Chapter CXXV: Appendix: F (3)

"The first actual suggestion of an electric telegraph was made
in an anonymous letter published in the Scots Magazine at
Edinburgh, February 17th, 1753. The letter is initialed 'C.
M.,' and many attempts have been made to discover the author's
identity. … The suggestions made in this letter were that a
set of twenty-six wires should be stretched upon insulated
supports between the two places which it was desired to put in
connection, and at each end of every wire a metallic ball was
to be suspended, having under it a letter of the alphabet
inscribed upon a piece of paper. … The message was to be
read off at the receiving station by observing the letters
which were successively attracted by their corresponding
balls, as soon as the wires attached to the latter received a
charge from the distant conductor. In 1787 Monsieur Lomond, of
Paris, made the very important step of reducing the twenty-six
wires to one, and indicating the different letters by various
combinations of simple movements of an indicator, consisting
of a pith-ball suspended by means of a thread from a conductor
in contact with the wire. … In the year 1790 Chappe, the
inventor of the semaphore, or optico-mechanical telegraph,
which was in practical use previous to the introduction of the
electric telegraph, devised a means of communication,
consisting of two clocks regulated so that the second hands
moved in unison, and pointed at the same instant to the same
figures. … In the early form of the apparatus, the exact
moment at which the observer at the receiving station should
read off the figure to which the hand pointed was indicated by
means of a sound signal produced by the primitive method of
striking a copper stew pan, but the inventor soon adopted the
plan of giving electrical signals instead of sound signals.
… In 1795 Don Francisco Salva … suggested … that instead
of twenty-six wires being used, one for each letter, six or
eight wires only should be employed, each charged by a Leyden
jar, and that different letters should be formed by means of
various combinations of signals from these. … Mr.
(afterwards Sir Francis) Ronalds … took up the subject of
telegraphy in the year 1816, and published an account of his
experiments in 1823," based on the same idea as that of
Chappe. … "Ronalds drew up a sort of telegraphic code by
which words, and sometimes even complete sentences, could be
transmitted by only three discharges. … Ronalds completely
proved the practicability of his plan, not only on [a] short
underground line, …. but also upon an overhead line some
eight miles in length, constructed by carrying a telegraph
wire backwards and forwards over a wooden frame-work erected
in his garden at Hammersmith. … The first attempt to employ
voltaic electricity in telegraphy was made by Don Francisco
Salva, whose frictional telegraph has already been referred
to. On the 14th of May, 1800, Salva read a paper on 'Galvanism
and its application to Telegraphy' before the Academy of Sciences
at Barcelona, in which he described a number of experiments
which he had made in telegraphing over a line some 310 metres
in length. … A few years later he applied the then recent
discovery of the Voltaic pile to the same purpose, the
liberation of bubbles of gas by the decomposition of water at
the receiving station being the method adopted for indicating
the passage of the signals. A telegraph of a very similar
character was devised by Sömmering, and described in a paper
communicated by the inventor to the Munich Academy of Sciences
in 1809. Sömmering used a set of thirty-five wires corresponding
to the twenty-five letters of the German alphabet and the ten
numerals. … Oersted's discovery of the action of the
electric current upon a suspended magnetic needle provided a
new and much more hopeful method of applying the electric
current to telegraphy. The great French astronomer Laplace
appears to have been the first to suggest this application of
Oersted's discovery, and he was followed shortly afterwards by
Ampere, who in the year 1820 read a paper before the Paris
Academy of Sciences."

_G. W. De Tunzelmann,
Electricity in Modern Life,
chapter 9._

ELECTRICITY: A. D. 1786-1800.
Discoveries of Galvani and Volta.

"The fundamental experiment which led to the discovery of
dynamical electricity [1786] is due to Galvani, professor of
anatomy in Bologna. Occupied with investigations on the
influence of electricity on the nervous excitability of
animals, and especially of the frog, he observed that when the
lumbar nerves of a dead frog were connected with the crural
muscles by a metallic circuit, the latter became briskly
contracted. … Galvani had some time before observed that the
electricity of machines produced in dead frogs analogous
contractions, and he attributed the phenomena first described
to an electricity inherent in the animal. He assumed that this
electricity, which he called vital fluid, passed from the
nerves to the muscles by the metallic arc, and was thus the
cause of contraction. This theory met with great support,
especially among physiologists, but it was not without
opponents. The most considerable of these was Alexander Volta,
professor of physics in Pavia. Galvani's attention had been
exclusively devoted to the nerves and muscles of the frog;
Volta's was directed upon the connecting metal. Resting on the
observation, which Galvani had also made, that the contraction
is more energetic when the connecting arc is composed of two
metals than where there is only one, Volta attributed to the
metals the active part in the phenomenon of contraction. He
assumed that the disengagement of electricity was due to their
contact, and that the animal parts only officiated as
conductors, and at the same time as a very sensitive
electroscope. By means of the then recently invented
electroscope, Volta devised several modes of showing the
disengagement of electricity on the contact of metals. … A
memorable controversy arose between Galvani and Volta. The
latter was led to give greater extension to his contact
theory, and propounded the principle that when two
heterogeneous substances are placed in contact, one of them
always assumes the positive and the other the negative
electrical condition. In this form Volta's theory obtained the
assent of the principal philosophers of his time."

_A. Ganot,
Elementary Treatise on Physics;
translated by Atkinson, book 10, chapter 1._

Volta's theory, however, though somewhat misleading, did not
prevent his making what was probably the greatest step in the
science up to this time, in the invention (about 1800) of the
Voltaic pile, the first generator of electrical energy by
chemical means, and the forerunner of the vast number of types
of the modern "battery."

{772}

ELECTRICITY: A. D. 1810-1890.
The Arc light.

