger cylinder, there to
cut it off and let it expand and push a second piston. This
probably occurred to Watt; but he was prejudiced against high-
pressure steam, and the idea could be carried out only if the
pressure were high. So it was that Jonathan Hornblower, in
484 POWER
178 1, saw that if two cylinders could be used in this way, he
could save, by means of the cut-ofF, even more heat than Watt
had done. He built engines on that principle which were very
successful. Hornblower apparently came of a steam-engine
family. One of his ancestors, Joseph Hornblower, is referred
to in old books as Newcomen's "operator," and he was em-
ployed by Newcomen to superintend the erection of engines.
Jonathan Hornblower threatened to become so formidable a
rival that Boulton sued him for patent infringement and won
the case. Boulton & Watt also drove other rivals out of busi-
ness, and collected large sums in royalties and damages.
After Watt's patents expired Hornblower's excellent idea
was called to life again, in 1804, by Arthur Woolf, another
Englishman. If a second cylinder can make steam expand
more, why not a third and fourth ? This was first tried by
Doctor A. C. Kirk, in 1874, who found that it was indeed pos-
sible to reduce the coal bill and get more work out of the heat
in steam by thus adding more cylinders. There is a limit to
the number of cylinders, however, and the limit seems to be
four. By the time it has left the fourth cylinder the steam has
given up so much of its heat that there is little left for a fifth.
Even if there were a fifth the cost of constructing and operating
the extra parts is greater than any saving in coal that can be
effected.
To use one cylinder after another in this way the steam
must leave the boiler at high pressure. At first, 100 pounds
to the square inch was regarded as very high pressure; now it
is not uncommon to carry anywhere from 150 to 250 pounds.
With pressure in excess of 250 pounds to the square inch diffi-
culty is encountered in packing and lubricating the first cylinder.
Oliver Evans Invents the First High-Pressure
Engine and Puts It to Work
Like Savery and Newcomen, Watt thought at first only of
pumping water. To be sure, after he made steam instead of
air do the work of moving a piston, he had produced an engine
which could turn a shaft and therefore drive factory machines
and railway-carriages and vessels.
It was an American who realized perhaps more keenly than
PUTTING STEAM TO WORK 485
Watt how tremendously helpful the steam-engine could be in
doing most of the world's hard, wearying work. This Ameri-
can was Oliver Evans, born in Newport, Delaware, in 1755.
Evans was a farmer boy who, like many a great American in-
ventor, had to educate himself. What he knew of history,
THE "AMPHIBIOUS DIGGER" OF OLIVER EVANS-THE FIRST AUTOMOBILE.
Philadelphia ordered a steam-dredge from Oliver Evans in 1804. His shop was a mile and a half
away from the Schuylkill River. He mounted one of his engines within the dredge-scow and
ran the scow on rollers by steam to the river. This was the first steam-wagon or auto-
mobile. When he reached the river Evans substituted a paddle for the rollers and steamed
away to Philadelphia. Hence the invention was also one of the first steamboats. Evans
named this craft Oruktor Amphibolos, or "Amphibious Digger." This is a picture of the
Baltimore & Ohio Railway Company's reconstruction of the Amphibious Digger.
politics, and mechanics he learned out of books at night by the
light of burning shavings. His brothers were millers, and,
because of his mechanical ability, they took him into partner-
ship with them.
The United States of Evans's time was a land of infinite pos-
sibilities. It had a territory so immense that even men like
Franklin, Washington, and Hamilton did not know exactly
where it ended west of the Appalachian Mountains. There
were forests to be hewed down; coal and iron to be mined; un-
told, even unsuspected, riches were in the earth. What America
486 POWER
needed was men to develop these resources, and there were
fewer men in the original thirteen States than there are now
in Chicago and New York. Evans could not have known how
rich the new republic was, but he did know that there were not
enough men to till the soil or mine the earth. His inventive
mind naturally turned toward machines that would do the work
of men. Even at twenty-two we find him inventing a machine
for making the teeth used in carding cotton and wool: a purely
labor-saving device. In his brothers' flour-mill he was constantly
struck with the need of machinery that would grind flour faster
than was possible with the crude water-wheel of the day, and
carry it away automatically to be sacked. The United States
granted him one of the three patents it issued in the first year
of its existence; a patent on flour-mill machinery.
One day a book which described Newcomen's engine fell
into his hands. He knew nothing about engines, but his in-
ventive mind saw at once that while the pressure of the atmos-
phere worked the piston Newcomen did nothing with the steam
beyond producing a vacuum by condensation. Why had not
Newcomen used the elastic force of steam ? He asked himself
the question over and over again. Constructed so as to em-
ploy and utilize its steam, an engine could be used for other
purposes than pumping water; it would be a real power-gener-
ator, something that would drive other machines and thus do
the work of hundreds of hands. Evans thereupon resolved to
invent a steam-engine, a real steam-engine and not a mere pump.
His drawings of a high-pressure engine, which could actually
be used to drive other machines, and which was the first steam-
engine of the kind ever invented, he sent to England in 1787.
Richard Trevithick, an Englishman, the first man to build a
locomotive, came out soon afterward with a high-pressure steam-
engine, but there is good reason to believe that he saw these
drawings of Evans's. Watt was prejudiced against high pres-
sures; and yet, unless they were used, the steam-engine could
not be employed to the utmost advantage in factories. Hence,
to Evans belongs the credit of having produced an engine, in-
dependently of Watt, which made it possible to drive factory
machinery.
Evans built a high-pressure engine and showed how ma-
PUTTING STEAM TO WORK
487
chines could do the work of the men the United States lacked.
In 1801 he gave public exhibitions to prove that his engine could
drive machines that ground plaster and sawed marble. Evans
found it hard to convince business men that new ideas are
worth carrying out. His efforts to introduce his engine almost
ruined him. Undaunted, he kept on. He applied his engine
OLIVER EVANS.
Inventor of the high-pressure steam-engine.
SIR CHARLES A. PARSONS.
Inventor of the Parsons steam-turbine
in his flour-mill. At the same time he invented flour-mill ma-
chinery which, in principle, is the same as that we find to-day
in the great mills of the Middle West.
In 1803 he became a regular builder of engines. Philadel-
phia ordered a steam-dredge from him with which to clean the
city docks. His shop was a mile and a half away from the
Schuylkill River. Resourceful, practical man that he was, he
mounted one of his engines within the scow and ran the scow
on rollers by steam to the river. That was the first steam-
wagon. But Evans did more than this. When he had reached
the river, he substituted a stern paddle for the rollers and
steamed away on the water to Philadelphia. The scow, chris-
tened by Evans, Oruktor Amphibolos (''Amphibious Digger")
was, therefore, not only the first automobile, but also one of the
first steamboats. Indeed, the Mississippi stern-wheeler is noth-
488 POWER
ing but a steam-driven scow, with cabins and cargo spaces, but
larger than the one made by Ohver Evans.
Evans intended to write a long, learned book about his
steam-engine, profusely illustrated with explanatory drawings,
and to be called The Young Engineer s Guide. But his disap-
pointments, and the straits into which he had been plunged by
CORLISS ENGINE.
The original Corliss valve-gear was invented in 1849 by G. H. Corliss. The leading features of
the invention are: The employment of separate steam and exhaust valves at each end of
the cylinder, so that any alteration of the point at which steam is cut off can be made with-
out interfering with the action of the exhaust-valve; and separate adjustment for each of
the cylindrical valves. The two exhaust-valves which are at the bottom of the cylinder are
rocked by a single eccentric, while the two steam-valves at the top are rocked by another
eccentric. The steam eccentric swings an arm provided with a cylindrical end upon which
are two hardened steel plates; as the arm swings these plates engage with similar plates at-
tached to flat levers that proceed from cranks on the spindles of the two steam-valves. As
the arm reciprocates, the steam-valves are alternately opened, but, at certain points, deter-
mined by the speed of the governor, the lever of the steam-valve then opening slips off the
corresponding driving-plate; the valve then left free is rapidly turned into a closed position
by a coiled spring.
his first attempt to build and sell engines, forced him to com-
promise on the book, which was considerably reduced and
grimly renamed The Abortion of the Young Engineer s Guide.
He wrote other books and pamphlets, in which he described his
flour-mill machinery and foretold with remarkable accuracy
what might be expected of power-machines. In an "Address
to the People of the United States," in which he poured forth
all his troubles as an inventor, he says:
PUTTING STEAM TO WORK
489
"The time will come when people will travel in stages moved
by steam-engines from one city to another almost as fast as
birds fly— fifteen to twenty miles an hour. Passing through the
air with such velocity — changing the scene in such rapid suc-
cession— will be the most exhilarating, delightful exercise. A
Courtesy Pullman Company.
HUGE ENGINE BUILT BY CORLISS FOR THE PHILADELPHIA EXPOSITION
OF 1876.
It was afterward bought by the Pullman Company and did service in its plant for over
a generation.
carriage will set out from Washington in the morning, and
passengers will breakfast at Baltimore, dine at Philadelphia
and sup at New York the same day."
He was not referring to ordinary steam-driven road coaches,
such as Sir Goldsworthy Gurney introduced in England years
later, but to railway carriages; for he goes on to describe rails
on which the carriages are to run. "And the passengers will
sleep in these stages as comfortably as they now do in steam
stage-boats."
490 POWER
The worries which beset him and which prompted him to
pour out his woes in this amazing "Address," led him to destroy
the drawings and records of no fewer than eighty inventions.
The final blow came when a fire destroyed his factory in 1819.
He died a few months later, a bitter, discouraged man, yet a
great pioneer inventor in the annals of American industry.
Corliss and His Drop Cut-Off
Evans was the first of a line of American inventors who
helped to make the steam-engine what it is to-day, and cer-
tainly the first in America to apply it industrially. We have
to wait until 1849 before another man appears with improve-
ments that heightened the usefulness of the steam-engine. In
that year an American, George H. Corliss, received a United
States patent for an engine which has not been greatly bettered
to this day. Engineers rank Corliss with Watt when they trace
the history of the steam-engine.
Corliss, a born inventor, had to teach himself the rudiments
of mechanics, but, like his predecessors. Watt and Evans, his
mechanical ideas were inexhaustible. How fertile was his
mind is revealed by the fact that even when scarcely more than
a boy he performed a feat that civil engineers had declared im-
possible. A freshet had swept away the bridge near the vil-
lage of Greenwich, New York, where he lived. Unless this bridge
were rebuilt the village would practically have been cut off
from supplies. There was no time to wait for the water to sub-
side. The bridge must be reconstructed at once. " Impossible,"
said the engineers. Corliss set to work and rebuilt the bridge
in ten days at a cost of fifty dollars.
While he was still a country storekeeper, Corliss invented a
sewing-machine; and this before Howe. Dreaming of the
wealth that would be his if he could manufacture and sell this
machine, Corliss set out for Providence to raise the needed
money. There he arranged with the steam-engine building
firm of Fairbanks & Bancroft to perfect the machine. Corliss
had an attractive personality and his ingenuity pleased the
firm. Fairbanks & Bancroft had no particular faith in his in-
vention, but they had a great deal of faith in Corliss. They
offered him a position on condition that he would give up the
PUTTING STEAM TO WORK 491
foolish machine. Poor as he was he accepted the offer. One
year later he became a partner.
The sewing-machine was abandoned, but Corliss thought of
other machines. He made a profound study of the engines of
his day. By this time the steam-engine had taken its place in
thousands of factories in Europe and in hundreds in the United
States. These factory engines had to adapt themselves to the
machines they drove; in other words, sometimes all the ma-
chines were running, so that the engines were taxed to the ut-
most to deliver power, and sometimes only a few machines
were in operation. It was clearly impossible, when men and
women in the factory called ''more power," or "my machine
is shut off," for the engineer to regulate his engine in accordance
with their demands. Hence, Watt invented the "ball-gover-
nor," a sleeve which can slide up and down a rod or pipe, and
which is connected with two whirling balls. When some of
the factory machines were shut off, the engine would naturally
speed up, whereupon the balls would whirl around faster and
would be flung out farther. This raised the sleeve and cut off
some of the steam supplied to the engine. As more and more
machines were thrown into operation, the balls would whirl
more slowly and fall slightly; consequently the sleeve would
drop and permit more steam to reach the engine. Thus Watt
made it possible for an engine automatically to speed up or
slow down in accordance with the factory demands.
Ingenious as the ball-governor was, it had its faults. The
engine had to speed up or slow down before the big steam-valve
could be moved by the ball-governor and its sleeve. In a textile
mill the spindles of a spinning-machine run very fast. The
slightest variation in speed of the engine that drives the machine
is multiplied many times at the spindle. If the spindle runs too
fast the work produced is spoiled; if it runs too slow the output
is low. It was difficult to make a WVtt ball-governor that would
be responsive enough to meet this situation. Corliss invented
a much more sensitive governor, a "valve gear," one that
seemed so complicated to engineers of the day that they poked
fun at it, and at first refused to take Corliss engines seriously:
"Levers, links, and motions various
Endless jimcracks all precarious."
492 POWER
Thus ran a couplet composed to express the current opinion of
the mechanism that was offered as a substitute of the Watt
ball-governor.
What was this new device tHat seemed so strange ? The
Watt engine had what is called a "D" slide valve, and it was
so named because it was shaped like the letter "D." The slide
valve opens and shuts just like a sliding door, to admit and
shut off the steam. The "D" slide valve for a large engine
is massive, and steam pressure keeps it tightly closed. This
produces friction and wastes power. Corliss invented a valve
that worked like a revolving door: a rotary valve. He used
these revolving-door valves at each end of the cylinder, one to
admit the steam, and one to control the exhaust. A slight mo-
tion of one of these valves was sufficient to open or close the
steam port or doorway almost without friction. To open and
close his rotary valve, or revolving steam-door, automatically,
Corliss invented a governor which was apparently composed of
"endless jimcracks all precarious." By a system of parts, cer-
tainly more complicated than the simple ball-governor and sleeve
of Watt, a weight was made to drop and suddenly cut off the
steam as it entered the cylinder and not, as in the Watt engine,
some moments later. For that reason this invention by Cor-
liss is called the "drop cut-off." If only a few machines in the
factory happened to be running, the drop cut-off would shut off
the steam after the piston had moved only a few inches. This
was not only a saving of steam, but also of fuel. The cut-off
acted like an attendant who holds a revolving door when he
wants to hold back a crowd and helps to turn it when he wants
to hurry it up.
Finding it difficult to convince business men that his engine
was any better than Watt's, Corliss had to take risks in selling
it. He knew his engine would save coal, and therefore he adopted
a plan similar to that which Boulton & Watt had found suc-
cessful: the plan of installing an engine free of charge and of
receiving in payment part of the money saved in coal. He sold
one of his first engines with the understanding that he was to
be paid all the money it saved in five years. At the end of five
years he had pocketed $19,734.22 — several times what the en-
gine was really worth. This shrewd business policy made Cor-
PUTTING STEAM TO WORK
493
liss rich and gave him the necessary money to fight infringers.
One of his patent-infringement suits lasted fifteen years, and
cost him ^100,000.
When the Philadelphia Exposition of 1876 was planned,
Corliss suggested that one large double engine was enough to
furnish all the power required to drive the machines in the
Machinery Hall. But no one could build the engine. "Im-
9.
Courtesy Westinghouse Electric and Mfg. Co.
(Left) COURSE OF STEAM-JET BETWEEN FIXED AND MOVING BLADES-
PARSONS TYPE TURBINE-ENGINE.
(Right) THE "ROTOR" OR MOVING BLADES OF A WESTINGHOUSE-
PARSONS STE.AM-TURBINE.
possible," said the engineers again. Then Corliss decided that
he would build the engine himself. When he set it up it was
the mechanical marvel of the exposition. It was afterward
bought by the Pullman Company and ran in its shops until
1910.
The Invention of the Steam-Turbine
In the steam-engine, as Watt handed it down to us, the
piston moves back and forth, or up and down, in the cylinder,
just as it does in an automobile engine. This is called a "recip-
rocating" motion, and engines in which pistons thus move are
therefore known as ''reciprocating engines." This back and
forth, or reciprocating motion, cannot be used to drive a wheel
or a shaft directly. It must be changed to a turning or rotary
motion. For this purpose cranks are used. They are found
in the reciprocating engines of automobiles, and by their means
a shaft is turned and the wheels of the automobile are made
to revolve.
494 POWER
Why was It not possible to make the steam turn a wheel
directly, just as the wind turns a windmill or a stream a water-
wheel ? Some of the earliest engines of which we have any
record were built on this principle. There was the engine of
Hero, a mathematician, who lived in Alexandria, Egypt, about
130 B. C, an engine which was little more than a toy, but in
which there was a wheel that was whirled around by steam
escaping from bent tubes. In 1629, Giovanni Branca, of the
great Italian University of Padua, also succeeded in moving
wheels by blowing steam against their paddles. Watt, too,
thought so much of this principle that he tried to apply it, but
he soon abandoned it because of the many mechanical difficulties
he encountered. For generations inventors had tried to do
away with the to-and-fro motion of the piston.
Literally, hundreds of patents had been granted to inven-
tors in England and the United States for rotary engines, not
one of them of any practical value, when, toward the end of
the nineteenth century, the dynamo, or electric generator, was
introduced. The generator is a high-speed machine, and by
comparison the reciprocating engine is slow. But it was diffi-
cult to adapt the slow engine to the fast generator, and unless
that was done neither could be used economically.
It was not easy to design and build an engine according to
the ideas of Watt and Corliss which would turn the generator
continuously at high speed; the generator had to be made large
to suit the speed of the engine, and power-wasting belting or
gearing had to be used in order that the generator might turn
at two and three times the speed of the engine. A faster en-
gine was needed. Rotary engines were fast; accordingly in-
ventors tried once more to solve the old, seemingly hopeless
problem of building them.
