Part 3

It has been known for forty years that every form of electric motor which operated on the principle of mutual mechanical force between a magnet and a conducting wire or coil could also be made to act as a generator of induced currents by the reverse operation of producing the motion mechanically. And when, starting from the researches of Siemens, Wilde, Nollet, Holmes and Gramme, the modern forms of magneto-electric and dynamo-electric machines began to come into commercial use, it was discovered that any one of the modern machines designed as a generator of currents constituted a far more efficient electric motor than any of the previous forms which had been designed specially as motors. {775} It required no new discovery of the law of reversibility to enable the electrician to understand this; but to convince the world required actual experiment."

_A. Guillemin, Electricity and Magnetism, part 2, chapter 10, section 3._

ELECTRICITY: A. D. 1835-1889. The Electric Railway.

"Thomas Davenport, a poor blacksmith of Brandon, Vt., constructed what might be termed the first electric railway. The invention was crude and of little practical value, but the idea was there. In 1835 he exhibited in Springfield, Massachusetts, a small model electric engine running upon a circular track, the circuit being furnished by primary batteries carried in the car. Three years later, Robert Davidson, of Aberdeen, Scotland, began his experiments in this direction. ... He constructed quite a powerful motor, which was mounted upon a truck. Forty battery cells, carried on the car, furnished power to propel the motor. The battery elements were composed of amalgamated zinc and iron plates, the exciting liquid being dilute sulphuric acid. This locomotive was run successfully on several steam railroads in Scotland, the speed attained was four miles an hour, but this machine was afterwards destroyed by some malicious person or persons while it was being taken home to Aberdeen. In 1849 Moses Farmer exhibited an electric engine which drew a small car containing two persons. In 1851, Dr. Charles Grafton Page, of Salem, Massachusetts, perfected an electric engine of considerable power. On April 29 of that year the engine was attached to a car and a trip was made from Washington to Bladensburg, over the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad track. The highest speed attained was nineteen miles an hour. The electric power was furnished by one hundred Grove cells carried on the engine. ... The same year, Thomas Hall, of Boston, Mass., built a small electric locomotive called the Volta. The current was furnished by two Grove battery cells which were conducted to the rails, thence through the wheels of the locomotive to the motor. This was the first instance of the current being supplied to the motor on a locomotive from a stationary source. It was exhibited at the Charitable Mechanics fair by him in 1860. ... In 1879, Messrs. Siemen and Halske, of Berlin, constructed and operated an electric railway at the Industrial Exposition. A third rail placed in the centre of the two outer rails, supplied the current, which was taken up into the motor through a sliding contact under the locomotive. ... In 1880 Thomas A. Edison constructed an experimental road near his laboratory in Menlo Park, N. J. The power from the locomotive was transferred to the car by belts running to and from the shafts of each. The current was taken from and returned through the rails. Early in the year of 1881 the Lichterfelde, Germany, electric railway was put into operation. It is a third rail system and is still running at the present time. This may be said to be the first commercial electric railway constructed. In 1883 the Daft Electric Company equipped and operated quite successfully an electric system on the Saratoga & Mt. McGregor Railroad, at Saratoga, N. Y." During the next five or six years numerous electric railroads, more or less experimental, were built." October 31, 1888, the Council Bluffs & Omaha Railway and Bridge Company was first operated by electricity, they using the Thomson-Houston system. The same year the Thomson-Houston Co. equipped the Highland Division of the Lynn & Boston Horse Railway at Lynn, Massachusetts. Horse railways now began to be equipped with electricity all over the world, and especially in the United States. In February, 1889, the Thomson-Houston Electric Co. had equipped the line from Bowdoin Square, Boston, to Harvard Square, Cambridge, of the West End Railway with electricity and operated twenty cars, since which time it has increased its electrical apparatus, until now it is the largest electric railway line in the world."

_E. Trevert, Electric Railway Engineering, appendix A._

ELECTRICITY: A. D. 1841-1880. The Incandescent Electric Light.