"The earliest instance of applying Electricity to the
production of light was in 1810, by Sir Humphrey Davy, who
found that when the points of two carbon rods whose other ends
were connected by wires with a powerful primary battery were
brought into contact, and then drawn a little way apart, the
Electric current still continued to jump across the gap,
forming what is now termed an Electric Arc. … Various
contrivances have been devised for automatically regulating
the position of the two carbons. As early as 1847, a lamp was
patented by Staite, in which the carbon rods were fed together
by clockwork. … Similar devices were produced by Foucault
and others, but the first really successful arc lamp was
Serrin's, patented in 1857, which has not only itself survived
until the present day, but has had its main features
reproduced in many other lamps. … The Jablochkoff Candle
(1876), in which the arc was formed between the ends of a pair
of carbon rods placed side by side, and separated by a layer of
insulating material, which slowly consumed as the carbons
burnt down, did good service in accustoming the public to the
new illuminant. Since then the inventions by Brush,
Thomson-Houston, and others have done much to bring about its
adoption for lighting large rooms, streets, and spaces out of
doors."

_J. B. Verity,
Electricity up to Date for Light, Power, and Traction,
chapter 3._

ELECTRICITY: A. D. 1820-1825.
Oersted, Ampere, and the discovery of the Electro-Magnet.

"There is little chance … that the discoverer of the magnet,
or the discoverer and inventor of the magnetic needle, will
ever be known by name, or that even the locality and date of
the discovery will ever be determined [see COMPASS]. … The
magnet and magnetism received their first scientific treatment
at the hands of Dr. Gilbert. During the two centuries
succeeding the publication of his work, the science of
magnetism was much cultivated. … The development of the
science went along parallel with that of the science of
electricity … although the latter was more fruitful in novel
discoveries and unexpected applications than the former. It is
not to be imagined that the many close resemblances of the two
classes of phenomena were allowed to pass unnoticed. … There
was enough resemblance to suggest an intimate relation; and
the connecting link was sought for by many eminent
philosophers during the last years of the eighteenth and the
earlier years of the present century."

_T. C. Mendenhall,
A Century of Electricity,
chapter 3._

"The effect which an electric current, flowing in a wire, can
exercise upon a neighbouring compass needle was discovered by
Oersted in 1820. This first announcement of the possession of
magnetic properties by an electric current was followed
speedily by the researches of Ampere, Arago, Davy, and by the
devices of several other experimenters, including De la Rive's
floating battery and coil, Schweigger's multiplier, Cumming's
galvanometer, Faraday's apparatus for rotation of a permanent
magnet, Marsh's vibrating pendulum and Barlow's rotating
star-wheel. But it was not until 1825 that the electromagnet
was invented. Arago announced, on 25th September 1820, that a
copper wire uniting the poles of a voltaic cell, and
consequently traversed by an electric current, could attract
iron filings to itself laterally. In the same communication he
described how he had succeeded in communicating permanent
magnetism to steel needles laid at right angles to the copper
wire, and how, on showing this experiment to Ampere, the
latter had suggested that the magnetizing action would be more
intense if for the straight copper wire there were substituted
one wrapped in a helix, in the centre of which the steel
needle might be placed. This suggestion was at once carried
out by the two philosophers. 'A copper wire wound in a helix
was terminated by two rectilinear portions which could be
adapted, at will, to the opposite poles of a powerful
horizontal voltaic pile; a steel needle wrapped up in paper
was introduced into the helix.' 'Now, after some minutes'
sojourn in the helix, the steel needle had received a
sufficiently strong dose of magnetism.' Arago then wound upon
a little glass tube some short helices, each about 2¼ inches
long, coiled alternately right-handedly and left-handedly, and
found that on introducing into the glass tube a steel wire, he
was able to produce 'consequent poles' at the places where the
winding was reversed. Ampère, on October 23rd, 1820, read a
memoir, claiming that these facts confirmed his theory of
magnetic actions. Davy had, also, in 1820, surrounded with
temporary coils of wire the steel needles upon which he was
experimenting, and had shown that the flow of electricity
around the coil could confer magnetic power upon the steel
needles. … The electromagnet, in the form which can first
claim recognition … was devised by William Sturgeon, and is
described by him in the paper which he contributed to the
Society of Arts in 1825."

_S. P. Thompson,
The Electromagnet,
chapter 1._

ELECTRICITY: A. D. 1825-1874.
The Perfected Telegraph.

"The European philosophers kept on groping. At the end of five
years [after Oersted's discovery], one of them reached an
obstacle which he made up his mind was so entirely
insurmountable, that it rendered the electric telegraph an
impossibility for all future time. This was [1825] Mr. Peter
Barlow, fellow of the Royal Society, who had encountered the
question whether the lengthening of the conducting wire would
produce any effect in diminishing the energy of the current
transmitted, and had undertaken to resolve the problem. … 'I
found [he said] such a considerable diminution with only 200
feet of wire as at once to convince me of the impracticability
of the scheme.' … The year following the announcement of
Barlow's conclusions, a young graduate of the Albany (N. Y.)
Academy—by name Joseph Henry—was appointed to the
professorship of mathematics in that institution. Henry there
began the series of scientific investigations which is now
historic. … Up to that time, electro-magnets had been made
with a single coil of naked wire wound spirally around the
core, with large intervals between the strands. The core was
insulated as a whole: the wire was not insulated at all.
Professor Schweigger, who had previously invented the
multiplying galvanometer, had covered his wires with silk.
Henry followed this idea, and, instead of a single coil of
wire, used several. … Barlow had said that the gentle
current of the galvanic battery became so weakened, after
traversing 200 feet of wire, that it was idle to consider the
possibility of making it pass over even a mile of conductor
and then affect a magnet.
{773}
Henry's reply was to point out that the trouble lay in the way
Barlow's magnet was made. … Make the magnet so that the
diminished current will exercise its full effect. Instead of
using one short coil, through which the current can easily
slip, and do nothing, make a coil of many turns; that
increases the magnetic field: make it of fine wire, and of
higher resistance. And then, to prove the truth of his
discovery, Henry put up the first electro-magnetic telegraph
ever constructed. In the academy at Albany, in 1831, he
suspended 1,060 feet of bell-wire, with a battery at one end
and one of his magnets at the other; and he made the magnet
attract and release its armature. The armature struck a bell,
and so made the signals. Annihilating distance in this way was
only one part of Henry's discovery. He had also found, that,
to obtain the greatest dynamic effect close at hand, the
battery should be composed of a very few cells of large
surface, combined with a coil or coils of short coarse wire
around the magnet,—conditions just the reverse of those
necessary when the magnet was to be worked at a distance. Now,
he argued, suppose the magnet with the coarse short coil, and
the large-surface battery, be put at the receiving station;
and the current coming over the line be used simply to make
and break the circuit of that local battery. … This is the
principle of the telegraphic 'relay.' In 1835 Henry worked a
telegraph-line in that way at Princeton. And thus the
electro-magnetic telegraph was completely invented and
demonstrated. There was nothing left to do, but to put up the
posts, string the lines, and attach the instruments."

