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[Image: Spine]
HISTORY FOR READY REFERENCE
FROM THE BEST HISTORIANS, BIOGRAPHERS, SPECIALISTS
THEIR OWN WORDS IN A COMPLETE SYSTEM OF HISTORY
FOR ALL USES, EXTENDING TO ALL COUNTRIES AND SUBJECTS,
AND REPRESENTING FOR BOTH READERS AND STUDENTS THE BETTER AND
NEWER LITERATURE OF HISTORY IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
BY J.N.LARNED
WITH NUMEROUS HISTORICAL MAPS FROM ORIGINAL STUDIES
AND DRAWINGS BY ALAN C. REILEY
IN FIVE VOLUMES
VOLUME II-EL DORADO TO GREAVES
SPRINGFIELD, MASS.
THE C. A. NICHOLS CO., PUBLISHERS
MDCCCXCV
COPYRIGHT, 1894.
BY J. N. LARNED.
The Riversider Press, Cambridge, Mass, U. S. A.
Printed by H. O. Houghton & Company.
LIST OF MAPS.
Map of Europe at the close of the Tenth Century, ... To follow page 1020
Map of Europe in 1768, ... To follow page 1086
Four maps of France,
A. D. 1154, 1180, 1814 and 1860, ... To follow page 1168
Two maps of Central Europe, A. D. 848 and 888, ... On page 1404
Map of Germany at the Peace of Westphalia, ... To follow page 1486
Maps of Germany, A. D. 1815 and 1866;
of the Netherlands, 1880-1889; and
of the Zollverein, ... To follow page 1540
LOGICAL OUTLINES, IN COLORS.
English history, ... To follow page 730
French history, ... To follow page 1158
German history, ... To follow page 1428
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLES.
The Fifth Century, ... On page 1433
The Sixth Century, ... On page 1434
{769}
EL DORADO,
The quest of.
"When the Spaniards had conquered and pillaged the civilized
empires on the table lands of Mexico, Bogota, and Peru, they
began to look round for new scenes of conquest, new sources of
wealth; the wildest rumours were received as facts, and the
forests and savannas, extending for thousands of square miles
to the eastward of the cordilleras of the Andes, were covered,
in imagination, with populous kingdoms, and cities filled with
gold. The story of El Dorado, of a priest or king smeared with
oil and then coated with gold dust, probably originated in a
custom which prevailed among the civilized Indians of the
plateau of Bogota; but El Dorado was placed, by the credulous
adventurers, in a golden city amidst the impenetrable forests
of the centre of South America, and, as search after search
failed, his position was moved further and further to the
eastward, in the direction of Guiana. El Dorado, the phantom
god of gold and silver, appeared in many forms. ... The
settlers at Quito and in Northern Peru talked of the golden
empire of the Omaguas, while those in Cuzco and Charcas dreamt
of the wealthy cities of Paytiti and Enim, on the banks of a
lake far away, to the eastward of the Andes. These romantic
fables, so firmly believed in those old days led to the
exploration of vast tracts of country, by the fearless
adventurers of the sixteenth century, portions of which have
never been traversed since, even to this day. The most famous
searches after El Dorado were undertaken from the coast of
Venezuela, and the most daring leaders of these wild
adventures were German knights."
_C. R. Markham,
Introduction to Simon's Account of the
Expedition of Ursua and Aguirre
(Hakluyt Society 1861)._
"There were, along the whole coast of the Spanish Main,
rumours of an inland country which abounded with gold. These
rumours undoubtedly related to the kingdoms of Bogota and
Tunja, now the Nuevo Reyno de Granada. Belalcazar, who was in
quest of this country from Quito, Federman, who came from
Venezuela, and Gonzalo Ximenez de Quesada, who sought it by
way of the River Madalena, and who effected its conquest, met
here. But in these countries also there were rumours of a rich
land at a distance; similar accounts prevailed in Peru; in
Peru they related to the Nuevo Reyno, there they related to
Peru; and thus adventurers from both sides were allured to
continue the pursuit after the game was taken. An imaginary
kingdom was soon shaped out as the object of their quest, and
stories concerning it were not more easily invented than
believed. It was said that a younger brother of Atabalipa
fled, after the destruction of the Incas, took with him the
main part of their treasures, and founded a greater empire
than that of which his family had been deprived. Sometimes the
imaginary Emperor was called the Great Paytite, sometimes the
Great Moxo, sometimes the Enim or Great Paru. An impostor at
Lima affirmed that he had been in his capital, the city of
Manoa, where not fewer than 3,000 workmen were employed in the
silversmiths' street; he even produced a map of the country,
in which he had marked a hill of gold, another of silver, and
a third of salt. ... This imaginary kingdom obtained the name
of El Dorado from the fashion of its Lord, which has the merit
of being in savage costume. His body was anointed every
morning with a certain fragrant gum of great price, and gold
dust was then blown upon him, through a tube, till he was
covered with it: the whole was washed off at night. This the
barbarian thought a more magnificent and costly attire than
could be afforded by any other potentate in the world, and
hence the Spaniards called him El Dorado, or the Gilded One. A
history of all the expeditions which were undertaken for the
conquest of his kingdom would form a volume not less
interesting than extraordinary."