"While the arc lamp is well adapted for lighting large areas requiring a powerful, diffused light, similar to sunlight, and hence is suitable for outdoor illumination, and for workshops, stores, public buildings, and factories, especially those where colored fabrics are produced, its use in ordinary dwellings, or for a desk light in offices, is impractical, a softer, steadier, and more economical light being required. Various attempts to modify the arc-light by combining it with the incandescent were made in the earlier stages of electric lighting. ... The first strictly incandescent lamp was invented in 1841 by Frederick de Molyens of Cheltenham, England, and was constructed on the simple principle of the incandescence produced by the high resistance of a platinum wire to the passage of the electric current. In 1849 Petrie employed iridium for the same purpose, also alloys of iridium and platinum, and iridium and carbon. In 1845 J. W. Starr of Cincinnati first proposed the use of carbon, and, associated with King, his English agent, produced, through the financial aid of the philanthropist Peabody, an incandescent lamp. ... In all these early experiments, the battery was the source of electric supply; and the comparatively small current required for the incandescent light as compared with that required for the arc light, was an argument in favor of the former. ... Still, no substantial progress was made with either system till the invention of the dynamo resulted in the practical development of both systems, that of the incandescent following that of the arc. Among the first to make incandescent lighting a practical success were Sawyer and Man of New York, and Edison. For a long time, Edison experimented with platinum, using fine platinum wire coiled into a spiral, so as to concentrate the heat, and produce incandescence; the same current producing only a red heat when the wire, whether of platinum or other metal, is stretched out. ... Failing to obtain satisfactory results from platinum, Edison turned his attention to carbon, the superiority of which as an incandescent illuminant had already been demonstrated; but its rapid consumption, as shown by the Reynier and similar lamps, being unfavorable to its use as compared with the durability of platinum and iridium, the problem was, to secure the superior illumination of the carbon, and reduce or prevent its consumption. As this consumption was due chiefly to oxidation, it was questionable whether the superior illumination were not due to the same cause, and whether, if the carbon were inclosed in a glass globe, from which oxygen was eliminated, the same illumination could be obtained. {776} Another difficulty of equal magnitude was to obtain a sufficiently perfect vacuum, and maintain it in a hermetically sealed globe inclosing the carbon, and at the same time maintain electric connection with the generator through the glass by a metal conductor, subject to expansion and contraction different from that of the glass, by the change of temperature due to the passage of the electric current. Sawyer and Man attempted to solve this problem by filling the globe with nitrogen, thus preventing combustion by eliminating the oxygen. ... The results obtained by this method, which at one time attracted a great deal of attention, were not sufficiently satisfactory to become practical; and Edison and others gave their preference to the vacuum method, and sought to overcome the difficulties connected with it. The invention of the mercurial air pump, with its subsequent improvements, made it possible to obtain a sufficiently perfect vacuum, and the difficulty of introducing the current into the interior of the globe was overcome by imbedding a fine platinum wire in the glass, connecting the inclosed carbon with the external circuit; the expansion and contraction of the platinum not differing sufficiently from that of the glass, in so fine a wire, as to impair the vacuum. ... The carbons made by Edison under his first patent in 1879, were obtained from brown paper or cardboard. ... They were very fragile and short-lived, and consequently were soon abandoned. In 1880 he patented the process which, with some modifications, he still adheres to. In this process he uses filaments of bamboo, which are taken from the interior, fibrous portion of the plant."

_P. Atkinson, Elements of Electric Lighting, chapter 8._

ELECTRICITY: A. D. 1854-1866. The Atlantic Cable.

