Electricity During the Last Five Years

BY FRANZ BENDT.

TRANSLATED FOR "THE CHAUTAUQUAN" FROM THE GERMAN "UEBER LAND UND MEER."

It is mostly through its practical results that a science appeals to the general public for anything more than a casual attention. This fact is nowhere more noticeable than in electricity, which has loaded humanity with gifts and in a comparatively short time has revolutionized customs and business so that the present era not unjustly has been called "the age of electricity." The term is doubly appropriate because, as all signs indicate, we are not at the end but only just at the beginning of the electrical epoch. Moreover, it should be noted, the wonderful and mysterious manner in which the electrical forces are manifested have thoroughly aroused astonishment, even in adepts, and a thirst for knowledge in the laity.

In glancing over the many practical acquisitions of the young science one gets the impression that for its years it has developed strongly and powerfully, if also disproportionately. Yet many branches of the electrical science have broadened out into mighty industries. Its practical side, electrotechnics, already has been divided into two parts, the weak current and the strong current technics, and the exponents of these two parts belong to different classes of vocations hotly rivaling each other.

A brief forecast of the history of the science will help us to appreciate its development during the last five years.

The oldest branch of the new technic does service in propagating news. It is now about seventy years that its electric spark has carried messages across oceans and over wide continents. The amount of lines and conducting wires connected with them is at the present time something imposing, and not less so is the growth that both have shown from year to year. Altogether the wires would reach about five times from the earth to the moon.

Yet more marvelous than the development of telegraphy is the development of long-distance speaking, or telephoning, already a dangerous rival to telegraphy. We are about to enjoy an extension in both lines of culture here on German soil. At the present time there are in the German Empire 93,768.46 miles of lines and 440,682.44 miles of conducting wires to convey written and spoken messages. The number of telegraph stations here is 28,281. Especially significant is the growth in the number of city telephone stations; during the last year their number has increased from 109,960 to 125,810.

The technical improvement in this region is evidenced by the development of new telephone lines to connect cities. The longest line in Germany is found between Berlin and Memel, extending over the remarkable distance of 621.37 miles. The great distance cannot influence the audibility, for the hearing qualities are excellent. During the preliminary experiments for the laying of these connections, the experts at the German imperial post arrived at the important judgment that this line might be lengthened about threefold without injury. If they succeed in establishing communication over such a long distance, the feat will place German telephone engineers at the head of their profession, for telephonic transmission over 1864 miles never before has been accomplished except by way of experiment.

The sea cable also is a modern development, and to its possibilities, too, there is no limit. At present experts are engaged in the task of laying its conducting wires through the great ocean. Then, with the perfection of this gigantic plan, one can send a despatch around the whole world in a moment. The circuit will be complete.

While the weak current technics has consumed almost two thirds of a century in her upbuilding, her younger sister, the strong current technics, in a comparatively short time has grown into a giant. What about five years ago was mere project now is actual fact. We need mention only the extension within this time of the electrical railway.

The special problem of strong current technics was, how practically to work out methods for transmitting power. They arrived at a definite solution of this problem in the year 1891, at the electrical exposition in Frankfort on the Main, when they succeeded in leading from Lauffen on the Neckar to the exposition city their current, by means of the electric motive conductor. Since then, the hopes which were built on this solution have for the most part been realized.

One of the greatest of these outcomes, that already is much talked of, we admire in the plant for transmitting power from Niagara Falls. Of the 5,000,000 horse-power which these greatest falls of the world. exert every minute, 15,000 are diverted and put to use through a region fifteen and one half miles in radius. Buffalo, for instance, which lies within the circumference of this circle, owes its light and its business power to its electrical career at Niagara Falls.

On German soil, too, and especially in the Rhine regions, similar plants at this moment are in progress of building. By means of powerful turbines they aim to draw from the Rhine about 10,500 horse-power and to send them, by means of an electric motor, to cities and factories in all directions within a radius of twelve and one half miles.

It is obvious that power transmitted in such quantities can be sold cheap. Already its price has caused a depreciation of about thirty per cent in steam machinery. Carefully planned improvements and centralization in such an industrial district are the best methods to increase the wealth of a country and to add to the prosperity of its inhabitants. The industries of the upper Rhine, for example, previously enjoyed only a mere existence, because their life element, coal, had become exhausted. The electrical current which the new plant will send out will be able, without doubt, to convert the Rhine region establishments into places of business activity.

Already modern methods of power-transmission are beginning to make their way even into that conservative branch of industry, agriculture. Lately at Dietrichshagen, in the vicinity of Rostock, in experiments before the representatives of the Prussian ministry of agriculture, it was demonstrated clearly, time and again, that in this business one could work more cheaply by the use of mechanical than of animal power. The significance of this is plain to be seen when it is considered that in the cultivation of the soil in Germany there are employed about 2,500,000 horses and 500,000 draught oxen. According to the reckoning of most competent business people, German farmers could aggregate a yearly saving of 210,000,000 marks, or $49,980,000, by the general use of mechanical power. The experiments at Dietrichshagen led to the conclusion that by the use of electrical power-transmission and its application in electrical plows one could cut down expenses fifty per cent. The conclusion would take on a still more favorable appearance if this power, always ready for work, should find application to other purposes, such as running sugar factories, and the farmer should utilize for the production of electric currents the energy that nature places at his disposal in the form of falling or flowing streams.

