KNOWLEDGE • 



[June 30, 1882. 



ELECTROMANIA. 



BV W. IIATTIEU WlLLUMS. 



A HISTORY of electricity, in order to bo complete, must include 

 two dUtinct and very different subjects : the history of olec- 

 uioal gciouce, and a lu^tory of electrical exaggerations and delusions. 

 The progress of the first has been followed by a crop of the second 

 from the time when Kleist, Mnschenbroek, and Cunens endeavoured 

 to bottle the supposed fluid, and in the course of these attempts 

 stumbled upon the " Leyden Jar." 



Ur. Licborkuhn, of Berlin, describes the startling results which 

 he obtained, or imagined, " when a nail or a piece of brass wire is 

 put into a small apothecary's phial and electrified." lie says that 

 •■ if, while It is electrifying, 1 put my finger or a piece of gold which 

 I hold in my hand to the nail, I receive a sliock which stuns my 

 arms and shoulders." At abont the same date (the middle of the 

 last century), Muscheubroek stated, iu a letter to Keaumnr, that, 

 on taking a shock from a thin glass bowl, " ho felt himself struck 

 ia his arms, shoulders, and breast, so that he lost his breath, and 

 was two days before ho recovered from the effects of the blow and 

 the terror"; and that he "would not take a second shock for the 

 kingdom of France." From the description of the apparatus, it is 

 evident that this dreadful shock was no stronger than many of us 

 h."\ve taken scores of times for fun, and have given to our school- 

 fellows when we became the proud possessors of our first electrical 

 machine. 



Conjurors, mountebanks, itinerant quacks, and other adventurers 

 operated throughout Europe, and were found at every country fair 

 and Jite displaying the wonders of the invisible agent by giving 

 shocks and professing to cure all imaginable ailments. 



Then came the discoveries of Galvani and Volta, followed by the 

 demonstrations of Galvani's nephew Aldini, whereby dead animals 

 Wt-re nmdu to display the movements of life, not only by the eloc- 

 tr'clty of the voltaic pile, but, as Aldini especially showed, by a 

 transfer of the mysterious agency from one animal to another. 



According to his experiments (that seem to be forgotten by 

 modern electricians) the galvanometer of the period, a prepared 

 frog, could be made to kick by connecting its nerve and muscle with 

 muiclo and nerve of a recently killed ox, with or without molallic 

 intervention. 



Thus arose the dogma which still survives in the advertisements 

 of electrical quacks, that " electricity is life," and the possibility 

 of reviring the dead was believed by manj-. Executed criminals 

 were in active demand ; their bodies were expeditiously transferred 

 from the gallows or scaffold to the operating table, and their dead 

 limbs were made to struggle and plunge, their eyeballs to roll, and 

 th'-'ir features to perpetrate the most horrible contortions by con- 

 noi;ting nerves with one pole, and muscles with the opposite polo 

 of a battery. 



The heart was made to beat, and many men of eminence sup- 

 posed that if this could be combined with artificial respiration, and 

 kejit njp for awhile, the victim of the hangman might bo restored, 

 pr .vidid the neck was not broken. Curious tales were loudly 

 wh tpfred concerning gentle hangings and strange doings at Dr. 

 Brookes's, in Leicester-square, and at the Uunterian Museum, in 

 Windmill-street, now nourishing as " The Cafe do I'fitoilo." When 

 a child, I lived about midway between these celebrated schools of 

 practical anatomy, and well remember the tales of horror that were 

 recounted concerning them. When Bishop and Williams (no rela- 

 tion to the writer) wero hanged for burking, i.e., murdering people 

 in order to provide "subjects" for dissection, their bodies wero 

 sent to Windmill-street, and the popular notion was that, being old 

 and faithful servants of the doctors, they were galvanised to life, 

 and again set up in their old business. 



It is amunlng to read some of the treatises on medical galvanism 

 that were publiihed at about this period, and contrast their positive 

 statements of cures effected and results anticipated with the posi- 

 tion now attained by electricity as a curative agent. 



Tlicn came the brilliant discoveries of Faraday, Ampere, Ac, 

 dommitrating the relations between electricity and magnetism, 

 and immediately following them a multitude of patents for electro- 

 motors, and wild dreams of superseding steam-engines by magneto- 

 electric machinery. 