_P. Benjamin,
The Age of Electricity,
chapter 11._

"At last we leave the territory of theory and experiment and
come to that of practice. 'The merit of inventing the modern
telegraph, and applying it on a large scale for public use,
is, beyond all question, due to Professor Morse of the United
States.' So writes Sir David Brewster, and the best
authorities on the question substantially agree with him. …
Leaving for future consideration Morse's telegraph, which was
not introduced until five years after the time when he was
impressed with the notion of its feasibility, we may mention
the telegraph of Gauss and Weber of Göttingen. In 1833, they
erected a telegraphic wire between the Astronomical and
Magnetical Observatory of Göttingen, and the Physical Cabinet
of the University, for the purpose of carrying intelligence
from the one locality to the other. To these great
philosophers, however, rather the theory than the practice of
Electric Telegraphy was indebted. Their apparatus was so
improved as to be almost a new invention by Steinheil of
Munich, who, in 1837 … succeeded in sending a current from
one end to the other of a wire 36,000 feet in length, the
action of which caused two needles to vibrate from side to
side, and strike a bell at each movement. To Steinheil the
honour is due of having discovered the important and
extraordinary fact that the earth might be used as a part of
the circuit of an electric current. The introduction of the
Electric Telegraph into England dates from the same year as
that in which Steinheil's experiments took place. William
Fothergill Cooke, a gentleman who held a commission in the
Indian army, returned from India on leave of absence, and
afterwards, because of his bad health, resigned his
commission, and went to Heidelberg to study anatomy. In 1836,
Professor Mönke, of Heidelberg, exhibited an
electro-telegraphic experiment, 'in which electric currents,
passing along a conducting wire, conveyed signals to a distant
station by the deflexion of a magnetic needle enclosed in
Schweigger's galvanometer or multiplier.' … Cooke was so
struck with this experiment, that he immediately resolved to
apply it to purposes of higher utility than the illustration
of a lecture. … In a short time he produced two telegraphs
of different construction. When his plans were completed, he
came to England, and in February, 1837, having consulted
Faraday and Dr. Roget on the construction of the
electric-magnet employed in a part of his apparatus, the
latter gentleman advised him to apply to Professor Wheatstone.
… The result of the meeting of Cooke and Wheatstone was that
they resolved to unite their several discoveries; and in the
month of May 1837, they took out their first patent 'for
improvements in giving signals and sounding alarms in distant
places by means of electric currents transmitted through
metallic circuits.' … By-and-by, as might probably have been
anticipated, difficulties arose between Cooke and Wheatstone,
as to whom the main credit of introducing the Electric
Telegraph into England was due. Mr. Cooke accused Wheatstone
(with a certain amount of justice, it should seem) of entirely
ignoring his claims; and in doing so Mr. Cooke appears to have
rather exaggerated his own services. Most will readily agree
to the wise words of Mr. Sabine: "It was once a popular
fallacy in England that Messrs. Cooke and Wheatstone were the
original inventors of the Electric Telegraph. The Electric
Telegraph had, properly speaking, no inventor; it grew up as
we have seen little by little."

_H. J. Nicoll,
Great Movements,
pages 424-429._

"In the latter part of the year 1832, Samuel F. B. Morse, an
American artist, while on a voyage from France to the United
States, conceived the idea of an electromagnetic telegraph
which should consist of the following parts, viz: A single
circuit of conductors from some suitable generator of
electricity; a system of signs, consisting of dots or points
and spaces to represent numerals; a method of causing the
electricity to mark or imprint these signs upon a strip or
ribbon of paper by the mechanical action of an electro-magnet
operating upon the paper by means of a lever, armed at one end
with a pen or pencil; and a method of moving the paper ribbon
at a uniform rate by means of clock-work to receive the
characters. … In the autumn of the year 1835 he constructed
the first rude working model of his invention. … The first
public exhibition … was on the 2d of September, 1837, on
which occasion the marking was successfully effected through
one third of a mile of wire. Immediately afterwards a
recording instrument was constructed … which was
subsequently employed upon the first experimental line between
Washington and Baltimore. This line was constructed in 1843-44
under an appropriation by Congress, and was completed by May
of the latter year. On the 27th of that month the first
despatch was transmitted from Washington to Baltimore. … The
experimental line was originally constructed with two wires,
as Morse was not at that time acquainted with the discovery of
Steinheil, that the earth might be used to complete the circuit.
{774}
Accident, however, soon demonstrated this fact. … The
following year (1845) telegraph lines began to be built over
other routes. … In October, 1851, a convention of deputies
from the German States of Austria, Prussia, Bavaria,
Würtemberg and Saxony, met at Vienna, for the purpose of
establishing a common and uniform telegraphic system, under
the name of the German-Austrian Telegraph Union. The various
systems of telegraphy then in use were subjected to the most
thorough examination and discussion. The convention decided
with great unanimity that the Morse system was practically far
superior to all others, and it was accordingly adopted. Prof.
Steinheil, although himself … the inventor of a telegraphic
system, with a magnanimity that does him high honor, strongly
urged upon the convention the adoption of the American
system." … The first of the printing telegraphs was patented
in the United States by Royal E. House, in 1846. The Hughes
printing telegraph, a remarkable piece of mechanism, was
patented by David E. Hughes, of Kentucky, in 1855. A system
known as the automatic method, in which the signals
representing letters are transmitted over the line through the
instrumentality of mechanism, was originated by Alexander Bain
of Edinburgh, whose first patents were taken out in 1846. An
autographic telegraph, transmitting despatches in the
reproduced hand-writing of the sender, was brought out in
1850, by F. C. Bakewell, of London. The same result was
afterwards accomplished with variations of method by Charles
Cros, of Paris, Abbé Caseli, of Florence, and others; but none
of these inventions has been extensively used. "The
possibility of making use of a single wire for the
simultaneous transmission of two or more communications seems
to have first suggested itself to Moses G. Farmer, of Boston,
about the year 1852." The problem was first solved with
partial success by Dr. Gintl, on the line between Prague and
Vienna, in 1853, but more perfectly by Carl Frischen, of
Hanover, in the following year. Other inventors followed in
the same field, among them Thomas A. Edison, of New Jersey,
who was led by his experiments finally, in 1874 to devise a
system "which was destined to furnish the basis of the first
practical solution of the curious and interesting problem of
quadruplex telegraphy."

