Chapter 5

From St. Louis I went to Indianapolis, thence to Pittsburg, where they have struck most extraordinary wells of natural gas. Borings are made in the earth from the crust to a depth of 600 or 700 feet, when large reservoirs of natural gas are "struck." The town is lighted by this gas, and it is also employed for motive power. In Cleveland, also, this natural gas is found, and there is no doubt that it is going to economize the cost of production very much in that part of the country. From Pittsburg I went to Baltimore, where Sir William Thomson was occupied in delivering lectures to the students of the Johns Hopkins University. In all these American towns one very curious feature is that they all have great educational establishments, endowed and formed by private munificence. In Canada there is the McGill University, and in nearly every place one goes to there is a university, like the Johns Hopkins at Baltimore, where Johns Hopkins left 3,500,000 dollars to be devoted entirely to educational purposes; and that university is under the management of one of the most enlightened men in America, Professor Grillman, and he has as his lieutenants Professors Rowland, Mendenhall, and other well-known men, and each professor is in his own line particularly eminent. Sir William Thomson delivered there a really splendid course of lectures. From Baltimore I went through Philadelphia to Boston. I visited Long Branch, and I spent a long time in New York, so that from what I have said you will gather that I spent a good deal of my time in the States. Wherever I went I devoted all my leisure time to inquiry into the telegraphic, telephonic, and electric light arrangements in existence. I visited all the manufactories I could get to, and I did all I possibly could to enable me to return home and afford information, and perhaps amusement, to my fellow-members of this Society.

As an illustration of the intense heat we experienced, I may mention that it was at one time perfectly impossible to make the thermometer budge. The temperature of the blood is about 97 or 98 degrees, and if the temperature of the air be below the temperature of the blood, of course when the hand is applied to the thermometer the mercury rises. In one of our journeys up the Pennsylvania Road we tried to make the thermometer budge as usual, but could not, which proved that the temperature of the air inside the Pullman car in which we traveled was the same as that of the blood.

The American Association is of course based on the British Association. Its mode of administration is a little different. It is divided into sections, as is the British Association, but the sections are not called the same. For instance, in the British Association, Section A is devoted entirely to physics, but in the American Association, Section A is devoted to astronomy and Section B to physics. In the British Association, Section G is devoted to mechanics, but in America Section D is devoted to that subject. But with the exception of just a change in the names of some sections which are familiar as household words to members of the British Association, the proceedings of the American Association do not differ very much from ours. They have, however, one very sensible rule. The length of every paper is indicated upon the programme of the day's proceedings, and the continuation or the stopping of any discussion on that paper is in the hands of the section. For instance, if the President thinks that a man is speaking too long, he has only to say, "Does the meeting wish that this discussion shall be continued, or shall it be stopped?" A majority on the show of hands decides. Such a practice has a very wholesome effect in checking discussion, and I certainly think that some of our societies would do well to adopt a rule of the same character.

The meeting of the American Association, again, was not distinguished by any particular electrical paper, or any new electrical subject. The main subject that was brought before us was the peculiar effect called "Hall's effect," that Professor Hall, now of Harvard College, and then assistant to Professor Rowland, discovered in the powerful field of a magnet when a current was passed through a conductor; and a description of that effect (which he at one time thought was an indication that electricity was something separate from matter) formed the subject of two debates that lasted for nearly the whole of two days. I am bound to say that in that prolonged discussion the members of this Society held their own. I see two very prominent members present who spoke on most of the electrical subjects dealt with--Professor G. Forbes, who knows what he says and says what he knows, and Professor Silvanus Thompson, who held his own under very trying circumstances.