_R. Southey,
History of Brazil,
volume 1, chapter 12._
The most tragical and thrilling of the stories of the seekers
after El Dorado is that which Mr. Markham introduces in the
quotation above, and which Southey has told with full details
in _The Expedition of Orsua; and the Crimes of Aguirre._
The most famous of the expeditions were those in which Sir
Walter Raleigh engaged, and two of which he personally led--in
1595, and in 1617-18. Released from his long imprisonment in
the Tower to undertake the latter, he returned from it, broken
and shamed, to be sent to the scaffold as a victim sacrificed
to the malignant resentment of Spain. How far Raleigh shared
in the delusion of his age respecting El Dorado, and how far
he made use of it merely to promote a great scheme for the
"expansion of England," are questions that will probably
remain forever in dispute.
_Sir Walter Raleigh,
Discoverie of the Large, Rich and
Beautiful Empire of Guiana
(Hakluyt Society 1848)._
ALSO IN:
_J. A. Van Heuvel,
El Dorado._
_E. Edwards,
Life of Raleigh,
volume 1, chapters 10 and 25._
_P. F. Tytler,
Life of Raleigh,
chapters 3 and 6._
_E. Gosse,
Raleigh,
chapters 4 and 9._
_A. F. Bandelier,
The gilded man._
ELECTORAL COLLEGE, The Germanic:
Its rise and constitution.
Its secularization and extinction.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1125-1152,
and 1347-1493;
also, 1801-1803,
and 1805-1806.
ELECTORAL COMMISSION, The.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1876-1877.
ELECTORS,
Presidential, of the United States of America.
See PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.
ELECTRICAL DISCOVERY AND INVENTION.
"Electricity, through its etymology at least, traces its
lineage back to Homeric times. In the Odyssey reference is
made to the 'necklace hung with bits of amber' presented by
the Phœnician traders to the Queen of Syra. Amber was highly
prized by the ancients, having been extensively used as an
ornamental gem, and many curious theories were suggested as to
its origin. Some of these, although mythical, were singularly
near the truth, and it is an interesting coincidence that in
the well-known myth concerning the ill-fated and rash youth
who so narrowly escaped wrecking the solar chariot and the
terrestrial sphere, amber, the first known source of
electricity, and the thunder-bolts of Jupiter are linked
together. It is not unlikely that this substance was indebted,
for some of the romance that clung to it through ages, to the
fact that when rubbed it attracts light bodies. This property
it was known to possess in the earliest times: it is the one
single experiment in electricity which has come down to us
from the remotest antiquity. ... The power of certain fishes,
notably what is known as the 'torpedo,' to produce
electricity, was known at an early period, and was commented
on by Pliny and Aristotle.
{770}
... Up to the sixteenth [century] there seems to have been no
attempt to study electrical phenomena in a really scientific
manner. Isolated facts which almost thrust themselves upon
observers, were noted, and, in common with a host of other
natural phenomena, were permitted to stand alone, with no
attempt at classification, generalization, or examination
through experiment. ... Dr. Gilbert can justly be called the
creator of the science of electricity and magnetism. His
experiments were prodigious in number, and many of his
conclusions were correct and lasting. To him we are indebted
for the name 'electricity,' which he bestowed upon the power
or property which amber exhibited in attracting light bodies,
borrowing the name from the substance itself, in order to
define one of its attributes. ... This application of
experiment to the study of electricity, begun by Gilbert three
hundred years ago, was industriously pursued by those who came
after him, and the next two centuries witnessed a rapid
development of science. Among the earlier students of this
period were the English philosopher, Robert Boyle, and the
celebrated burgomaster of Magdeburg, Otto von Guericke. The
latter first noted the sound and light accompanying electrical
excitation. These were afterwards independently discovered by
Dr. Wall, an Englishman, who made the somewhat prophetic
observation, 'This light and crackling seems in some degree to
represent thunder and lightning.' Sir Isaac Newton made a few
experiments in electricity, which he exhibited to the Royal
Society. ... Francis Hawksbee was an active and useful
contributor to experimental investigation, and he also called
attention to the resemblance between the electric spark and
lightning. The most ardent student of electricity in the early
years of the eighteenth century was Stephen Gray. He performed
a multitude of experiments, nearly all of which added
something to the rapidly accumulating stock of knowledge, but
doubtless his most important contribution was his discovery of
the distinction between conductors and non-conductors. ...
Some of Gray's papers fell into the hands of Dufay, an officer
of the French army, who, after several years' service, had
resigned his post to devote himself to scientific pursuits.
... His most important discovery was the existence of two
distinct species of electricity, which he named 'vitreous' and
'resinous.' ... A very important advance was made in 1745 in
the invention of the Leyden jar or phial. As has so many times
happened in the history of scientific discovery, it seems
tolerably certain that this interesting device was hit upon by
at least three persons, working independently of each other.
