IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR GENERATING ELECTRICITY, AND FOR TRANS- MITTING ELECTRIC CURRENTS FROM PLACE TO PLACE
Year: 1857

page_text: was no given
by the Act.)
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Stanislas Hoga at the Office of
the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 9th September
1857.
I, STANISLAS HOGA, of 72, Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square, in the County
of Middlesex, Gentleman, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention
for "IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR GENERATING ELECTRICITY, AND FOR TRANS-
MITTING ELECTRIC CURRENTS FROM PLACE TO PLACE," to be as follows:-
This Invention relates to a new or improved apparatus for generating
electricity, and for transmitting electric currents from place to place, whereby
the necessity for metallic connection between the places intended to be in
electric communication is entirely obviated.
This Invention may be adapted to the purposes of electro-telegraphy, and in
certain cases will be found of great utility.
In this Invention I use no galvanic batteries.
The electricity employed by me is produced by an apparatus similar to the
iron boiler known by the name of the "hydro-electric machine."
My chief improvement in working with this apparatus is, that instead of
using water I cause mercury to boil therein. I put pure mercury into a strong
wrought-iron boiler, and to this mercury I add a small quantity of sulphuret
of mercury, or simply a little mercury mixed by trituration with sulphur. The
electric excitement produced from causing the mercury to boil is prodigiously

page_text: great, and this is easily understood when we consider the manifold causes of
electric excitement concurring in this operation. The chemical actions of these
substances, iron, sulphur, and mercury, being brought together at the high
temperature of boiling mercury (662° Fahrenheit), the friction of boiling
mercury, and of its vapor in escaping through small apertures, the small
capacity of mercury for heat, and as a consequence of this its rapid change of
form from liquid to vapor and from vapor to liquid by a small addition or
diminution of heat; all these circumstances and properties combine to develope
and accumulate free electricity in great abundance.
The apparatus by which two stations can be brought into electric commu-
nication consists of two such boilers, with the appurtenances, bearing a direct
proportion to the distance between the two stations to be placed in commu-
nication with each other. The boiler with all its appurtenances is insu-
lated by glass supporters. The vapor of the mercury after escaping and being
condensed may be collected in a suitable vessel and used again. Near the
boiler is placed a large shallow vase, which is made of any suitable material;
this is filled with water, and it is supported by glass pillars. In one of the
two stations the positive electricity of the jets of mercurial vapor is conveyed
by a metallic conductor to the water in the vase, to be there dissipated in the
air; and this takes place in proportion to the largeness of its exposed surface,
and the more the positive electricity proceeding from the jets approaches to a
state of neutrality, so much the more will the negative electricity of the boiler
be increased or remain in its full intensity, even after being brought into
contact with the ground.
At the other station the order is reversed, namely, a metallic connection
conveys the negative electricity from the boiler to the vase of water, leaving for
use the positive electricity of the jets.
At both stations a large zinc plate is placed vertically in the ground to the
depth of about 20 feet; another large plate is in the same way placed in the
ground at a distance of about 30 feet from the former plate. Each pair of
plates is so arranged that they are parallel not only to each other, but as much
as possible to the corresponding pair of plates at the other station. The upper
ends of each pair of plates are connected by wire, which passes through a
delicate galvanometer, so that the passage of electricity from one plate to the
other is indicated by the motion of the magnetic needle.
Let us suppose that a person at one of these stations wishes to receive an
electric communication from the other station. Although he may have esta-
blished a connection between his boiler apparatus and the first plate, yet he
will not receive any signal nor perceive any motion in his magnetic needle

page_text: until another person at the distant station brings the other kind of electricity
of his apparatus in contact with the ground; until this is done no current of
electricity will be formed between the two plates at the station of the observer;
the electricity of his apparatus will only pass into the first plate and will then
be dissipated in the ground, having no opportunity of forming a horizontal
current, and of passing to the other plate through the small connecting wire
and the galvanometer; but as soon as the other person brings the opposite
kind of electricity in contact with the ground, both electricities, instead of being
dissipated in the neutral mass of the earth, will instantly rush towards each
other in currents in order to meet at an equal distance from the two stations,
in doing which they do not pass at once from the first plates to the ground,
but in preference pass the short distance between the two plates by a better
medium, that is, by the metallic wire of the two plates and the galvanometer.
If the electricity of the station to which the communication is sent should
be so abundantly produced as to act on the magnetic needle, and to cause it
to deviate from the magnetic meridian by the wire of the galvanometer par-
taking of the electricity which passes from the first plate to the ground
without the co-operation of the electricity of the distant place; in such case
I place a third plate similar to the other two in the ground, about 30 feet
distant from the second plate, and on the side nearest the opposite station ;
then, instead of making metallic connection between the two first plates, I
leave them entirely without such metallic connection, but I connect the second
and third plates by a wire passing through a galvanometer. By this arrange-
ment the needle of the galvanometer cannot be affected otherwise than at the
instant when the electricity at the distant place is brought in contact with
the ground, whereupon a horizontal current is formed in a line passing the
second and third plate.