The Story of Great Inventions Part 8

The success of this experiment aroused great interest, not only in Germany, but in Europe and America. America's greatest inventor, Edison, took up the problem. Edison employed no trolley line or third rail, but only the two rails of the track as conductors, sending the current out through one rail and back through the other. Of course, this meant that the wheels must be insulated, so that the current could flow from one rail to the other only through the coils of the motor.

As in Siemens' experiment, the motor was of the same construction as the dynamo. The rails were not insulated, and it was found that, even when the track was wet, the loss of electric current was not more than 5 per cent. Edison found that he could realize in his motor 70 per cent. of the power applied to the dynamo, whereas the German inventor was able to realize only 60 per cent. The improvement was largely due to the improved winding. Edison was the first to use in practical work the compound-wound dynamo, and this was done in connection with his electric railway. Fig. 55 shows Edison's first electric locomotive.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 55--FIRST EDISON ELECTRIC LOCOMOTIVE]

The question of gearing was a troublesome one. The armature shaft of the motor was at first connected by friction gearing to the axle of two wheels of the locomotive. Later a belt and pulleys were used. An idler pulley was used to tighten the belt. When the motor was started and the belt quickly tightened the armature was burned out. This happened a number of times. Then Mr. Edison brought out from the laboratory a number of resistance-boxes, placed them on the locomotive, and connected them in series with the armature. These resistances would permit only a small current to flow through the motor as it was starting, and so prevent the burning-out of the armature coils. The locomotive was started with the resistance-boxes in circuit, and after gaining some speed the operator would plug the various boxes out of circuit, and in that way increase the speed. When the motor is running there is a back-pressure, or a pressure that would cause a current to flow in the opposite direction from that which is running the motor. Because of this back-pressure the current which actually flows through the motor is small, and the resistance-boxes may be safely taken out of the circuit.

Finding the resistance-boxes scattered about under the seats and on the platform as they were a nuisance, Mr. Edison threw them aside, and used some coils of wire wound on the motor field-magnet which could be plugged out of the circuit in the same way as the resistance-boxes. This device of Edison's was the origin of the controller, though in the controller now used on street-cars not only is the resistance cut out as the speed of the car increases, but the electrical connections of the motor are changed in such a way as to increase its speed gradually.

Fig. 56 shows Edison's first pa.s.senger locomotive.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 56--EDISON'S FIRST Pa.s.sENGER LOCOMOTIVE]

The news of the little electric railway at the Industrial Exposition in Berlin was soon noised abroad, and the German inventor received inquiries from all parts of the world, indicating that efforts would be made in other countries to develop practical electrical railways. The firm of Siemens & Halske therefore determined to build a line for actual traffic, not for profit, but that Germany might have the honor of building the first practical electric railway. The line was built between Berlin and Lichterfelde, a distance of about one and a half miles. A horse-car seating twenty-six persons was pressed into service.

A motor was mounted between the axles, and a central-station dynamo exactly like the motor was installed. As in Edison's experimental railway, the two rails of the track were used to carry the current. This electric line replaced an omnibus line, and was immediately used for regular traffic, and thus the electric railway was launched upon its remarkable career. The first electric car used for commercial service is shown in Fig. 57.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 57--FIRST COMMERCIAL ELECTRIC RAILWAY An old horse-car converted into an electric car.]

Electric Lighting

From the time when the night-watchman carried a lantern to the time of brilliantly lighted streets was less than a century. It was a time when the rapid growth of railways and commerce brought about a rapid growth of cities, and with the growth of cities the need of illumination.

Factories must run at night to meet the world's demands. Commerce cannot stop when the sun sets. The centres of commerce must have light.

During this time scientists were at work in their laboratories developing means for producing a high vacuum. They were able to pump the air out of a gla.s.s bulb until less than a millionth part of the air remained. They little dreamed that there was any connection between the high vacuum and the problem of lighting. Discoverers were at work bringing to light the principles now utilized in the dynamo. In the fulness of time these factors were brought together to produce an efficient system of lighting.