One Cuneus, a monk named Kleist, and Professor Muschenbroeck,
of Leyden, are all accredited with the discovery. ... Sir
William Watson perfected it by adding the outside metallic
coating, and was by its aid enabled to fire gunpowder and
other inflammables."
_T. C. Mendenhall,
A Century of Electricity,
chapter 1._
ELECTRICITY: A. D. 1745-1747.
Franklin's identification of Electricity with Lightning.
"In 1745 Mr. Peter Collinson of the Royal Society sent a
[Leyden] jar to the Library Society of Philadelphia, with
instructions how to use it. This fell into the hands of
Benjamin Franklin, who at once began a series of electrical
experiments. On March 28, 1747, Franklin began his famous
letters to Collinson. ... In these letters he propounded the
single-fluid theory of electricity, and referred all electric
phenomena to its accumulation in bodies in quantities more
than their natural share, or to its being withdrawn from them
so as to leave them minus their proper portion." Meantime,
numerous experiments with the Leyden jar had convinced
Franklin of the identity of lightning and electricity, and he
set about the demonstration of the fact. "The account given by
Dr. Stuber of Philadelphia, an intimate personal friend of
Franklin, and published in one of the earliest editions of the
works of the great philosopher, is as follows:--'The plan
which he had originally proposed was to erect on some high
tower, or other elevated place, a sentry-box, from which
should rise a pointed iron rod, insulated by being fixed in a
cake of resin. Electrified clouds passing over this would, he
conceived, impart to it a portion of their electricity, which
would be rendered evident to the senses by sparks being
emitted when a key, a knuckle, or other conductor was
presented to it. Philadelphia at this time offered no
opportunity of trying an experiment of this kind. Whilst
Franklin was waiting for the erection of a spire, it occurred
to him that he might have more ready access to the region of
clouds by means of a common kite. He prepared one by attaching
two cross-sticks to a silk handkerchief, which would not
suffer so much from the rain as paper. To his upright stick
was fixed an iron point. The string was, as usual, of hemp,
except the lower end, which was silk. Where the hempen string
terminated, a key was fastened. With this apparatus, on the
appearance of a thunder-gust approaching, he went into the
common, accompanied by his son, to whom alone he communicated
his intentions, well knowing the ridicule which, too generally
for the interest of science, awaits unsuccessful experiments in
philosophy. He placed himself under a shed to avoid the rain.
His kite was raised. A thunder-cloud passed over it. No signs
of electricity appeared. He almost despaired of success, when
suddenly he observed the loose fibres of his string move
toward an erect position. He now pressed his knuckle to the
key, and received a strong spark. How exquisite must his
sensations have been at this moment! On his experiment
depended the fate of his theory. Doubt and despair had begun
to prevail, when the fact was ascertained in so clear a
manner, that even the most incredulous could no longer
withhold their assent. Repeated sparks were drawn from the
key, a phial was charged, a shock given, and all the
experiments made which are usually performed with
electricity.' And thus the identity of lightning and
electricity was proved. ... Franklin's proposition to erect
lightning rods which would convey the lightning to the ground,
and so protect the buildings to which they were attached, found
abundant opponents. ... Nevertheless, public opinion became
settled ... that they did protect buildings. ... Then the
philosophers raised a new controversy as to whether the
conductors should be blunt or pointed; Franklin, Cavendish,
and Watson advocating points, and Wilson blunt ends. ... The
logic of experiment, however, showed the advantage of pointed
conductors; and people persisted then in preferring them, as
they have done ever since."
{771}
_P. Benjamin,
The Age of Electricity,
chapter 3._
ELECTRICITY: A. D. 1753-1820.
The beginnings of the Electric Telegraph.
"The first actual suggestion of an electric telegraph was made
in an anonymous letter published in the Scots Magazine at
Edinburgh, February 17th, 1753. The letter is initialed 'C.
M.,' and many attempts have been made to discover the author's
identity. ... The suggestions made in this letter were that a
set of twenty-six wires should be stretched upon insulated
supports between the two places which it was desired to put in
connection, and at each end of every wire a metallic ball was
to be suspended, having under it a letter of the alphabet
inscribed upon a piece of paper. ... The message was to be
read off at the receiving station by observing the letters
which were successively attracted by their corresponding
balls, as soon as the wires attached to the latter received a
charge from the distant conductor. In 1787 Monsieur Lomond, of
Paris, made the very important step of reducing the twenty-six
wires to one, and indicating the different letters by various
combinations of simple movements of an indicator, consisting
of a pith-ball suspended by means of a thread from a conductor
in contact with the wire. ... In the year 1790 Chappe, the
inventor of the semaphore, or optico-mechanical telegraph,
which was in practical use previous to the introduction of the
electric telegraph, devised a means of communication,
consisting of two clocks regulated so that the second hands
moved in unison, and pointed at the same instant to the same
figures. ... In the early form of the apparatus, the exact
moment at which the observer at the receiving station should
read off the figure to which the hand pointed was indicated by
means of a sound signal produced by the primitive method of
striking a copper stew pan, but the inventor soon adopted the
plan of giving electrical signals instead of sound signals.