The De Laval Steam-Turbine
In 1889, Doctor Gustaf De Laval, a Swedish engineer,
brought out the first practical rotary engine: a turbine. He
took a disk or solid wheel and cut vanes in its rim. Against
these vanes, nozzles, properly placed, shot jets of steam. After
having struck the vanes the steam was allowed to escape. De
Laval's disk was something like a pinwheel. Because it cost
PUTTING STEAM TO WORK
495
too much in steam, and therefore in fuel, to blow steam against
vanes in the open air, De Laval enclosed his disk in a tight cylin-
der, rather flat. Everything depended on the shape of the
DE LAVAL TURBINE.
This remarkable machine owed its success to the discovery by Doctor Gustaf De Laval in
1889 of the fact that the velocity of the particles of an escaping jet of steam is increased by
discharging through an expanding orifice, the conversion of the energy of the steam into
momentum being so complete that when applied to a form of Pelton wheel or impulse tur-
bine a high efficiency is obtained.
nozzles and the vanes. The nozzles had to shoot the steam at
the highest possible speed, and the vanes had to be so shaped
that they would let the steam do its work most effectively and
not waste its force by recoiling upon itself.
496 POWER
About the time that De Laval was conducting his experi-
menting, an EngHsh engineer, Charles A. Parsons, since knighted,
invented a turbine entirely different in character. Unlike most
inventors Parsons was a rich nobleman's son. His father was
the Earl of Rosse, famous In his time because he built one of
the largest telescopes in the history of astronomy, an instru-
ment that was one of the wonders of the world. Parsons spent
his boyhood in a moated castle under the influence of a father
noted for his public spirit and his scientific attainments. To
build the big telescope a foundry and machine-shops had been
fitted up in the castle grounds. Here young Parsons spent
much of his time. Sir Robert Ball, who was his private tutor —
the Earl of Rosse had a deep-rooted prejudice against all schools
— said that Parsons was forever in the shops making machines
or tinkering. Later, the young man was sent to the University
of Cambridge where he graduated with high honors. Parsons
then apprenticed himself to the firm of Armstrong & Whit-
worth, famous in English naval history for its guns and battle-
ships. Here, under the eye of Whitworth, one of the most in-
genious mechanics and engineers of our time. Parsons learned
the art of successfully attacking a mechanical problem.
After he had served his apprenticeship and had become
junior partner in an engineering firm. Parsons began to think
seriously of a steam-turbine. In 1884, he took out his first
patent; so that he began work even before De Laval.
Parsons used more than a single wheel or disk. He strung
a large number of disks in a row on a shaft and enclosed them
all in a cylinder or drum. It must not be inferred that he
blew an individual jet of steam against each set of blades.
Instead, he blew a single current of steam from one end of the
cylinder to the other, and subdivided it into little jets, each
playing upon successive blades. Therein lay the novel feature
of his great invention. He subdivided the steam current by
studding the inner surface of the long, enclosing casing with
rings of blades, fitting or dovetailing between the shaft blades.
The casing blades were fixed; the shaft blades turned. The fixed
blades guided the tiny streams of steam to the moving shaft blades
at just the right angle, so that the steam would not get in its
own way. (See diagram, page 493). The blades of both casing
PUTTING STEAM TO WORK
497
and shaft were curved so that although the steam entered the
casing parallel with the shaft it was shot against the blades
just as you would blow air against the vanes of a pinwheel.
The steam literally writhed through the turbine, worming its
way from fixed blade to moving blade, until its energy was
Courtesy C. .4. Parsons y Company.
THE FIRST POWER-HOUSE EQUIPPED WITH PARSONS TURBINE.
Turbo-generators in the plant of the Newcastle and District Electric Lighting Co., Limited.
spent in a parting kick administered to the last ring of shaft or
moving blades.
The turbine invented by Parsons proved successful almost
from the beginning. If the old reciprocating engine was too
slow this new engine was too fast. It ran faster than any dynamo
or generator, indeed ten and even fifteen times as fast. Instead
of being a fault this proved a virtue. It became possible to
build smaller, faster dynamos that would deliver just as much
current as the old, bigger, slower dynamos. Soon Parsons's
turbines were introduced not only in power-houses, but also on
ships. Some of the fast transatlantic liners, among them the
Mauretania^ are driven by Parsons's turbines, and some of the
498
POWER
great fighting ships that won the day for England at Jutland
were turbine-propelled.
PLAN AND ELEVATION SHOWING STEAM PASSAGE IN A FOUR-STAGE
CURTIS STEAM-TURBINE.
Curtis's turbine consists of a set of disks, each turning in a separate compartment. After the
steam has acted on the first disk it is shot into a compartment where it accumulates and
produces back pressure. This has the effect of slowing up the shaft. The steam next passes
to another set of nozzles and is discharged against a second disk at a lower pressure. Here,
again, it accumulates and discharges against a third disk, and so passes through perhaps a
dozen stages.
Curtis Combines the Ideas of De Laval and Parsons
Difficulties are encountered in the manufacture of both De
Laval's and Parsons's turbines. It is difficult to balance parts
properly that turn at 15,000 revolutions a minute, and thou-
sands of little blades have to be fitted very carefully.
Charles E. Curtis was an electrical manufacturer in Brook-
lyn, New York, when he first thought of his turbine. He helped
PUTTING STEAM TO WORK 499
to invent the electric fan now used in every office and home.
With the money that he made he pushed his conception of a
turbine to success. In the De Laval turbine the steam blows
against one set of blades on a disk and expands in a single
jump; in the Parsons turbine the steam blows against one set
of blades, then against set after set, each time expanding a
little, until finally it leaves the machine expanded to the ut-
most and with scarcely any energy left. Curtis combined the
ideas of De Laval and Parsons. De Laval's steam jets shot
against the blades at a speed of 4,000 feet a second — nearly
twice as fast as a rifle-bullet. The steam was travelling so much
faster than the blades could turn that energy was lost. On the
other hand, Parsons had trouble with his blades. There were
literally millions of them in the turbines of a great power-
house or steamer, all carefully set by hand. Moreover, the
fixed blades and the moving blades had to dovetail so closely
that not more than three-hundred ths of an inch was left between
some of them; so that if the steam was turned on suddenly
some blades would be stripped off as the shaft turned, because
they had expanded unevenly and touched dovetailing blades.
By combining the principles of De Laval and Parsons, Curtis
invented a machine which had the good features of both with-
out their faults. His turbine consists of a set of De Laval
disks, each turning in its separate compartment. The steam
acts on the first disk, just as it does in the De Laval turbine,
but, instead of being discharged into the open air or into a con-
denser, it is shot into a compartment where it accumulates and
produces back pressure. This has the effect of slowing up the
steam jets so that the shaft does not need to run so fast as in
the De Laval turbine. The steam next enters another set of
nozzles and is discharged against a second disk at a lower
pressure. Here, again, it accumulates and afterward dis-
charges against a third disk, and so through perhaps a dozen
stages. To reduce the speed of a Parsons turbine the engineer
reduces the steam pressure, which results in waste. To reduce
the speed of a Curtis turbine the engineer simply cuts off steam
from one or more nozzles, so that the machine can run eco-
nomically at low speed as well as at high.
The steam-turbine of Curtis is a very great invention, the
500 POWER
last word In steam-engines. It has been so successful that even
in England it is competing with Sir Charles Parsons's invention.
It was not developed overnight. Curtis spent |6o,ooo on it, and
then sold his patent rights to the General Electric Company,
in the research laboratories of which over $3,000,000 were paid
out in bringing his turbine to its present stage of perfection.
Three million dollars is more money than there was in all Eng-
land in the time of Richard the Lion Heart. That huge sum
was an investment in an engineering idea, an investment that
has paid rich dividends when it is considered that Curtis's tur-
bines on land generate 15,000,000 horse-power, on sea 20,000,-
000 horse-power, and that the British navy uses Curtis's tur-
bines having a combined horse-power of 5,000,000.
The Curtis turbine was brought to commercial perfection
by Mr. W. L. R. Emmett of the General Electric Company.
To his efforts is it due that our battleships are now electrically
driven; that is, the steam-turbines drive not the propeller di-
rectly but electric generators and motors with which the pro-
peller-shafts are connected.
With the development of the Curtis turbine it seemed as
if the story of the steam-engine had been brought to a close.
And yet Emmett saw further than the Curtis steam-turbine.
As an engineer he knew that the steam-engine is a heat-engine,
and that its chief purpose is to convert the energy liberated by
burning fuel into useful work. The more heat that one can
obtain, the more work results. From Watt to Curtis all efforts
had been directed toward utilizing more and more heat. Tem-
peratures had been raised to the utmost. Water cannot exist
in a boiler above the critical temperature of 706 degrees Fahren-
heit, and even then the pressure will be over 3,000 pounds to
the square inch, which is quite outside the range of ordinary
practice.
Water has its limitations. Can any other liquid be used ?
Emmett determined to experiment with quicksilver or mercury.
Water boils at 212 degrees Fahrenheit; mercury at 677 degrees
Fahrenheit. Therefore it can store up more heat and do more
work.
Emmett began to experiment with mercury about 1912.
With the financial resources of a great manufacturing organiza-
PUTTING STEAM TO WORK
501
tion behind him, he was able to spend hundreds of thousands
of dollars in experiments. Finally, in 1923, he had reached a
point where he was able to drive electric generators of the Hart-
ford Electric Light and Power Company with mercury vapor.
ERCURy CONDENSER
^ 4>'fjwijiH^*
Courtesy Scientific American.
THE EMMETT MERCURY-STEAM POWER-PLANT.
Water bolls at 212 degrees Fahrenheit; mercury at 677 degrees Fahrenheit. Hence mercury can
store up more heat (energy) and do more work. W. L. R. Emmett after twelve years of ex-
perimenting successfully applied the idea in this mercury-steam plant of the Hartford Elec-
tric Light and Power Company. Mercurj^ is vaporized in a special boiler, B, with ordinary
fuel — coal or oil. The mercury vapor, at a temperature of 677 degrees and pressure of 35
pounds, is supplied to a single-stage turbine, G, which drives an electric generator, AL After
leaving the turbine it still has a temperature of 455 degrees — hot enough to boil water. It is
passed through a condenser, H, where it boils water and raises steam, which is fed through a
pipe, K, to a Curtis steam-turbine coupled with an electric generator. Thus the vaporized
mercurv not onlv drives a turbine but raises steam which drives another turbine.
Even this experimental installation cost $500,000. It was the
fifteenth that Emmett had designed up to that time.
Let us examine this 6,000 horse-power Hartford installation
with the aid of the illustration on this page. Mercury is boiled in
a special boiler with ordinary fuel — coal or oil. Vapor is given
off at 677 degrees Fahrenheit at thirty-five pounds pressure. It
is supplied to a single-stage turbine which drives an electric
generator. After having spun the turbine it still has a tem-
502 POWER
perature of 455 degrees. If the vapor were to be discharged
or collected then and there, mercury would show no improve-
ment over water. This hot, condensed liquid mercury can do
much more work. Emmett passes it through a condenser and
makes it serve exactly the same purpose that glowing coals
serve under a boiler. He heats water with it — raises steam.
So this condenser is really a kind of steam-boiler. The mercury
passes through a series of tubes; water surrounds the tubes;
hence the intensely hot liquid mercury boils the water and
raises steam which is fed to a Curtis steam-turbine coupled to
another electric generator.
Mercury costs about a dollar a pound. Moreover, its vapor
is poisonous. For these two reasons it must not be allowed
to escape. From the condenser-boiler the liquid mercury flows
to a heater right in the path of the hot fuel gases of the mercury-
boiler. Thus it is preheated and finally passed back to the
main mercury-boiler. The cycle then begins all over again.
Thus the fuel gases are used to the utmost before they escape
up the smoke-stack; and the mercury is not allowed to escape
at all. The vaporized mercury is made to do double work —
to drive a mercury-vapor turbine and to generate steam for a
steam-turbine. Because mercury condenses at a temperature
more than twice that of boiling water and stores up more heat
from a fire than water the efficiency of the Emmett power system
is unprecedented. Hartford has a population of 175,000. It
costs 1 1, 500,000 annually for coal to supply this population
with electric light and power. With the mercury process the
coal bill is cut in half; for the Hartford plant, with steam at
200 pounds pressure, can produce with mercury vapor at thirty-
five pounds pressure, fifty-two per cent, more electric energy for
each pound of fuel consumed. "And if," Emmett adds, "in
such a plant the steam-boiler were re-equipped with furnaces
and mercury apparatus arranged to burn eighteen per cent,
more fuel, the station capacity, with the same steam-turbines
and auxiliaries, would be increased about eighty per cent."
With Emmett, the American inventor, we bring the story
of the steam-engine, probably the greatest of all inventions, to
a close. Watt, Evans, Corliss, Parsons, Curtis — their work
centralized industry in single huge factories and towns, gave
PUTTING STEAM TO WORK 503
us the fabric of modern civilization, and raised the standard
of living to a degree undreamed of only a century and a half
ago. The great revolutions of England, America, and France
gave men political freedom; but Watt and his successors gave
them the machine that meant freedom of a different kind, a
freedom that has expressed itself in the slave-machines that
now do so much of the world's work. Millions of horse-power,
thousands of millions of tons of coal, billions of barrels of oil are
the measure of our country's wealth; a measure that meant
little or nothing before the invention of the steam-engine. Now
our engines generate every hour in the day and night 125,000,-
000 horse-power, of which over eighty-two per cent, must be
credited to steam.
Perhaps Boulton had an inkling of what was to come when
he aptly crystallized the significance of the steam-engine in a
conversation with George the Third:
"In what business are you engaged.''" asked the king.
"I am engaged, your Majesty," said Boulton, "in the pro-
duction of a commodity which is the desire of kings."
"And what is that? What is that.^"
'' Power ^ your Majesty," replied Boulton.
And he was right. The steam-engine is king of the world.
CHAPTER II
THE RISE OF ELECTRICITY
The First Sparks
THE history of the rise of electricity is every whit as fas-
cinating as the story of Aladdin's lamp. Aladdin rubbed
his lamp and all things were possible of accomplishment.
To-day we press a button to achieve similar wonders. From
the days of Thales, 600 years before Christ, to the time of
Benjamin Franklin, the world's philosophers and inventors
were busy briskly rubbing amber, sulphur balls, and pieces
of glass, and getting wonderful electric sparks. Their simple
experiments one may repeat now on a dry, cold day by chafing a
hard-rubber penholder on the sleeve of one's coat, or by merely
shuffling one's feet on the carpet.
Most of us have lit a gas-jet with finger-tip sparks. That
spark has greater magic than Aladdin's lamp. The lamp and
its owner were unreal. The electric spark is omnipotent, its
power everlasting. Inventors, experimenting with electricity,
soon noted that this "frictional" electricity could be "con-
ducted" from one place to another; and Stephen Gray, in Eng-
land, about 200 years ago, began sending the current hundreds
of feet over circuits of packthread held up by silken loops, or
"insulators." Living at a famous London charity school,
Gray, as a poor pensioner, was glad to get the inexpensive help
of the boys for his queer experiments. While the youngsters
were doubtless scared, they must have found Gray's experi-
ments more amusing than their school lessons, especially as
there were such things to handle as a hot poker, a live chicken,
a big map, and one of those new, fashionable articles, an "um-
brella." The boys were hung up in the air, and electrified.
They blew soap-bubbles to which the "charge" jumped from
their toes or their noses. When they got tired of bobbing
around in loops of hair, like trapeze performers, they were
stood up on cakes of resin and charged and discharged, all
504
THE RISE OF ELECTRICITY 505
crackling and sparkling, until that gloomy playground of the
grimy old Charterhouse School anticipated a dazzling comic
scene at the Hippodrome in modern New York. The show-
was free to anybody who would poke his head through the
stone gateway.
C. F. Dufay, in France, repeated these experiments and sent
electricity over a wet string 1,256 feet long, and was merciful
enough to use only one child. He found there were two kinds
of electricity, which he called "vitreous" and "resinous," names
that stuck long after scientists began to use the terms "nega-
tive" and "positive." He saw that like electricities repelled
each other, while unlike electricities attracted. He also used
solid insulators of Spanish wax, in place of silken loops, to hold
up his circuit of thread. Dufay noted that bodies might be
electrified either by direct touch or by "induction" through the
air, and he conceived the clever idea of a whirl or "field of force"
around his glass tubes, on which there was a charge of static
electricity, due to the same old rubbing.
Cheered by friendly advices from the great Frenchman,
who founded the famous Botanic Gardens in Paris, poverty-
stricken Gray in his humble Grey Friars' shelter, went at it
again, overworking his little collection of accessories, which now
included tea-kettles, fishing-rods, a "pint pot," pewter plates,
and a sirloin of beef — not forgetting the small boys, wincing
as they felt the sparks through their woollen stockings. Above
all, Stephen Gray hoped that a way might be found "to collect
a greater quantity of electric fire." Like others, he was im-
pressed by the crackles, the "brushes" of flame, glows, and
"rays of light," and he set it down in memorable black and white,
that the force he was demonstrating seemed, comparing small
efi^ects with great, "to be of the same nature with thunder and
lightning."
Early Attempts at Harnessing Electricity
The boys, handy to philosophers, must have had an uncom-
fortable time while sparks of greater size, sting, and dazzle
were being obtained and tested. Eventually the electricity
obtained from the frictional machines was actually "stored."
A Scottish monk, Gordon, teaching in Germany, soon after
506 POWER
Gray's death, in 1736, Invented the first electric bell. It had
two little gongs, between which hung a metal ball on a silken
pendulum. The charged ball struck one gong, gave up its
electricity In doing so, and, being repelled, struck the other gong;
so on, over and over again. Gordon, perhaps more of a me-
chanic than a monk, then Invented a tiny motor. It was a metal
star pivoted at Its centre with the ends of its rays slightly bent
aside all in the same direction. The reaction of the electric dis-
charge kicked the star around on Its pivot. This same monk,
Alexander Gordon, was also the inventor of electrocution; for
he killed many chaffinches with a smart discharge from his fric-
tional machine, by which same principle Thomas A. Edison,
about a century later, got rid of the cockroaches when they
came uninvited to eat his supper as he worked at the night
operator's telegraph-key in Boston.
