THE CONQUEST OF TIME AND SPACE 



present, the current passes from one power-house to 

 circuits of one polarity, through the trolley pole to the 

 motor or electro-magnetic propelling system, thence 

 through the wheels to the track, which completes the 

 circuit by being connected to the other pole or side of 

 the dynamo at the power-house. The principles are 

 obviously identical, but it took more than a quarter of a 

 century to develop the proper method of application in 

 all its details. 



"The most serious and sustained attempt in the early 

 period to operate a self -sustained vehicle or car — which 

 would correspond with the storage-battery cars — was 

 fhat due to Prof. C. C. Page, of the Smithsonian Institu- 

 tion. About 1850, Professor Page devoted considerable 

 time to the development of electric engines or motors, 

 in which the reciprocating action of a system of magnets 

 and solenoids or armatures was applied by crank-shafts 

 to driving a fly-wheel, to which rotary motion was thus 

 imparted. This reciprocal motion, as in steam-engines, 

 was one of the prevailing features of the early electric- 

 motor work in this country and in Europe; but it was 

 not long before its general inapplicability was realized, 

 and it was abandoned for the simpler and more direct 

 rotation of the armature before or between the poles of 

 electro-magnets. 



"On April 29, 1857, with an electric locomotive on 

 which he had installed a large reciprocating motor 

 developing over 16 horse-power. Professor Page made 

 a trial trip along the track of the Washington and Balti- 

 more Railroad, starting from Washington. In order 

 to obtain current for energization, the motor was 



[180] 