... In 1795 Don Francisco Salva ... suggested ... that instead
of twenty-six wires being used, one for each letter, six or
eight wires· only should be employed, each charged by a Leyden
jar, and that different letters should be formed by means of
various combinations of signals from these. ... Mr.
(afterwards Sir Francis) Ronalds ... took up the subject of
telegraphy in the year 1816, and published an account of his
experiments in 1823," based on the same idea as that of
Chappe. ... "Ronalds drew up a sort of telegraphic code by
which words, and sometimes even complete sentences, could be
transmitted by only three discharges. ... Ronalds completely
proved the practicability of his plan, not only on [a] short
underground line, .... but also upon an overhead line some
eight miles in length, constructed by carrying a telegraph
wire backwards and forwards over a wooden frame-work erected
in his garden at Hammersmith. ... The first attempt to employ
voltaic electricity in telegraphy was made by Don Francisco
Salva, whose frictional telegraph has already been referred
to. On the 14th of May, 1800, Salva read a paper on 'Galvanism
and its application to Telegraphy' before the Academy of Sciences
at Barcelona, in which he described a number of experiments
which he had made in telegraphing over a line some 310 metres
in length. ... A few years later he applied the then recent
discovery of the Voltaic pile to the same purpose, the
liberation of bubbles of gas by the decomposition of water at
the receiving station being the method adopted for indicating
the passage of the signals. A telegraph of a very similar
character was devised by Sömmering, and described in a paper
communicated by the inventor to the Munich Academy of Sciences
in 1809. Sömmering used a set of thirty-five wires corresponding
to the twenty-five letters of the German alphabet and the ten
numerals. ... Oersted's discovery of the action of the
electric current upon a suspended magnetic needle provided a
new and much more hopeful method of applying the electric
current to telegraphy. The great French astronomer Laplace
appears to have been the first to suggest this application of
Oersted's discovery, and he was followed shortly afterwards by
Ampere, who in the year 1820 read a paper before the Paris
Academy of Sciences."
_G. W. De Tunzelmann,
Electricity in Modern Life,
chapter 9._
ELECTRICITY: A. D. 1786-1800.
Discoveries of Galvani and Volta.
"The fundamental experiment which led to the discovery of
dynamical electricity [1786] is due to Galvani, professor of
anatomy in Bologna. Occupied with investigations on the
influence of electricity on the nervous excitability of
animals, and especially of the frog, he observed that when the
lumbar nerves of a dead frog were connected with the crural
muscles by a metallic circuit, the latter became briskly
contracted. ... Galvani had some time before observed that the
electricity of machines produced in dead frogs analogous
contractions, and he attributed the phenomena first described
to an electricity inherent in the animal. He assumed that this
electricity, which he called vital fluid, passed from the
nerves to the muscles by the metallic arc, and was thus the
cause of contraction. This theory met with great support,
especially among physiologists, but it was not without
opponents. The most considerable of these was Alexander Volta,
professor of physics in Pavia. Galvani's attention had been
exclusively devoted to the nerves and muscles of the frog;
Volta's was directed upon the connecting metal. Resting on the
observation, which Galvani had also made, that the contraction
is more energetic when the connecting arc is composed of two
metals than where there is only one, Volta attributed to the
metals the active part in the phenomenon of contraction. He
assumed that the disengagement of electricity was due to their
contact, and that the animal parts only officiated as
conductors, and at the same time as a very sensitive
electroscope. By means of the then recently invented
electroscope, Volta devised several modes of showing the
disengagement of electricity on the contact of metals. ... A
memorable controversy arose between Galvani and Volta. The
latter was led to give greater extension to his contact
theory, and propounded the principle that when two
heterogeneous substances are placed in contact, one of them
always assumes the positive and the other the negative
electrical condition. In this form Volta's theory obtained the
assent of the principal philosophers of his time."
_A. Ganot,
Elementary Treatise on Physics;
translated by Atkinson, book 10, chapter 1._
Volta's theory, however, though somewhat misleading, did not
prevent his making what was probably the greatest step in the
science up to this time, in the invention (about 1800) of the
Voltaic pile, the first generator of electrical energy by
chemical means, and the forerunner of the vast number of types
of the modern "battery."
{772}
ELECTRICITY: A. D. 1810-1890.
The Arc light.
"The earliest instance of applying Electricity to the
production of light was in 1810, by Sir Humphrey Davy, who
found that when the points of two carbon rods whose other ends
were connected by wires with a powerful primary battery were
brought into contact, and then drawn a little way apart, the
Electric current still continued to jump across the gap,
forming what is now termed an Electric Arc. ... Various
contrivances have been devised for automatically regulating
the position of the two carbons. As early as 1847, a lamp was
patented by Staite, in which the carbon rods were fed together
by clockwork. ... Similar devices were produced by Foucault
and others, but the first really successful arc lamp was
Serrin's, patented in 1857, which has not only itself survived
until the present day, but has had its main features
reproduced in many other lamps. ... The Jablochkoff Candle
(1876), in which the arc was formed between the ends of a pair
of carbon rods placed side by side, and separated by a layer of
insulating material, which slowly consumed as the carbons
burnt down, did good service in accustoming the public to the
new illuminant. Since then the inventions by Brush,
Thomson-Houston, and others have done much to bring about its
adoption for lighting large rooms, streets, and spaces out of
doors."
