August i8, 1892] 



NA TURE 



;69 



THE VARLEY TESTIMONIAL, 



AN important Committee, containing among others* 

 Lord Kelvin, Prof. Ayrton, Prof. G. Forbes, Dr- 

 Gladstone, Prof. D. E. Hughes, Dr. J. Hopkinson, Prof- 

 Kennedy, Prof. O. Lodge, Prof. J. Perry, Messrs. VV. H- 

 Preece, A. Siemens, A. Stroh, J. \V. Swan, and Prof. S. 

 Thompson, has been formed, to give effect to the feeling 

 amongst some of the older members of the electrical 

 profession that the life-long labours in ele'ctrical research 

 of Mr. S. A. Varley should be recognised by some sub- 

 stantial testimonial befitting his reputation as a scientific 

 investigator. 



A brief sketch of Mr. Varley's career will serve to show 

 what signal services he has rendered to the cause of 

 electrical science and the honour his discoveries have 

 conferred upon this country. 



Mr. Samuel Alfred Varley was born in London in 1832, 

 and was the third son of the late Mr. Cornelius Varley, 

 an active man of science and an artist. In 1858, when the 

 Atlantic cable was being constructed, he wrote a paper, 

 read before the Institute of Civil Engineers, " On the 

 Electrical Qualifications requisite in Long Submarine 

 Cables," and was shortly afterwards elected an Associate 

 Member of that Institution. 



In the paper referred to above, Mr. Varley opposed the 

 views of the electrical advisers of the company. Fara- 

 day, who had publicly supported their opinions, endorsed 

 Mr. Varley's ideas immediately after receiving a copy of 

 his paper. Mr. Varley followed this up by reading a 

 second one before the Society of Arts in 1859, " On the 

 Practical Bearing of the Theory of Electricity to Long Sub- 

 marine Telegraphy." In this paper he suggested, among 

 other things, the use of artificial lines, which have since 

 proved of such value in connection with duplex working. 

 In 1866 Mr. Varley discovered for himself the re-action 

 or self-exciting principle, and at that early date constructed 

 his first machine of the pure dynamo type, which is now 

 in the Museum at South Kensington. His dynamo of 

 1866 was exhibited at the Inventions Exhibition of 1885, 

 and for this he was awarded a gold medal. 



The controversy which subsequently arose on this in- 

 vention may be held to have been fitly summed up by 

 the late Robert Sabine, C.E. (son-in-law of Sir Charles 

 Wheatstone), in the following words .—"Professor Wheat- 

 stone says he was the first to complete and try the re- 

 action machine. Mr. S. A. Varley was the first to put the 

 machine officially on record in a provisional specification, 

 dated December 24, 1866, which was, therefore, not pub- 

 lished until July, 1867. Dr. Werner Siemens was the 

 first to call public attention to the machine in a paper 

 read before the Berlin Academy on the 17th January, 

 1867." {?>Qt. Engineering, November, 1877.) 



In 1 866 he introduced needle-telegraph coils, in which 

 soft-iron magnetically-induced needles were substituted 

 for tempered steel needles. These induced and conse- 

 quently undemagnetisable needles entirely superseded 

 the old form introduced by Wheatstone and Cooke, and 

 were largely adopted by the Postal Department. In the 

 same year (1866) he designed a system of electric train 

 inter-communication. 



In the year 1875 Mr. Varley became assistant- 

 manager of the works of the late British Telegraph 

 Manufactory, Limited, and as the first Gramme machines 

 constructed in England were manufactured by this firm, 

 he had ample opportunities of studying the characteristics 

 of both series wound machines and those having a se- 

 perate armature for excitation of the field magnets. There 

 is scarcely a doubt that Mr. Varley's investigations at this 

 period led to the invention of compound winding, for in 

 1876 he patented a series-shunt or compound-wound 

 dynamo, and, in three legal suits, the claim that this 

 specification first described a system of compound wind- 

 ing has been fully sustained. Mr. Varley has from time 



NO, I 1 90. VOL. 46] 



to time contributed papers read at the meetings of the 

 British Association, among which may be mentioned one 

 " On the Mode of Action of Lightning on Telegraph 

 Circuits," wherein he described a lightning bridge de- 

 signed by himself, a number of which are now doing duty, 

 although fitted up more than twenty years ago. 



But Mr. Varley's magnum opus is the important part 

 which he took in the invention and perfecting of the 

 dynamo, perhaps the most striking invention of the cen- 

 tury, and upon this his fame as a patient, conscientious, 

 and earnest scientific investigator of the Faraday school 

 will permanently rest. His researches were undertaken 

 in the true spirit of science, and no thought of self-emo- 

 lument has ever caused him to deviate from the path which 

 he has pursued throughout an eventful, although emi- 

 nently simple and blameless life, a life in which self- 

 denial and self-sacrifice have had no small share. Like 

 many men of genius he was far ahead of the times, and 

 has lived to see others reap the benefit of his great dis- 

 coveries. His nervous and retiring disposition has for 

 years kept him fro m the busy haunts of men, and to the 

 younger generation of electricians he exists only in name, 

 a name, however, that will live as long as the dynamo is 

 employed in the service of man. 



Subscriptions will be gladly received by the hon. 

 treasurer, Mr. Stroh, 8 Haverstock Hill. 



NOTES. 



The Electrician for August 5 contains an article on Lord 

 Rayleigh, which is accompanied by a steel portrait. 



At a recent meeting of the Berlin Geographical Society, the 

 chairman, Baron voa Richthofen, announced that the society 

 was about to publish, in commemoration of the 400th anniver- 

 sary of the discovery of America, a work descriptive of the 

 ancient manuscripts and maps in the Italian libraries relating to 

 the history of this event. The German Emperor has promised 

 a contribution of 15,000 marks towards the expense of the under- 

 taking, and it is to be edited by Dr. Kretschmer. The accom- 

 panying atlas will contain thirty-five large maps, of which 

 thirty-one are new, and will be published for the first time. 



At the lunch in the Library Hall, St. Andrews, on the iith, to 

 the party from the British Association, Prof. Mcintosh announced 

 that Mr. Charles Henry Gatty, of East Grinstead, had pre- 

 sented ;i^i,ooo for the purpose of establishing a Marine 

 Laboratory at St. Andrews, which sum he further increased to 

 ;i^2,ooo before the close of the day. The name of Mr. Gatty is 

 sufficiently familiar to marine zoologists, were it only in connec- 

 tion with the accomplished lady (Mrs. Alfred Gatty), the favou- 

 rite correspondent of Dr. George Johnston, of Berwick-on- 

 Tweed. Mr. Gatty's munificent donation will enable St. 

 Andrews to have a substantial and comfortable laboratory in- 

 stead of the wooden building (formerly a fever hospital), which 

 has hitherto been used for marine work since the period of the 

 Trawling Commission under Lord Dalhousie. St. Andrews 

 Marine Laboratory is the oldest permanent station in the coun- 

 try, and, as it has pre-eminent advantages in regard to varied and 

 very rich marine fauna and flora, easy access to a fine Univer- 

 sity Library, and a University Museum — unique in certain 

 departments, a new future is opened to it through Mr, Gatty's 

 handsome gift. At the same meeting it was stated that the 

 Fisheries prize of £zo given annually to the best student of 

 Zoology (hitherto from an anonymous donor) was the gift of 

 Mr. J. W. Woodall, of Scarborough. Both Mr. Gatty and 

 Mr. Woodall were present. 



During the past week the weather has been fine generally over 

 the southern portion of the kingdom, but somewhat unsettled. 

 The anticyclonic conditions which prevailed for a day or two 



