The Story of Electricity

A work on electricity needs little recommendation to stimulate the interest of the general reader. Electricity in its manifold applications is so large a factor in the comfort and convenience of our daily life, so essential to the industrial organization which embraces every dweller in a civilized land, so important in the development and extension of civilization itself, that a knowledge of its principles and the means through which they are directed to the service of mankind should be a part of the mental equipment of everyone who pretends to education in its truest sense. Let anyone stop to consider how he individually would be affected if all electrical service were suddenly to cease, and he cannot fail to appreciate the claims of electricity to attentive study.

The purpose of this little book is to present the essential facts of electrical science in a popular and interesting way, as befits the scheme of the series to which it belongs. Electrical phenomena have been observed since the first man viewed one of the most spectacular and magnificent of them all in the thunderstorm, but the services of electricity which we enjoy are the product solely of scientific achievement in the nineteenth century. It is to these services that the main part of the following discussion is devoted. The introductory chapters deal with various sources of electrical energy, in friction, chemical action, heat and magnetism. The rest of the book describes the applications of electricity in electroplating, communication by telegraph, telephone, and wireless telegraphy, the production of light and heat, the transmission of power, transportation over rails and in vehicles, and the multitude of other uses.

July, 1915.

PUBLISHERS' NOTE.

For our edition of this work the terminology has been altered to conform with American usage, some new matter has been added, and a few of the cuts have been changed and some new ones introduced, in order to adapt the book fully to the practical requirements of American readers.

CONTENTS.

I. THE ELECTRICITY OF FRICTION II. THE ELECTRICITY OF CHEMISTRY III. THE ELECTRICITY OF HEAT IV. THE ELECTRICITY OF MAGNETISM V. ELECTROLYSIS VI. THE TELEGRAPH AND TELEPHONE VII. ELECTRIC LIGHT AND HEAT VIII. ELECTRIC POWER IX. MINOR USES OF ELECTRICITY X. THE WIRELESS TELEGRAPH XI. ELECTRO-CHEMISTRY AND ELECTRO-METALLURGY XII. ELECTRIC RAILWAYS APPENDIX

THE STORY OF ELECTRICITY.

CHAPTER I.

THE ELECTRICITY OF FRICTION.

A schoolboy who rubs a stick of sealing-wax on the sleeve of his jacket, then holds it over dusty shreds or bits of straw to see them fly up and cling to the wax, repeats without knowing it the fundamental experiment of electricity. In rubbing the wax on his coat he has electrified it, and the dry dust or bits of wool are attracted to it by reason of a mysterious process which is called "induction."

Electricity, like fire, was probably discovered by some primeval savage. According to Humboldt, the Indians of the Orinoco sometimes amuse themselves by rubbing certain beans to make them attract wisps of the wild cotton, and the custom is doubtless very old. Certainly the ancient Greeks knew that a piece of amber had when rubbed the property of attracting light bodies. Thales of Miletus, wisest of the Seven Sages, and father of Greek philosophy, explained this curious effect by the presence of a "soul" in the amber, whatever he meant by that. Thales flourished 600 years before the Christian era, while Croesus reigned in Lydia, and Cyrus the Great, in Persia, when the renowned Solon gave his laws to Athens, and Necos, King of Egypt, made war on Josiah, King of Judah, and after defeating him at Megiddo, dedicated the corslet he had worn during the battle to Apollo Didymaeus in the temple of Branchidas, near Miletus.

Amber, the fossil resin of a pine tree, was found in Sicily, the shores of the Baltic, and other parts of Europe. It was a precious stone then as now, and an article of trade with the Phoenicians, those early merchants of the Mediterranean. The attractive power might enhance the value of the gem in the eyes of the superstitious ancients, but they do not seem to have investigated it, and beyond the speculation of Thales, they have told us nothing more about it.