_J. B. Verity,
Electricity up to Date for Light, Power, and Traction,
chapter 3._
ELECTRICITY: A. D. 1820-1825.
Oersted, Ampere, and the discovery of the Electro-Magnet.
"There is little chance ... that the discoverer of the magnet,
or the discoverer and inventor of the magnetic needle, will
ever be known by name, or that even the locality and date of
the discovery will ever be determined [see COMPASS]. ... The
magnet and magnetism received their first scientific treatment
at the hands of Dr. Gilbert. During the two centuries
succeeding the publication of his work, the science of
magnetism was much cultivated. ... The development of the
science went along parallel with that of the science of
electricity ... although the latter was more fruitful in novel
discoveries and unexpected applications than the former. It is
not to be imagined that the many close resemblances of the two
classes of phenomena were allowed to pass unnoticed. ... There
was enough resemblance to suggest an intimate relation; and
the connecting link was sought for by many eminent
philosophers during the last years of the eighteenth and the
earlier years of the present century."
_T. C. Mendenhall,
A Century of Electricity,
chapter 3._
"The effect which an electric current, flowing in a wire, can
exercise upon a neighbouring compass needle was discovered by
Oersted in 1820. This first announcement of the possession of
magnetic properties by an electric current was followed
speedily by the researches of Ampere, Arago, Davy, and by the
devices of several other experimenters, including De la Rive's
floating battery and coil, Schweigger's multiplier, Cumming's
galvanometer, Faraday's apparatus for rotation of a permanent
magnet, Marsh's vibrating pendulum and Barlow's rotating
star-wheel. But it was not until 1825 that the electromagnet
was invented. Arago announced, on 25th September 1820, that a
copper wire uniting the poles of a voltaic cell, and
consequently traversed by an electric current, could attract
iron filings to itself laterally. In the same communication he
described how he had succeeded in communicating permanent
magnetism to steel needles laid at right angles to the copper
wire, and how, on showing this experiment to Ampere, the
latter had suggested that the magnetizing action would be more
intense if for the straight copper wire there were substituted
one wrapped in a helix, in the centre of which the steel
needle might be placed. This suggestion was at once carried
out by the two philosophers. 'A copper wire wound in a helix
was terminated by two rectilinear portions which could be
adapted, at will, to the opposite poles of a powerful
horizontal voltaic pile; a steel needle wrapped up in paper
was introduced into the helix.' 'Now, after some minutes'
sojourn in the helix, the steel needle had received a
sufficiently strong dose of magnetism.' Arago then wound upon
a little glass tube some short helices, each about 2¼ inches
long, coiled alternately right-handedly and left-handedly, and
found that on introducing into the glass tube a steel wire, he
was able to produce 'consequent poles' at the places where the
winding was reversed. Ampère, on October 23rd, 1820, read a
memoir, claiming that these facts confirmed his theory of
magnetic actions. Davy had, also, in 1820, surrounded with
temporary coils of wire the steel needles upon which he was
experimenting, and had shown that the flow of electricity
around the coil could confer magnetic power upon the steel
needles. ... The electromagnet, in the form which can first
claim recognition ... was devised by William Sturgeon, and is
described by him in the paper which he contributed to the
Society of Arts in 1825."
_S. P. Thompson,
The Electromagnet,
chapter 1._
ELECTRICITY: A. D. 1825-1874.
The Perfected Telegraph.
"The European philosophers kept on groping. At the end of five
years [after Oersted's discovery], one of them reached an
obstacle which he made up his mind was so entirely
insurmountable, that it rendered the electric telegraph an
impossibility for all future time. This was [1825] Mr. Peter
Barlow, fellow of the Royal Society, who had encountered the
question whether the lengthening of the conducting wire would
produce any effect in diminishing the energy of the current
transmitted, and had undertaken to resolve the problem. ... 'I
found [he said] such a considerable diminution with only 200
feet of wire as at once to convince me of the impracticability
of the scheme.' ... The year following the announcement of
Barlow's conclusions, a young graduate of the Albany (N. Y.)
Academy--by name Joseph Henry--was appointed to the
professorship of mathematics in that institution. Henry there
began the series of scientific investigations which is now
historic. ... Up to that time, electro-magnets had been made
with a single coil of naked wire wound spirally around the
core, with large intervals between the strands. The core was
insulated as a whole: the wire was not insulated at all.
Professor Schweigger, who had previously invented the
multiplying galvanometer, had covered his wires with silk.
Henry followed this idea, and, instead of a single coil of
wire, used several. ... Barlow had said that the gentle
current of the galvanic battery became so weakened, after
traversing 200 feet of wire, that it was idle to consider the
possibility of making it pass over even a mile of conductor
and then affect a magnet.
