HISTORY OF ELECTRICITY IN AMERICA 127 



rapid magnetization and demagnetization of a piece of soft 

 iron. 



Mr. Franklin Leonard Pope has recently made some 

 important researches which render it probable that the 

 electric motor was first brou2;ht to perfection by Thomas 

 Davenport and Orange A. Smalley of Brandon, Vt. It has 

 long been know^n that Davenport constructed the first model 

 electric railway, as far back as 1835, but if Mr. Pope's con- 

 clusions are correct, we must add still another important 

 apparatus to the already long list of electrical inventions 

 having their origin in America. ^Ir. Pope also credits Daven- 

 port with priorit}^ over Vail in the invention of the axial 

 magnet. 



By an awkward use of terms, the designation magneto- 

 electric machine has been made to apply to an electric gen- 

 erator in Avhich the primary exciting agent is a permanent 

 magnet, while the name dynamo-electric machine is given 

 to a generator wherein an electromagnet, self excited, fur- 

 nishes the initial magnetic force. The fault is with the dis- 

 tinction; the difference is there, and is highly unportant. 

 But it was not known to exist until Moses G. Farmer, another 

 Salem inventor, discovered the self exciting power of the 

 magnet, in the year 1866. It was afterwards discovered 

 independently by Varley and Wheatstone in England, and 

 Werner Siemens in Germany, the last named of whom first 

 suggested the term dynamo in distinction from the older 

 magneto. As nearly all of the powerful modern electric 

 machinery, which has revolutionized the electrical industries 

 within the past few years, belongs to the class dj^namo, 

 it will be seen that Farmer assisted very materially at the 

 birth of a new and important art. The electric light, and the 

 electrical transmission of power, were made commercially 

 possible by the invention of the dynamo-electric machine. 

 Farmer's own labors in electric locomotion, made in 1847, 

 when he succeeded in carr3dng four passengers on a track 

 one and a half feet wide, were practically nullified, because 

 Farmer's discovery of twenty years later had not pointed 

 the way to the perfected dynamo. 



