Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1896-11-04
BOTTLED Up ELECTRICITY
The Storage Battery and the New Uses 1t is
Put To.
DIFFICULTIES THAT HAVE BEEN oVERCOM
'r"c'icnl PraoG of Persistent Invcn-
tiN" Skili,,pNrtcr Many Failures
Increased Use of storage Hat
tcrics for Many Purposes.

One of the interesting features In the de-
Velopmont of applied electricity within the
last few years IS the storage battery. From
the time when Plantc made the first prlc-
ticable battery Of this sort up to this pres
ent day 1t has been recognized. says the
New York sun, that a successful storage
or accumulator battery would have almost
endless uses. Inventors by hundreds have
entered the field and the patent office records
SHOW an immense variety Of inventions in
this line. In the fertile brains of the in
Nentors visions arose of using wind power
water power solar heat, gas engines oil
engines, hot air engines and steam engines
20 run dynamos for producing the electric
current with the purpose of conserving this
force In storage batteries until the moment
when 1t was needed, and then using Il for
all the purposes for which bottled-up en-
ergy could be employed They saw the
possibilities of thus using electricity for
driving railroad trains. road carriages. boats
OF all sizes and flying machines; for light
ing Isolated houses, running sewing ma
chimes, washing machines and passenger
elevators In touscs; heating the irons in
| laundry, cooking the dinners, and, in fact
DONG anything that could be done by the
ulrect current from dynamo or a chemical
nave been made, and from time to time
these nave Been announced as about to
IeVOlutlonlZe one or another of the great in
dustrles of the world. Failure after failure
mas followed these announcements; but the
inventors kept at It, and today there Is
practical proof that the storage battery has
come into the electrical world to stay, and
even though 1t may still be short of per-
,ectloh' II Is playing a very important part
IN applied electricity.
Tens of thoucopde 90 ,t,,, iii -. ..-.
in use in this country and in Euope and
they nave made it possible to use sources
OF power for the production of electric
lishts and electric power which could not
'"av" been utilized by any other known
means. You drop nickel in the slot of
monograph and see the talking machine
start and then listen to a popular song, a
band of music. or a campaign orators
speech as reproduced by the machine, which
Is run by storage battery cell concealed
at the bottom of the stand. The kineto-
scope and dozens of other nickel-in- the-slot
machines are operated by the same power
cable messages and ordinary telcgraDbic
messages are sent by the storage battery.
electric lights are maintained by 1t, street
cars are run by II, and hundreds of the
great country houses of rich men depend
upon the storage battery to give them lights
ana elevator service without the necessity
OF Keeping on constant duty a full corps of
a
plant. The New York custom house saves
enc or two shifts of men through the same
means, and a great many of the smaller
Office buildings are enabled to practice this
same economy. The whole of the elevated
railroad system in. this city may be one
rated and lighted with storage batteries i'm
conjunction with direct current. and the
Union Traction company of PHILADELPHIA Is
already using a big battery of these cells
to carry Its trolley ears over a hill and thus
relieve the dynamo machinery from an
extra strain
CoNvEYsfA WRONG IMPRESSION.
The term storage battery" is good
enough one for popular use, but it CONVEYS
a wrong impression. II implies that the
electric current is a ponderable substance,
like water, which can be gathered up and
stored away in bulk This is not true The
only invention which comes near to pro-
ducing such an effect as this is the Leyden
jar, where an outer and an inner coating of
tintoil are kept separated by the glass of
tho jar and a charge of what is known as
static electricity is driven into the tinfoil
from one of the old-fashioned friction cleo
trio machines or its equivalent. This how
ever Is bottled lightning. Connect the in
ner and outer coating for moment and
the lightning jumps out with a flash and the
stored energy is all expended. 1t is evident
that this device could not be used for any
OF the commercial purposes for which cleo
tricity is wanted. What the storage bat
terry does is to receive a current and utilize
it to produce certain chemical changes in
the materials of its cells Then by the
natural tendency of these materials to
change back again the battery reproduces
the electric current, only giving it out in
an opposite direction. A curious thing
about these batteries is that they receive
and give out the current at the same time
If required, and no matter what the pres
sure voltage OF the current which is charg-
ing them may be, the current given off is of
fixed voltage dependent entirely upon the
number of storage cells coupled together
Just as it is true that Ben Franklin made
a working model of an electric motor and
pointed out the way to almost all the uses
20 which electricity has since been put, the
principles Of the storage battery were dis
covered nearly a century ago, in 1901 by
Gotherot, who observed that after he had
passed a current for some time through a
couple of separated platinum wires immersed
in sulphuric acid and water, these wires
would give out a reverse current when the
feeding wires were detached. Plante made
his battery of two sheets of lead, separated
by blanket of felt and rolled up together |
These were immersed in sulphuric acid and
water. One sheet Of lead was attached
by wire to the positive side of a dynamo |
or battery and the other to the negative |
side. What happened when a current was |
passed through this battery was this; The
water in the battery was separated into |
oxygen and hydrogen; the oxygen went to
the positive plate and formed peroxide of |
lead, and the hydrogen went to the negative |
plate and was held there in the meshes |
of the lead When the battery was set |
to work the other way this process was |
reversed. The amount of work which this |
battery could do was very small
THE FIRST METHOD.
About 1881 large number of persons who
had been working TO improve this battery,
both in this country and abroad, all hit |
upon about the same methods. Among these
inventors werS sit William Thompson of
England; Faure. Swan and Vollkmer, all in
Europe, and c. II. Brush OF the United
States. Their scheme was TO make gridron
plates of lead and fill in the openings with
a paste composed of peroxide OF lead-the
ordinary red lead of commerce, on one plate
and lithage for the other, mixed with acid
water, Sir William Thompson made big
battery of thib ssrt, which he sent to this
country and qalled 5,OOO-horse power
box This was gtheSay in which the Julian
batteries wereGhade, with which few street
cars were run Tor % long time on the Mad-
son and Fourth ayenue line in this city 1t
is sim ASSERTED that in some places where
the circumstances and care were favorable
these old plates were successful although
It is admitted that in most places they
failed. In the Fourth avenue cars, II is now