{773}
Henry's reply was to point out that the trouble lay in the way
Barlow's magnet was made. ... Make the magnet so that the
diminished current will exercise its full effect. Instead of
using one short coil, through which the current can easily
slip, and do nothing, make a coil of many turns; that
increases the magnetic field: make it of fine wire, and of
higher resistance. And then, to prove the truth of his
discovery, Henry put up the first electro-magnetic telegraph
ever constructed. In the academy at Albany, in 1831, he
suspended 1,060 feet of bell-wire, with a battery at one end
and one of his magnets at the other; and he made the magnet
attract and release its armature. The armature struck a bell,
and so made the signals. Annihilating distance in this way was
only one part of Henry's discovery. He had also found, that,
to obtain the greatest dynamic effect close at hand, the
battery should be composed of a very few cells of large
surface, combined with a coil or coils of short coarse wire
around the magnet,--conditions just the reverse of those
necessary when the magnet was to be worked at a distance. Now,
he argued, suppose the magnet with the coarse short coil, and
the large-surface battery, be put at the receiving station;
and the current coming over the line be used simply to make
and break the circuit of that local battery. ... This is the
principle of the telegraphic 'relay.' In 1835 Henry worked a
telegraph-line in that way at Princeton. And thus the
electro-magnetic telegraph was completely invented and
demonstrated. There was nothing left to do, but to put up the
posts, string the lines, and attach the instruments."
_P. Benjamin,
The Age of Electricity,
chapter 11._
"At last we leave the territory of theory and experiment and
come to that of practice. 'The merit of inventing the modern
telegraph, and applying it on a large scale for public use,
is, beyond all question, due to Professor Morse of the United
States.' So writes Sir David Brewster, and the best
authorities on the question substantially agree with him. ...
Leaving for future consideration Morse's telegraph, which was
not introduced until five years after the time when he was
impressed with the notion of its feasibility, we may mention
the telegraph of Gauss and Weber of Göttingen. In 1833, they
erected a telegraphic wire between the Astronomical and
Magnetical Observatory of Göttingen, and the Physical Cabinet
of the University, for the purpose of carrying intelligence
from the one locality to the other. To these great
philosophers, however, rather the theory than the practice of
Electric Telegraphy was indebted. Their apparatus was so
improved as to be almost a new invention by Steinheil of
Munich, who, in 1837 ... succeeded in sending a current from
one end to the other of a wire 36,000 feet in length, the
action of which caused two needles to vibrate from side to
side, and strike a bell at each movement. To Steinheil the
honour is due of having discovered the important and
extraordinary fact that the earth might be used as a part of
the circuit of an electric current. The introduction of the
Electric Telegraph into England dates from the same year as
that in which Steinheil's experiments took place. William
Fothergill Cooke, a gentleman who held a commission in the
Indian army, returned from India on leave of absence, and
afterwards, because of his bad health, resigned his
commission, and went to Heidelberg to study anatomy. In 1836,
Professor Mönke, of Heidelberg, exhibited an
electro-telegraphic experiment, 'in which electric currents,
passing along a conducting wire, conveyed signals to a distant
station by the deflexion of a magnetic needle enclosed in
Schweigger's galvanometer or multiplier.' ... Cooke was so
struck with this experiment, that he immediately resolved to
apply it to purposes of higher utility than the illustration
of a lecture. ... In a short time he produced two telegraphs
of different construction. When his plans were completed, he
came to England, and in February, 1837, having consulted
Faraday and Dr. Roget on the construction of the
electric-magnet employed in a part of his apparatus, the
latter gentleman advised him to apply to Professor Wheatstone.
... The result of the meeting of Cooke and Wheatstone was that
they resolved to unite their several discoveries; and in the
month of May 1837, they took out their first patent 'for
improvements in giving signals and sounding alarms in distant
places by means of electric currents transmitted through
metallic circuits.' ... By-and-by, as might probably have been
anticipated, difficulties arose between Cooke and Wheatstone,
as to whom the main credit of introducing the Electric
Telegraph into England was due. Mr. Cooke accused Wheatstone
(with a certain amount of justice, it should seem) of entirely
ignoring his claims; and in doing so Mr. Cooke appears to have
rather exaggerated his own services. Most will readily agree
to the wise words of Mr. Sabine: "It was once a popular
fallacy in England that Messrs. Cooke and Wheatstone were the
original inventors of the Electric Telegraph. The Electric
Telegraph had, properly speaking, no inventor; it grew up as
we have seen little by little."
_H. J. Nicoll,
Great Movements,
pages 424-429._
"In the latter part of the year 1832, Samuel F. B. Morse, an
American artist, while on a voyage from France to the United
States, conceived the idea of an electromagnetic telegraph
which should consist of the following parts, viz: A single
circuit of conductors from some suitable generator of
electricity; a system of signs, consisting of dots or points
and spaces to represent numerals; a method of causing the
electricity to mark or imprint these signs upon a strip or
ribbon of paper by the mechanical action of an electro-magnet
operating upon the paper by means of a lever, armed at one end
with a pen or pencil; and a method of moving the paper ribbon
at a uniform rate by means of clock-work to receive the
characters. ... In the autumn of the year 1835 he constructed
the first rude working model of his invention. ... The first
public exhibition ... was on the 2d of September, 1837, on
which occasion the marking was successfully effected through
one third of a mile of wire. Immediately afterwards a
recording instrument was constructed ... which was
subsequently employed upon the first experimental line between
Washington and Baltimore. This line was constructed in 1843-44
under an appropriation by Congress, and was completed by May
of the latter year. On the 27th of that month the first
despatch was transmitted from Washington to Baltimore. ... The
experimental line was originally constructed with two wires,
as Morse was not at that time acquainted with the discovery of
Steinheil, that the earth might be used to complete the circuit.