Following Gordon's discoveries, the stage had arrived where
electricity became useful to man rather than serving him merely
as a medium for philosophical diversion. Up to the middle of
the eighteenth century, practically only one really useful in-
vention, the compass, could be attributed to the discovery of
magnetism.
A period of electrical Invention had now dawned, and con-
tinuing his excellent experiments Gordon ignited spirits by con-
tact with a jet of electrified water. Many an American fire-
man, fighting flames, has since then found that the stream
thrown against a burning building could carry inversely at the
same time a deadly current back to him from some adjacent
bare wire.
Not to be outdone by Gordon, a clever apothecary in Lon-
don, named Watson, set fire to hydrogen with the electric spark,
just as gas Is now ignited in automobiles. Watson also ex-
ploded gunpowder and fired a musket after this fashion, thus
being the first inventor of a vast range of various methods for
electrically detonating explosives, mines, torpedoes, and other
Industrial and warlike devices.
Bottling Electricity
Out of all these inventions, one stood out by reason of its
greatness. It was called the "condenser." As often happens
THE RISE OF ELECTRICITY 507
when there is a wave of invention along a particular line, several
men claimed the condenser to be the product of their individual
genius. In the maze of electrical experiments of this period it
is hard to decide whose claim was the most justifiable. Prob-
ably two or three hit upon the identical idea simultaneously.
In Leyden, Holland, Pieter Van Musschenbroek, in 1746,
having noted that electrified bodies lose their charge, conceived
the idea of bottling a quantity of it for preservation. To do
this he decided to electrify some water in a jar. The experi-
ment, though absolutely successful, almost resulted in disaster.
While his assistant was disconnecting the communicating wire.
Van Musschenbroek received a nasty shock in his arms and
chest as all the stored static electricity ferociously leaped out
at him. The astounded professor instantly indulged in lan-
guage which had nothing to do with scientific research, and he
wrote to his friend Rene Reaumur, the famous French physicist,
that he was literally all broken up and would not chance an-
other such shock for a kingdom. In 1745, Dean von Kleist had
done just about the same thing with a medicine bottle, and
perhaps, as we say to-day, the patent should have gone to him.
Watson, however, put some neat touches on what ever since
has been known as the "Leyden jar," by coating it inside and
out with tin-foil. Then came some magnificent experiments to
close this whole series of observations and investigations, ex-
tending over a period of two thousand years. In France, the
Abbe Nollet took a company of the king's soldiers, joined their
hands to form the circuit, then knocked them over like human
ninepins with a shock not far inferior to that which the dough-
boys got in the late war when they ran into some "live" barbed-
wire entanglements set up by the foe. In England a committee
of the Royal Society sent an "electrical commotion" from the
"charged phial" over "wire" circuits set upon "dry sticks";
circuits of a total length of four miles, inclusive of water in large
ponds. Then came Benjamin Franklin.
Franklin Draws the Lightning from the Sky
It has been forcefully said that Franklin's proof of the iden-
tity of man-made frictional electricity with the electricity of
the thunder-storm subdivided history much as the birth of
510 POWER
of the twine stood out like porcupine quills, a finger could at-
tract them, and before long the key sparked briskly when
touched by Franklin's knuckle. The daring experiment was a
success !
Electricity from the very skies was thereafter stored in Ley-
den jars as easily as if it had come from a friction-machine, and
all the familiar effects were produced with unbelievable success.
Franklin, to make conviction doubly sure, showed that the dis-
tant clouds were sometimes charged positively, sometimes nega-
tively. The next great step was the invention and universal
use of lightning-rods to protect buildings. Franklin, as a human
lightning-rod, had challenged death in making one of the great-
est discoveries and inventions possible to mortal man. Four-
teen months later, a physicist at St. Petersburg, Russia, having
put up a plain iron rod to collect the electricity of the heavens,
and trying to read the indications of an "electrometer," form-
ing part of his apparatus, was hit by a globe of blue fire from
the rod, which killed him as swiftly as would a bullet from a
pistol. The truth is that Franklin's is one of the most remark-
able cases of good luck on record.
It must be clearly understood, however, that the Thales,
Watson, and Franklin kind of electricity is of little practical
value or use, except in radio. We cannot light electric lamps,
run trolley-cars, or work electric motors by sparks from rubbed
glass, or even by captive lightning. The great tasks that elec-
tricity now performs for mankind need a steadily flowing stream
of energy; in other words, a current. And we now proceed to
narrate how the current came to be generated and appHed.
The Discovery of the Electric Current
Luigi Galvani could hardly understand why Franklin wanted
to toy with the thunder-clouds when electricity was all around
and even in us. Although his reasoning was profound, Gal-
vani was seemingly unable to apply it successfully. The
Italian physician, father of modern medical electricity, was
one of those men who try to find out more than books can
teach them. In order to get a better understanding of the
human body, he studied the muscles, nerves, and bones of birds,
frogs, and other small animals. He was keenly interested in
THE RISE OF ELECTRICITY 511
electricity, and of course had a friction-machine, similar to
the one used by Franklin. He also knew that the "electric
eel" and other fishes could give a severe shock.
One day, in 1786, Galvani was working over the legs of a
skinned frog, when an assistant started to spin the electric
Courtesy General Electric Company.
THE FIRST ELECTRIC CELL.
Volta's first battery or voltaic "pile," made in 1800, consisted of a number of silver coins and
equal number of zinc disks of the same size. The silver and zinc disks were piled alternately
on top of one another, with pieces of moist cloth between the disks. Wires were fastened
to the top and bottom of the pile, and when they were joined, Volta obtained a steadily flow-
ing current of electricity. Thus did electrical engineering begin.
machine which stood on the same table. The dissecting knife
Galvani was using happened to touch one of the wires of the
machine. Instantly the frogs' legs kicked in the most lifelike
manner. This gave Galvani an idea. "If an electrical charge
can make the legs of a dead frog act as though they were alive,"
he thought, " they must have been charged with electricity
512 POWER
when they were alive. Therefore, electricity must be the thing
that makes us live."
If this were true, it was indeed a most important discovery.
Galvani became eager to prove it. During the course of one
of his experiments, he fixed the legs of a frog to a copper hook
and hung the hook on an iron railing. But no sooner had the
two metals come into contact than the legs kicked vigorously.
Here was something even more extraordinary. This time there
was no electric machine around. Why did the legs kick ?
"Because," said Galvani, highly delighted, "these legs are so
fresh, they are still full of electricity! My theory is correct!"
He immediately wrote a book on the subject, and soon frogs'
legs were kicking in every laboratory in Europe.
Most of the scientists who thus amused themselves believed
what Galvani told them. But there was one man who tested
the truth of everything for himself. This was Alessaridro Volta,
who taught science in the Italian University of Pavia. In 1789
he studied this strange kicking very carefully, and gradually
made up his mind that the electricity was caused by the con-
tact of the two different metals, and not by the frog.
Galvani was very angry. "You are wrong!" he wrote to
Volta. "I have proved that electricity is life."
"I am not wrong," replied Volta, "and I'll prove it by pro-
ducing electricity with metals only, and without frogs' legs!"
Volta then took a number of silver coins, made an equal
number of zinc disks of the same size, and piled them alter-
nately one on top of another, with pieces of moist cloth in
between. He fastened wires to the top and bottom of the pile,
and when he joined the two wires together, he produced, for the
first time, a steadily flowing current of electricity. This he ac-
complished about 1799.
Why an electric current should be produced by the contact
of two different metals we do not as yet know. But that it is
produced in this way, can easily be proved. Touch the under-
side of your tongue with a silver coin and the upper side with a
-steel key. Then bring the outer parts of the coin and the key
together. You will notice a distinctly sour taste that is differ-
ent from the flat taste of either metal by itself, and your tongue
will tingle for several minutes afterward. This sourness is
THE RISE OF ELECTRICITY 513
caused by a feeble electric current, which flows when two
different metals are placed in contact with moisture. Volta's
"pile" was the first electric battery. It is one of the most
important inventions ever made, for it gave us the electric cur-
rent. It aroused little interest, however, and when it was dem-
onstrated to the great Napoleon he was unable to see any
value in it, though its power was infinitely greater than that of
his whole army.
Volta's pile was soon greatly improved. Everybody imi-
tated it for purposes of experiment and research, and a consid-
erable number of different kinds of batteries were invented.
These batteries opened up an entirely new field of knowledge,
and discovery quickly followed discovery.
One of these discoveries was the ability of the electric cur-
rent to break up certain substances, such as lime, which no
chemist had been able to analyze. In this way a number of
previously unknown chemical elements have been obtained in
their pure state, one after another, down to this day. Electro-
chemistry is one of the great new arts thus founded.
The Relation between Electricity and Magnetism
The electric current was a link, like the Panama Canal, be-
tween two great oceans: electricity and magnetism. These
vast realms the electric current joined and converted into one
inseparable body.
Human acquaintance with the effects of the lodestone, or
natural magnet, is as ancient as the knowledge of the properties
of amber. Magnetic iron ore, or magnetic iron sand, may be
found in all parts of the world, and the appreciation of its mys-
terious power seems always to have been common. Sir Isaac
Newton, the discoverer of gravitation (the magnetic pull that
all the heavenly bodies exert upon one another through space),
had a finger-ring in which was set a three-grain magnet that
would lift 700 grains of iron. Long before the science of mag-
netism was academically established, the corroborative fact had
been observed that magnets had polarity.
At least a thousand years ago, sailors depended on the use
of the compass, a noble invention of the highest rank, x^n iron
needle that had been rubbed by a natural magnet was put on
514 POWER
a pivot, or floated In a bowl of water, so as to swing around,
indicating north and south, as well as east and west, when it
came to rest. Easy to falsify, one who tampered with it, if
detected, met a punishment that fitted the crime; his hand
was nailed to the mast, or he was "keelhauled" under the ship,
or thrown overboard. The Dutch mariners added the familiar
point-card to the compass. Columbus, who without the help
of his compass would never have discovered America, noticed
that it did not always point exactly to the true north. His
solution was that the needle had not received the proper mag-
netic rubbing; but in this he was wrong. For the most part
the theories of the magnet and the compass were mere guess-
work in those days, and no real ideas or inventions of profound
importance came for two hundred years. The best of the in-
vestigations were those of the English physician, Gilbert, about
1600, whose splendid work, De Magnete^ was an addition to
scientific research. Progress, however, was slow until the Im-
mortal discoveries, in 1819, of Hans Christian Oersted, professor
of natural philosophy in the University of Copenhagen.
There was such a similarity between the separate accom-
plishments and properties of electricity and magnetism, that it
would have been curious if, by 1800, somebody had not guessed
they were closely related. Hans Christian Oersted, with grim
determination and patience, set out to prove it. He was a rather
clumsy experimenter, but possessed with the right Idea. Even
though his magnetic needle did not at first respond to the flow
of current from a voltaic cell, he stuck to his discourgaing task.
Finally, in 18 19, he and his students went wild with joy and ex-
citement when they saw Oersted's magnetic needle spin round
as the circuit was opened or closed. There was good reason
for celebration. Oersted had slaved for this success for thir-
teen years, and it stimulated philosophical investigation to the
highest degree. When Faraday, in 1831, made a wire convey-
ing a current revolve around the poles of a magnet, he also
celebrated his discovery, rubbing his hands in glee, skipping
gaily about the table, making holiday the rest of the day, and
winding up with a night ofl^ at Astley's Circus to see the per-
forming horses.
It should be noted that Oersted did not really invent any-
THE RISE OF ELECTRICITY 515
thing. Apparently he did not care to, preferring "knowledge
as his highest aim." But his splendid discovery was seized
upon with avidity by all the scientific men of the world. In-
CourUsy General Electric Company.
EDISON DYNAMO OF 1883.
ventions and other discoveries came thick and fast. As Fara-
day said, Oersted had "opened the gates of a domain^ in sci-
ence, dark till then, and filled it with a flood of light." This
was 'indeed an achievement for one who at twelve years of age
516 POWER
had been an errand boy in a little apothecary's shop on a small
island in the Baltic Sea.
Within a few months, that metaphysical genius, Ampere,
had seized upon the inner meaning of the work done at Copen-
hagen; and between 1820 and 1828 he founded the great work-
aday science of electrodynamics, by laying down its laws and
predicting some of their applications. It is only right that the
very unit of electric current should be named after him; for
Ampere soon proved that all the phenomena of magnets, action
and reaction, pull and push, revolution and polarity, could be
repeated with coils of wire through which an electric current was
passing — and all the more emphatically if iron was put within
the coils. He also showed that currents themselves behaved
like magnets, and indeed were magnets. Arago, another great
French philosopher, in 1820, had invented electromagnets.
He discovered that if he wrapped a live wire around a small
bunch of iron wires, the wires became magnets, and stayed mag-
nets as long as current flowed in the wire. Davy, to whose
great work we are soon coming, also discovered independently
the power of the electric current to magnetize iron and steel,
and so helped set the stage at the Royal Institution in London
for the magnificent performances of his pupil and successor,
Faraday. Before leaving behind Ampere in this swift advance,
it may well be noted that, like Thales and Franklin, he also had
strong political democratic tendencies. South American pa-
triots visiting France found a warm welcome in Ampere's
pleasant Parisian home, and, next to electromagnetism, noth-
ing stirred him more to red-blooded enthusiasm than discussing
the heroic feats of Bolivar and Canaris in creating new republics
out of the wrecks of Spanish dominion. Ampere was never
ashamed of telling the story of his early years. When only
thirteen he read a paper before a certain society In which he
solemnly informed the learned members how they could square
the circle !
Arc-Lights and Dynamos
About this time the Royal Institution in London, founded
by an American In 1800, became the home and work place of
two very notable men. Its creator, Count Rumford, was a
THE RISE OF ELECTRICITY
517
plain Massachusetts Yankee, Benjamin Thompson, but the
fortunes of the War of Independence carried him to Europe,
where his genius and ablHty soon made their mark. The ruler
of Bavaria engaged him to manage the royal arsenals. Being
a real philosopher, he took the opportunity, while boring a
cannon, to prove that heat could be produced by mechanical
Courtesy General Electric Company.
(Left) THOMAS ALVA EDISON.
(Right) WILLIAM STANLEY, INVENTOR OF THE MODERN TRANSFORMER.
Edison was the first to supply electricity commercially. To him is due the whole modern system
of generating current in a central station and distributing it to homes and factories.
power. He also taught the Bavarians many arts of peace,
and was soon made a count of the Holy Roman Empire. Going
back to England, where he had also been created a knight, he
secured the charter for the Royal Institution, and chose a clever
young Cornishman, Humphry Davy, as lecturer and director
of the laboratory.
Davy, whose widowed mother was a poor milliner, became
apprenticed to an apothecary-surgeon, and taking up chemis-
try as a study soon discovered that the properties of pure
nitrous oxide, "laughing-gas," were respirable and had the power
to lessen physical pain, the beginning of modern anaesthetics.
Electricity also interested him, and his originality justified
518 POWER
Rumford's selection of him as a Royal Institution lecturer.
In electrical annals Davy stands out distinctly in the white
glory of his own arc-light, with which his name is associated, and
he was one of the most distinguished precursors of the electrical
engineers of to-day. Passing the current from a powerful bat-
tery which had no fewer than 2,000 plates dipped in acid solu-
tion, he secured intensely brilliant illumination from the con-
sumption of two sticks of charcoal. This was in 1808. He called
it an **arc" light because the little blue-silvery bow of light
formed an "arch" as it wavered between the glowing pieces of
carbon rod. With his giant battery, Davy was also able to
isolate metallic potassium and sodium; and although France
and England were at war, the French Academy magnanimously
recommended Davy as the first recipient of the gold medal
promised by the vigilant Napoleon for the "best experiment
that should be made in each year on the galvanic fluid." But
the world owed him another gold medal for discovering and be-
friending no less a genius than Michael Faraday, the Columbus
of electromagnetic induction.
Born of humble parents in a remote suburb of London,
Faraday had practically no school education. The facts of his
early life and how he attended Sir Humphry Davy's lectures
in natural philosophy is told in the chapter on "Radio Com-
munication." To young Faraday those clever lectures by Davy
had far more fascination than his work in a bookbindery.
Faraday's initial scientific task was the unpleasant one of ex-
tracting sugar from beet-roots; and it was succeeded by some-
thing even more disagreeable, the manufacture of stinking bi-
sulphide of carbon. Even that did not discourage him, nor the
fact that, when he went abroad with Sir Humphry Davy, in
1 81 5, Lady Davy, socially ambitious, refused to dine at the
same table with one whom she regarded as the equal of her
husband's valet.
On Christmas Day, 1821, the young wife of the laboratory
assistant was invited by her husband to leave the simple domes-
tic part of the stern old Institution where they kept house,
and share his delight over a wonderful new experiment. All
she saw was a small vase nearly filled with mercury, into which
a tiny copper wire dipped. On the mercury floated a little bar
THE RISE OF ELECTRICITY 519
magnet, held by a thread to the bottom of the vessel. Now,
the wire was in circuit with a "voltaic" battery, and every time
the circuit was closed to the mercury, that floating bar, like a
chip in a swirl of tide, revolved around the wire. No simpler
way could be devised of producing a continuous regular me-
chanical motion from the action of an electric current. Fara-
day always stripped his demonstrations down to the barest
elements. Ten years later, before the Royal Society, in 1831,
Faraday described his "new electrical machine," first of many
millions that since have embodied the same vital, cardinal idea.
His "dynamo" consisted essentially of a disk of copper, twelve
inches across, mounted to rotate between the poles of a big
permanent magnet. Two collecting brushes, one resting on the
axis hub of the wheel and the other on its rim, carried off^ the
current generated as the revolving disk cut through the un-
seen "lines of magnetic force" of the permanent magnet.