_G. B. Prescott,
Electricity and the Electric Telegraph,
chapter 29-40._

ELECTRICITY: A. D. 1831-1872.
Dynamo
Electrical Machines, and Electric Motors.

"The discovery of induction by Faraday, in 1831, gave rise to
the construction of magneto-electro machines. The first of
such machines that was ever made was probably a machine that
never came into practical use, the description of which was
given in a letter, signed 'P. M.,' and directed to Faraday,
published in the Philosophical Magazine of 2nd August, 1832.
We learn from this description that the essential parts of
this machine were six horse-shoe magnets attached to a disc,
which rotated in front of six coils of wire wound on bobbins."
Sept. 3rd, 1832, Pixii constructed a machine in which a single
horse-shoe magnet was made to rotate before two soft iron
cores, wound with wire. In this machine he introduced the
commutator, an essential element in all modern continuous
current machines. "Almost at the same time, Ritchie, Saxton,
and Clarke constructed similar machines. Clarke's is the best
known, and is still popular in the small and portable
'medical' machines so commonly sold. … A larger machine
[was] constructed by Stöhrer (1843), on the same plan as
Clarke's, but with six coils instead of two, and three
compound magnets instead of one. … The machines, constructed
by Nollet (1849) and Shepard (1856) had still more magnets and
coils. Shepard's machine was modified by Van Malderen, and was
called the Alliance machine. … Dr. Werner Siemens, while
considering how the inducing effect of the magnet can be most
thoroughly utilised, and how to arrange the coils in the most
efficient manner for this purpose, was led in 1857 to devise
the cylindrical armature. … Sinsteden in 1851 pointed out
that the current of the generator may itself be utilised to
excite the magnetism of the field magnets. … Wilde [in 1863]
carried out this suggestion by using a small steel permanent
magnet and larger electro magnets. … The next great
improvement of these machines arose from the discovery of what
may be called the dynamo-electric principle. This principle
may be stated as follows:—For the generation of currents by
magneto-electric induction it is not necessary that the
machine should be furnished with permanent magnets; the
residual or temporary magnetism of soft iron quickly rotating
is sufficient for the purpose. … In 1867 the principle was
clearly enunciated and used simultaneously, but independently,
by Siemens and by Wheatstone. … It was in February, 1867,
that Dr. C. W. Siemens' classical paper on the conversion of
dynamical into electrical energy without the aid of permanent
magnetism was read before the Royal Society. Strangely enough,
the discovery of the same principle was enunciated at the same
meeting of the Society by Sir Charles Wheatstone. … The
starting-point of a great improvement in dynamo-electric
machines, was the discovery by Pacinotti of the ring armature
… in 1860. … Gramme, in 1871, modified the ring armature,
and constructed the first machine, in which he made use of the
Gramme ring and the dynamic principle. In 1872,
Hefner-Alteneck, of the firm of Siemens and Halske,
constructed a machine in which the Gramme ring is replaced by
a drum armature, that is to say, by a cylinder round which
wire is wound. … Either the Pacinotti-Gramme ring armature,
or the Hefner-Alteneck drum armature, is now adopted by nearly
all constructors of dynamo-electric machines, the parts
varying of course in minor details." The history of the dynamo
since has been one of a gradual perfection of parts, resulting
in the production of a great number of types, which can not
here even be mentioned.

_A. R. von Urbanitzky,
Electricity in the Service of Man,
pages 227-242._

_S. P. Thompson,
Dynamo Electrical Machines._

ELECTRICITY:
Electric Motors.

It has been known for forty years that every form of electric
motor which operated on the principle of mutual mechanical
force between a magnet and a conducting wire or coil could
also be made to act as a generator of induced currents by the
reverse operation of producing the motion mechanically. And
when, starting from the researches of Siemens, Wilde, Nollet,
Holmes and Gramme, the modern forms of magneto-electric and
dynamo-electric machines began to come into commercial use, it
was discovered that any one of the modern machines designed as
a generator of currents constituted a far more efficient
electric motor than any of the previous forms which had been
designed specially as motors.
{775}
It required no new discovery of the law of reversibility to
enable the electrician to understand this; but to convince the
world required actual experiment."

_A. Guillemin,
Electricity and Magnetism,
part 2, chapter 10, section 3._

ELECTRICITY: A. D. 1835-1889.
The Electric Railway.