For a time gas replaced the lantern of the night-watchman, only to yield the greater portion of the field to its rival, electricity.

The first efforts were in the direction of the arc light. From the earliest times the light given out by an electric spark had been observed. It was the aim of inventors to produce a continuous spark that should give out a brilliant light. It was thought for a time that the electric battery would solve the problem, but the cost of the battery current was too great. Again we are indebted to Faraday, for it was the dynamo that made electric lighting possible.

An arc light is produced by an electric current flowing across a gap between two sticks of carbon. The air offers very great resistance to the flow of electric current across this gap. Now whenever an electric current flows through something which resists its flow, heat is produced. The high resistance of the air-gap causes such intense heat that the tips of the carbons become white hot and give out a brilliant light. If examined through a smoked gla.s.s a beautiful blue arc of carbon vapor may be seen between the carbon tips. If the current flows in one direction only, one of the carbons, the positive, becomes hotter and brighter than the other.

In 1878 the streets of Paris were lighted with the "Jablochkoff candle,"

a form of arc light supplied with current by the Gramme machine. In the same year the Brush system of arc lighting was given to the public. This was the beginning of our present system of arc lighting.

The electric arc is suitable for lighting streets and for large buildings, but cannot be used for lighting houses. The light is too intense. One arc would furnish enough light for a number of houses if the light could be divided so that there might be just the right amount of light in each room. But this is impossible with the electric arc.

The Edison system of incandescent lighting was required to solve the problem of lighting houses by electricity.

In 1880 the Edison system was brought out for commercial use. Edison's problem was to produce a light that could be divided into a number of small lights, and one that would require less attention than the arc light. He tried pa.s.sing a current through platinum wire enclosed in a vacuum. This gave a fairly good light, but was not wholly satisfactory.

He sat one night thinking about the problem, unconsciously fingering a bit of lampblack mixed with tar which he had used in his telephone. Not thinking what he was doing, he rolled this mixture of tar and lampblack into a thread. Then he noticed what he had done, and the thought occurred to him: "Why not pa.s.s an electric current through this thread of carbon?" He tried it. A faint glow was the result. He felt that he was on the right track. A piece of cotton thread must be heated in a furnace in an iron mold, which would prevent the thread from burning by keeping out the air. Then all the other elements that were in the thread would be driven out and only the carbon remain. For three days he worked without sleep to prepare this carbon filament. At the end of two days he succeeded in getting a perfect filament, but when he attempted to seal it in the gla.s.s bulb it broke. He patiently worked another day, and was rewarded by securing a good carbon filament, sealed in a gla.s.s globe. He pumped the air out of this globe, sealed it, and sent a current through the carbon thread. He tried a weak current at first. There was a faint glow. He increased the current. The thread glowed more brightly. He continued to increase the current until the slender thread of carbon, which would crumble at a touch, was carrying a current that would melt a wire of platinum strong enough to support a weight of several pounds.

The carbon gave a bright light. He had found a means of causing the electric current to furnish a large number of small lights. Fig. 58 is an excellent photograph of Edison at work in his laboratory. Fig. 59 shows some of Edison's first incandescent lamps. He next set out in search of the best kind of carbon for the purpose. He carbonized paper and wood of various kinds--in fact, everything he could find that would yield a carbon filament. He tried the fibres of a j.a.panese fan made of bamboo, and found that this gave a better light than anything he had tried before. He then began the search for the best kind of bamboo. He learned that there are about twelve hundred varieties of bamboo. He must have a sample of every variety. He sent men into every part of the world where bamboo grows. One man travelled thirty thousand miles and had many encounters with wild beasts in his search for the samples of bamboo. At last a j.a.panese bamboo was found that was better than any other. The search for the carbon fibre had cost about a hundred thousand dollars.

Later it was found that a "squirted filament" could be made that worked as well as the bamboo fibre. This was made by dissolving cotton wool in a certain solution, and then squirting this solution through a small hole into a small tank containing alcohol. The alcohol causes the substance to set and harden, and thus forms a carbon thread the size of the hole. Fig. 60 shows the first commercial electric-lighting plant, which was installed on the steams.h.i.+p _Columbia_ in 1880.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Copyright, 1904, by Byron, N. Y.