Thus was mechanical motion converted into electrical energy;
and then by successive stages Faraday, in 1831 and 1832, de-
veloped the phenomena of electromagnetic induction, the basis
of all our modern dynamo-electric machinery, generators, and
motors. Moreover, he showed that his "induced" current had
all the earmarks of the "voltaic" battery current, and then bv
an ever-memorable series of experiments he went on to prove
that all the electricities are the same: static, dynamo, mag-
neto, voltaic, thermo, animal, etc. — just as all men belong to
the human family. Other important discoveries followed, for
which there is no room here. Faraday lived a life worthy of
one of the world's greatest scientists. Bence Jones, in his
Life and Letters of Faraday ^-wrotQ: "His was a lifelong strife to
seek and say that which he thought was true; and to do that
which he thought was kind." Long before he died the world
had begun to reap wonderful harvests in his "fields of magnetic
force" and from all the great electromagnetic arts that are now
"human nature's daily food."
William Sturgeon, in England, shared with Arago, in France,
the credit of making the first electromagnets. Joseph Henry,
in America, shared with Faraday the credit of the first demon-
strations of the new principles of induction, magnetic repulsion
and attraction. Then, in 1832, came the vanguard of inven-
Courtesy of Deutsches Museum, Munich.
a. Saxton (1833). b. Wheatstone (1845).
c. Wilde (1861). d. Werner von Siemens (1866).
EVOLUTION OF THE ELECTROMAGNET.
Two coils of wire rotate in front of the poles of a steel magnet. The induced current is
conducted to the line by a brush or collector.
In order to obtain more powerful magnets Wheatstone used electromagnets which were ex-
cited by galvanic energy.
In order to obtain more powerful electromagnetic effects without the aid of a galvanic cur-
rent Wilde used a small auxiliary machine and steel magnets to generate energy for the elec-
tromagnets of the main machine.
Von Siemens used the residual magnetism of an electromagnet to induce a feeble current in
the armature. This induced current augmented the magnetism of the electromagnet and
was itself augmented until the electromagnet was completely saturated.
Courtesy oj Deutsches Museum, Munich.
3. Pixii ^1832;.
4. Wheatstone-Cooke (1845).
THE GENERATION OF ELECTRICITY" BY MOVING WIRES NEAR MAGNETS.
1. In 183 1 Michael Faraday discovered that an electric current can be induced in the iron core
of a wire coil when a steel magnet was moved toward and from the coil.
2. In the same year Faraday discovered that electric currents can also be induced in a coil
when a near-by coil is electrified or de-electrified. These induced currents were most power-
ful when both coils had a common ring-shaped iron core.
3 and 4. Historic magneto-electric machines. (3) The coils J, provided with an iron core,
rotate in front of the steel magnet B. The electric current induced in the coils by the al-
ternations of magnetic effect in the iron core is collected by the brushes a and b. (4) The
coils J rotate with their iron core in front of the electromagnet B. The electromagnet B
consists of an iron core wound with wire through which flows the electric current obtained
from a galvanic element. Thus the iron core is magnetized. The magnetic effect is greater
and hence a more powerful current is obtained.
E
r
^^^g^.
1
i
1
L
p ^ •
Wi
' tW ^
i
J
1
iifc^,.i „.
m^
nm
tiL
^ ■
|pf#
f^g 1 ..:^^mf^
^^
Courtesy of Deiitsches Museum.
REPLICA OF PACINOTTI'S DYNAMO OF 1860.
Courtesy of Deutsches Museum.
ORIGINAL RING-ARMATURE DYNAMO OF GRAMME (1870).
522 POWER
tors, headed perhaps by H. Pixii, a Frenchman, who began with
the invention of magnetos with coils of wire spun around in
front of permanent magnets, and later produced "dynamos"
in which, instead of permanent magnets, they employed electro-
magnets, using some of the "self-exciting" current from the
machine itself. This was a great stride forward, and, in i860.
Doctor Antonio Pacinotti devised the first dynamo to give
"continuous" current, all in one direction, or of one sign, +
or — , in place of the "alternating" current which reversed it-
self incessantly, as in the machines of Varley, Wheatstone, and
Siemens. Next came the famous Belgian, Z. T. Gramme,
who in Paris, 1870-72, produced the first practical generator
yielding absolutely continuous or direct current. Adopting the
soft iron ring of Pacinotti, the Italian professor of vine culture,
this master mechanic wrapped around it consecutive lengths of
insulated wire, thus forming a number of short, distinct coils,
whose ends were brought out to a commutator. Like a series
of pipes all leading out one way, each coil as it passed in front
of the magnets squirted out its little discharge of current
through the commutator ring of copper strips, and that current,
of positive sign, could be used for all the innumerable purposes
to which continuous or "direct" current is now applied.
How THE Electric Motor Was Accidentally Invented
Up to the time of Gramme, people had built electric motors
to be operated by current from batteries; then machines to
generate current, first for electric lighting and then for electro-
plating with copper or silver. It was a case of putting the cart
before the horse. The dynamo should have come first. But
at an industrial exhibition in Vienna, 1873, a number of Gramme
dynamos were being set up as exhibits. In making the elec-
trical connections to one of these machines, not yet belted to
the shaft of the driving steam-engine, a careless workman by
mistake attached to its binding posts the ends of two wires al-
ready connected to another dynamo actually in operation. It
was the sort of mistake that often happens in an electrical
plant, when "hooking up" the machinery. To the intense as-
tonishment of everybody looking on, the armature of the second
machine at once began to revolve with great rapidity. When
THE RISE OF ELECTRICITY
523
the attention of Gramme was directed to this highly novel
phenomenon, he saw that the second machine was functioning
as a motor, with current from the first, and that what took place
was an actual transfer of mechanical energy through the agency
of electricity. With that remarkable incident began the period
of the great modern use of the electric motor for power and do-
THE FIRST CENTRAL STATION.
Built by Edison and the nucleus of the present Edison Company. It was opened for operation
in 1882. This picture is made from a contemporary print in the Scientific American.
mestic purposes, and the development of the art of electric-
power transmission, which, in turn, led to the vast water-power
utilization of to-day.
Separate chapters in this volume deal with the arts and in-
ventions in electric lighting, electric traction, and telegraphy
and telephony, all of which depend for their current supply upon
current taken directly from dynamos or from storage batteries
whose chemical reactions enable them to deliver the "stored"
energy when it is needed, and when the dynamo is out of opera-
tion. We shall confine ourselves here to a brief note of some of
524 POWER
the other fields of electrical application developed since the days
of Pacinotti and Gramme, and mention a few of the "star per-
formers," to whom a leading share in such utilization must be
credited.
Applications of Electricity
With the invention of the dynamo or generator came the
possibility of electric illumination. How the arc was developed
by Brush and the incandescent lamp by Edison is told in
the chapter "From Rushlight to Incandescent Lamp." Both
Brush and Edison saw that the dynamo would have to be
vastly improved if houses were to be lit by electricity. To
Edison belongs the credit of having devised the modern system
of generating current in a central station, and supplying it to
houses by wires fed from mains. Lamps, dynamos, fuses,
switches, all the paraphernalia with which we are now so fa-
miliar are his creations — the work of the early eighties.
Edison had barely got his incandescent-lighting system in-
troduced. Brush had not yet finished refining his famous arc-
lighting system, and Sprague was at the beginning of his electric-
motor development,* when the outward urge of all this expan-
sion necessitated some device that would enable central-station
plants and electric-trolley railroads to cover larger areas of
service from the one source of current supply. It was found
in the "transformer" and the alternating current, to which
George Westinghouse, inventor of the air-brake, devoted nearly
all of his life after 1884.
To understand the transformer, we must go back to Faraday's
discovery, made in 1831, when he wound two coils of wire on a
soft ring of iron. When he shot current through one coil he
saw by the galvanometer needle in the circuit of the other
that "induced" current was flowing in it also. That is about
all we do with the modern transformer, which in its various
forms is simply Faraday's induction-coil. About 1884, an
erratic Frenchman named Gaulard, backed by a sporty English-
man, Gibbs, showed with a crude "secondary generator," or
transformer, that current could be sent miles and miles. The
* See the chapter on "Electric Cars and Trains," p. io6.
THE RISE OF ELECTRICITY 525
device was like a spring-board or a catapult. Low-pressure
current could be put through it in large volume, and, by induc-
tion from one coil to the other, could be raised in voltage for
long-distance transmission over a very small wire. Conversely,
if the alternating current thus raised in pressure was to be used
at low pressure, it could be put through a "step-down" trans-
Courtesy General Electric Company.
TWENTY-TON HEROULT ELECTRIC FURNACE.
Siemens conceived the idea of melting steel commercially by means of the electric arc.
The Frenchman Heroult did much to make this idea practical. This Heroult furnace is used
by the Carnegie Steel Company. The annual production of electrosteel throughout the
world is now 1,500,000 tons.
former at the consumption end of the line, by being received by
a fine wire coil, and lowered in pressure and increased in volume
by the big wire coil alongside it.
A very brilliant young engineer from the Berkshire Hills of
Massachusetts, William Stanley, Jr., took hold of this crude
appliance and soon worked out the transformers that were to
be the prototypes and forerunners of all those in use in America
to-day. Erecting a little laboratory workshop in his native
526 POWER
Great Barrington, he gave that town the honor of being the
first to illustrate the momentous new departure in electric light
and power. The first large alternating-current station was
installed by Westinghouse, using the Stanley transformers, in
Buffalo, New York, the same year, 1886.
All this early alternating-current work was done with what
is called "single-phase" alternating current. Few such gener-
ators are made to-day. The first alternating dynamos were
"single phase," so were the first transformers, and their chief
virtue was this ability to annihilate distance, although they had
many drawbacks. Away on the Serbian borderland of eastern
Europe was born, in 1857, a genius, Nikola Tesla, son of a clergy-
man in the Greek church. The Serbians have had little time
to give to invention; their task has been the guarding of the
Balkan Mountains, the preservation of their little country; and
in their language there are a hundred words for knife to one for
bread. As a young student at Graz, Austria, brooding, imagina-
tive Nikola Tesla saw and ran a Gramme dynamo, and with
quick intuition he decided that the commutator and brushes
were not necessary. Forthwith, he began a career that soon
brought him to America, there to invent what is now world-
wide in name and application, namely the "polyphase" system;
two-phase or three, the latter perhaps predominating to-day.
The first power transmission of Niagara energy began with the
Tesla two-phase apparatus built by Westinghouse. Tesla went
on to develop other ideas and inventions employing high fre-
quency currents, and thirty years ago he began to demonstrate
the wireless transmission of signals and power, becoming the
pioneer of all the "broadcasting" now so familiar and fasci-
nating. He also showed many incandescent-lighting effects in
lamps without filaments and unconnected to any circuit, and
took the first photograph ever secured by fluorescence and phos-
phorescence— the light of the firefly. At the time of writing,
this temperamental genius was still hard at it in the very centre
of the "wireless" stage.
Of a different type is Doctor Elihu Thomson, who spent all
his vastly productive life in America, to which he was brought
when only a few years old by his skilful father, a north of Eng-
land machinist. Thomson's development of "repulsion phe-
THE RISE OF ELECTRICITY
527
EEABING TO REDUCE THE
SPEED OF THEDRIVIMB
WHEEL FBOM 2360 Ta
ISO REVOLUTIONS PEB
MINUTE
RESERVOIR
I' r-
Courtesy of Deutsche! Museum, Munich.
SECTION THROUGH THE FOURNEYRON WATER-TURBINE OF 1834.
Foruneyron's water-turbine in its earlier forms had a vertical cylindrical chamber with a side
inlet for the water and a central pipe below, through which the water passed to an annular
outlet at the base of the pipe. This outlet was fitted with guide-blades which directed the
water tangentially as it escaped. Surrounding this passage was a driving-wheel, keyed to a
vertical shaft and provided with vanes between which the water flowed as it passed from
the inner to the outer circumference, where it was finally discharged.
nomena" became the basis of several useful arts, but he might
prefer for special mention his creation of the great modern in-
dustry of electric welding. Lecturing at the Franklin Institute
in Philadelphia, he noted that in one of his experiments the
wires of a Ruhmkorff spark-coil had been welded by the instan-
taneous discharge of a heavy current. With the swift vision of
528
POWER
genius, he glimpsed at once the possibiHties of electric welding.
In 1885, he worked the whole process out, and made the first
electric welds that finally became the basis of the enormous
Courtesy William Cramp Ship and Engine Building Company.
PART OF NIAGARA'S HARNESS.
Section through one of the 55,000 horse-power units for the Niagara development of the
Hydro-Electric Power Commission of Ontario.
extension in welding now seen everywhere in the most varied
of arts, from wire-manufacture up to the making of hulls of
battleships and ocean liners.
A similar new art has grown up out of electrodynamics in
the use of the electric furnace. About 1877, that great Ger-
man pioneer, Siemens, conceived the idea that it should be pos-
THE RISE OF ELECTRICITY
529
sible to melt steel commercially by means of the electric arc.
He took a crucible, bored holes in the sides, stuck electrodes
through the holes, started an arc, and melted steel by radiation.
Since then a vast variety of such furnaces have come into use,
"not because the electricity plays any peculiar part in the
process, but simply because they furnish a convenient means of
Courtesy General Electric Company.
MODERN HYDROELECTRIC PLANT.
The dam which backs up the water is clearly visible; so are the penstocks and the power-
plant itself, to which water is supplied by the penstocks.
obtaining very high temperatures which can be easily con-
trolled"; temperatures up to 6,500 degrees Fahrenheit. A
French chemist, Moissan, specially distinguished himself by
work in this field, dealing with refractory substances. In 1893,
he actually produced diamonds from common graphite. True,
they can barely be seen, unless you look at them under the
microscope, but some day artificial diamonds may upset the
market for precious stones and compete with nature's output
from the mines of South Africa.
Meantime, the electric furnace is invading the whole field
of metallurgy. At the beginning of 1920 no fewer than 900
530 POWER
electric steel-making furnaces were in use throughout the world,
with an annual production of 1,500,000 tons. But there are
also very many electric furnaces for the non-iron metals, such as
brass, aluminum, and copper.
In 1 88 1, chancing to hear a remark of a famous gem expert
on the value of abrasives, a young American, E. G. Acheson,
born in Washington, Pennsylvania, and then only twenty-five
years old, set to work along original lines. To him is due the
world's most widely used artificial abrasive, carborundum. He
was only sixteen years old when he started work in his father's
blast-furnaces; then, in turn, he became a surveyor's chainman,
a railroad ticket clerk, a worker in the iron mines, and even-
tually a draftsman for Edison. Under that great inventor's
supervision, Acheson helped in the early perfection and intro-
duction in America and Europe of the incandescent-lighting
system; he finally became an inventor on his own account.
In 1 89 1, with an ordinary solder melting-pot for a furnace,
Acheson, experimenting with high temperatures in the hope of
producing artificial diamonds, and using sand and ground coke
for the charge, accidentally obtained "carborundum," a silicide
of carbon. It was a positively new substance and an important
abrasive. To-day, with the help of electrical energy from
Niagara, millions of pounds of this compound are produced
annually. Acheson continued his experiments in an incan-
descent furnace. One day, after overheating the furnaces, in
which, like Moissan, he actually produced minute diamonds,
Acheson noted a black substance with a greasy surface. It was
graphite. Once more a whole realm of electric metallurgy and
chemistry was opened up. Acheson next proceeded to divide
this artificial graphite by "deflocculation," thereby grinding it
up about as far as mechanic processes can go, and discovered
a new series of lubricants. Kindred researches have carried
Acheson far into the electrical manufacture of clays, fine cruci-
bles, and into several other arts.
The chapter, thus far, has dealt but slightly with electro-
chemistry, or "electrolysis," which includes the arts of electro-
plating and the refining of copper — most American copper now
being thus heated to secure very high purity, A large part of
the electric current generated at Niagara Falls is thus employed
THE RISE OF ELECTRICITY 531
in making bleaching powders. In much the same way a very
persevering American, T. L. Wlllson, made calcium carbide,
from which Is obtained the Illuminating gas called acetylene,
an account of which discovery will be found In the chapter,
"From Rushlight to Incandescent Lamp." Most notable of
all has been the extraction, from very ordinary earthy substances,
of the metal aluminum, so vital to many Industries, such as
aviation. Before American Inventors, such as the Cowles
brothers and Charles M. Hall, put their wits to work In 1886,
aluminum sold at four dollars a pound and was hard to get;
but after they and Heroult,- the Frenchman, had developed
their processes and "baths," It could be bought In Ingots like
pig Iron at only twenty cents a pound.
This work brings us Into another great field of modern elec-
trical development, that of electric heating and cooking, par-
ticularly for domestic purposes. Benjamin Franklin, In 1747,
proposed an "Electrical Dinner" when a turkey was to be
killed by electric shock, and roasted by the electric jack before
a fire kindled by the electric bottle. But It was more than 150
years later before the prophetic fancy passed Into a common-
place actuality. In 1891, an Englishman, H. J. Downing,
gave an exhibit of his "radiant heat" electric-cooking appli-
ances at the Sydenham Crystal Palace. Before that nothing
really worth while In electric cooking had been Invented. Four
years later, a young American, W. S. Hadway, devised a little
plant for cooking, which Instantly proved practicable. The
equipment consisted of an oven, small portable stoves, "spider,"
plate-warmer, coffee-pot, and teakettle. In 1896-97 Hadway
installed an electric range In the Fifth Avenue mansion of
Andrew Carnegie, New York city. Within a few years many
inventors and manufacturers were in the field, and in 1920 the
production of electric ranges In the United States exceeded
40,000, from some eighteen producers. But the electric ranges
are only one of a group of such electrical appliances now made
and used In America. There are more than fifty varieties on
the market, in the purchase of which for use In the home the
pubHc spent no less than 1175,000,000 in 1919. Associated
with all these articles that lessen enormously the burden of
housekeeping and the need for domestic servants, is another
532 POWER
ingenious group of appliances such as electric vacuum cleaners
and washing-machines, all helped in adoption by the fact that
whereas the cost of nearly everything has gone up enormously
in the last ten years, the price of electric current has steadily
gone down.