"Thomas Davenport, a poor blacksmith of Brandon, Vt.,
constructed what might be termed the first electric railway.
The invention was crude and of little practical value, but the
idea was there. In 1835 he exhibited in Springfield,
Massachusetts, a small model electric engine running upon a
circular track, the circuit being furnished by primary
batteries carried in the car. Three years later, Robert
Davidson, of Aberdeen, Scotland, began his experiments in this
direction. … He constructed quite a powerful motor, which
was mounted upon a truck. Forty battery cells, carried on the
car, furnished power to propel the motor. The battery elements
were composed of amalgamated zinc and iron plates, the
exciting liquid being dilute sulphuric acid. This locomotive
was run successfully on several steam railroads in Scotland,
the speed attained was four miles an hour, but this machine
was afterwards destroyed by some malicious person or persons
while it was being taken home to Aberdeen. In 1849 Moses
Farmer exhibited an electric engine which drew a small car
containing two persons. In 1851, Dr. Charles Grafton Page, of
Salem, Massachusetts, perfected an electric engine of
considerable power. On April 29 of that year the engine was
attached to a car and a trip was made from Washington to
Bladensburg, over the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad track. The
highest speed attained was nineteen miles an hour. The
electric power was furnished by one hundred Grove cells
carried on the engine. … The same year, Thomas Hall, of
Boston, Mass., built a small electric locomotive called the
Volta. The current was furnished by two Grove battery cells
which were conducted to the rails, thence through the wheels
of the locomotive to the motor. This was the first instance of
the current being supplied to the motor on a locomotive from a
stationary source. It was exhibited at the Charitable
Mechanics fair by him in 1860. … In 1879, Messrs. Siemen and
Halske, of Berlin, constructed and operated an electric
railway at the Industrial Exposition. A third rail placed in
the centre of the two outer rails, supplied the current, which
was taken up into the motor through a sliding contact under
the locomotive. … In 1880 Thomas A. Edison constructed an
experimental road near his laboratory in Menlo Park, N. J. The
power from the locomotive was transferred to the car by belts
running to and from the shafts of each. The current was taken
from and returned through the rails. Early in the year of 1881
the Lichterfelde, Germany, electric railway was put into
operation. It is a third rail system and is still running at
the present time. This may be said to be the first commercial
electric railway constructed. In 1883 the Daft Electric
Company equipped and operated quite successfully an electric
system on the Saratoga & Mt. McGregor Railroad, at Saratoga,
N. Y." During the next five or six years numerous electric
railroads, more or less experimental, were built." October 31,
1888, the Council Bluffs & Omaha Railway and Bridge Company
was first operated by electricity, they using the
Thomson-Houston system. The same year the Thomson-Houston Co.
equipped the Highland Division of the Lynn & Boston Horse
Railway at Lynn, Massachusetts. Horse railways now began to be
equipped with electricity all over the world, and especially
in the United States. In February, 1889, the Thomson-Houston
Electric Co. had equipped the line from Bowdoin Square,
Boston, to Harvard Square, Cambridge, of the West End Railway
with electricity and operated twenty cars, since which time it
has increased its electrical apparatus, until now it is the
largest electric railway line in the world."

_E. Trevert,
Electric Railway Engineering,
appendix A._

ELECTRICITY: A. D. 1841-1880.
The Incandescent Electric Light.

"While the arc lamp is well adapted for lighting large areas
requiring a powerful, diffused light, similar to sunlight, and
hence is suitable for outdoor illumination, and for workshops,
stores, public buildings, and factories, especially those
where colored fabrics are produced, its use in ordinary
dwellings, or for a desk light in offices, is impractical, a
softer, steadier, and more economical light being required.
Various attempts to modify the arc-light by combining it with
the incandescent were made in the earlier stages of electric
lighting. … The first strictly incandescent lamp was
invented in 1841 by Frederick de Molyens of Cheltenham,
England, and was constructed on the simple principle of the
incandescence produced by the high resistance of a platinum
wire to the passage of the electric current. In 1849 Petrie
employed iridium for the same purpose, also alloys of iridium
and platinum, and iridium and carbon. In 1845 J. W. Starr of
Cincinnati first proposed the use of carbon, and, associated
with King, his English agent, produced, through the financial
aid of the philanthropist Peabody, an incandescent lamp. …
In all these early experiments, the battery was the source of
electric supply; and the comparatively small current required
for the incandescent light as compared with that required for
the arc light, was an argument in favor of the former. …
Still, no substantial progress was made with either system
till the invention of the dynamo resulted in the practical
development of both systems, that of the incandescent
following that of the arc. Among the first to make
incandescent lighting a practical success were Sawyer and Man
of New York, and Edison. For a long time, Edison experimented
with platinum, using fine platinum wire coiled into a spiral,
so as to concentrate the heat, and produce incandescence; the
same current producing only a red heat when the wire, whether
of platinum or other metal, is stretched out. … Failing to
obtain satisfactory results from platinum, Edison turned his
attention to carbon, the superiority of which as an
incandescent illuminant had already been demonstrated; but its
rapid consumption, as shown by the Reynier and similar lamps,
being unfavorable to its use as compared with the durability
of platinum and iridium, the problem was, to secure the
superior illumination of the carbon, and reduce or prevent its
consumption. As this consumption was due chiefly to oxidation,
it was questionable whether the superior illumination were not
due to the same cause, and whether, if the carbon were inclosed
in a glass globe, from which oxygen was eliminated, the same
illumination could be obtained.
{776}
Another difficulty of equal magnitude was to obtain a
sufficiently perfect vacuum, and maintain it in a hermetically
sealed globe inclosing the carbon, and at the same time
maintain electric connection with the generator through the
glass by a metal conductor, subject to expansion and
contraction different from that of the glass, by the change of
temperature due to the passage of the electric current. Sawyer
and Man attempted to solve this problem by filling the globe
with nitrogen, thus preventing combustion by eliminating the
oxygen. … The results obtained by this method, which at one
time attracted a great deal of attention, were not
sufficiently satisfactory to become practical; and Edison and
others gave their preference to the vacuum method, and sought
to overcome the difficulties connected with it. The invention
of the mercurial air pump, with its subsequent improvements,
made it possible to obtain a sufficiently perfect vacuum, and
the difficulty of introducing the current into the interior of
the globe was overcome by imbedding a fine platinum wire in
the glass, connecting the inclosed carbon with the external
circuit; the expansion and contraction of the platinum not
differing sufficiently from that of the glass, in so fine a
wire, as to impair the vacuum. … The carbons made by Edison
under his first patent in 1879, were obtained from brown paper
or cardboard. … They were very fragile and short-lived, and
consequently were soon abandoned. In 1880 he patented the
process which, with some modifications, he still adheres to.
In this process he uses filaments of bamboo, which are taken
from the interior, fibrous portion of the plant."

