SCIENCE. 
5 
ELECTRICITY AS POWER. 
BY FRANCIS P. UPTON, ESQ. 
In the early history of electrical science, many forms 
of engines were made, by which the power of elec- 
tricity could be shown. Each was as wonderful as the 
other to the unthinking observer ; for, without appar- 
ent combustion of fuel, work was done. We find, 
among the largest of these engines, one used in St. 
Petersburg, to drive a small boat, and one in this 
country to propel a train. 
The United States Congress voted a sum of money 
to Prof. Page to carry on his experiments and he 
built a very efficient motor. After many experiments, 
though it was found that any amount of power could 
be obtained, yet the expense was so great as to make 
it of no practical value. In a small machine, the con- 
sumption of zinc might not be noticed, while in a 
large machine it would be found to burn exactly as the 
work was taken. Now that the doctrine of energy is 
clearly understood, the folly of the attempt can easily 
be seen. In a battery the fires are fed with an ex- 
pensive metal. The energy developed by the zinc, 
thus used, was given to it artificially when it was re- 
duced from the ore. In order to obtain a convenient 
fuel, both the coal and zinc ore must be mined, and 
the latter reduced, absorbing in the reduction a very 
small per cent, of the energy of the coal used in the 
process. Thus batteries for furnishing power consume 
a fuel at least fifty times more expensive than coal. 
Besides the cost of fuel, the atmosphere, so to 
speak, in which the zinc burns, must be furnished to 
it artificially in the shape of acids or solutions. Though 
this has nothing to do with the theoretical cost, yet 
in practice, it is found to be the largest item of ex- 
pense. It resembles furnishing a boiler with air made 
by a chemical process, so far as the economy of com- 
bustion is concerned. Y et the convenience and relia- 
bility of a battery to burn zinc has, where very small 
amounts of power are required, allowed of its use 
commercially, since steam is extremely difficult to 
manage in fractions of a horse power. 
T o-day the practice has been entirely reversed from 
what the first experimenters expected to realize. For 
electricity is now entirely made by means of steam 
engines to drive large motors. The last few years 
have brought the means of generating and using elec- 
trical currents to such a high state of perfection that 
power may be with economy transferred by them. 
The loss in transferring is double ; if a machine 
converts fifty per cent, of the power it receives from a 
staem engine, only fifty per cent, of that can be util- 
ized, that is, twenty-five per cent of the original ; thus 
wasting seventy-five parts out of each hundred of 
energy. A sixty per cent, machine can render effective 
thirty-six per cent. ; an eighty per cent, machine can 
turn into useful work sixty-four per cent., and so on. 
This wasting of power in the transmission is more than 
counterbalanced in a great many cases by its de- 
livery at the point where needed; for example, from a 
waterfall to a field for ploughing and threshing, as has 
been done in France; or from the shore to the water 
for the purpose of driving a torpedo boat, as has 
been done in this country. 
Lately experiments have been made to show 
the application of electricity to railroads. Mr. 
Siemens, in Berlin, and Mr. Edison, at Menlo Park, 
are experimenting with electrical railroads. Mr. Edi- 
son uses the rails as conductors of electricity, the cur- 
rent going in one and returning in the other. The 
wheels are insulated, so that, by means of brushes on 
them, the electricity may be brought to the moter, 
which is on a carriage. The moter is simply one of 
Mr. Edison’s generating machines, laid on its side, 
and connected by suitable mechanism to the axle of 
the driving wheels. On an experimental track of 
one-half mile length, a speed of twenty to thirty miles 
an hour has easily been reached, in spite of heavy 
grades and sharp curves. 
For elevated and underground railroads, this method 
has many advantages ; it does away with all the smoke 
and noise from the puffing of the locomotive, and 
substitutes for the many locomotives a few stationary 
engines scattered along the route. Mr. Edison feels 
very confident of success, since his troubles so far 
have all been in transferring the power from the arma- 
ture to the driving wheels. He thinks that if the 
armature is only reliable, experiment will lead to 
proper mechanical devices for transferring the power 
from the quick -running armature to the slower driving 
wheels. 
The road will be very useful in mountainous regions, 
since the engine is quite light and can be carried by 
trestle work and light earth work, over any country. 
The engine and boilers are not in this case put on 
wheels and required to push themselves over grades 
and around curves, but are placed in the valley below. 
Perhaps in many cases they may be done away with 
and water used to drive the generators. 
For beach roads, in grand exhibitions, as feeders to 
main lines, and in many ways it is easy to see that 
use may be made of a properly constructed road. 
The gentle fluid, which has so quietly, for many years 
been the swift messenger of man, is now showing that 
it is also able to be a strong and lusty servant, and 
carry any load that it may be asked to take. 
Electrical Insects. — It is not generally known that there 
are insects which possess the peculiar electrical properties 
of the Raia Torpedo and Gymnotus Electricus. Kirby and 
Spence, in their entomology, describe the Rediivius Serratus, 
commonly known in the West Indies by the name of the 
wheel bug , as an insect which can communicate an electric 
shock to the person whose flesh it touches. The late Major- 
General Davis of the Royal Artillery, well-known as a most 
accurate observer of nature, and an indefatigable collector of 
her treasures, as well as a most admirable painter of them, 
once informed me, that, when abroad, having taken up this 
animal and placed it upon his hand, it gave him a consider- 
able shock, with its legs, as if from an electric jar, which he 
felt as high as his shoulder, and dropping the creature, he 
observed six marks upon his hand where the six feet had 
stood. Two similar instances of effects upon the human 
system resembling electric shocks, produced by insects, have 
been communicated to the Entomological Society by Mr. 
Yarrell ; one mentioned in a letter from Lady de Grey, of 
Groby, in which the shock was caused by a beetle, one of the 
common Elateridae, and extended from the hand to the 
elbow on suddenly touching the insect ; the other caused by 
a large hairy lepidopterous caterpiller, picked up in South 
America by Capt. Blakeney, R N., who felt on touching it 
a sensation extending up his arm, similar to an electric 
shock, of such force that he lost the use of his arm for a 
time, and his life was even considered in danger by his medi- 
cal attendant. 
