The National tribune., 1906-04-19
EDIsoN.s NEW BATTERY.

The public is learning to take Mr.
EuIsons announcements or what ne has
done or what he is going to do with 81
great deal of allowance. Like all in
yentors he Is a very sanguine man. and
disposed to talk as if his hopes were
realities. Some years ago he annou ICED
that he had discovered q storage bat
terry which was going to revolutionizc
the whole business. He would emplo.
nickel instead of lead. and thus reduce
the weight of the storage battery one
half. which would make that form of
power much handler. The trouble about
the employment Of storage batteries il
the excessive weight of the lead A
vehicle carrying storage battery is like
one in which the horses ride. 1t is even
more than this. because the proportion
of power to weight is much greater in
q storage battery than in a horse. Nickel
and lead have the same capacity for
electrical energy. but while the specific
gravity of lead is Haas, that of nickel
Is but 8.279, or only about two-thirds.
Mr.. Edison assumed that by making q
battery of nickel he could reduce the
weight at least 33 per cent. and so con-
hdent was he that great deal of money
was expended in preliminary trials, and
street-car men and others saw a pros
poet of running storage battery cars
successfully. instead of troleys Actual
trial demonstrated, however. that there
were physical difficulties which prevent
ed the use of nickel, and the old-fash-
ioned lead storage battery retains its
supremacy.
Now Mr.. Edison comes out with an
announcement that he is going to use
cobalt instead of nickel. and do more
than he first promised with nickel.
Whether he will succeed or not depends,
like his nickel experiment. upon pecu-
Harities of cobalt which can only be de-
yeloped by actual trial. A great flourish
of trumpets has been made about Mr.
Edison's wonderful genius in discover
ing cobalt This IS nonsense. Every
chemist and every physicist has always
associated cobalt with nickel, iron and
manganese, and the idea of substituting
physical operation has been familiar to
tiSiu. Lie IOuF metals nave always
been classed together, and the most nat
ural thing is to try to make any one
of them do something alike or Il little
different from what the others will do.
1t is said that Edison has had his agents
looking up all the available mines of
cobalt, and that Horace W. Wilson has
purchased mine on the Montreal Riv-
al. Hai I'm nd to
to deliver the ore at 35 cents a pound
in New York. This means SO a ton
on 10 per cent ore, which is an enor-
nous price for an ore that has hitherto
not been esteemed very highly. Cobalt
Is really widely-diffused metal AMI is
found in some quantities in a great
number of mines in various parts of
the world. Glass has been found in
Ninereh, made thousands of years ago,
which was coIored by cobalt 1t is so
common in the German mines that it
is nuisance and from that fact gained
its name. The superstitious miners call
Ell the troublesome, hard, worthless ore
that was so much in their way. kobolds,
from the malignant little gnomes or
sprites, whom they supposed haunted
the mines and interfered with their
work. The oxides and salts of cobalt
are distinguished for their beautiful
colors-red. blue. yellow and green
and they are therefore used for pig
ments. They give the beautiful blue
which we find in cobalt glass. and when
this is ground to powder 1T makes the
painters article known as smalt. 1T
has extensive use also in pottery and
the manufacture Of wall paper. The
spectrum shows US that there is cobalt
in the sum.
The specific gravity is between S.513
and 81, which makes it a triffe higher
than that Of nickel and. of course, about
two-thirds that Of lead.
While Mr.. Edison is confident that
his discovery will make the use of cleo
tricity much more general than has
been possible with the lead storage bat
terry and will deliver a hard blow at
the smclter trust and the Standard Oil
trust. plain people. who are familiar
with Mr.. Edison's history, will wait
patiently to see how much Of his prom
Use can be realized.