_P. Atkinson,
Elements of Electric Lighting,
chapter 8._

ELECTRICITY: A. D. 1854-1866.
The Atlantic Cable.

"Cyrus Field … established a company in America (in 1854),
which … obtained the right of landing cables in Newfoundland
for fifty years. Soundings were made in 1856 between Ireland
and Newfoundland, showing a maximum depth of 4,400 metres.
Having succeeded after several attempts in laying a cable
between Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, Field founded the
Atlantic Telegraph Company in England. … The length of the
… cable [used] was 4,000 kilometres, and was carried by the
two ships Agamemnon and Niagara. The distance between the two
stations on the coasts was 2,640 kilometres. The laying of the
cable commenced on the 7th of August, 1857, at Valentia
(Ireland); on the third day the cable broke at a depth of
3,660 metres, and the expedition had to return. A second
expedition was sent in 1858; the two ships met each other
half-way, the ends of the cable were joined, and the lowering
of it commenced in both directions; 149 kilometres were thus
lowered, when a fault in the cable was discovered. It had,
therefore, to be brought on board again, and was broken during
the process. After it had been repaired, and when 476
kilometres had been already laid, another fault was
discovered, which caused another breakage; this time it was
impossible to repair it, and the expedition was again
unsuccessful, and had to return. In spite of the repeated
failures, two ships were again sent out in the same year, and
this time one end of the cable was landed in Ireland, and the
other at Newfoundland. The length of the sunk cable was 3,745
kilometres. Field's first telegram was sent on the 7th of
August, from America to Ireland. The insulation of the cable,
however, became more defective every day, and failed
altogether on the 1st of September. From the experience
obtained, it was concluded that it was possible to lay a
trans-Atlantic cable, and the company, after consulting a
number of professional men, again set to work. … The Great
Eastern was employed in laying this cable. This ship, which is
211 metres long, 25 metres broad, and 16 metres in height,
carried a crew of 500 men, of which 120 were electricians and
engineers, 179 mechanics and stokers, and 115 sailors. The
management of all affairs relating to the laying of the cable
was entrusted to Canning. The coast cable was laid on the 21st
of July, and the end of it was connected with the Atlantic
cable on the 23rd. After 1,326 kilometres had been laid, a
fault was discovered, an iron wire was found stuck right
across the cable, and Canning considered the mischief to have
been done with a malevolent purpose. On the 2nd of August,
2,196 kilometres of cable were sunk, when another fault was
discovered. While the cable was being repaired it broke, and
attempts to recover it at the time were all unsuccessful; in
consequence of this the Great Eastern had to return without
having completed the task. A new company, the Anglo-American
Telegraph Company, was formed in 1866, and at once entrusted
Messrs. Glass, Elliott and Company with the construction of a
new cable of 3,000 kilometres. Different arrangements were
made for the outer envelope of the cable, and the Great
Eastern was once more equipped to give effect to the
experiments which had just been made. The new expedition was
not only to lay a new cable, but also to take up the end of
the old one, and join it to a new piece, and thus obtain a
second telegraph line. The sinking again commenced in Ireland
on the 13th of July, 1866, and it was finished on the 27th. On
the 4th of August, 1866, the Trans-Atlantic Telegraph Line was
declared open."

_A. R. von Urbanitzky,
Electricity in the Service of Man,
pages 767-768._

ELECTRICITY: A. D. 1876-1892.
The Telephone.

"The first and simplest of all magnetic telephones is the Bell
Telephone." In "the first form of this instrument, constructed
by Professor Graham Bell, in 1876 … a harp of steel rods was
attached to the poles of a permanent magnet. … When we sing
into a piano, certain of the strings of the instrument are set
in vibration sympathetically by the action of the voice with
different degrees of amplitude, and a sound, which is an
approximation to the vowel uttered, is produced from the
piano. Theory shows that, had the piano a much larger number
of strings to the octave, the vowel sounds would be perfectly
reproduced. It was upon this principle that Bell constructed
his first telephone. The expense of constructing such an
apparatus, however, deterred Bell from making the attempt, and
he sought to simplify the apparatus before proceeding further in
this direction. After many experiments with more, or less
unsatisfactory results, he constructed the instrument …
which he exhibited at Philadelphia in 1876. In this apparatus,
the transmitter was formed by an electro-magnet, through which
a current flowed, and a membrane, made of gold-beater's skin,
on which was placed as a sort of armature, a piece of soft
iron, which thus vibrated in front of the electro-magnet when
the membrane was thrown into sonorous vibration.
{777}
… It is quite clear that when we speak into a Bell
transmitter only a small fraction of the energy of the
sonorous vibrations of the voice can be converted into
electric currents, and that these currents must be extremely
weak. Edison applied himself to discover some means by which
he could increase the strength of these currents. Elisha Gray
had proposed to use the variation of resistance of a fine
platinum wire attached to a diaphragm dipping into water, and
hoped that the variation of extent of surface in contact would
so vary the strength of current as to reproduce sonorous
vibrations; but there is no record of this experiment having
been tried. Edison proposed to utilise the fact that the
resistance of carbon varied under pressure. He had
independently discovered this peculiarity of carbon, but it
had been previously described by Du Moncel. … The first
carbon transmitter was constructed in 1878 by Edison."