FIG. 58--EDISON, AMERICA'S GREATEST INVENTOR, AT WORK IN HIS LABORATORY]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Copyright, 1904, by William J. Hammer FIG. 59--EDISON'S FAMOUS HORSESHOE PAPER-FILAMENT LAMP OF 1870]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 60--FIRST COMMERCIAL EDISON ELECTRIC-LIGHTING PLANT; INSTALLED ON THE STEAMs.h.i.+P "COLUMBIA" IN MAY, 1880]

The carbon thread in the incandescent light is heated to a white heat, and because it is so heated it gives out light. In air such a tiny thread of white-hot carbon would burn in a fraction of a second. The carbon must be in a vacuum, and so the air is pumped out of the light bulb with a special kind of air-pump invented not long before Edison began his work on the electric light. This pump is capable of taking out practically all the air that was in the bulb. Perhaps a millionth part of the original air remains.

A great invention is never completed by one man. It was to be expected that the electric light would be improved. A number of kinds of incandescent light have been devised, using different kinds of filaments and adapted to a variety of uses. The original Edison carbon lamp, however, continues in use, being better adapted to certain purposes than the newer forms.

The mercury vapor light deserves mention as a special form of arc light.

In the ordinary arc light the arc is formed of carbon vapor, and the light is given out from the tips of the white-hot carbons. In the mercury vapor light the light is given out from the mercury vapor which forms the arc. This arc may be of any desired length, and yields a soft, bluish-white light which is a near approach to daylight.

The Telegraph

The need of some means of giving signals at a distance was early felt in the art of war. Flag signals such as are now used by the armies and navies of the world were introduced in the middle of the seventeenth century by the Duke of York, admiral of the English fleet, who afterward became James II. of England. Other methods of communicating at a distance were devised from time to time, but the distance was only that at which a signal could be seen or a sound heard. No means of communicating over very long distances was possible until the magnetic action of an electric current was discovered. When Oersted's discovery was made known men began to think of signalling to a distance by means of the action of an electric current on a magnetic needle. A current may be sent over a very long wire, and it will deflect a magnetic needle at the other end. The movements of the needle may be controlled by opening and closing the circuit, and a system of signals or an alphabet may be arranged. A number of needle telegraphs were invented, but they were too slow in action. Two other great inventions were needed to prepare the way for the telegraph. One was the electromagnet in the form developed by Professor Henry, a horseshoe magnet with many turns of silk-covered wire around the soft-iron core, so that a very feeble current will produce a magnet strong enough to move an armature of soft iron. The magnet has this strength because the current flows so many times around the iron core. Another need was that of a battery that could be depended on to give a constant current for a considerable length of time. This need was met by the Daniell cell.

The electromagnet made the telegraph possible. The locomotive made it a necessity. Without the telegraph it would be impossible to control a railway system from a central office. A train after leaving the central station would be like a s.h.i.+p at sea before the invention of the wireless telegraph. Nothing could be known of its movements until it returned.

The need of a telegraph was keenly felt in America when the new republic was extended to the Pacific Coast. An English statesman said, after the United States acquired California, that this marked the end of the great American Republic, for a people spread over such a vast area and separated by such natural barriers could not hold together. He did not know that the iron wire of the telegraph would bind the new nation firmly together.

The Morse telegraph system now in use throughout the civilized world was made possible by the work of Sturgeon and Henry. Sturgeon's electromagnet might have been used for telegraphy through very short distances, but Henry's magnet, with its coils of many turns of insulated wire, was needed for long-distance signalling. In one of the rooms of the Albany Academy, Professor Henry caused an electromagnet to sound a bell when the current was transmitted through more than a mile of wire.

This might be called the first electromagnetic telegraph. But the application to actual practice was made by Morse, and the man who first makes the practical application of a principle is the true inventor.