At the same time that this meeting of the American Association was being held at Philadelphia, where we were treated with marvelous hospitality,--excursions, soirées, dinners, parties, etc., etc.--and as though it were not quite sufficient to bring over humble Britishers from this side of the Atlantic to suffer the intense heat at one meeting of the Association, they held at the same time an Electrical Conference. There was a conference of electricians appointed by the United States Government, that was chiefly distinguished on the part of the American Government by selecting those who were not electricians. But many attended the Electrical Conference who stand high as electricians, one especially, who, though perhaps from want of experience he did not shine very brilliantly as a chairman, certainly stands as one of the ablest electricians of the day--I mean Professor Rowland. The Conference was held under Professor Rowland's presidency, and nearly all the well-known professors of the United States attended. The Conference was established by the United States Government to take into consideration the results and conclusions arrived at by the Congress of 1884, held in Paris. The Paris Congress decided upon adopting certain units of resistance of electromotive force, of current, and of quantity, and they determined the particular length of a column of mercury that should represent the ohm--a column of mercury 106 centimeters long and of one square millimeter in section. It was necessary that the United States should join this Conference, so a commission was appointed to consider the whole matter. All these units were brought before them, as well as the other conclusions of the Paris Congress, such as the proper mode of recording earth currents and atmospheric electricity. The Paris units were adopted in face of the fact that the length determined upon at Paris was not the length that Professor Rowland himself had found as that which should represent the ohm. It differed by about 0.2, as near as I can remember; but it was thought so necessary that uniformity and unanimity should exist all over the world in the adoption of a proper unit, that all differences were laid aside, and the Americans agreed to comply with the resolutions of the Paris Congress.

There were two units that I had the temerity to bring forward, first, at the British Association, and secondly, before the Electrical Conference. It will be remembered, that at the meeting of the British Association at Southampton in 1882, the late Sir W. Siemens proposed that the unit of power should be the watt, and that the watt, which was derived from the C.G.S. system of absolute units, should in future, among electricians, be the unit of power. This was accepted by the British Association at Montreal, and it was also accepted by the American Electrical Conference at Philadelphia. But I also, at Montreal, suggested that as the watt was the unit of power, so we ought to make some multiple of that unit the higher unit of power, comparable to that which is now represented by the well-known term "horsepower." Horsepower, unfortunately, does not form itself directly into the C.G.S. system. The term horsepower is a meaningless quantity; it is not a horsepower at all. It was established by the great Watt, who determined that the average power exerted by a horse was equal to about 22,000 foot pounds raised per minute; but this was thought by him to be too little, so he increased it by 50 per cent., and so arrived at what is the present horsepower, 33,000 foot pounds raised per minute. Foot pounds bear no relation to our C.G.S. system of units, and it is most desirable that we should have some unit of power, somewhere about the horsepower, to enable us to convert at once watts into horsepower. For that purpose I proposed that 1,000 watts, or the kilowatt, should replace what is now called the horsepower, and suggested it for the consideration of engineers. It has been received with a great deal of consideration by those who understand the subject, and a considerable amount of ridicule by those who do not. It is rather a remarkable thing that, as a rule, one will always find ridicule and ignorance running side by side; and it is an almost invariable fact that when a new proposition is brought forward, it is laughed at. I am always very glad to see that, because it always succeeds in drawing attention to the matter. I remember a friend of mine, who had written a book, being in great glee because it was severely criticised by the _Athenæum_, a fact which drew public attention to the book, and caused it to make a great stir. So when I proposed that the horsepower should be increased by 33 per cent., and made equivalent to 1,000 watts, I was not at all sorry to find that I had incurred the displeasure of the leader writers in nearly all our scientific papers, and I was quite sure that the attention of those who would not perhaps have thought of it would thereby be drawn to the matter. Some people object to the use of a name, this name "watt." When you have fresh ideas, you must have fresh words to express those ideas. The watt was a new unit, it must be called by some name, otherwise it could scarcely be conveyed to our minds. The foot, the gallon, the yard, were all new names once; and how do we know that they were not derived from some "John Foot," "William Gallon," or "Jack Yard," or some man whose name was connected with the measure when introduced? The poet says:

"Some mute, inglorious Milton here may rest-- Some Cromwell, guiltless of his country's blood:"

so in these names some forgotten physicist or mute engineer may be buried. At any rate, we cannot do without names. The ohm, the ampere, the volt, are merely words that express ideas that we all understand; and so does the watt, and so will the 1,000 watts when you come to think over the matter as much as some of us have done.

At this Conference several other subjects were brought up which attracted a good deal of attention. Professor Rowland brought forward a paper on the theory of dynamos that certainly startled a good many of us; and it led to a discussion that is admirably reported in our scientific papers. I think that the discussion evolved by Professor Rowland's paper on the theory of dynamos deserves the study of every electrician; it brought very strongly into prominence one or two English gentlemen who were present. Professor Fitzgerald, of Dublin, spoke with a considerable amount of power, and showed a mastery of the subject that was pleasant not only to his friends, but must have been gratifying to the Americans who heard him. On this particular subject of dynamos it was truly wonderful how the doctors disagreed. Two could not be found who held the same views on the theory and construction of the dynamo, and that shows that we still have a great deal to learn about the dynamo, and that the true principle of construction of it has yet to be brought out.