Millions of these ingenious and useful devices due to Ameri-
can inventors are now produced yearly, but probably none
more numerously than the universal fan motor, by which our
civilization furnishes itself with cooling breezes in summer
and heated currents of air in winter. The punkah coolies of
India and fan-bearers of all the Eastern world are outmatched
by this little American device. In 1904, the Franklin Insti-
tute awarded to Doctor Schuyler S. Wheeler its John Scott gold
medal for his invention of an electric fan, reduced to practice
in 1886. Wheeler, who had to struggle very hard to complete
his education at Columbia University, secured a position with
the first Edison electric light company, started in New York in
1882. While working he and his great chief, Edison, slept in
the famous Pearl Street station, on cots set up right alongside
the steam-engines, so that they did not leave the plant for sev-
eral days and nights. Later Wheeler became a maker of small
electric motors, and it occurred to him that by increasing the
"shaft height" and by turning upside down the type of motor
made to run sewing-machines, a little wind-blowing propeller
could be hitched on — and there was the fan motor ! Useful
fan motors are now countless, and Wheeler proceeded to
"fabricate" millions of horse-power in industrial motors, equip-
ping notably some of the largest American steel works for
"electric drive."
It is now a rare day that does not bring news of yet another
electrical invention or application. No sphere of life is left un-
touched. "Behold, I make all things new" is the inspired
Scriptural phrase that might be applied to this renovating in-
fluence. A late discovery is the electrolytic waterproofing of
textile fabrics, by the process of A. O. Tate, a brilliant young
Canadian engineer, once private secretary to Edison, for whom,
as an expert telegrapher, he did original work. In developing
storage-batteries and electric filters of his own, Tate came to
the conclusion that by means of electric current he could im-
THE RISE OF ELECTRICITY
533
pregnate fibrous materials with a water-repelling substance.
Thus he manufactured a fabric not only water-proof, but mil-
dew-proof, and of a higher grade of quality. The process was
CourUsy Allis-Chalmers C"mp, my.
TWExNTY-FlVE-TON WATER-WHEEL.
Pelton wheel for the 30,000 horse-power units built for Great Western Power Company's
Caribou plant, California.
first installed in Montreal, Canada, in 191 6, and operated by an
Imperial Commission. In July, 1920, the celebrated Cranston
Print Works, Rhode Island, were equipped for an output of
30,000,000 yards per annum of electrolytically waterproofed
and electrically "converted" fabrics. Cottons and woollens
534 POWER
alike gain by the process, as do most of the clothes we wear;
duck and canvas for sails and tents are also now largely treated
in this way; wall-papers that can be washed with a hose are
another group involved in changes so novel and comprehen-
sive that the mere term "waterproofing" is inadequate to de-
scribe them.
Electricity and Water-Power
It is remarkable that books on invention and the encyclo-
paedias have so little to say about water-power or wind-power.
The reason for this is probably that no really first-class inventor
has ever associated his name with modern adaptations of the
very ancient devices that depend on breezes or falling water.
There is, of course, a large amount of literature on hydraulics,
but the student will hunt in vain for enough books on wind-
power to fill a five-foot shelf, even if he include treatises on sails
for ships.
It is not likely that the march of mankind in the path of
civilization was governed in any way by the local prevalence
of steady currents of air to drive windmills; but it is known that,
next to having access to water for drinking, our forefathers
valued running water for its ability to furnish power for their
primitive industries and later on to operate small factories.
Even then they depended just as largely on animal-power or
the muscular effort of human beings. To this day, in old Asia,
teams of men are still employed to do the sort of work which
in America is more easily and smoothly accomplished by the
electric motor.
For present purposes wind-power may be forgotten; but
to the Hollander it is very necessary, practical, and useful.
There are, however, very few dynamo-plants driven by wind-
power. The wonder is that more do not exist, especially where
coal costs twenty dollars or more a ton, where water-power is
scarce, and where currents of air like "trade-winds" are almost
as dependable as the rising sun or the turn of the tide. Some
day, also, electricity may be generated more or less directly
from the sun's heat, which after all is what moves the air and the
water.
The history of the development of water-power and its ap-
THE RISE OF ELECTRICITY
535
plication to general use has been concomitant with that of elec-
tricity. Flowing water can spin a wheel with a breast or frontal
attack; it can drop on the wheel from above; or drive it with an
underflow. The principle, the same in each case, is plainly
illustrated by our domesticated white mouse and squirrel when
they tread their tiny paddle-wheels and merry-go-rounds in a
Courtesy General Electric Company.
ELECTRIC OVEN USED FOR BAKING DOLLS' HEADS.
cage. In ancient times water turned a mill-wheel, thereby re-
volving clumsy millstones, between which were ground wheat
and other necessities for human consumption and maintenance.
But many years went by before it was realized that a wheel
steadily turned by water-power provided a continual source of
energy that could be used in several different ways.
The water-turbine, upon which our great, modern hydro-
electric plants depend, had its beginning in 1827. In that year,
Benoit Fourneyron, a young Frenchman of twenty-five, winning
a prize offered in his native country, gave the world the modern
536
POWER
turbine water-wheel, in which water is received not outside but
inside the wheel it drives. There have been subsequent addi-
tions to his invention, many exceedingly valuable improvements
coming from such Americans as Howd, Francis, Morris, and
others; but all have been as edifices built upon the foundation
of Fourneyron's original idea.
Once the way was discovered, the United States with her
natural aptitude for invention and development lost little time
Courtesy Van Dorn Electric Tool Company.
ELECTRIC AUGER DRILLING HOLES IN A PIANO FRAME.
in making good use of water-power. Europe, perhaps with
lesser facilities for practice, remained somewhat behind. Not
many years ago on the River Adige, In Italy, the writer witnessed
barges out in mid-stream getting their feeble power from the
torrent that came down from the remote mountains. It Is
now easier to lead the torrent to the turbine than the turbine
to the torrent. Man's Ingenuity has made water-power act
as his slave. He has forced water to fall Into buckets around
the rim of a wheel, or, as In our modern turbine of various types,
shot It through the middle of the wheel.
The famous Pelton water-wheel, invented and developed
in 1884, proves what can be accomplished with cups or buckets
around the periphery of a wheel. Pelton, a plain Ohio carpenter,
THE RISE OF ELECTRICITY
537
ventured out to California during the gold-fever days of the
"Forty-niners." There he saw more wealth in water-power
than could ever be extracted from the placers and the rocks.
His water-wheel plant, draining the waste surface waters at
the Chollar mine on the Comstock Lode in the Sierra Nevadas,
was hitched to a Brush 130-horse-power dynamo. After having
first driven another electric generator on the surface, the buckets
Courtesy Society for Electric Development.
MOTOR-DRIVEN MILK-AND-CREAM SEPARATOR.
on the wheel were forced into whirlwind speed by water falling
into them from a height of over 1,600 feet. A jet of water
from the directing nozzle smashed into the twin cups at a speed
of many miles an hour. With the current thus obtained, six
electric motors, each of eighty horse-power, were operated in
the Nevada stamp-mill more than a mile away. No more con-
vincing proof could be desired of "high-head" hydroelectric
power. The Comstock Lode has long since lost its value and
glory; but the wealth of its water-power will probably never be
exhausted.
One of the advantages in using water-power is that it is
538 POWER
power saved, and not wasted, as it is with coal. By skill and
good luck, the electric lamp, motor, or cook-stove may get six
to ten per cent, of the energy from burned coal to run the steam
dynamo; ninety per cent, of the whole energy is irrevocably lost.
With hydroelectric power, at least six to ten per cent, is saved
of what was previously a hundred per cent, loss in available
power; all the coal is saved, because the water is still on hand.
This great economy of power was demonstrated by the Pelton
water-wheel.
Water-turbines have rendered possible all that is now going
on in electric-power transmission. The hydroelectric utiliza-
tion of Niagara for transmission of current to long distances
began in 1895 with units of 5,000 horse-power. To-day there
are six electric power-producing companies at the Falls, and the
latest plant, at this date has in operation three turbine units of
37,500 horse-power each. But while such power at Niagara is
transmitted at 60,000 volts pressure, voltages twice as high are
in use elsewhere, and 300,000 volts is a potential talked of as
glibly and confidently as was 10,000 twenty-five years ago.
The total possible water-power of the world is computed at
about 450,000,000 horse-power at low water. For millions of
years this vast power, greater than that possessed and dreamed
of by kings and dynasties, has flowed freely, placidly, and un-
interruptedly to the seas.
The United States mines annually about 700,000,000 tons
of coal, and the supply must sooner or later give out. Water-
power, if developed to the highest degree, would furnish more
energy yearly than a billion tons of coal, although it can never
supply all the electrical energy needed. Hydroelectric devel-
opment alone has now made it feasible and profitable to use
nearly all of this tremendous power in the years to come.
Water-power electrifies the great railway systems of the world;
it lights San Francisco and Los Angeles with current from the
snowy slopes of the Sierras, about 300 miles away. In fact,
hydroelectrical energy will help to keep our lamps and wheels
going until physicists learn to break up atoms and thus open
up new stores of pristine power from "founts that ne'er can run
dry."
CHAPTER III
FROM RUSHLIGHT TO INCANDESCENT LAMP
WHEN man learned how to make and handle fire he began
to improve it as a source of light. In some of the an-
cient caverns, scientists have found niches or shelves dug and
chipped into the rock walls, in which fires had been built for
lighting purposes only.
Man began to choose various kinds of wood and rushes >r
which would burn more brightly and last longer than those
which he needed merely to make heat for cooking. He found
that the grease from roasting meat gave a bright light. He
also used the fatty parts of the bodies of birds or fish as torches.
Splinters of certain woods, as the pine, were found to burn
steadily without much smoke. Still better light was obtained
by soaking the splinters in oils and waxes procured either from
animals or berries. Then the marsh-rush was peeled, and its
pith soaked in readily burning fats or waxes. Thus came Into
use the rushlights, which were used in illuminating theatres
In the days of Shakespeare and became picturesque symbols of
the dramatic art and of the gay night life of cities. There is a
line in Addison about the old beau caring more for the smell
of the rushlights than for that of the country hedges in the
coming of the spring. The peasants of Scotland burn rush-
lights to this day.
Those first adventurers of the high seas, the Phoenicians,
who appear to have been everywhere and to have done every-
thing, invented the wax candle, which they made either from ^
the pressed honeycomb of the bee or from substances obtained
from plants and berries. This was long before the Christian
era, and much earlier than the invention of the tallow candle,
which Is placed at 200 B. C. Spermaceti, a fatty substance
obtained from the sperm whale, was introduced Into candle-
making about 1750. Paraffin was not obtained until after the
discovery of petroleum. It Is now much employed for candle-
making; although candles are used to-day mainly for decorative
effect.
539
540
POWER
For centuries, the candle was a leading source of light.
The overhead racks on which it was placed in large groups were
called chandeliers or candle-bearers, and the name still clings
to such fixtures now employed for gas and electricity. The
grand ballroom in the king's palace was made brilliant by can-
dles shining from chandeliers containing glass prisms, from
which, when the candle-light shone through them, were reflected
all the colors of the rainbow. At a reception given to Wash-
ington in Philadelphia, the hall was lighted with 2,000 candles.
Courtesy General Elutric Company.
BEFORE THE DAYS OF STREET-LAMPS.
As late as the eighteenth century linkboys carrying rushlights guided wayfarers to their
homes and made the streets not too safe from footpads.
Brilliant as this ceremony must have been, the lighting was
dim compared with that in a modern store. Even when other
and brighter lighting methods were being introduced, as keen
an inventor as Count Rumford, an American whose surname
was Thompson, could not at first see that there would ever be
any better illumination than candles. Whether as the simple
tallow dip, made by dipping a wick into successive baths of
the hot grease, or waxed and moulded about the wick, the can-
dle, in all its forms, remains an inconvenient source of light.
It requires constant wick-trimming or snufiing, and the atten-
tion it demands is always more or less of an annoyance.
The Evolution of the Lamp
The lamp, fully as old as the candle, and by some historians
considered older, was for centuries no more satisfactory than
the candle. It is likely that primitive man gathered bear
RUSHLIGHT TO INCANDESCENT LAMP 541
grease in shells or in the skulls of small animals and burned it ;if-
by putting into the fuel a wick made of pith or rush fibre. It
was not a far cry from these rude dishes to the flat earthware
saucer used as a lamp by the ancient Egyptians. The inner
chambers of the great Pyramids were finished by slaves working a^
by the open flames of such oil-lamps. The oil-lamp was flicker- /^^
METHOD OF MANUFACTURING TALLOW AND WAX CANDLES IN THE
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
ing when Moses wrote the Tables of the Law, and Confucius
his immortal maxims. By the same kind of lamp Caesar, in
the century before Christ, planned his campaigns against the
Gauls.
Vegetable oils and the greases were later displaced by whale- J^
oil. At first the inhabitants of New England and Long Island ^
were content with the carcasses left by the tide upon their shores.
Then as the demand for whale-oil increased, vessels were
equipped to pursue the big mammals into the North Atlantic
Ocean. The skippers of the New England coast, especially
542 POWER
those who hailed from New Bedford, Salem, and Nantucket,
made fortunes from slaying the whale at sea and trying out his
/ blubber into oil. The trade was extended later to the Arctic
/^ circle, and so much destruction was wrought in the eighteenth
century by the efforts of the hardy Yankees to supply the world
with oil for lighting, that the race of the monsters of the deep
was in danger of extinction.
It was at this point in the history of illumination that the
first important discovery in lamp-making was made. Even
the best lamps were smoky and smelly; a disagreeable odor
permeated the air because of tKe rankness of the liquids burned,
and incomplete combustion threw off waste products in the
form of smoke and soot. For centuries men devoted their
time and skill in ornamenting the outside of the lighting vessel
and making artistic and beautiful patterns; shades, refiectors,
and shields of various kinds were brought into use for both
lamps and candles; but while artists vied with one another in
the making of mere forms, the great problem of the proper
combustion of the lamp fuel was left unsolved. Various dan-.
J^^ gerous fuels, such as camphene (a mixture of turpentine and
alcohol), were introduced. During this era of perfecting the
oil-burning lamp, it is small wonder that some of the staid old
families were glad to cling to candles. Candles could be de-
pended upon, and at least would not^xplode and bespatter the
home with blazing fluid.
Genius gave the new impetus with the coming of Aime
Argand into the field of illumination. Argand was born in
Geneva, 1755, of Swiss and Italian parentage. He had studied
chemistry and physics in Paris, and on his return to his native
Geneva he devoted himself to studies in distillation. His ex-
periments with lighting grew out of his laboratory work. He
jJ^ wanted a flame with more heat.
^ If more heat could be obtained, the particles of matter, as
they burned, would glow with greater intensity. So Argand
by making the burning more complete, consumed all the smoky
vapors and made them glow in unclouded brilliancy. To do
this he, as a chemist, got more air (oxygen) into the fiame.
This he did by devising a circular burner into which was fitted
a round wick, instead of the usual flat one. The air entering
RUSHLIGHT TO INCANDESCENT LAMP 543
into the flame fanned it to greater intensity, and the light grew
more dazzling. To steady the flame Argand placed a perfo-
rated metal chimney an inch or so above the blazing wick. This
made a still better draft. Thus, in 1782, began the new era
in lighting of which the herald was Aime Argand.
It is generally accepted that Quinquet, a French druggist,
of Paris, added the lamp chimney of glass as a substitute for
the metal one. There is a story that the lamp chimney resulted
from the accidental breaking of a tall, round bottle which a
workman had placed over the flame of an Argand burner.
The bottom falling out, the bottle fell over the flame, and,
settling there, steadied the flame. Quinquet, at least, is cred-
ited with having made a chimney which was drawn in at the
bottom, and thus helped strengthen the draft. According to
some, Argand believed that his invention had been stolen from
him, and he was thereby driven insane. The story is mani-
festly untrue, for in 1785 Argand had described his device in
great detail in the French 'Journal de Physique.
Carcel, a contemporary, added a pumping arrangement for
getting the fuel oil up into the wick. He did much to popular-
ize the Argand burner for street-lighting. It was really not un-
til after Argand died in 1805 that the full importance of his dis-
covery dawned upon the world.
The Introduction of Gas-Lighting
It was at this period that there came gradually into use a
new and powerful means of lighting, the value of which had
been quietly developing for nearly two centuries. Even the
ancients had known that there issued from the earth certain
gases which burned, but it was not until burnable vapors were
made artificially that a revolution in the art of illumination
was achieved.
In 1667, Thomas Shirley, a landed proprietor of Lancashire,
something of an amateur scientist, wrote a small book in which
he described a well at Wigan from which issued water supposed
to burn of itself. He had found the jet surrounded by groups
of rustics who suspected that it was some trickery of the devil.
Investigating, he found, and proved, that it was not the water
^
544 POWER
but a vapor which came from the earth at that point and which
caused a flame "when a candle was approached to it."
The Reverend Doctor John Clayton, Dean of Kildare, made
an examination near the same point, and was convinced that the
vapor had something to do with the coal-mines in the neighbor-
hood. So he put some lumps of coal into a retort and applied
a good fire. At first there came off what he called "phlegm,"
From a photograph of an old painting. By Courtesy Consolidated Gas and Electric
courtesy of W. and T. Avery, Ltd. Company, Baltimore, Maryland.
(Left) WILLIAM MURDOCK.
It was William Murdock who first taught Englishmen the possibilities of coal-gas as an
illuminant. He illuminated his own house with gas in 1792.,
(Right) THE MAN WHO LIT LONDON BY GAS.