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Accident, however, soon demonstrated this fact. ... The
following year (1845) telegraph lines began to be built over
other routes. ... In October, 1851, a convention of deputies
from the German States of Austria, Prussia, Bavaria,
Würtemberg and Saxony, met at Vienna, for the purpose of
establishing a common and uniform telegraphic system, under
the name of the German-Austrian Telegraph Union. The various
systems of telegraphy then in use were subjected to the most
thorough examination and discussion. The convention decided
with great unanimity that the Morse system was practically far
superior to all others, and it was accordingly adopted. Prof.
Steinheil, although himself ... the inventor of a telegraphic
system, with a magnanimity that does him high honor, strongly
urged upon the convention the adoption of the American
system." ... The first of the printing telegraphs was patented
in the United States by Royal E. House, in 1846. The Hughes
printing telegraph, a remarkable piece of mechanism, was
patented by David E. Hughes, of Kentucky, in 1855. A system
known as the automatic method, in which the signals
representing letters are transmitted over the line through the
instrumentality of mechanism, was originated by Alexander Bain
of Edinburgh, whose first patents were taken out in 1846. An
autographic telegraph, transmitting despatches in the
reproduced hand-writing of the sender, was brought out in
1850, by F. C. Bakewell, of London. The same result was
afterwards accomplished with variations of method by Charles
Cros, of Paris, Abbé Caseli, of Florence, and others; but none
of these inventions has been extensively used. "The
possibility of making use of a single wire for the
simultaneous transmission of two or more communications seems
to have first suggested itself to Moses G. Farmer, of Boston,
about the year 1852." The problem was first solved with
partial success by Dr. Gintl, on the line between Prague and
Vienna, in 1853, but more perfectly by Carl Frischen, of
Hanover, in the following year. Other inventors followed in
the same field, among them Thomas A. Edison, of New Jersey,
who was led by his experiments finally, in 1874 to devise a
system "which was destined to furnish the basis of the first
practical solution of the curious and interesting problem of
quadruplex telegraphy."
_G. B. Prescott,
Electricity and the Electric Telegraph,
chapter 29-40._
ELECTRICITY: A. D. 1831-1872.
Dynamo
Electrical Machines, and Electric Motors.
"The discovery of induction by Faraday, in 1831, gave rise to
the construction of magneto-electro machines. The first of
such machines that was ever made was probably a machine that
never came into practical use, the description of which was
given in a letter, signed 'P. M.,' and directed to Faraday,
published in the Philosophical Magazine of 2nd August, 1832.
We learn from this description that the essential parts of
this machine were six horse-shoe magnets attached to a disc,
which rotated in front of six coils of wire wound on bobbins."
Sept. 3rd, 1832, Pixii constructed a machine in which a single
horse-shoe magnet was made to rotate before two soft iron
cores, wound with wire. In this machine he introduced the
commutator, an essential element in all modern continuous
current machines. "Almost at the same time, Ritchie, Saxton,
and Clarke constructed similar machines. Clarke's is the best
known, and is still popular in the small and portable
'medical' machines so commonly sold. ... A larger machine
[was] constructed by Stöhrer (1843), on the same plan as
Clarke's, but with six coils instead of two, and three
compound magnets instead of one. ... The machines, constructed
by Nollet (1849) and Shepard (1856) had still more magnets and
coils. Shepard's machine was modified by Van Malderen, and was
called the Alliance machine. ... Dr. Werner Siemens, while
considering how the inducing effect of the magnet can be most
thoroughly utilised, and how to arrange the coils in the most
efficient manner for this purpose, was led in 1857 to devise
the cylindrical armature. ... Sinsteden in 1851 pointed out
that the current of the generator may itself be utilised to
excite the magnetism of the field magnets. ... Wilde [in 1863]
carried out this suggestion by using a small steel permanent
magnet and larger electro magnets. ... The next great
improvement of these machines arose from the discovery of what
may be called the dynamo-electric principle. This principle
may be stated as follows:--For the generation of currents by
magneto-electric induction it is not necessary that the
machine should be furnished with permanent magnets; the
residual or temporary magnetism of soft iron quickly rotating
is sufficient for the purpose. ... In 1867 the principle was
clearly enunciated and used simultaneously, but independently,
by Siemens and by Wheatstone. ... It was in February, 1867,
that Dr. C. W. Siemens' classical paper on the conversion of
dynamical into electrical energy without the aid of permanent
magnetism was read before the Royal Society. Strangely enough,
the discovery of the same principle was enunciated at the same
meeting of the Society by Sir Charles Wheatstone. ... The
starting-point of a great improvement in dynamo-electric
machines, was the discovery by Pacinotti of the ring armature
... in 1860. ... Gramme, in 1871, modified the ring armature,
and constructed the first machine, in which he made use of the
Gramme ring and the dynamic principle. In 1872,
Hefner-Alteneck, of the firm of Siemens and Halske,
constructed a machine in which the Gramme ring is replaced by
a drum armature, that is to say, by a cylinder round which
wire is wound. ... Either the Pacinotti-Gramme ring armature,
or the Hefner-Alteneck drum armature, is now adopted by nearly
all constructors of dynamo-electric machines, the parts
varying of course in minor details." The history of the dynamo
since has been one of a gradual perfection of parts, resulting
in the production of a great number of types, which can not
here even be mentioned.