"Cyrus Field ... established a company in America (in 1854), which ... obtained the right of landing cables in Newfoundland for fifty years. Soundings were made in 1856 between Ireland and Newfoundland, showing a maximum depth of 4,400 metres. Having succeeded after several attempts in laying a cable between Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, Field founded the Atlantic Telegraph Company in England. ... The length of the ... cable [used] was 4,000 kilometres, and was carried by the two ships Agamemnon and Niagara. The distance between the two stations on the coasts was 2,640 kilometres. The laying of the cable commenced on the 7th of August, 1857, at Valentia (Ireland); on the third day the cable broke at a depth of 3,660 metres, and the expedition had to return. A second expedition was sent in 1858; the two ships met each other half-way, the ends of the cable were joined, and the lowering of it commenced in both directions; 149 kilometres were thus lowered, when a fault in the cable was discovered. It had, therefore, to be brought on board again, and was broken during the process. After it had been repaired, and when 476 kilometres had been already laid, another fault was discovered, which caused another breakage; this time it was impossible to repair it, and the expedition was again unsuccessful, and had to return. In spite of the repeated failures, two ships were again sent out in the same year, and this time one end of the cable was landed in Ireland, and the other at Newfoundland. The length of the sunk cable was 3,745 kilometres. Field's first telegram was sent on the 7th of August, from America to Ireland. The insulation of the cable, however, became more defective every day, and failed altogether on the 1st of September. From the experience obtained, it was concluded that it was possible to lay a trans-Atlantic cable, and the company, after consulting a number of professional men, again set to work. ... The Great Eastern was employed in laying this cable. This ship, which is 211 metres long, 25 metres broad, and 16 metres in height, carried a crew of 500 men, of which 120 were electricians and engineers, 179 mechanics and stokers, and 115 sailors. The management of all affairs relating to the laying of the cable was entrusted to Canning. The coast cable was laid on the 21st of July, and the end of it was connected with the Atlantic cable on the 23rd. After 1,326 kilometres had been laid, a fault was discovered, an iron wire was found stuck right across the cable, and Canning considered the mischief to have been done with a malevolent purpose. On the 2nd of August, 2,196 kilometres of cable were sunk, when another fault was discovered. While the cable was being repaired it broke, and attempts to recover it at the time were all unsuccessful; in consequence of this the Great Eastern had to return without having completed the task. A new company, the Anglo-American Telegraph Company, was formed in 1866, and at once entrusted Messrs. Glass, Elliott and Company with the construction of a new cable of 3,000 kilometres. Different arrangements were made for the outer envelope of the cable, and the Great Eastern was once more equipped to give effect to the experiments which had just been made. The new expedition was not only to lay a new cable, but also to take up the end of the old one, and join it to a new piece, and thus obtain a second telegraph line. The sinking again commenced in Ireland on the 13th of July, 1866, and it was finished on the 27th. On the 4th of August, 1866, the Trans-Atlantic Telegraph Line was declared open."

_A. R. von Urbanitzky, Electricity in the Service of Man, pages 767-768._

ELECTRICITY: A. D. 1876-1892. The Telephone.

"The first and simplest of all magnetic telephones is the Bell Telephone." In "the first form of this instrument, constructed by Professor Graham Bell, in 1876 ... a harp of steel rods was attached to the poles of a permanent magnet. ... When we sing into a piano, certain of the strings of the instrument are set in vibration sympathetically by the action of the voice with different degrees of amplitude, and a sound, which is an approximation to the vowel uttered, is produced from the piano. Theory shows that, had the piano a much larger number of strings to the octave, the vowel sounds would be perfectly reproduced. It was upon this principle that Bell constructed his first telephone. The expense of constructing such an apparatus, however, deterred Bell from making the attempt, and he sought to simplify the apparatus before proceeding further in this direction. After many experiments with more, or less unsatisfactory results, he constructed the instrument ... which he exhibited at Philadelphia in 1876. In this apparatus, the transmitter was formed by an electro-magnet, through which a current flowed, and a membrane, made of gold-beater's skin, on which was placed as a sort of armature, a piece of soft iron, which thus vibrated in front of the electro-magnet when the membrane was thrown into sonorous vibration. {777} ... It is quite clear that when we speak into a Bell transmitter only a small fraction of the energy of the sonorous vibrations of the voice can be converted into electric currents, and that these currents must be extremely weak. Edison applied himself to discover some means by which he could increase the strength of these currents. Elisha Gray had proposed to use the variation of resistance of a fine platinum wire attached to a diaphragm dipping into water, and hoped that the variation of extent of surface in contact would so vary the strength of current as to reproduce sonorous vibrations; but there is no record of this experiment having been tried. Edison proposed to utilise the fact that the resistance of carbon varied under pressure. He had independently discovered this peculiarity of carbon, but it had been previously described by Du Moncel. ... The first carbon transmitter was constructed in 1878 by Edison."

