The Story of Electricity for Amateurs and Students (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1899. Excerpt: ... MODERN ELECTRICITY CHAPTER I. Electricity, in all its visible exhibitions, has certain unvarying qualities. Some of these have been mentioned in the preceding chapter. Others will appear in what is now to follow. These qualities or habits, invariable and unchangeable, are, briefly: (i) It has the unique power of drawing, " attracting " other objects at a distance. (2) For all human uses it is instantaneous in action, through a conductor, at any distance. A current might be sent around the world while the clock ticked twice. (3) It has the power of decomposing chemicals (Electrolysis), and it should be remembered that even water is a chemical, and that substances composed of one pure organic material are very rare. (4) It is readily convertible into heat in a wire or other conductor. These four qualities render its modern uses possible, and should be remembered in connection with what is presently to be explained. These uses are, in application, the most startling in the entire history of civilization. They have come about, and their applications have been made effective, within twenty years, and largely within ten. This subtlest and most elusive essence in nature, not even now entirely understood, is a part of common life. Some years ago we began to spell our thoughts to our fellow-men across land and sea with dots and dashes. Within the memory of the present high school boy we began to talk with each other across the miles. Now there is no reason why we shall not begin to write to each other letters of which the originals shall never leave our hands, yet which shall stand written in a distant place in our own characters, indisputably signed by us with our own names. We apparently produce out of nothing but the whirling of a huge bobbin of wire any power ...