F. A. Winsor, the romantic and not too truthful promoter who introduced gas-lighting into Eng-
land on a commercial scale. It was of him that Sir Walter Scott wrote: "There is a madman
proposing to light the streets of London — with what do you suppose — smoke !"
then some black oil, and finally a "spirit," as he termed it in
1 69 1, which "spirit" he could in no wise compress. This vapor
he gathered in bladders, and when he pricked one of them with
a pin and applied a lighted taper, there burst from the tiny hole
a jet of flame ! He showed his discovery to a group of his
friends.
A Dutch scientist. Van Helmont, early in the seventeenth
century, in making experiments with fuels, had noted that when
RUSHLIGHT TO INCANDESCENT LAMP 545
heated in closed vessels, they gave off this same wild spirit
which had been experimented with by the Yorkshire divine.
Van Helmont called it a "geist," or spirit, a word which in
time became "gas" in nearly every tongue.
At the venerable University of Lou vain, in Belgium, experi-
ments had been made in driving vapors from heated wood.
(Left) REMBRANDT PEALE.
One of the sights of old Baltimore was "Peale's Museum," not unlike a similar institution later
opened in New York by P. T. Barnum. Peale illuminated his museum with gas in 1816.
(Right) THE INVENTOR OF THE GAS-METER.
Samuel Clegg was one of the engineers who made gas-lighting practical.
and one of the professors of chemistry nearly suffocated his
classes at times by demonstrating the existence of the "spirit"
by turning it loose in his classroom.
Thus years before any practical appHcation of the knowl-
edge of the burnable gas was made, scientists knew something
about it. It remained for William Murdock, a Scotchman, to
show how this coal-gas could be practically utilized. Murdock,
a splendid mechanic, was born in 1754, in Ayrshire. He was
what we might call "queer," and this queerness, in one particular,
led him to wear wooden hats. As an employee of Boulton &
Watt, the steam-engine builders, he had been sent to install
546 POWER
machinery in the English coal-mines. While there his atten-
tion was drawn to the gases which were associated with the
black fuel. He applied his engineering skill to the distillation
of the vapor from coal on a larger and more practical scale than
had ever before been attempted. In 1792, he succeeded in
lighting with gas a house which he had rented, and then he
piped the illuminant about the grounds and ignited it in the
most approved manner. In 1802, he decorated and lighted
the outside and the inside of his employer's factory near Soho,
Birmingham, in brilliant fashion. The occasion was the cele-
bration of the signing of the Treaty of Amiens, which ended
the Franco-British war. Designs and letters were produced by
the arrangement of iron pipes, in which were pierced small
holes through which rushed the inflammable vapors. The gas
was also employed in the lighting of large cotton-mills.
Phillipe Le Bon, a Frenchman, who got his gas from the dis-
tilling of wood instead of coal, was at about the same time
making demonstrations of the new light source in Paris. There
is no doubt that the erratic, clever Moravian, originally known
as Friedrich A. Winzer, heard of gas first from the work of Le
Bon. Winzer was the great-great-grandfather of all fly-by-
night promoters; he had wit, energy, and imagination.
Selecting London as his new field, and adopting the more
English name of Winsor, the *' Get-Rich-Quick- Wallingford" of
gas appeared. Winzer, or Winsor, had learned his lesson well.
In Paris he had seen Le Bon ruined for lack of self-advertising.
Although the gas made by Le Bon was poor in comparison with
that of the present day, none the less he had been able to set
in a blaze of glory the apartments and the grounds of the Hotel
Seigneday. True, Napoleon had denounced the whole scheme
of supplanting candles as "a grand folly," and the savants of
France had therefore diplomatically refrained from indorsing the
new lighting method.
This condemnation probably accounts in part for the fan-
tastic and rather flamboyant methods employed by Winsor in
attacking London, the English citadel of conservatism, with a
new idea for public lighting. The rumors that vapors were to
be employed as substitutes for candles had preceded Winsor.
Sir Walter Scott wrote: "There is a madman proposing to light
RUSHLIGHT TO INCANDESCENT LAMP 547
the streets of London — with what do you suppose — smoke!"
Even the noted British scientist, Sir Humphry Davy, put him-
self on record as opposed to this new-fangled means of illumina-
From a photograph by Consolidated Gas, Electric Light and Power Company of
Baltimore.
EQUIPMENT OF A METER-MAN FIFTY YEARS AGO IN THE DAYS
OF THE WET METER.
tion, asking if any one supposed that the dome of St. Paul's
could be turned Into a gasometer.
Winsor, on his arrival in England, made a drive in every
direction in favor of his new means of lighting. He appealed
to the latent curiosity of the people by giving exhibitions in
private and by holding public lectures. Owing to the infancy
of the illumination he advocated, he found it very hard to get
548 POWER
hold of competent assistants, and often his best-staged experi-
ments failed. On these occasions, he gave way to bursts of
temper which did not tend to inspire popular confidence.
But his assertions grew with the opposition. He calmly in-
formed the Londoners that his gas would tan skins, smoke bacon,
and fix colors in dyeing. When he got down to lighting proper,
there was no limit to his flow of words, for his eloquence knew
no meter. "As to illuminations," he said, "they may be car-
ried on to the utmost extent of beauty and variegated fancy by
this docile flame, which will play in all forms, submit to instant
changes, ascend in columns to the clouds, descend in showers
from the streets, walls, etc., arise from the water, even in the
same pipes with a playing fountain."
The Londoners were sure that they would be poisoned if
they got even a whiff of the vapor, but Winsor assured them
that the day would come when they would be glad'ito cut holes
in the pipes so that they might have the advantage of inhaling
continually the gas "which is the most favorable thing imagina-
ble for the health."
When his critics attacked him, Winsor responded with ex-
hibitions (1803 and 1804), in the Lyceum Theatre, London.
He was then using coal instead of wood and getting really a
brilliant flame. By using various kinds of burners he gave the
jets difl^erent shapes, a plan which justified him, he thought,
in his statement that "their constant varying in rooms and
gardens between flaming pyramids, festoons, garlands, roses,
and flambeaux afi^ord the spectator a most delightful sight,
cherish the soul, and create good humor by united convenience,
utility, and pleasure."
Winsor, early in 1807, moved his exhibitions to that fash-
ionable promenade of London, Pall Mall. He lighted one side
of the street with jets supported on posts, and to him therefore
belongs the credit of beginning the system of public gas-lighting.
It was a big progressive step which this loquacious genius had
taken, for as late as the eighteenth century Londoners went
to their homes after sundown accompanied by torch-bearers,
known as linkboys, so that they might have protection against
footpads. Lanterns were eventually placed in the windows of
houses, and finally oil-lamps were introduced.
RUSHLIGHT TO INCANDESCENT LAMP 549
Although the lighting of the thoroughfares with gas seemed
like a fantastic dream in those days, the idea was founded on
the simplest facts. The flame of the candle is, in reality, a
burning gas; for gas, after all, consists merely of finely divided
particles of matter. Such particles are given ofl^ when the can-
dle burns, and as they are consumed they glow with a bright-
ness which produces what we call artificial . light. A gas is
emitted by burnable oils, especially oils easily evaporated.
Samuel Johnson, long before the coming of Winsor to London,
once saw an oil street-lamp burst into flame before the torch
of the lamplighter had touched it, and with the insight of the
prophet he said: *'One of these days London will be lighted with
smoke."
Winsor was so encouraged by the notice which he got for
his exhibit in Pall Mall that he started to organize the National
Light and Heat Company, and it is stated that he actually
raised £50,000, or about a quarter of a million dollars to finance
it. The money was nearly all wasted, however, in experiments.
He had undertaken a task far beyond the times when he tried
to make the gas on a large scale and to distribute it through
pipes. Undaunted by his failure, Winsor, in 1809, applied to
Parliament for a charter for a new company and tried to raise
£200,000. Again the project was opposed as visionary and the
extravagant claims of the promoter were used to defeat the ap-
plication for a charter. It was at this point, too, that Mur-
dock also fought the application, on the ground that Winsor
was an impudent infringer. Parliament then passed an act
protecting the makers of gas appliances from the competition
of lighting companies.
The same interests which Winsor had marshalled, when they
were again partially defeated, presented another petition, and
three years later, 18 12, an act was passed authorizing them to
form their company. The police authorities of London, who
had finally been impressed with the value of gas-lamps as a
means of promoting the public safety, indorsed the project of
the company. This new concern was called the London and
Westminster Chartered Gas Light and Coke Company. Thus
Winsor's idea was realized in a local rather than in a national
organization, and experiments were carried on in many direc-
550 POWER
tions by the German inventor and others. Even then a leading
chemist was singing the familiar tune: "It can't be done."
Lighting by gas seems so natural these days that it is hard
to realize that the whole method of distribution — that is, the con-
veying of the gas through the pipes — was at one-time held to be
a daring enterprise. The people of London could not under-
stand how it was possible for an "inflammable air" to make a
fire and, at the same time, not white-heat the carrying pipes.
Therefore there was much opposition to bringing the tubes
into houses, and for a while the mains were exposed in the street
and alongside the building line. Westminster Bridge was lit
by gas throughout its entire length by 1813, and no accidents
were reported. Lamplighters, who at first had hesitated to
approach the posts from which the gas issued, were finally in-
duced to take the risk. Since the task of putting in a distribut-
ing system and of overcoming the fears of the public was so
urgent, the chartered company employed a competent engineer,
Samuel Clegg. His attention was first attracted to gas when
he was in the employ of the Boulton & Watt foundry, where
also Murdock had been working when he illuminated the Soho
building with gas distilled from coal. It was estimated that
the piping of the Westminster district alone would cost £150,000,
or very close to ^750,000, a considerable sum in days when raw
materials and labor were far cheaper than they are to-day.
Clegg, a Scotchman and a very practical person, did not lose
much time in finding out some way in which he could send gas-
bills to the consumers. He devised and patented a gas-meter
which was made of two large bladders, which were filled alter-
nately with gas at a certain pressure and moved a mechanism
which made a record on a dial. The valves of the apparatus
were sealed with quicksilver.
To Clegg, in fact, belongs the honor of making the manu-
facture and sale of gas a commercial success. Although many
improvements in detail have been made since the days of this
able pioneer, the essential process remains much the same.
Clegg, as chief engineer of the Westminster Company, super-
vised the construction of the first gas-holder in the world, and
he was also the patentee of the first automatic pressure-regulating
device.
RUSHLIGHT TO INCANDESCENT LAMP 551
So quickly is popular prejudice overcome, once it is made
to yield even a little, that by 1816 gas-lighting was accepted as
an every-day fact in the city of London. Paris was first lighted
by gas in 1820. The French National Gas Company was pro-
jected in 1833 for illuminating the streets of Boulogne-sur-Mer
and afterward taken over by the European Gas Company when
its capital proved to be inadequate. Important French cities
followed with plants for which the principal appliances were
imported from England. For a long time Great Britain was the
headquarters for the manufacture of machinery and meters.
How Gas-Lighting Came to America
News of the new lighting means had reached the United
States. Public lighting by gas was first proposed on this side
of the water in Philadelphia, in 1803, and the proposal was re-
jected as absurd. Again, in 1815, James McMurtrie suggested
that the City of Brotherly Love try the new light source, but
again the plan was dismissed. In 1806, David Melville of New-
port, Rhode Island, lighted his house and grounds with coal-
gas made by himself. His crude apparatus was patented in
1 8 13, and used for lighting a cotton factory at Watertown,
Massachusetts, in which he was interested. As far as is known,
gas was first used to light a house at Providence, Rhode Island,
in 1 817; for in the little State where Melville was well known, his
invention was much discussed.
Baltimore was the first American city to adopt gas-lighting
on a large scale at the instigation of Rembrandt Peale, the artist
and naturalist, a part of whose active professional life was spent
in the old-time capital of Pennsylvania. Peale was the son of
Charles Wilson Peale, also an artist, whose excursions in science
had led him to found a museum in Philadelphia, which Institu-
tion probably served as a model for that which Rembrandt
Peale later established in Baltimore. One of the old sights of
Baltimore was the venerable structure once known as "Peale's
Museum," and now occupied by the city as the headquarters
of one of Its departments. In the Baltimore newspapers of
June, 1 8 16, there appeared an advertisement by Peale under
a heading which at the time was nothing short of sensational.
The caption read: "Gas-Light without Oil, Tallow, Wick, or
552 POWER
Smoke." Then followed a statement that "it is not necessary
to invite attention to the gas-lights by which my saloon of paint-
ings is now illuminated. Those who have seen the ring beset
with gems of light are sufficiently disposed to spread their
reputation; the purpose of this notice is merely to say that the
Museum will be illuminated every evening until the public
curiosity shall be gratified."
Peale, at the time, was busily engaged in painting the por-
traits of the prominent citizens of Baltimore, besides managing
his museum. He had been in London and Paris about the time
that Le Bon and Winsor were exploiting the newly found illu-
minant, and it is very likely that his circus methods of calling
attention to the discovery were inspired by the original German
promoter. The museum was, in some respects, not unlike one
established in later years in New York City by P. T. Barnum,
where the sensational and the scientific were strangely blended.
Rembrandt Peale had much to do with disinterring the bones
of mastodons in this country, and he treated those wonders of
evolution and industry in much the same perfervid fashion as
did the founder of what every one in the United States knows
as "The Greatest Show on Earth." In the museum Peale de-
livered lectures on the wonderful illuminant which could be
carried through pipes, and on the stage he had rigged various
kinds of burners by which the form and the intensity of the flame
were demonstrated.
Baltimore had another tremor a few weeks after the first
display when it was proposed that the streets be lighted with
the inflammable vapor. An editorial of The Federal Gazette^ in
July, 1816, said: "We are gratified in having an opportunity of
communicating to the public. A proposition has recently been
submitted to the Mayor by Mr. Rembrandt Peale, proprietor
of the Baltimore Museum, to light the streets of this city by
carburetted hydrogen gas; the very pleasing and brilliant light
produced by that means the citizens have had an opportunity
of witnessing for several nights in the saloon of paintings in
the museum."
Official action followed close on the heels of this announce-
ment; and on February 7, 18 17, there was lighted the first gas-
lamp in the city of Baltimore, and shortly thereafter the first
RUSHLIGHT TO INCANDESCENT LAMP 553
public building to be illuminated by gas in the city, the old
Belvedere Theatre, which was opposite the original gas-works,
was ablaze with scores of jets of the then novel vapor.
Boston granted a charter for a gas company in 1821, and in
the following year actually had a plant for the manufacture of
"inflammable air" in operation. The first demonstration of
Courtesy Consolidated Gas and Electric Company, Baltimore, Maryland.
AIRPLANE VIEW OF THE PRESENT GAS-PLANT OF THE CITY OF
BALTIMORE.
the new gaseous fuel was made in the apothecary-shop of a Mr.
Bacon, in State Street, and the public was so convinced by the
"splendid appearance" made by the flame that before long the
old city was agog over the wonderful new light.
Gas was introduced in 1823 in the city of New York by a
company of which Samuel Leggett was the head. His dwelling
at No. 7 Cherry Street, then a fashionable centre, and not far
from the house occupied for a short time by George Washington
during his first term as President of the Republic, was the first
house in New York to be so illuminated. The old Knicker-
554 POWER
bocker families of that period were thrilled with the news that
this strange illuminating agency had been introduced.
Philadelphia, however, continued to be a town in which the
American prophet of illumination was still without honor. As
late as 1833 a petition was addressed to her Common Council
protesting against the use of gas, an article "as ignitable as
gunpowder and as nearly fatal in its effects as regards the im-
mense destruction of property." The conservatives believed
that "this powerful and destructive agent must necessarily
often be left in the care of youth, domestics, and careless people,"
and therefore they wondered that " the consequences of employ-
ing it had not been more appalling." Also, in view of the fact
that the shad and the herring might be driven away by the dis-
charge of the tar from the gas-works into the surrounding waters,
the petitioners prayed earnestly that the lighting of the city
with oil be continued. It was not until 1841 that Philadelphia,
now the home of one of the most important gas companies in
the world, was lighted with gas.
Baltimore, however, continued to hold its lead; for it was
the first to use an important new form of the illuminant. To
grasp the full meaning of that innovation, let us first review
the essential points in coal gas-making, with which all of us are
more or less familiar. The United States naturally soon began
making its gas from coal although at first wood was employed.
In New York City the first gas used was made from a resin
brought from the South, and the gas conducted to the consumer
in wooden mains, like those in which water was piped when
Aaron Burr started the first water-works in New York. The
apparatus for the making of gas from coal has, of course, been
gradually increasing in power and size. As the illuminating
product gained ground, however, the usual method was to feed
great quantities of coal into iron retorts heated to about 700
degrees Fahrenheit by an outside fire. At this temperature,
the coal begins to fuse and form gases. Several hours are al-
lowed for this distillation, the gases being gradually forced out
of the retort. The coal-gas is then refined by taking out cer-
tain harmful ingredients. In the retort is left coke, still heated
to a white glow. A ton of coal thus treated yields about 10,000
cubic feet of gas, weighing approximately 400 pounds; about
RUSHLIGHT TO INCANDESCENT LAMP 555
three-quarters of a ton of coke; about one-twentieth part, by
weight, of coal-tar; and fully as much liquid ammonia. The
tar is of considerable value as a by-product. From it are made
dyes, explosives, and medicines. The gas itself is washed by
passing it through lime solutions and treated in various ways to
get rid of any sulphur that may be present.
The hot coke which still remains in the retort can be used
for the making of another form of gas, in accordance with a
method introduced by Professor Thaddeus S. C. Lowe, who was
for many years a familiar and picturesque figure in the streets
of Baltimore. He was the American inventor and the chief
promoter of "water-gas." It had been demonstrated by that
distinguished French chemist, Antoine Lavoisier, who was exe-
cuted during the Reign of Terror in the days of the French Revo-
lution, that steam is decomposed by intensely heated substances.
This is a simple scientific fact, but it took the alert brain of
Professor Lowe to apply it to a successful commercial process.
