The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1901-06-16

Charles w. Price In Leslie's Weekly.
I shall hope to describe briefly a small
part of the interesting utility Of cleo
tricity. Sixty years ago began it's prac-
teal use-tne electric telegraph. For
forty years this invention Of Morse com
pTised the sole practical application Of
electricity. Twenty five years ago there
was no telephone; electric light existed
only in the laboratories of a few eX-
perimentsTs, and the electric motor in
the form OF toy was looked upon as an
inter sting little machine; the car horse
jinglcd MS bells on our streets; the vast
metailuTgiCal and chemical industries
which are working q revolution in im-
pCrtant lines today were undreaned OF;
the el-ctro-mobile was still in the womb
OF time and the naughty cab horse mon
arch + our driveways.
Electricity is not a substance; 1t Is
condition produced in several ways by
the action Of forces on matter and which
is propagated with great speed along
conducting substances such as metallic
wires. For simplicity it is often called
q fluid, and while this is now regarded
as Inaccurate, I shall make use of it as
aiding an understanding of electrical
phenomenon, and therefore when I say
''fUid" l mean something entirely diff
fcrout
DISCOVERED THE FLOW OF CUR
RENT.
Exactly one century ago the distln-
guished Italian philosopher Alessandro
Volt, discovered the flow Of electric
current. This discovery was probably
more Eotent Of results than any other
that has been made in civilized times
Coming in the last years of the
eighteenth century. it's development has
been the task and browning achievement
o. tae nineteenth. 1t made possible all
tESt has come since OF electrical develop
nent. Bell, a poor man at Cambridge
Mass, teaching visible speech to the
oeaf-I1ute daughter OF the wealthy Gard
3ner G. Hubbard, studying sound more
tAa! electricity happily combined the
laws OF both and gave to the world the
telephone. His fair deaf-mute pupil be-
came his wife, his father-iTi-law became
his promoter, and American brains and
enterprise did the rest This invention
stands out as one brilliant conception
which is wholly American. All the na-
lions of Europe are supplied with Ameri-
can telephone apparatus designed by
American engineers and furnished by
American manufacturers, and amounting
to millions Of dollars in value.
It is not widely known that at the pres
ent time. betW cen all important tele-
phone centers of the United States lille
the trunk wires are being used for trans
hitting speech, there are being sent over
them simultaneously Geographic mes
sages without producing any Interrupt
tions Of the spoken words. Were it not
for imuutable laws Of nature, which
cannot BE varied by man or corporation,
you might, by listening, take off the
Geographic message thus traversins
these very conductors What a tanta4iz-
ing prospect for the wiretapper! AL
though these Geographic impulses actu-
ally traverse the coil of wire in the tele-
phone at your ear, and actually speed
along the identical copper conductor at
that time conveying the voice currents,
you hear neither dot nor dash of th2
Geographic message. The ear, keenly
tuned to those rapid vibrations constitut-
Ing sound, is deaf to vibrations of the
SLOW 2ate Of the telegraph when smooth
ed by the magic art of the telephonist.
THEN CAME THE ARC LIGHT.
The discovery that a considerable flow
of electricity heated the conductor per
ceptibly led to the invention of the cleo
trio light. The first experiments were
with batteries, with which the rames of
Volta and Sir Humphrey Davy are
linked. Electricity in motion is not CON
lined to the conductor in which 1t is
seemingly moving. Every wire over
which a current flows is surrounded by
loops and whirls of magnetic force. Con
UP tbs wire around a bar of iron and the
lar is powerfully magnetized. Move this
bar near q magnet and ait once a cur
rent Of electricity flows in the encircling
wire.
These discoveries resulted in the
dynamo born about the year 1850. and
its youth was spent idlipg around the
experimental laboratories Of the wealth
Ter savants of Europe Up to the CEN
tennial year of 1876 the most it could do
was TO furnish enough current for one
good big light Then America adopt r.
this dynamo child and proceeded to Gull
tivate it, and the results in supplying
artificial light soon astonished the world
The dynamo is the most perfect machine
ever designed. The electrical energy given
out represents 81 per cent of the me-
ohanical effort required, so that II Is
proper to say that it is within 3 per cent
of perfection. In comparison the very
best modern compound condensing steam
engine only gives, In practice, about Is
per cert Of the energy possessed by the
steam put into it.
The arc light, the most brilliant OF ar-tt-