It is a very curious thing, and I thought about it at the time, that when you consider the dynamos in use, you see how very little has been done to perfect the direct working dynamo in England. Although the principle of the dynamo originated with Faraday, yet all the early machines, Pacinotti, Gramme. Hefner von Alteneck, Shuckert, Brush, Edison, and several others who have improved the direct action machine, have not been found in England. But when we deal with alternate-current machines, then we find the Wilde, Ferranti, and various others; so that the tendency in England has been very much to improve and work upon the alternate-current machines. In other countries it is exactly the reverse; in fact, in America I never saw one single alternate-current machine. When Professor Forbes wanted an alternate-current machine to illustrate a lecture that he gave, it was with the greatest difficulty that one could be found, and, in fact, it was put together specially for him.

The other subjects brought before this Conference were Earth Currents, Atmospheric Electricity, Accumulators or Secondary Batteries, and Telephones. There was an extremely able paper brought forward by Mr. T.D. Lockwood, the electrician of the American Bell Telephone Company, on Telephones, and the disturbances that influence their working. When that paper is published, it will well be worth your careful examination.

Papers were also read on the Transmission of Energy, and there were papers on many other subjects.

So much for the Electrical Conference.

Now, the Americans at the present moment are suffering from a mania which we, happily, have passed through, that is, the mania of exhibitions.

While we were at Philadelphia, there was an exceedingly interesting exhibition held. I do not intend to say much about that exhibition, for the simple reason that Professor G. Forbes has promised, during the forthcoming session, to give us a paper describing what he saw there, and his studies at Philadelphia; and I am quite sure that it will be a paper worthy of him, and of you. But, apart from this exhibition at Philadelphia, I could not go anywhere without finding an exhibition. There was one at Chicago, another at St. Louis, another at Boston; everybody was talking about one at Louisville, where I did not go; and there were rumors of great preparations for the "largest exhibition the world has ever seen," according to their own account, at New Orleans. However, I satisfied myself with seeing the exhibition at Philadelphia, which consisted strictly of American goods, and was not of the international nature general to such exhibitions. But it was a fine exhibition, and one that no other single nation could bring together.

_Telegraphs_.--When I spoke to you in 1878, my remarks were almost entirely confined to telegraphs, for at that day the telephone was not, as a practical instrument, in existence. I brought from America on that occasion the first telephones that were brought to this country. Then the practical application of electricity was applied to telegraphs, and so telegraphs formed the subject of my theme. But while in 1877 I saw a great deal to learn, and picked up a great many wrinkles, and brought back from America a good many processes, I go back there now in 1884, seven years afterward, and I do not find one single advance made--I comeback with scarcely one single wrinkle; and, in fact, while we in England during those seven years have progressed with giant strides, in America, in telegraph matters, they have stood still. But their material progress has been marvelous. In 1877, the mileage of wire belonging to the Western Union Telegraph Company was 200,000 miles; in 1884, they have 433,726 miles of wire; so that during the seven years their mileage of wire has more than doubled. During the same period their number of messages has increased from 28,000,000 to over 40,000,000; their offices from 11,660 to 13,600; and the capital invested in their concern has increased from $40,000,000 to $80,000,000--in fact, there is no more gigantic telegraph organization in this world that this Western Union Telegraph Company. It is a remarkable undertaking, and I do not suppose there is an administration better managed. But for some reason or other that I cannot account for, their scientific progress has not marched with their material progress, and invention has to a certain extent there ceased. There really was only one telegraphic novelty to be found in the States, and that was an instrument by Delany--a multiplex instrument by which six messages could be sent in one or other direction at the same time. It is an instrument that is dependent upon the principle introduced by Meyer, where time is divided into a certain number of sections, and where synchronous action is maintained between two instruments. This system has been worked out with great perfection in France by Baudot. We had a paper by Colonel Webber on the subject, before the Society, in which the process was fully described. Delany, in the States, has carried the process a little further, by making it applicable to the ordinary Morse sending. On the Meyer and Baudot principle, the ordinary Morse sender has to wait for certain clicks, which indicate at which moment a letter may be sent; but on the Delany plan each of the six clerks can peg away as he chooses--he can send at any rate he likes, and he is not disturbed in any way by having any sound to guide or control his ear. The Delany is a very promising system. It may not work to long distances; but the apparatus is promised to be brought over to this country, to be exhibited at the Inventors' Exhibition next year, and I can safely say that the Post Office will give every possible facility to try the new invention upon its wires.