_W. H. Preece, and J. Maier, The Telephone, chapter 3-4._

In a pamphlet distributed at the Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893, entitled "Exhibit of the American Bell Telephone Co.," the following statements are made: "At the Centennial Exposition, in Philadelphia, in 1876, was given the first general public exhibition of the telephone by its inventor, Alexander Graham Bell. To-day, seventeen years later, more than half a million instruments are in daily use in the United States alone, six hundred million talks by telephone are held every year, and the human voice is carried over a distance of twelve hundred miles without loss of sound or syllable. The first use of the telephone for business purposes was over a single wire connecting only two telephones. At once the need of general inter-communication made itself felt. In the cities and larger towns exchanges were established and all the subscribers to any one exchange were enabled to talk to one another through a central office. Means were then devised to connect two or more exchanges by trunk lines, thus affording means of communication between all the subscribers of all the exchanges so connected. This work has been pushed forward until now have been gathered into what may be termed one great exchange all the important cities from Augusta on the east to Milwaukee on the west, and from Burlington and Buffalo on the north to Washington on the south, bringing more than one half the people of this country and a much larger proportion of the business interests, within talking distance of one another. ... The lines which connect Chicago with Boston, via New York, are of copper wire of extra size. It is about one sixth of an inch in diameter, and weighs 435 pounds to the mile. Hence each circuit contains 1,044,000 pounds of copper. ... In the United States there are over a quarter of a million exchange subscribers, and ... these make use of the telephone to carry on 600,000,000 conversations annually. There is hardly a city or town of 5,000 inhabitants that has not its Telephone Exchange, and these are so knit together by connecting lines that intercommunication is constant." The number of telephones in use in the United States, on the 20th of December in each year since the first introduction, is given as follows; 1877, 5,187; 1878, 17,567; 1879, 52,517; 1880, 123,380; 1881, 180,592; 1882, 237,728; 1883, 298,580; 1884, 325,574; 1885, 330,040; 1886, 353,518; 1887, 380,277; 1888, 411,511; 1889, 444,861; 1890, 483,790; 1891, 512,407; 1892, 552,720.

End: Electricity----------

ELEPHANT, Order of the.

A Danish order of knighthood instituted in 1693 by King Christian V.

ELEPHANTINE.

See EGYPT: THE OLD EMPIRE AND THE MIDDLE EMPIRE.

ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES, The.

Among the ancient Greeks, "the mysteries were a source of faith and hope to the initiated, as are the churches of modern times. Secret doctrines, regarded as holy, and to be kept with inviolable fidelity, were handed down in these brotherhoods, and no doubt were fondly believed to contain a saving grace by those who were admitted, amidst solemn and imposing rites, under the veil of midnight, to hear the tenets of the ancient faith, and the promises of blessings to come to those who, with sincerity of heart and pious trust, took the obligations upon them. The Eleusinian mysteries were the most imposing and venerable. Their origin extended back into a mythical antiquity, and they were among the few forms of Greek worship which were under the superintendence of hereditary priesthoods. Thirlwall thinks that 'they were the remains of a worship which preceded the rise of the Hellenic mythology and its attendant rites, grounded on a view of Nature less fanciful, more earnest, and better fitted to awaken both philosophical thought and religious feeling.' This conclusion is still further confirmed by the moral and religious tone of the poets,--such as Æschylus,--whose ideas on justice, sin and retribution are as solemn and elevated as those of a Hebrew prophet. The secrets, whatever they were, were never revealed in express terms; but Isocrates uses some remarkable expressions, when speaking of their importance to the condition of man. 'Those who are initiated,' says he 'entertain sweeter hopes of eternal life'; and how could this be the case, unless there were imparted at Eleusis the doctrine of eternal life, and some idea of its state and circumstances more compatible with an elevated conception of the Deity and of the human soul than the vague and shadowy images which haunted the popular mind. The Eleusinian communion embraced the most eminent men from every part of Greece,--statesmen, poets, philosophers, and generals; and when Greece became a part of the Roman Empire, the greatest minds of Rome drew instruction and consolation from its doctrines. The ceremonies of initiation--which took place every year in the early autumn, a beautiful season in Attica--were a splendid ritual, attracting visitors from every part of the world. The processions moving from Athens to Eleusis over the Sacred Way, sometimes numbered twenty or thirty thousand people, and the exciting scenes were well calculated to leave a durable impression on susceptible minds. ... The formula of the dismissal, after the initiation was over, consisted in the mysterious words 'konx,' 'ompax'; and this is the only Eleusinian secret that has illuminated the world from the recesses of the temple of Demeter and Persephone. But it is a striking illustration of the value attached to these rites and doctrines, that, in moments of extremest peril--as of impending shipwreck, or massacre by a victorious enemy,--men asked one another, 'Are you initiated?' as if this were the anchor of their hopes for another life."

{778}

_C. C. Felton, Greece, Ancient and Modern, chapter 2, lecture 10._

"The Eleusinian mysteries continued to be celebrated during the whole of the second half of the fourth century, till they were put an end to by the destruction of the temple at Eleusis, and by the devastation of Greece in the invasion of the Goths under Alaric in 395."

See GOTHS: A. D. 395.

_W. Smith, Note to Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 25._

ALSO IN: _R. Brown, The Great Dionysiak Myth, chapter 6, section. 2._

_J. J. I. von Dollinger, The Gentile and the Jew, book 3 (volume 1)._

See, also, ELEUSIS.

ELEUSIS.