_A. R. von Urbanitzky,
Electricity in the Service of Man,
pages 227-242._
_S. P. Thompson,
Dynamo Electrical Machines._
ELECTRICITY:
Electric Motors.
It has been known for forty years that every form of electric
motor which operated on the principle of mutual mechanical
force between a magnet and a conducting wire or coil could
also be made to act as a generator of induced currents by the
reverse operation of producing the motion mechanically. And
when, starting from the researches of Siemens, Wilde, Nollet,
Holmes and Gramme, the modern forms of magneto-electric and
dynamo-electric machines began to come into commercial use, it
was discovered that any one of the modern machines designed as
a generator of currents constituted a far more efficient
electric motor than any of the previous forms which had been
designed specially as motors.
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It required no new discovery of the law of reversibility to
enable the electrician to understand this; but to convince the
world required actual experiment."
_A. Guillemin, Electricity and Magnetism,
part 2, chapter 10, section 3._
ELECTRICITY: A. D. 1835-1889.
The Electric Railway.
"Thomas Davenport, a poor blacksmith of Brandon, Vt.,
constructed what might be termed the first electric railway.
The invention was crude and of little practical value, but the
idea was there. In 1835 he exhibited in Springfield,
Massachusetts, a small model electric engine running upon a
circular track, the circuit being furnished by primary
batteries carried in the car. Three years later, Robert
Davidson, of Aberdeen, Scotland, began his experiments in this
direction. ... He constructed quite a powerful motor, which
was mounted upon a truck. Forty battery cells, carried on the
car, furnished power to propel the motor. The battery elements
were composed of amalgamated zinc and iron plates, the
exciting liquid being dilute sulphuric acid. This locomotive
was run successfully on several steam railroads in Scotland,
the speed attained was four miles an hour, but this machine
was afterwards destroyed by some malicious person or persons
while it was being taken home to Aberdeen. In 1849 Moses
Farmer exhibited an electric engine which drew a small car
containing two persons. In 1851, Dr. Charles Grafton Page, of
Salem, Massachusetts, perfected an electric engine of
considerable power. On April 29 of that year the engine was
attached to a car and a trip was made from Washington to
Bladensburg, over the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad track. The
highest speed attained was nineteen miles an hour. The
electric power was furnished by one hundred Grove cells
carried on the engine. ... The same year, Thomas Hall, of
Boston, Mass., built a small electric locomotive called the
Volta. The current was furnished by two Grove battery cells
which were conducted to the rails, thence through the wheels
of the locomotive to the motor. This was the first instance of
the current being supplied to the motor on a locomotive from a
stationary source. It was exhibited at the Charitable
Mechanics fair by him in 1860. ... In 1879, Messrs. Siemen and
Halske, of Berlin, constructed and operated an electric
railway at the Industrial Exposition. A third rail placed in
the centre of the two outer rails, supplied the current, which
was taken up into the motor through a sliding contact under
the locomotive. ... In 1880 Thomas A. Edison constructed an
experimental road near his laboratory in Menlo Park, N. J. The
power from the locomotive was transferred to the car by belts
running to and from the shafts of each. The current was taken
from and returned through the rails. Early in the year of 1881
the Lichterfelde, Germany, electric railway was put into
operation. It is a third rail system and is still running at
the present time. This may be said to be the first commercial
electric railway constructed. In 1883 the Daft Electric
Company equipped and operated quite successfully an electric
system on the Saratoga & Mt. McGregor Railroad, at Saratoga,
N. Y." During the next five or six years numerous electric
railroads, more or less experimental, were built." October 31,
1888, the Council Bluffs & Omaha Railway and Bridge Company
was first operated by electricity, they using the
Thomson-Houston system. The same year the Thomson-Houston Co.
equipped the Highland Division of the Lynn & Boston Horse
Railway at Lynn, Massachusetts. Horse railways now began to be
equipped with electricity all over the world, and especially
in the United States. In February, 1889, the Thomson-Houston
Electric Co. had equipped the line from Bowdoin Square,
Boston, to Harvard Square, Cambridge, of the West End Railway
with electricity and operated twenty cars, since which time it
has increased its electrical apparatus, until now it is the
largest electric railway line in the world."