He and a Frenchman named Tessie Du Motay, quite indepen-
dently of each other, conducted experiments which resulted,
about the same time, in their application of the principle of
Lavoisier to the making of lighting-gas. The method of Pro-
fessor Lowe is now used by about seventy-five per cent, of the
American gas companies. He passed the vapor of water in
the form of dry or superheated steam through glowing coal.
As water is composed of two parts of hydrogen and one of
oxygen, the breaking up of Its constitution made a new gas.
The carbon and the oxygen combined to form carbon monoxide,
akin to the marsh-gas which causes death when inhaled. The
hydrogen Is also set free. Although hydrogen is burnable, and
indeed is a source of danger on account of its inflammability
when used in the filling of balloons. It has scant illuminating
power. It emits a pale-blue flame when Ignited. Lowe enriched
water-gas by spraying Into It a partly refined petroleum, known
as light oil, thus forming a vapor with a brilliant illuminating
power. Vaporized in air, the blue water-gas and the oil consti-
tute two gases which are really welded together by being passed
through the heated chambers of the plant. The first chamber
is the generator, where the coal or coke is heated white hot;
the second Is the carburetor where the combination with the
556 POWER
finely atomized oil is made; and the third chamber is the super-
heater, which is employed to fix or make more permanent the
mixture of the two gases. Then comes the usual cooling and
the purification, the washing and the storing of the water-gas.
Professor Lowe, a native of Norristown, Pennsylvania, was
originally a balloonist, who was retained by the Union Army
during the Civil War to make observations of the enemy
from as high altitudes as possible. He used captive balloons,
from which vantage-point he made sketches and photographs.
Then, as now, hydrogen was the gas with which the bags of
balloons were filled. He was not interested in getting a gas to
burn, for if any other lighter-than-air and cheaply made vapor
could be had in sufficient quantities, hydrogen would not be
used long for either balloons or dirigible air-ships. Professor
Lowe, who had considerable chemical training, knew about
Lavoisier's discovery and used that knowledge for the making
of hydrogen by the decomposition of water by heat. He estab-
lished a miniature gas-works on the battle-field of Yorktown,
and later at Fair Oaks, Virginia, and himself made many
ascensions. At that time he had no intention of commercializ-
ing the process which he was perfecting, and naturally he did
not introduce anything in his gas mixture to make it burn.
That was the last thing he had in mind.
One day the professor made an ascent in his balloon, and
when the fire opened upon him by the Confederates became
too hot, he had the big balloon lowered. Among those who
witnessed this incident was a sick man, William M. Cosh, .who
admired the courage of the aeronaut, and wondered, in an off-
hand way, where the gas was made that filled the balloon, for
he had been somewhat interested in the illumination business
in Philadelphia. After the war was over, the professor started
to make a living by promoting the manufacture of water-gas,
and Cosh became his partner in the enterprise.
Professor Lowe obtained his first patent for water-gas in 1873,
and in 1874 set up his first peace-time plant at Phoenixville.
The second plant, the one built at Conshohocken, Pennsylvania,
in 1874-75, was developed on such efficient principles that it
was literally a one-man plant; for Cosh made all the gas, set and
read all the meters, made out the bills and collected them, did
RUSHLIGHT TO INCANDESCENT LAMP 557
the banking, and bought all the raw materials. The process was
such a success that finally it was introduced in Norristown,
the home city of the inventor.
The construction of the Baltimore water-gas plant was be-
gun in 1877 by Cosh, and in January, 1878, the generation of
gas was under way at the Canton station. Lowe's method
proved such a success that it was soon adopted by many other
large cities.
The Discovery of Welsbach
While the processes for the making of illuminating gases
were being developed and cheapened, there was slowly forming
a new art of lighting, which at last made a sweeping change in
the industry. Thus far the light had come from a broad flame
of the burning gas, either in the form of a fishtail or a cockspur.
The next step was to use the heat of the blazing vapors to bring
certain substances to a glow or incandescence, so that the light
might be emitted from their particles. In 1826 Henry Drum-
mond, a young army engineer in England, discovered that by
heating a piece of lime to a high temperature by the burning
of oxygen and hydrogen, the substance became incandescent,
and gave out a brilliant light. The lime, of course, was not
consumed, although in time it broke down under the intense
heat and had to be renewed. Such a light was far too glaring
for ordinary use. It was employed at first in making a coast
survey of Ireland. Mounted in a magic lantern, it worked
well for the display of picture slides, and eventually, as the
"lime-light," it was used in the theatre. The invention of the
Drummond light opened the way for a thorough investigation
of all materials of high-melting points which might be employed
on the incandescent principle.
The intense heat which can be obtained by forcing air into
burning coal-gas, made possible still further progress on the
road to incandescence. Robert Wilhelm von Bunsen, a pro-
fessor in the University of Heidelberg, Germany, a noted chem-
ist and physicist, in 1855 invented the burner which bears his
name, and since then it has been possible to burn coal-gas with
an intensely hot and smokeless flame. As he was the pioneer
in the economical use of gas for heating purposes, his name
558 POWER
stands high In appHed science. Every person who lights an
ordinary gas-stove Is putting to work a series of Bunsen burners.
Among the scholars who were attracted to the Bunsen labo-
ratory at Heidelberg was a young Austrian, Doctor Carl Auer.
Bunsen had discovered several rare elements. Auer turned to
him for guidance In his own Investigations of those remarkable
materials which chemists call the "rare earths," and which are
combinations of certain of the lesser-known elements with
oxygen. These oxides of rare earths have always excited the
curiosity and interest of scientists. Auer was a man of some
wealth and aristocratic lineage. Next to delving Into scientific
matters, he was fond of fashionable attire and social pleasures.
When plunged into his favorite pursuit, chemistry, however, he
was blind to everything else. While studying the peculiarities
of some rare earths, Auer was struck by the glare which came
from them when they were held in the jet of a Bunsen burner.
This spurred his inventive genius and urged him on to a discov-
ery which later was to enable the gas Industry to meet a grave
crisis.
In experimenting with the rare earths Doctor Auer found
he could get better results If he divided them more finely. He
made solutions of them, with which he saturated pieces of cot-
ton. He then put one of these little squares of cloth on a thin
metal plate over the pallid blue flame of a Bunsen burner. The
fabric burned up, but the rare-earth particles which remained
clung together, so that they had the form of the cotton mesh
upon which they had rested. In order to get a more uniform
light so that he could study It to better advantage. Doctor
Auer made a small cone of cotton cloth, which he suspended
by a little loop over the flame, after he had soaked it in a strong
solution of one of the rare earths known as thorium. Again
the cloth was consumed and the chemical stood fused into a
cone from which, as it glowed, there came a light of dazzling
brilliancy.
Doctor Auer, from this point, dropped the merely scientific
end of the rare-earth studies and worked night and day to get
practical results. He put different kinds of rare earths on
specially knit cones. These cones are known In Europe as
"stockings" and in this country as "mantles." There had
RUSHLIGHT TO INCANDESCENT LAMP 559
always been plenty of rare earths for the limited demands of
the chemical laboratory, but the doctor had to develop a means
of getting a large enough supply of them for manufacturing
mantles on a large scale. Mantles had to be made which also
would stand transportation and would satisfy persons who
were not skilled in laboratory practice. He made up some man-
tles of one kind of earth and after burning out the threads left
1
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Courtesy Cooper-Hewitt Company. Copyright
by Undemtood y Under'.cood.
(Left) SIR HUMPHREY DAVY.
Davy experimented with the electric arc in 1801. There being no electric generator at that time
Davy obtained his current from a huge battery consisting of 2,CXX) cells.
(Right) THE LATE DOCTOR PETER COOPER HEWITT, WHO DEVELOPED
THE MERCURY ARC.
them for a few days in a drawer. When he looked at them again
he found that they had absorbed water from the air and dropped
asunder. Still, by using such thorium as he was able to get,
Auer made some fairly satisfactory mantles.
He then purified large quantities of the salt and found that
the mantles made from it were very inferior as light-givers.
This was discouraging. He had promoted a large company and
sold stock and the investing public was getting suspicious.
However, he began all over again and found that if his thorium
was adulterated with about one per cent, of cerium, the lights
560 POWER
were perfectly satisfactory. By devoting months more of hard
work to cheapening the materials, Doctor Auer, in 1885, got his
burners into the markets of Europe and made them a com-
mercial success.
The mantles were made to rest over a burner of the Bunsen
type, and they also suggested the Argand lamp when they were
aglow. For his distinguished achievements, the Austrian Gov-
ernment conferred upon Doctor Auer the title of Count of
Welsbach, a name taken from his native town. In Europe his
invention is still known as the Auer light. When the American
rights for the invention were acquired in 1888, the company
which took them over adopted the name Welsbach, which name,
and not that of Auer, became universally known in connection
with the new gas-mantles.
The handling of those strange metallic oxides, the rare
earths, was developed by Doctor Harlan S. Miner, who as a
young American chemist was sent abroad to confer with Doctor
Auer. He was soon made chief chemist of the Welsbach Com-
pany at Gloucester, New Jersey. He rendered invaluable ser-
vice by his researches, making distant journeys into the world in
quest of more rare earths.
Had it not been for the introduction of the Welsbach mantle,
the American gas companies would hardly have been able to
meet the growing competition of electricity as a lighting agent.
Gas of less candle-power can be used in heating up the mantle
to a white glow, for high temperature is all that is needed.
The intense radiance from the Welsbach hood was able to hold
its own at comparatively low cost against the bulb which im-
prisoned the brilliant filament. The introduction of the Wels-
bach system of hghting also drew attention to a greater extent
than ever before to the heating powers of gas; the cook-stove,
the hotel range, and general industries called for still more gas
fuel. In fact, the invention of Welsbach was a blessing in dis-
guise for the gas companies.
The Story of Acetylene Gas
The story of gas would stop here but for the strange incidents
which brought into the world of lighting an illuminating vapor
from an unexpected source. There lived in the little town of
RUSHLIGHT TO INCANDESCENT LAMP 561
Spray, on the Smith River, in the farthest north of North Caro-
lina, a Major J. Turner Morehead, a former officer of the Con-
federate Army. About 1890, he was trying to develop the
water-power which he controlled at Spray, where he had an
old cotton-mill. About that time there came from Canada
Thomas L. Willson, who was trying to get some water-power
for the purpose of working out a new process for making the
metal aluminum from clays and earths. He had visions of
conjuring bright pots and pans and other aluminum vessels
out of the very ground. Willson proposed to use the clay called
aluminum oxide, which could be obtained in that region, and
to treat it with carbon in electric furnaces. The electricity was
to be generated by dynamos driven by Morehead's water-power.
Thus was born the Willson Aluminum Company.
Things went rather by sixes and sevens at Spray, for Willson
was more of an inventor than a scientist. It was found that
the process did not work out right, and Willson began to experi-
ment wildly. He even used kerosene in the furnaces. Explo-
sions and singeings were frequent. At last he announced that
he was going to make some metallic calcium by heating coal-
lar and lime together in the furnace. Major Morehead's son,
who had been graduated from the University of North Caro-
lina, was their chemist, and the young man had been in the
habit of taking the fused masses of stuff which Willson prepared
as they came from the furnace and plunging them first into a
bucket of water before beginning his tests. He had burned his
eyebrows from time to time and was wary. In May, 1892, when
Willson was away, some of the mixture of lime and tar was
being examined. It was noted that there came from the bucket
a smell of sourish gas. "Maybe this is hydrogen coming off,"
suggested E. F. Price, who was looking after the scant finances
of the company and therefore had leisure for observation.
Price got a piece of cotton-waste, soaked it in oil, put it on
the end of a pole and lighted it. He then invited young More-
head to try the burning qualities of the vapor. The latter put
the torch over the bucket and there came a brilliant flash and
the familiar spiral effects of acetylene gas. The existence of
the gas was known; it had been discovered in 1866 by the French
scientist Bertholet. Its name means the "sharp or sour sub-
562 POWER
stance," and it was regarded merely as a curiosity of no value.
The gas-producing substance which had been made in this hap-
hazard way at Spray was calcium carbide, manufactured in an
entirely new manner. Moissan, of Paris, had made a little,
while engaged in some work with zinc, but never before had it
been produced in such a way.
Meanwhile, with the new product on their hands, all con-
cerned were practically penniless. Willson went north and
tried something else. Price was glad to get a job as a locomo-
tive fireman. Morehead managed to get to New Jersey where
he was employed by the Westinghouse Company as a dynamo-
tender. Willson came to see him one day about starting a
company to exploit the new gas source, but his arguments were
not convincing to Morehead, who had to lend him carfare.
Major Morehead made two vain attempts to sell the process
for I500. Finally, however, he did get hold of some money,
and founded the Electric Gas Company. Then came the turn
of the tide. A carbide company, which used current generated
from the cataract, was started at Niagara Falls, and from it
sprang the large corporation of the present day. Willson used
up all his money in other experiments and died in poverty.
Price became president of the carbide company, and the young
chemist of the burned eyebrows, Morehead's son, was appointed
its engineer.
Calcium carbide is a grayish-white solid, which, when
dropped into water, causes the generation of the inflammable
gas, acetylene. It is easily and cheaply manufactured, is much
employed in welding and metal-cutting, and is favored by farm-
ers who are unable to get electricity. There are about 300,000
rural acetylene installations.
Early Experiments in Electric Lighting
Simultaneously with the development of gas-lighting, slow
progress was being made toward the practical use of electricity.
Sir Humphry Davy, the noted English scientist, had discov-
ered the arc-light in 1801, although he did not publicly exhibit
it until eight years later. The dynamo had not come into the
world, for which reason he employed as his source of current a
huge battery consisting of 2,000 cells. There was the Wright
RUSHLIGHT TO INCANDESCENT LAMP 563
arc-lamp which was patented in England as early as 1845, and
which consisted of five carbon disks. All the pioneers were
bothered by the lack of means for generating a steady supply
of current. One inventor, a youth named Starr, who lived in
Cincinnati, is said to have worried himself to death over his vain
attempts to fashion an incandescent lamp. After the appear-
ance of the dynamo electric machine, experiment with the arc
could at least be carried on in a more satisfactory manner.
Jablochkoff, an engineer living in Paris, invented in 1876
a crude arc-lamp which became known as the "electric candle."
It consisted of two thin strips of carbon bound together but
kept from actual contact by insulating material. The exposed
ends of the "candles" were bridged by fine filaments of carbon,
and when the current was turned on a brilliant light resulted.
The "candles" were placed in globes, four to a twenty-inch
receptacle, and glowed one at a time. The globes were not air-
tight, and therefore the carbon was gradually burned up. Each
"candle" lasted about an hour and a half, after which the cur-
rent was switched to another.
During the Paris Exposition, in 1878, the Place and the
Avenue de I'Opera were lighted by the Jablochkoff candles.
Each lamp was equivalent to several hundred candles; in various
records their candle-power is given as anywhere from 285 to
1,500. Professor Silliman, of Yale, wrote from Paris that year
of the splendor of the electrical illumination. "The effect," he
said, "is magnificent, and at this moment there exists nothing
in this city of splendid effects to compare with the magical
scene. The vista is about two-thirds of a mile, and the effect
incomparably finer than any show of artificial illumination ever
before seen."
Although this first system of practical electric lighting was
costly, it achieved popularity on the Continent and made some
money for those financially interested. In the United States,
however, it was regarded merely as a scientific curiosity.
Charles Brush and His Arc-Light
While Europe was working out the problem of the arc, a
boy in Cleveland, Ohio, was making first toy dynamos, and then
larger ones with which he could produce a current. He did not
564 POWER
like the gas-flames which lighted his own home, so he made some
rods of coke and lampblack and syrup which he baked in the
kitchen stove. He connected two of his rods, or electrodes,
to his dynamo by wires. He then touched the carbons gently
together at the ends and separated them, thus making an elec-
tric arc which gave a brilliant light. The ends of the carbon
were heated by the current, and the arc consisted of the hot
particles of carbon along which the current leaped from one
rod to the other in a luminous thread of fire. Although the
melting-point of carbon is 3,600 degrees Centigrade (6,472 de-
grees Fahrenheit), it cannot stand up very long under a heat
which breaks down its structure and, at times, even fuses it.
The globes which were placed around the glowing carbons
were open at top and bottom and, although they steadied the
flame, they did not in any way prevent the carbons from drop-
ping to pieces under the heat generated by the current. Never-
theless, the Brush electric arc-lamp justified itself as a means
of outdoor lighting and was soon seen in the streets, over shops,
and in large buildings. In Cleveland, in Akron, Ohio, and
many of the cities of the Middle West, lofty poles and masts
were erected from which the rays of the new light were spread
over wide areas.
Numerous methods, none of them practically successful,
were devised for shutting off the oxygen supply from the car-
bons, such as by closing the globes at both ends and by regulat-
ing the movements of the carbon by mechanical aids. Once
the oxygen in the globes was consumed, the waste of the car-
bons was considerably less. By mixing other substances with
the carbon base, rods were produced which gave more light and
also attractive variations of color. As every material burns
with a color of its own, some striking hues in lights were seen.
Thus arc-lights took on warm, yellow tinges, or seemed blue.
These "flame arcs," offered in many different forms and accom-
panied by fanciful descriptions, reminded one of the eloquent
prophecy of Winsor, the original gas showman.
Charles P. Steinmetz, a young German of the earnest, indus-
trious type, fled to this country because his socialistic views
had embroiled him with his government. After he arrived here
he began by working as a day-laborer on a farm. Eventually
RUSHLIGHT TO INCANDESCENT LAMP 565
he became chief engineer of the General Electric Company and
one of our greatest experts in certain fields of electricity. Stein-
metz developed the magnetite, or so-called "luminous arc.''
Instead of carbons he employed for his device a piece of magne-
tite. This arc is now about the only survivor of its class, and
its use is confined to the streets.