In 1832, on board the packet-s.h.i.+p _Sully_, Samuel F. B. Morse, an American artist, forty-one years of age, was returning from Europe. In conversation a Doctor Jackson referred to the electrical experiments of Ampere, which he had witnessed while in Europe, and, in reply to a question, said that electricity pa.s.ses instantaneously over any known length of wire. The thought of transmitting words by means of the electric current at once took possession of the artist's mind. After many days and sleepless nights he showed to friends on board the drawings and notes he had made of a recording telegraph.

In New York, in a room provided by his brothers, he gave himself up to the working-out of his idea, sleeping little and eating the simplest food. Receiving an appointment as professor in the University of the City of New York, he moved to one of the buildings of that university and continued his experiments in extreme poverty, and at times facing starvation, as his salary depended on the tuition fees of his pupils.

A story told by one of his pupils describes his condition at the time.

"I engaged to become one of Morse's pupils. He had three others. I soon found that the professor had little patronage. I paid my fifty dollars; that settled one quarter's tuition. I remember, when the second was due, my remittance from home did not come as expected, and one day the professor came in and said, courteously:

"'Well, Strother, my boy, how are we off for money?'

"'Why, professor, I am sorry to say I have been disappointed; but I expect a remittance next week.'

"'Next week!' he repeated, sadly; 'I shall be dead by that time.'

"'Dead, sir?'

"'Yes; dead by starvation!'

"I was distressed and astonished. I said, hurriedly: 'Would ten dollars be of any service?'

"'Ten dollars would save my life; that is all it would do.'"

The money was paid, all the student had, and the two dined together. It was Morse's first meal in twenty-four hours.

The Morse telegraph sounder (Fig. 61) consists of an electromagnet and a soft-iron armature. When no current is flowing the armature is held away from the magnet by a spring. When the circuit is closed a current flows through the coils of the magnet and the armature is attracted, causing a click. When the circuit is broken the spring pulls the armature away from the magnet, causing another click. The circuit is made and broken by means of a key at the other end of the line. In Morse's first instrument (Fig. 62) the armature carried a pen, which was drawn across a ribbon of paper when the armature was attracted by the magnet. If the pen was held by the magnet for a very short time, a dot was made; if for a longer time, a dash. The pen was soon discarded, and the message taken by sound only. The Morse alphabet now in use was devised by a Mr. Vail, who a.s.sisted Morse in developing the telegraph. The thought occurred to Mr. Vail that he could get help from a printing-office in deciding the combinations of dots and dashes that should be used for the different letters. The letters requiring the largest s.p.a.ces in the type-cases are the ones that occur most frequently, and for these letters he used the simplest combinations of dots and dashes.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 61--A TELEGRAPH SOUNDER]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 62--MORSE'S FIRST TELEGRAPH INSTRUMENT A pen was attached to the pendulum and drawn across the strip of paper by the action of the electromagnet. The lead type shown in the lower right-hand corner was used in making electrical contact when sending a message. The modern instrument shown in the lower left-hand corner is the one that sent a message around the world in 1896.

Photo by Claudy.]

Morse repeatedly said that, if he could make his telegraph work through ten miles, he could make it work around the world. This promise of long-distance telegraphy he fulfilled by the use of the relay. The relay works in the same way as the sounder. The current coming over a long line may be too feeble to produce a click that can be easily heard, yet strong enough to magnetize the coils of the relay and cause the armature to close another circuit. This second circuit includes the sounder and a battery in the same station as the sounder, which we shall call "the local battery." The relay simply acts as a contact key, and closes the circuit of the local battery. Thus the current from the local battery flows through the sounder and produces a loud click. Sometimes a relay is used to control a second very long circuit. At the farther end of the second circuit may be a sounder or a second relay which controls a third circuit. Any number of circuits may be thus connected by means of relays. This is a form of repeating system used for telegraphing over very long distances. Fig. 63 shows a circuit with relay and sounder.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 63--A TELEGRAPHIC CIRCUIT WITH RELAY AND SOUNDER]