220 THE SCIENTIFIC PAPERS OF 



THE DYNAMO-ELECTRIC CURRENT IN ITS APPLI- 

 CATION TO METALLURGY, TO HORTICULTURE, 

 AND TO LOCOMOTION, 



BY C. WILLIAM SIEMENS,* D.C.L., LL.D., F.R.S. 



IN the inaugural address \ which I had the honour to deliver to 

 the Society of Telegraph Engineers on the 23rd January, 1878, I 

 called special attention to the applicability of the dynamo-electric 

 current for purposes beyond the range of what electricity had 

 theretofore been employed in effecting. Among these purposes I 

 specially referred to the transmission of power, and to the accom- 

 plishment of large chemical results, such as the decomposition of 

 metallic salts, &c. 



My object to-day is to corroborate my statement by describing 

 some further experimental results obtained by means of the dynamo- 

 electric current, which I hope will prove to be of interest. 



So long as the electric current was produced by the decompo- 

 sition of zinc in a galvanic battery, it was too expensive a form of 

 energy to do our behests in the way of massive effects, it was 

 resorted to principally when energy, in the form of heat or 

 mechanical power, failed to accomplish our ends ; and the rapid 

 rate at which electrical energy passes through a metallic conductor 

 rendered it the only available means of producing instantaneous 

 effects at great distances. The dynamo-electric current, on the 

 other hand, provides us with the means of transforming mechanical 

 energy into electric energy without much loss, and it enables us 

 further to accumulate electrical impulses in such a manner as to 

 produce mechanical effects measurable not by grains or ounces, 

 but by pounds and tons of weight lifted through a considerable 

 height. 



It is not my present intention to enter into particulars regard- 

 ing the dynamo-electric machine, but to describe three somewhat 

 novel applications of it, viz., as a means of effecting the fusion of 



* Excerpt Journal of the Society of Telegraph Engineers, Vol. IX. 1880, 

 pp. 278-303. 



t Published in Vol. III. of the Scientific Papers of Sir Wiu. Siemens, F.R.S. 