In the large cities, too, they already use the electric current very effectively in the trades. The electric stations which were set up there for the generation of light also furnish currents for power, and a considerable number of working establishments have furnished their machines with it at a comparatively small cost.

Since this has been done the mighty electric current has stood at the service of the investigator as well as the tradesman everywhere, and great strides have been made in the application of the re- markable power. Thus within a few years new scientific results have developed which, such as electrochemics, for instance, have influenced the authorities to establish special chairs of learning in the high schools. Electrochemics has arisen from the union of electricity with chemistry. Until shortly ago the combination and separation of substances was effected by a comparatively weak current at a low temperature. A world of new phenomena opened to the investigators when they attacked the physical world with powerful currents and the previously unheard-of high temperatures. These multitudinous scientific conquests are made applicable through the methods of power transmission to industrial uses, and prove valuable acquisitions to all manufactories.

One of the most fortunate discoverers in the realm of electrochemics, whose results are peculiarly adapted to rouse interest in wide circles, is Henry Moissan of Paris. With the force of the current he conquered fluorin, which most stubbornly of all the elements has resisted isolation, and presented it, free of all combinations, to the eye of the investigator — the first time it ever was seen in a free state. In his electric oven he crystallized coal to diamonds, and gold, copper, and resisting graphite were neglected and melted down into the form of little scales. These and similar experiments give an important idea of the almost creative power that the strong current lends humanity over material.

Besides such new knowledge, electrochemics has ripened the prominent practical results and has placed others nearer attainment. The extraction of the far-famed aluminum from clay takes place almost immediately under the influence of the powerful current. In like manner soda is formed from kitchen salt almost without expense if you take into account the value of the important second product. Electricity has been used successfully also to purify streams and rivers and to free them effectively from the death germs most inimical to humanity, such as cholera, typhus, malaria, etc.

Such wonderful properties explain why among the laity so often the question arises, What is electricity? Yet a few years ago a physicist would have had to stand abashed, for he knew no more of the mysterious sphinx than the questioner. Now the question can be answered, if not wholly, at least in part.

During the departing century natural philosophers have arrived at the knowledge that light and radiating heat are caused by swinging motions of a fine substance called ether. That electrical phenomena demanded a similar explanation was undoubted by every intelligent physicist; but the remarkable form of energy stubbornly refused to divulge its secret. The German physicist Heinrich Hertz first lifted the veil and showed that electricity spread out into space in waves 39.37 inches (a meter) long. This finally led to the proof that all force was expressed in the form of the billowy movements of ether. The only difference between light, radiating heat, and electricity in appearance is in the length of their respective waves.

On the theoretical judgment that electrical waves roll out into space, Nikola Tesla built up his experiments, which afford interesting glimpses into the future development of electrotechnics. Only consider what an advantage would be gained, if, without intervening wires, verbal or written messages could be sent over the wide world, if, without cables, currents could be conducted, lamps fed, and especially if electrical energy could be made to go in whatever place one desired. To make that possible is no longer the wish of a fruitless fancy, but already has been partly realized. Thus Tesla has made tubes a meter long light up brightly without connecting them anywhere, and Preece in London has telegraphed several miles through sea water without any cable.

In order to excite the remarkable light tube Tesla makes use of a peculiar machine, which conducts the so-called alternating current at a high speed of alternations. With this he made observations on wonderful phenomena. It is pretty generally known that alternating currents are dangerous; in fact they already have cost many human lives. Through the use of an ordinary machine for alternating currents, all organic life may be annihilated. But the immeasurably stronger and faster alternating Tesla current does no harm whatever to animals and people by passing through them. For instance it was found that dogs subjected to a current that made 4,500 alternations in a second were not disturbed, while an equally strong current of 120 alternations killed them. By further experiments on animals Professor Houston arrived at the general knowledge that with the increase of alternations — from a certain limit up — the danger from the currents diminishes and the effect even becomes beneficial. When the number of alternations is increased until they equal those of the waves of ether, which brings down the sunlight, they are able to exert on the surface of the body the same beneficial effects as ether. In fact Tesla has set out to use his current for remedial purposes.

Only shortly ago Roentgen's marvelous discovery gave us a new outlook on the phenomena and results of nature's forces. So great an impression has it made upon us all that it is almost unnecessary to dwell on the peculiar X-rays, invisible in themselves, that expose to view the interior of opaque bodies, and on the practical results to which already they have given place and which are yet to grow out of them. These things have been set forth at length in the journals during the last year, and for months have occupied whole columns of the newspapers. Yet we here may mention the greatest theoretical importance of the Roentgen discovery. It has shown that the X-rays are manifested through the wave motions of ether and that these waves are the smallest that ever yet have been observed.