The following, which I copy from 77ie Penny Mechanic, of June 10, 



1 '•■37, is curious, and very in.structivo to those who think of investing 



!• any of the electric power companies of to-day: — "Mr. Thomas 



Mr.v<-nport, a Vermont blacksmith, has discovered a mode of 



....'.;„,, mngnctic and electro-magnetic power, which wo have 



■ Jtid for believing will be of immense imi>orlancc to the 



This announcement is followed by reference to Professor 



' _ .•/« Ameiiran Journal of Science and the Aria, for April, 



l-.j7, and extracts from American papers, of which the following is 



a 8p»-ciinen :— " 1. We saw a small cylindrical battery, about nine 



inches iu length, throe or four in diameter, produce a magnetic 

 power of about 800 lb., and which, therefore, we could not move 

 with our titmost strength. 2. Wo saw a small whool, five-and- 

 a-half inches in diameter, performing more than 600 revolutions in 

 a minute, and lift a weight of 2-1 lb. one foot jier minute, from the 

 power of a battery of still smaller dimousions. 8. Wo saw a model 

 of a locomotive engine tmvelling on a circular railroad with immense 

 velocity, and rapidly ascending an inclined plane of far greater 

 elevation than any hitherto ascended by steam-power. And these 

 and various other experiments which wo saw, convinced us of the 

 truth of the opinion expressed by Professors ,Sillin\an, Keuwick, 

 and others, that tho power of maohinory may bo increased from 

 this source beyond any assignable limit. It is computed by these 

 learned men that a circular galvanic battery about 3 ft. in diameter, 

 with magnets of a proportionable surface, would jiroduco at least a 

 hundred-horse power ; and therefore that two such batteries would 

 be sutficiont to propel ships of tho largest class across tho Atlantic. 

 The only materials required to generate and continue this power 

 for such a voyage would be a few thin shoots of copper and zinc, 

 and a few gallons of mineral water." 



The Faure Accumulator is but a very weak affair compared with 

 this, Sir William Thompson notwithstanding. To render tho data 

 of the above fully appreciable, I may note that three months later 

 tho magazine from which it is quoted was illustrated with a picture 

 of the London and Birmingham Railway Station displaying a fiist- 

 class passenger with a boi seat on tlio roof of the carriage, and 

 followed by an account of tho trip to Boxmoor, tho first instal- 

 ment of tho London and North-Wcstorn Ilaihvay. It tolls us that, 

 " tVo time of starting having arrived, tho doors of tho carriages 

 are closed, and, by the assistance of tho conductors, tho train is 

 moved on a short distance towards tho first bridge, where it is mot 

 by an engine, which conducts it up the inclined plane as far as 

 Chalk Farm. Between tho canal and this spot stands tho station- 

 house for the engines ; here, also, are fixed tho engines which aro 

 to be employed in drawing the carriages up tho inclined plane from 

 Euslon-square, by a rope upwards of a mile in length, the cost of 

 which was upwards of £400." After describing the next change of 

 engines, iu the same matter of course way as tho changing of 

 stage-coach horses, tho narrative proceeds to say that "entering 

 tho tunnel from broad daylight to perfect darkness has an ex- 

 ceedingly novel effect." 



I make those paroUel quotations for the benefit of those who 

 imagine that electricity is making such vastly greater strides than 

 other sources of power. I well remember making this journey to 

 Boxmoor, and four or five years later travelling on a circular 

 electro-magnetic railway. Comiiaring that electric railway with 

 those now exhibiting, and comparing the Boxmoor trip with the 

 present work of the London and North-Western Railway, I have 

 no hesitation in affirming that the rate of progress in electro- 

 locomotion during tho last forty years has boon far smaller than 

 that of steam. 



Tho leading fallacy which is urging tho electro-maniacs of tho 

 present time to their ruinous investments is tho idea that electro- 

 motors are novelties, and that electric-lighting is in its infancy; 

 while gas-lighting is regarded as an old, or mature middle-aged 

 Lnsiness, and therefore we are to expect a marvellous growth of 

 tho infant and no further progress of the adult. 



These excited speculators do not appear to bo aware of the fact 

 that electric-lighting is older than gas-lighting ; that Sir Humphry 

 Davy exhibited the electric light in Alboniarlo-strcet, while London 

 was still dimly lighted by oil-lamps, and long before gas-lighting 

 was attempted anywhere. The lamp used by Sir Humphry Davy 

 at the Royal Institution, at the beginning of tho present century, 

 was an arrangement of two carbon pencils, botwoon which was 

 formed the " electric arc " by tho intensely- vivid incandosccnco and 

 combustion of tho particles of carbon passing between the solid 

 carbon electrodes. The light exhibited by Davy was incomparably 

 more brilliant than anything that has been lately shown either in 

 London, or Paris, or at Sydenham. Uis arc was four intliea in 

 U-nylh, the carbon pencils wero four inches apart, and a broad, 

 dazzling arch of light bridged the whole space between. The 

 modern arc lights are but pigmies, mere specs, compared with this ; 

 a leap of J or J inch constituting their maximum achievement. 



Comparing tho actual progress of gas and electric lighting, the 

 gas has achieved by far the greater strides ; and this is tho case 

 even when wo compare very recent progress. 



The improvements connected with gas-making have been steadily 

 progressive ; scarcely a year has passed from the date of Murdoch's 

 efforts to the present time, without some or many decided steps 

 having been made. Tho progress of electric-lighting has been a 

 scries of spasmodic leaps, backward as well as forward. 



As an example of stopping backward, I may refer to what the 

 newspapers have described as tho "discoveries" of Mr. Edison, or 

 the use of an incandescent wire, or stick, or Hhcct of platinum, or 