_W. H. Preece, and J. Maier,
The Telephone,
chapters 3-4._

In a pamphlet distributed at the Columbian Exposition,
Chicago, 1893, entitled "Exhibit of the American Bell
Telephone Co.," the following statements are made: "At the
Centennial Exposition, in Philadelphia, in 1876, was given the
first general public exhibition of the telephone by its
inventor, Alexander Graham Bell. To-day, seventeen years
later, more than half a million instruments are in daily use
in the United States alone, six hundred million talks by
telephone are held every year, and the human voice is carried
over a distance of twelve hundred miles without loss of sound
or syllable. The first use of the telephone for business
purposes was over a single wire connecting only two
telephones. At once the need of general inter-communication
made itself felt. In the cities and larger towns exchanges
were established and all the subscribers to any one exchange
were enabled to talk to one another through a central office.
Means were then devised to connect two or more exchanges by
trunk lines, thus affording means of communication between all
the subscribers of all the exchanges so connected. This work
has been pushed forward until now have been gathered into what
may be termed one great exchange all the important cities from
Augusta on the east to Milwaukee on the west, and from
Burlington and Buffalo on the north to Washington on the
south, bringing more than one half the people of this country
and a much larger proportion of the business interests, within
talking distance of one another. … The lines which connect
Chicago with Boston, via New York, are of copper wire of extra
size. It is about one sixth of an inch in diameter, and weighs
435 pounds to the mile. Hence each circuit contains 1,044,000
pounds of copper. … In the United States there are over a
quarter of a million exchange subscribers, and … these make
use of the telephone to carry on 600,000,000 conversations
annually. There is hardly a city or town of 5,000 inhabitants
that has not its Telephone Exchange, and these are so knit
together by connecting lines that intercommunication is
constant." The number of telephones in use in the United
States, on the 20th of December in each year since the first
introduction, is given as follows;
1877, 5,187;
1878, 17,567;
1879, 52,517;
1880, 123,380;
1881, 180,592;
1882, 237,728;
1883, 298,580;
1884, 325,574;
1885, 330,040;
1886, 353,518;
1887, 380,277;
1888, 411,511;
1889, 444,861;
1890, 483,790;
1891, 512,407;
1892, 552,720.

----------End: Electricity----------

ELEPHANT, Order of the.

A Danish order of knighthood instituted in 1693 by
King Christian V.

ELEPHANTINE.

See EGYPT: THE OLD EMPIRE AND THE MIDDLE EMPIRE.

ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES, The.

Among the ancient Greeks, "the mysteries were a source of
faith and hope to the initiated, as are the churches of modern
times. Secret doctrines, regarded as holy, and to be kept with
inviolable fidelity, were handed down in these brotherhoods,
and no doubt were fondly believed to contain a saving grace by
those who were admitted, amidst solemn and imposing rites,
under the veil of midnight, to hear the tenets of the ancient
faith, and the promises of blessings to come to those who,
with sincerity of heart and pious trust, took the obligations
upon them. The Eleusinian mysteries were the most imposing and
venerable. Their origin extended back into a mythical
antiquity, and they were among the few forms of Greek worship
which were under the superintendence of hereditary
priesthoods. Thirlwall thinks that 'they were the remains of a
worship which preceded the rise of the Hellenic mythology and
its attendant rites, grounded on a view of Nature less
fanciful, more earnest, and better fitted to awaken both
philosophical thought and religious feeling.' This conclusion
is still further confirmed by the moral and religious tone of
the poets,—such as Æschylus,—whose ideas on justice, sin and
retribution are as solemn and elevated as those of a Hebrew
prophet. The secrets, whatever they were, were never revealed
in express terms; but Isocrates uses some remarkable
expressions, when speaking of their importance to the
condition of man. 'Those who are initiated,' says he
'entertain sweeter hopes of eternal life'; and how could this
be the case, unless there were imparted at Eleusis the
doctrine of eternal life, and some idea of its state and
circumstances more compatible with an elevated conception of
the Deity and of the human soul than the vague and shadowy
images which haunted the popular mind. The Eleusinian
communion embraced the most eminent men from every part of
Greece,—statesmen, poets, philosophers, and generals; and
when Greece became a part of the Roman Empire, the greatest
minds of Rome drew instruction and consolation from its
doctrines. The ceremonies of initiation—which took place
every year in the early autumn, a beautiful season in
Attica—were a splendid ritual, attracting visitors from every
part of the world. The processions moving from Athens to
Eleusis over the Sacred Way, sometimes numbered twenty or
thirty thousand people, and the exciting scenes were well
calculated to leave a durable impression on susceptible minds.
… The formula of the dismissal, after the initiation was
over, consisted in the mysterious words 'konx,' 'ompax'; and
this is the only Eleusinian secret that has illuminated the
world from the recesses of the temple of Demeter and
Persephone. But it is a striking illustration of the value
attached to these rites and doctrines, that, in moments of
extremest peril—as of impending shipwreck, or massacre by a
victorious enemy,—men asked one another, 'Are you initiated?'
as if this were the anchor of their hopes for another life."

{778}

_C. C. Felton,
Greece, Ancient and Modern,
chapter 2, lecture 10._

"The Eleusinian mysteries continued to be celebrated during
the whole of the second half of the fourth century, till they
were put an end to by the destruction of the temple at
Eleusis, and by the devastation of Greece in the invasion of
the Goths under Alaric in 395."

See GOTHS: A. D. 395.

_W. Smith,
Note to Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 25._

ALSO IN:
_R. Brown,
The Great Dionysiak Myth,
chapter 6, section. 2._

_J. J. I. von Dollinger,
The Gentile and the Jew,
book 3 (volume 1)._

See, also, ELEUSIS.

ELEUSIS.