As metals give off a peculiar light when heated, so also do
certain vapors composed of fine particles which float in sus-
pension. Vapor-lamps began to come into use about 1861,
the year in which was born a boy whose name will always be
connected with them. He was Peter Cooper Hewitt, grandson
of Peter Cooper, the philanthropic glue manufacturer, who
founded Cooper Union, and a son of Abram S. Hewitt, a leader
in the iron industry and at one time mayor of the city of New
York. The wealth and the high social position of his family
might have been a handicap to one less industrious by inheri-
tance. The young man entered the manufacturing business,
but later left it to conduct his own laboratory as an electrical
engineer. In the tower of Madison Square Garden he set up
his workshop of science, where he toiled hours into the night on
his inventions.
His mercury vapor-lamp, in reality a mercury arc, consists
of a long glass tube in which there is a little loose quicksilver or
mercury. The air has been pumped out of the tube, which is
sealed at both ends. Current is supplied by wires leading to
the ends of the tube. As the current is turned on, the tube is
slightly tilted. The mercury on the lower side runs into a thin
thread and soon breaks. There is formed an arc, which, by
its intense heat, vaporizes the fluid metal. At once the whole
tube begins to glow with a luminous mercury mist. The light
is of a peculiar greenish hue, which gives to the human face a
ghastly look and makes the veins stand out like little purple
rivers on a map. That is because the red rays are missing from
the Cooper Hewitt light, and as there is no red light to reflect,
the rosiest lips beneath those strange rays appear purplish.
The light is in much demand in printing-oflices and factories,
and it will probably always have an important place in indus-
trial illumination.
566 POWER
Edison and the Incandescent Lamp
How inventive genius may be found in all walks of life, is
no better shown than in comparing the careers of Hewitt and
Thomas Alva Edison. Edison came of plain people who were
of the pioneer stock that built up the Middle West. At the age
of eleven he was experimenting with chemicals in the cellar of
his father's house. From many sources he had gathered to-
gether 200 large bottles, which he marked "Poison" to keep
intruders from meddling with them. Then he filled them with
mixtures and solutions of his own making, obtaining the ma-
terials from the village drug-store. At the age of fifteen he was
the possessor of important books on chemistry and physics,
and the owner of an apparatus for his experiments. So great
a drain on his scant allowance were his experiments, that he
persuaded his parents to permit him to become a train news-
boy. By this time the Edisons had moved to Port Huron, and
the young inventor made the daily run from that town to De-
troit, a distance of sixty-three miles, by the Grand Trunk Rail-
road. He carried his experimental apparatus with him, for in
a baggage-car he had a small laboratory and also a printing-
press.
From train-boy he graouated into a telegraph-operator, and
thus came in touch with the powerful force of which he was to
become a master. By 1877, he was well established in a labora-
tory at Menlo Park, near Elizabethport, New Jersey, with suf-
ficient capital to engage assistants and to work out one of the
ambitions of his life, the subdivision of the electric current.
Arc-lights were clearly too big and dazzling for the home.
What was wanted was a little lamp to which a comparatively
small amount of current from a main conductor could be fed,
just as small gas-pipes tap large gas-mains for home gas-lighting.
Contemporary scientists were quite sure that this could not be
done, and they were very solemn and profound when they
learned of the unusual proposal of Edison. John Tyndall, one
of the most eminent physicists of England, smiled when he read
of the great task which the former train-boy had set for him-
self, and in extenuation said that he would rather have Edison
attack the problem than himself.
RUSHLIGHT TO INCANDESCENT LAMP 567
Progress had been made in the dynamo for the generation
of a steady flow of electricity by such men as Professor Moses
G. Farmer, of the University of Pennsylvania, who had devised
a self-exciting type, but the electrical art was still in its swad-
dling-clothes. Edison proposed to use the electric current to
heat some substance which would endure a high temperature
Courtesy General Electric Company.
(Left) REPLICA OF EDISON'S FIRST INCANDESCENT LAMP.
(Right) FIRST INCANDESCENT-LAMP FACTORY, MENLO PARK, 1880.
without breaking down. Heat and light have always been in-
separable; the greater the heat, the greater is the light obtained.
White-hot iron glows more brightly than red-hot iron, for in-
stance. "What substance," Edison asked himself, "has the
highest melting-point ?" The books told him that many metals
had high melting-points; also carbon. With carbon he deter
mined to experiment. Carbon burns in the air, as every flam-
ing match or coal fire tells us. The electric current would con-
sume it. Then the air must be removed, so that the current
would simply heat it to incandescence.
Edison began his task with a charred strip of paper mounted
in a glass vessel, from which the air had been pumped out. The
568 POWER
first lamp thus made burned out In eight minutes. Carbon
seemed unpromising. Edison turned aside to experiment with
metals. His tests made him return to carbon again. He could
not remove as much air as he wanted to from his bulbs because
he had only a crude hand air-pump. Even after he had acquired
more knowledge and skill, the best lamp that he could make
would not last more than ten or fifteen minutes. It seemed as
if the scientists were right in maintaining that Edison could
never succeed, for the simple reason, as they theorized, that
carbon contained within itself the elements of its own destruc-
tion. Once more he returned to metals. At length he suc-
ceeded in obtaining a pump that would draw out nearly all the
air from a bulb, which circumstance had the effect of causing
him to take up carbon again. He succeeded, in 1879, in car-
bonizing or partly charring a cotton thread in such a way that,
when placed in a globe, from which the air was pumped before
it was sealed, it glowed for forty hours in succession. It was
the first practical incandescent electric lamp.
**We sat and looked," said Edison later, "and the lamp
continued to burn. The longer it burned the more fascinated
we were. None of us could go to bed, and there was no sleep
for forty hours. We sat and just watched it with anxiety and
growing elation. It could not be put on the market, but it
showed that electricity could be used for incandescent lighting.
I spent about ^40,000 in bringing the investigation up to that
point, and yet in a way this was only the beginning."
His first successful demonstration of the new light on a large
scale was with carbonized strips of paper which he put in sev-
eral hundred lamps used in lighting his laboratory and house,
and some of the streets in Menlo Park. The result was so good
that on December 31, 1879, the New York Herald had a page
article about the wonderful and novel light, due to the passage
of electricity through a scrap of paper. Shortly after that
Edison, who had become known as the "Wizard of Menlo Park,"
gave a public exhibition of the new light source in the presence
of 3,000 persons, who had been brought on special trains from
New York to witness it. Before they came they may have
entertained some doubts as to the practicability of the system,
but they had none when they left.
From "Harper's Weekly" (1882), by courtesy of Nra> York Edison Company.
THE BIRTHPLACE OF THE INCANDESCENT LAMP.
Scenes in Edison's Menlo Park laboratory, where the first experiments in electric incandescent
illumination were made between 1879 and 1885.
570 POWER
Edison, however, was anything but satisfied with these
paper-carbon lamps. They would break down because the
carbon was not of the right kind. But what was the right kind ?
In their authoritative life of Edison, Dyer and Martin state that
Edison tested no fewer than 6,000 vegetable growths. "He
began to carbonize everything in nature that he could lay his
hands on. In his laboratory note-books are innumerable jottings
of the things that were carbonized and tried, such as tissue-
paper, soft paper, all kinds of cardboards, drawing-paper of all
grades, paper saturated with tar, all kinds of threads, fish-
line, threads rubbed with tarred lampblack, fine threads plaited
together in strands, cotton soaked in boiling tar, lamp-wick,
twine, tar and lampblack mixed with a proportion of lime,
vulcanized fibre, celluloid, boxwood, cocoanut hair and shell,
spruce, hickory, baywood, cedar and maple shavings, rosewood,
punk, cork, bagging, flax, and a host of other things."
Eventually one hot day when the inventor was walking
about his laboratory, he noticed and picked up a palm-leaf fan.
Seeing that the edge of it was bound with a strip of bamboo,
he tore off the strip.
"Test that," he said to one of his men.
The test proved that this variety of bamboo was the best
material that he had thus far discovered. He found that it
came from Japan. Would some other tropical fibre be still
better ? He must find out, even though the world must be
ransacked. He sent out men to explore the tropics for grasses
and fibres. One man was despatched to China and Japan to
collect specimens; another was posted off to South America to
explore 2,000 miles of Brazil's unknown interior; a third ex-
pedition combed Cuba and Jamaica; Ricalton, a school-teacher,
was engaged to find what he could in Ceylon, India, and Bur-
mah; one man, Frank McGowan, explored Peru, Ecuador, and
Colombia, faced hostile Indians and beasts of prey, endured
the stings of insects, tasted no meat for four months, wandered
about for ninety-eight days without removing his clothes, and
braved perils comparable only with those faced by Richard the
Lion Heart and his crusaders. Bales and bales of fibres, bam-
boos, grasses were shipped back to Menlo Park. Death itself
was faced to satisfy the eager, restless mind that dominated
RUSHLIGHT TO INCANDESCENT LAMP 571
the laboratory. In the end the Japanese bamboo still proved
to be the best. One hundred thousand dollars was spent in
satisfying Edison's desire to discover the very best natural
fibre that could be carbonized to produce a lamp filament.
Upon Edison rested the burden of doing for the current what
Clegg had done for illuminating gas. There was no such thing as
that now familiar structure, a central lighting-station or power-
house. The installation at Menlo Park was only the crude be-
ginning of a system. The first central lighting-station in the
country was the one which Edison built, in 1881, at 255 Pearl
Street, New York city, in an old building which was in reality
only a shell. The floors would not sustain the weight of the
dynamos; so an iron and steel framework was built, on which
the apparatus was installed.
Many were the anxious days and nights spent at this pio-
neer plant. The engines which drove the dynamos were con-
tinually getting out of order, the dynamos behaved like creatures
set free from the circus, and now and then dire tales were brought
in about horses going wild in the streets, as they stepped on
ground alive with runaway current. Through the watches of
the night Edison often slept on piles of iron conduit in the cellar,
glad to snatch a few minutes of rest before again tackling the
hard problems of distribution. The inventor himself was the
life and soul of that prototype of thousands of central stations
now running, as if by clock control, throughout the world.
In his well-appointed offices in the old Bishop mansion at
6^ Fifth Avenue, Edison had been conferring with the financial
powers of the country who were forwarding his inventions.
There he had shown to them his plans for the Pearl Street sta-
tion, and very well they looked on paper. But in the actual
dust and grime of Pearl Street a hundred troublesome details
crowded upon him at once. The measuring of the current used
in illumination was an economic puzzle for which he had to
perfect a meter, just as Clegg had done for gas. J. Pierpont
Morgan was interested in industrial lighting, but from the
banking-house he directed came a demand as to what the new
company meant by overcharging for electric light. Edison, as
meter-reader, adjuster, and general utility man, went down to
the offices at Broad and Wall Streets and found that there was
572 POWER
nothing at all the matter with the meter, and proved it to a
mathematical nicety.
After the technic for a central station had been developed,
Edison worked out a plan for distributing the current through
wires drawn through conduits, a process which involved not
only professional but political skill, owing to the opposition of
certain factions in city governments. The General Electric
Company at Schenectady, New York, and at Harrison, New
Jersey, took over the making of dynamos and other forms of
light-bringing apparatus, and lamps were turned out by the
thousands. Companies were formed throughout the country
for the distribution of the current for illuminating purposes.
Meanwhile experiments for the improvement of the lamp
itself continued. The filaments of the first incandescent lamps
were not uniform, and therefore varied considerably in burning.
Finally Edison adopted a method which proved more satisfac-
tory, at least for a time. A thick solution of gun-cotton, which
had been denitrated, that is, robbed of its explosive quality,
was squirted through fine holes in a plate of platinum. The
threads were dropped into an alcoholic bath which hardened
them. When the fibres had been hardened they were not un-
like fine catgut. This process, much the same as that em-
ployed in making artificial silk, is the principle that the spider
uses in spinning its web.
Modern Research in Electric Lighting
With the development of the squirted filament, Edison left
the further improvement of the incandescent lamp to the Gen-
eral Electric Company. A research laboratory had been es-
tablished at Schenectady, New York, at the head of which was
placed Doctor W. R. Whitney, a distinguished chemist. Light
was henceforth to be studied from the standpoint of both the
pure and the applied scientist. It was the purpose of the lab-
oratories under Doctor Whitney's direction to make the im-
provement of the incandescent lamp as much an organized
business as the manufacture and selling of lamps themselves.
Chemists and physicists were hired to make investigations, each
man conducting experiments which would add a little to the
sum total of human knowledge, even though no great invention
RUSHLIGHT TO INCANDESCENT LAMP 573
was necessarily involved. Henceforth team-work rather than
the flashes of solitary genius was to bring new lamps into being.
An accident gave the laboratories their first great oppor-
tunity. It had been found that if carbon filaments were packed
in graphite and baked they glowed better in a bulb. These
were called "treated filaments." One day a shipment of treated
filaments was tested in the laboratories. They glowed with
(Left) DOCTOR W. D. COOLIDGE.
Doctor Coolidge discovered the process of converting brittle metallic tungsten into a ductile
metal, which is now used for the filaments of incandescent lamps.
(Right) DOCTOR IRVING LANGMUIR.
Doctor Langmuir developed the modern gas-filled incandescent lamp.
astonishing brilliancy and consumed less current than had ever
been noted before. Why ? An investigation was made. It
was found that by mistake a workman had baked a batch of
filaments twice. Thus was born what came to be known as
the "Gem" lamp, which had its vogue fifteen years ago, but
which has since been superseded by more efficient lamps. It is
historically important, however, because it was the last of the
carbon lamps.
One of the most eminent of the many highly trained physi-
cists and research workers in the General Electric Company's
574 POWER
works at Schenectady is Doctor W. D. Coolidge, who became
interested in tungsten as a filament for electric lamps. This
rare metal, discovered in 1870, melts at 6,000 degrees Fahren-
heit, and is therefore an ideal material for filaments. As tung-
sten is not capable of being drawn into a thread of itself, as many-
metals are, it was ultimately powdered, mixed with a sticky
binder, and squirted into threads which could be readily em-
ployed for the lamp. With this Doctor Auer von Welsbach and
Doctor H. Kuzel of Vienna had been satisfied. Doctor Coolidge,
however, in the same spirit which Edison had so often displayed,
was convinced that tungsten had possibilities undreamed of.
He had behind him all the resources of the laboratories. With
the aid of a score of assistants he attacked the difficult problem
of making tungsten in such a form that it could be hammered
like iron and drawn into a thin wire. In its natural state,
tungsten is as brittle as glass. It is easy to see how hopeless
the problem seemed of solution. After years of work, Coolidge
eventually devised a process which made it possible to mash
the tungsten molecules together and make them more fibrous
in structure, so that they would felt together. Thus changed,
tungsten became as malleable as iron.
The effect on electric illumination was startling. The car-
bon filament gave light that was yellow. This new tungsten
filament gave a whiter light and consumed only one-half the
current per candle-power. The lighting bill of the country as
a whole was reduced by millions a month.
Another chemist of the laboratories. Doctor Irving Lang-
muir, had been trying to discover why bulbs blacken after a
time. Of course the material that clouded the glass came from
the filament. But unless the actual process were known it
could not be arrested. Some said that the blacking was due to
evaporation; in other words that because there was a good
vacuum in the bulb the filament gradually boiled away. Others
said that undivined chemical processes were at work. To clear
up the point, Langmuir began a purely scientific investigation.
He found that in truth the filament did boil away. It so hap-
pened that he had also been studying the radiation of heat from
thin hot wires — a study that might make it possible to produce
not only better filaments but also, for example, better electric
376
POWER
toasters. Langmuir discovered entirely new laws. Curiously
enough the investigation of bulb-blackening and the investiga-
tion of hot wires yielded results that dovetailed. He saw that
Courtesy General Electric Company.
THE SMALL LAMP IS A MODERN VACUUM TUNGSTEN-FILAMENT LAMP;
THE LARGE LAMP IS OF THE GAS-FILLED TYPE.
it might be possible to make a lamp even more efficient than that
invented by Coolidge.
To stop the filament from boiling away and blackening the
bulb, pressure had to be applied; the pressure of a gas. It must
be a gas that would not chemically combine with the filament
to disintegrate it, as oxygen combines with iron to produce
rust. Nitrogen was such a gas. Edison had tried it years
before, but unsuccessfully. Langmuir found that the filament
would have to be thick if any great amount of light were thus
to be produced. But Edison had conclusively demonstrated
RUSHLIGHT TO INCANDESCENT LAMP 577
that the filament must be thin in order to obtain the greatest
heating effect with the least possible amount of current. How
could a filament be at once thick and thin ? Langmuir simply
took a thin filament of tungsten and coiled it into what is called
a helix, and thus reconciled the irreconcilables. His helix, con-
sidered as a mass, was thick, and yet it was nothing but a thin
wire. In the atmosphere of nitrogen the helix glowed marvel-
lously. Again more light was obtained for less money per
candle-power. Astonishing as it may seem, Langmuir worked
out his nitrogen lamp on paper before he ever made one, and
predicted exactly what its performance would be.
Ductile tungsten and the nitrogen bulb give about three
times as much light for the money as the old carbon filament
gave. If we were dependent on the carbon filament to give
forth the 9,000,000,000 candle-power now used in this country,
our power-houses would have to burn 35,000,000 tons of coal a
year as contrasted with the 10,000,000 tons which now answer
the purpose.
The final development of the incandescent lamp has given
to us a Broadway which is a blaze of light and color. A cen-
tury and a quarter ago the average home had about fifteen
candle-hours a night, or about five of the old-time moulded
candles, each of which was lighted on an average of three hours
before the family went to bed. Now, the home may have
1,000 candle-hours of radiance for the price once paid for five
tallow tapers.
It is, indeed, a wonderful pilgrimage which our light-bring-
ers have made from the burning rush, the greasy lamp, and the
first gas to the brilliantly illuminated rooms and streets of the
twentieth century. Take off the chimney of the ordinary
kerosene-lamp and we are back in Caesar's day. Turn on a
switch and we are in a garden of Aladdin. Thus the pressure
of a finger has enabled us with the aid of the genii of science to
trade our old lamps for new.
What next ^ Perhaps that final wonder, light without heat,
such as the glowworm gives.
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A popular history of American
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