The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1885-01-09
FIRST PRINCIPLES.
IN Article Fali Of Instruction for Young
Mechanics.

4 Il
of energy should be taught with the
multiplication table. 1t can be s,
taught if the teachers themselves ar,
certain that there is in the universe
only so much energy, and that we car
not make one particle more than al
ready existed. With a clear under
standing of this principle, no time viii
be wasted in search after perpetual
motion machines, and fewer mistake:
will be made by really earnest seekers
after improved machines for use or i'm
proved methods. When a young mar
brings to me some wonderful improve.
ment over the ordinary crank motion,
some device that is to supersede the
crank of the steam engine, a feeling Of
| utter helplessness comes over me;
know not where or how to begin; he
has had no opportunity to learn the
simple laws of mechanics, and TO point
out the fallacy of his argument means
to teach him the laws of mechanics, so
can only say to him, ..Don't" and NAV
advise him what books to read.
We hear or read almost daily of the
wonders of science, and what is to be
accomplished by electricity. at is to
be the great power of the future" Is
it power nowP We may use it in
directly to drive machinery, we may
make use of it to propel the cars on our
street roads, but is it a power in the
sense that steam is power? Let us
think of this few moments. We call
steam a power, and our factories are
driver by steam power; or we call
waite, when falling power, and we
,irive the machinery in other factories
10y water-wheels; or we pump water in
to the reservoirs at Fairmount by water
power Where we have no fall of
water. and where fuel is scarce but wind
plenty, we grind corn in a mill driven
by wind, and the wind is our power:
these and other sources of power NAV
be called primary powers.
Secondary power is that which is
transmitted from the prime motor to a
machine. One machine may be driven
by belt power, and another rnay be
driver by gearing, etc. Electricity, as
we now Use it, as power must be
classei in its greatest economy with the
secondary powers, with the belt or the
gearir g. not with the steam engine and
the water wheel. We dig from the
earth coal that contains the stored
up energy of the suns heat expended
on forests that existed long before
man came to live on this planet. We
burn that coal under our boilers. and
the seam generated by this applica-
ton Of heat to water is used to drive
the piston of the steam engine, and
from thence is the power conveyed by
belt o. gearing by shafts, or even by
electr city, to the machines to be Oper-
aied. We can burn up zine in costly
acids and generate electricity that can
beused to drive an electric engine. and so
i'll turn operate machines exactly as in
the ca sc of the steam engine. In this case
clectr city is a power exactly as steam
is 20 lie considered as power; and
what IS more, the electric battery will
give is more nearly the whole of the
stores up energy of the metal eaten up
in the battery than the most improved
steam engine can give us of the stored
up energy of the coal that is deyourad
all this advantage electric batteries are
not ucd to drive machines with any
hope Of economical results.
Zinc has been gathered from the
Barth as IN orc, it has been converted
into a metal, OF the metal has been |
gathered from the ore by means of coal |
,n' much labor; its market price is
by the cost of its production. |
To burn up zine at five cents pound |
n acids costing but a few cents per
hound, with a certainty of getting
rom the metal seventy or eighty |
rer cent. of its theoretical |
mercy in motive force, vet
makes the venture more costly one
han the burning of coal under
roller with the knowledge that we are
It the best getting but lutte more than
en- per cent. of the theoretical power
nat lies hidden in that coal. The cleo
richly that is now lighting our streets,
he electricity that is utilized in places
o drive the street cars. has behind it
he steam eng ne or the waterfall, the
en- some other motor.
by means of steam engine we drive
lectricity thence proceeding lights our
treets. or may be reconnerted. with
Dme loss, hack into the power that
reated it; for one dynamo machine
an be made Thus to drive another, the S
ectricity being carried from one to ,
lie other by proper conductors. What,
zen. is electricity as We now use it in
he way of power, hut as the belts and
IL gearing that carries our steam
over to the machines? 1t is belt 4
it'll more or less slip But this Il
not to remain so forever. The future il
electricity as a power is full of (
'omise. The coal we now squander, b
ing but small per centage of its n
eoreticai dynamic force, is capable of c
Gliding its energy either as heat or as u
sctricity: and the time will come when I,
2 will not burn this coaa to boil wa b
+, and in that boiling lose say 1000 5,
hts OF its heat at the moment of the $,
inversion of wafer into steam. lose all j,
is, never to be getting it back, but we h
ii take from the eeal its energy in Ii
form of electricity we hope in more Il
ar ratio to its true value, and then II
. can convert that energy into what n,
ever other form of energy we may re- is
ire. The best that science can do is 70
point out just what energy there is lii
this or that source of power The a
'st We can hope TO utilize of this en- w
~ as power will never amount to 100 to
r cest. Nature gives us nothing of
thout exacting something in pay "
mt. st
4 pound of water is the same rs a &C
'ound Of metal so far as its power of sn
witty is concerned. In falling through sn
zee 1t viii exert inst as much force as to
ntbny ,-,n,I -.