Eleusis was originally one of the twelve confederate townships
into which Attica was said to have been divided before the
time of Theseus. It "was advantageously situated [about
fourteen miles Northwest of Athens] on a height, at a small
distance from the shore of an extensive bay, to which there is
access only through narrow channels, at the two extremities of
the island of Salamis: its position was important, as
commanding the shortest and most level route by land from
Athens to the Isthmus by the pass which leads at the foot of
Mount Cerata along the shore to Megara. … Eleusis was built
at the eastern end of a low rocky hill, which lies parallel to
the sea-shore. … The eastern extremity of the hill was
levelled artificially for the reception of the Hierum of Ceres
and the other sacred buildings. Above these are the traces of an
Acropolis. A triangular space of about 500 yards each side,
lying between the hill and the shore, was occupied by the town
of Eleusis. … To those who approached Eleusis from Athens,
the sacred buildings standing on the eastern extremity of the
height concealed the greater part of the town, and on a nearer
approach presented a succession of magnificent objects, well
calculated to heighten the solemn grandeur of the ceremonies
and the awe and reverence of the Mystæ in their initiation.
… In the plurality of enclosures, in the magnificence of the
pylæ or gateways, in the absence of any general symmetry of
plan, in the small auxiliary temples, we recognize a great
resemblance between the sacred buildings of Eleusis and the
Egyptian Hiera of Thebes and Philæ. And this resemblance is
the more remarkable, as the Demeter of Attica was the Isis of
Egypt. We cannot suppose, however, that the plan of all these
buildings was even thought of when the worship of Ceres was
established at Eleusis. They were the progressive creation of
successive ages. … Under the Roman Empire … it was
fashionable among the higher order of Romans to pass some time
at Athens in the study of philosophy and to be initiated in
the Eleusinian mysteries. Hence Eleusis became at that time
one of the most frequented places in Greece; and perhaps it
was never so populous as under the emperors of the first two
centuries of our æra. During the two following centuries, its
mysteries were the chief support of declining polytheism, and
almost the only remaining bond of national union among the
Greeks; but at length the destructive visit of the Goths in
the year 396, the extinction of paganism and the ruin of
maritime commerce, left Eleusis deprived of every source of
prosperity, except those which are inseparable from its
fertile plain, its noble bay, and its position on the road
from Attica to the Isthmus. … The village still preserves
the ancient name, no further altered than is customary in
Romaic conversions."

_W. M. Leake,
Topography of Athens;
volume 2: The Demi, section 5._

ELGIN, Lord.
The Indian administration of.

See INDIA: A. D. 1862-1876.

ELIS.

Elis was an ancient Greek state, occupying the country on the
western coast of Peloponnesus, adjoining Arcadia, and between
Messenia at the south and Achaia on the north. It was noted
for the fertility of its soil and the rich yield of its
fisheries. But Elis owed greater importance to the inclusion
within its territory of the sacred ground of Olympia, where
the celebration of the most famous festival of Zeus came to be
established at an early time. The Elians had acquired Olympia
by conquest of the city and territory of Pisa, to which it
originally belonged, and the presidency of the Olympic games
was always disputed with them by the latter. Elis was the
close ally of Sparta down to the year B. C. 421, when a bitter
quarrel arose between them, and Elis suffered heavily in the
wars which ensued. It was afterwards at war with the
Arcadians, and joined the Ætolian League against the Achaian
League. The city of Elis was one of the most splendid in
Greece; but little now remains, even of ruins, to indicate its
departed glories.

See, also, OLYMPIC GAMES.

ELISII, The.

See LYGIANS.

ELIZABETH,
Czarina of Russia, A. D. 1741-1761.

Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia, and the Thirty Years War.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1618-1620; 1620; 1621-1623;
1631-1632, and 1648.

Elizabeth, Queen of England, A. D. 1558-1603.

Elizabeth Farnese, Queen of Spain.

See ITALY: A. D. 1715-1735; and
SPAIN: A. D. 1713-1725, and 1726-1731.

ELIZABETH, N. J.
The first settlement of.

See NEW JERSEY: A. D. 1664-1667.

ELK HORN, OR PEA RIDGE, Battle of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1862 (JANUARY-MARCH: MISSOURI-ARKANSAS).

ELKWATER, OR CHEAT SUMMIT, Battle of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1861 (AUGUST-DECEMBER: WEST VIRGINIA).

ELLANDUM, Battle of.

Decisive victory of Ecgberht, the West Saxon king, over the
Mercians, A. D. 823.

ELLEBRI, The.

See IRELAND, TRIBES OF EARLY CELTIC INHABITANTS.

ELLENBOROUGH, Lord, The Indian administration of.

See INDIA: A. D. 1836-1845.

ELLSWORTH, Colonel, The death of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1861 (MAY: VIRGINIA).

ELMET.

A small kingdom of the Britons which was swallowed up in the
English kingdom of Northumbria early in the seventh century.
It answered, roughly speaking, to the present West-Riding of
Yorkshire. … Leeds "preserves the name of Loidis, by which
Elmet seems also to have been known."

J. R. Green, The Making of England, page 254.

ELMIRA, N. Y. (then Newtown).
General Sullivan's Battle with the Senecas.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1779 (AUGUST-SEPTEMBER).

ELSASS.

See ALSACE.

ELTEKEH, Battle of.

A victory won by the Assyrian, Sennacherib, over the
Egyptians, before the disaster befell his army which is
related in 2 Kings xix. 35. Sennacherib's own account of the
battle has been found among the Assyrian records.

{779}

_A. H. Sayce,
Fresh Light from the Ancient Monuments,
chapter 6._

ELUSATES, The.

See AQUITAINE, TRIBES OF ANCIENT.

ELVIRA, Battle of(1319).

See SPAIN: A. D. 1273-1460.

ELY, The Camp of Refuge at.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1069-1071.

ELYMAIS.

See ELAM.

ELYMEIA.

See MACEDONIA.

ELYMIANS, The.

See SICILY: EARLY INHABITANTS.

ELYSIAN FIELDS.

See CANARY ISLANDS.

ELZEVIRS.

See PRINTING: A. D. 1617-1680.

EMANCIPATION, Catholic.

See IRELAND: A. D. 1811-1829.

EMANCIPATION, Compensated;
Proposal of President Lincoln.