One gratifying effect of my visit to the telegraph establishments in America was that, while hitherto we have never hesitated in England to adopt any process or invention that was a distinct advance, whether it came from America or anywhere else, they on the other hand have shown a disinclination to adopt anything British; but they have now adopted our Wheatstone automatic system. That system is at work between New Orleans and Chicago, and New York and New Orleans--1,600 miles. It has given them so much satisfaction that they are going to increase it very largely; so that we really have the proud satisfaction of finding a real, true British invention well established on the other side of the Atlantic.

The next branch that I propose to bring to your notice is the question of the telephone.

The telephone has passed through rather an awkward phase in the States. A very determined attempt has been made to upset the Bell patents in that country; and those who visited the Philadelphia Exhibition saw the instruments there exhibited upon which the advocates of the plaintiff relied. It is said that a very ingenious American, named Drawbaugh, had anticipated all the inventors of every part of the telephone system; that he had invented a receiver before Bell; that he had invented the compressed carbon arrangement before Edison; that he had invented the microphone before our friend Professor Hughes; and that, in fact, he had done everything on the face of the earth to establish the claims set forth. Some of his patents were shown, and I not only had to examine his patents, but I had to go through a great many depositions of the evidence given, and I am bound to confess that a more flimsy case I never saw brought before a court of law. I do not know whether I shall be libelous in expressing my opinion (I will refer to our solicitor before the notes are printed), but I should not hesitate to say that I never saw a more evident conspiracy concocted to try and disturb the position of a well-established patent. However, I have heard that the judgment has been given as the public generally supposed it would be given; because as soon as the case was over the shares of the Bell company, which were at 150, jumped up to 190, and now the decision is given I am told that they will probably reach 290.

We cannot form a conception on this side of the Atlantic of the extent to which telephones are used on the other side of the Atlantic. It is said sometimes that the progress of the telephone on this side of the water has been checked very much by the restrictions brought to bear upon the telephone by the Government of this country. But whatever restrictions have been instituted by our Government upon the adoption of the telephone, they are not to be compared with the restrictions that the poor unfortunate telephone companies have to struggle against on the other side of the Atlantic. There is not a town that does not mulct them in taxes for every pole they erect, and for every wire they extend through the streets. There is not a State that does not exact from them a tax; and I was assured, and I know as a fact, that in one particular case there was one company--a flourishing company--that was mulcted is 75 per cent. of its receipts before it could possibly pay a dividend. Here we only ask the telephone companies to pay to the poor, impoverished British Government 10 per cent.; and 10 per cent. by the side of 75 per cent. certainly cuts but a very sorry figure. But the truth is, the reason why the telephone is flourishing in America is that it is an absolute necessity there for the proper transaction of business. Where you exist in a sort of Turkish bath at from 90° to 100°, you want to be saved every possible reason for leaving your office to conduct your business; and the telephone comes in as a means whereby you can do so, and can loll back in your arm chair, with your legs up in the air, with a cigar in your mouth, with a punkah waving over your head, and a bottle of iced water by your side. By the telephone, under such circumstances, business transactions can be carried on with comfort to yourself and to him with whom your business is transacted. We have not similar conditions here. We are always glad of an excuse to get out of our offices. In America, too, servants and messengers are the exception, a boy is not to be had, whereas in England we get an errand boy at half a crown a week. That which costs half a crown here costs 12s. to 15s. in America; and, that being so, it is much better to pay the telephone company a sum that will, at less cost, enable your business to be transacted without the engagement of such a boy.

The Americans, again, adopt electrical contrivances for all sorts of domestic purposes. There is not a single house in New York, Chicago, or anywhere else that I went into, that has not in the hall a little instrument [producing one] which, by the turn of a pointer and the pressing of a handle, calls for a messenger, a carriage, a cab, express wagon (that is, the fellow who looks after your luggage), a doctor, policeman, fire-alarm, or anything else as may be arranged for. The little instrument communicates to a central office not far off, and in two minutes the doctor, or messenger, or whatever it may be, presents himself.

For fire-alarms and for all sorts of purposes, domestic telegraphy is part and parcel of the nature of an American, and the result was that when the telephone was brought to him, he adopted it with avidity. On this side of the Atlantic domestic telegraphy is at a minimum, and I do not think any one would have a telephone in his house if he could help it.