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Title: The Romance of Modern Invention

Author: Archibald Williams

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ROMANCE
OF MODERN INVENTION ***

The Romance of Modern Invention
By
Archibald
Williams

The Sun-Motor used on the Pasadena Ostrich-farm, California. It works a pump capable of
delivering 1,400 gallons per minute.
[See pp. 210, 211.]

THE ROMANCE OF MODERN
INVENTION

CONTAINING INTERESTING DESCRIPTIONS IN NON-
TECHNICAL LANGUAGE OF WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY,
LIQUID AIR, MODERN ARTILLERY, SUBMARINES,
DIRIGIBLE TORPEDOES, SOLAR MOTORS, AIRSHIPS, &c. &c.

BY
ARCHIBALD WILLIAMS
AUTHOR OF “THE ROMANCE OF MODERN MECHANISM”
“THE ROMANCE OF MODERN ENGINEERING”
&c. &c.

WITH TWENTY-FIVE ILLUSTRATIONS

LONDON
SEELEY AND CO. LIMITED
38 GREAT RUSSELL STREET
1907

Preface
The object of this book is to set before young people in a bright and
interesting way, and without the use of technical language, accounts of some
of the latest phases of modern invention; and also to introduce them to recent
discoveries of which the full development is yet to be witnessed.
The author gratefully acknowledges the help given him as regards both
literary matter and illustrations by:—Mr. Cuthbert Hall (the Marconi Wireless
Telegraphy Co.); Mr. William Sugg; Mr. Hans Knudsen; Mr. F. C. B. Cole;
Mr. E. J. Ryves; Mr. Anton Pollak; the Telautograph Co.; the Parsons Steam
Turbine Co.; the Monotype Co.; the Biograph Co.; the Locomobile Co.; the
Speedwell Motor Co.
September 1902.

Contents
Page
Wireless Telegraphy 7
High-speed Telegraphy 28
The Telephone—wireless Telephony 39
The Phonograph—the Rotographophone—The
54
Telephonograph
The Telautograph 72
Modern Artillery—Rifles—Machine guns—Heavy Ordnance
83
—Exploxives—In the Gun Factory
Dirigible Torpedoes 126
Submarine Boats 143
Animated Pictures 166
The Great Paris Telescope 183
Photographing the Invisible—Photography in the Dark 194
Solar Motors 207
Liquid Air 213
Horseless Carriages 224
High-Speed Railways 258
Sea Expresses 272
Mechanical Flight 284
Type-setting by Machinery 306
Photography in Colours 317
Lighting 330

List of Illustrations
The Sun Motor Used on the Pasadena Ostrich-Farm Frontispiece
A Corner of Mr. Marconi’s Cabin 10
Mr. Marconi’s Travelling Station 16
The Poldhu Tower 22
Guglielmo Marconi 26
High-Speed Telegraphy: a Receiving Instrument 28
High-Speed Telegraphy. Specimen of Punched Tape 34
A Unique Group of Phonographs 56
The Telautograph: Receiver and Transmitter 72
The Telautograph, Showing the Principal Parts 75
The Telautograph, Specimen of the Work Done 76
The Simms Armour-Clad Motor Car 114
The “Holland” Submarine Boat 144
An Interior View of the “Holland” 150
The “Holland” Submarine in the Last Stages of
160
Submersion
The Great Paris Telescope 188
The Liquid Air Company’s Factory at Pimlico 214
M. Serpollet on the “Easter Egg” 224
A Motor Car Driven by Liquid Air 242
Diagram of Liquid Air Motor Car 246
H.M.S. Torpedo Destroyer “Viper” 278
Airship of M. Santos-Dumont Rounding the Eiffel
288
Tower
M. Santos-Dumont’s Airship Returning to Longchamps 300
The Linotype Machine 308
The Monotype Casting Machine 312

WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY
One day in 1845 a man named Tawell, dressed as a Quaker, stepped into a
train at Slough Station on the Great Western Railway, and travelled to
London. When he arrived in London the innocent-looking Quaker was
arrested, much to his amazement and dismay, on the charge of having
committed a foul murder in the neighbourhood of Slough. The news of the
murder and a description of the murderer had been telegraphed from that
place to Paddington, where a detective met the train and shadowed the
miscreant until a convenient opportunity for arresting him occurred. Tawell
was tried, condemned, and hung, and the public for the first time generally
realised the power for good dormant in the as yet little developed electric
telegraph.
Thirteen years later two vessels met in mid-Atlantic laden with cables which
they joined and paid out in opposite directions, till Ireland and Newfoundland
were reached. The first electric message passed on August 7th of that year
from the New World to the Old. The telegraph had now become a world-
power.
The third epoch-making event in its history is of recent date. On December
12, 1901, Guglielmo Marconi, a young Italian, famous all over the world
when but twenty-two years old, suddenly sprang into yet greater fame. At
Hospital Point, Newfoundland, he heard by means of a kite, a long wire, a
delicate tube full of tiny particles of metal, and a telephone ear-piece, signals
transmitted from far-off Cornwall by his colleagues. No wires connected
Poldhu, the Cornish station, and Hospital Point. The three short dot signals,
which in the Morse code signify the letter S, had been borne from place to
place by the limitless, mysterious ether, that strange substance of which we
now hear so much, of which wise men declare we know so little.
Marconi’s great achievement, which was of immense importance, naturally
astonished the world. Of course, there were not wanting those who discredited
the report. Others, on the contrary, were seized with panic and showed their
readiness to believe that the Atlantic had been spanned aërially, by selling off
their shares in cable companies. To use the language of the money-market,
there was a temporary “slump” in cable shares. The world again woke up—

this time to the fact that experiments of which it had heard faintly had at last
culminated in a great triumph, marvellous in itself, and yet probably nothing
in comparison with the revolution in the transmission of news that it heralded.
The subject of Wireless Telegraphy is so wide that to treat it fully in the
compass of a single chapter is impossible. At the same time it would be
equally impossible to pass it over in a book written with the object of
presenting to the reader the latest developments of scientific research. Indeed,
the attention that it has justly attracted entitle it, not merely to a place, but to a
leading place; and for this reason these first pages will be devoted to a short
account of the history and theory of Wireless Telegraphy, with some mention
of the different systems by which signals have been sent through space.
On casting about for a point at which to begin, the writer is tempted to attack
the great topic of the ether, to which experimenters in many branches of
science are now devoting more and more attention, hoping to find in it an
explanation of and connection between many phenomena which at present are
of uncertain origin.
What is Ether? In the first place, its very existence is merely assumed, like
that of the atom and the molecule. Nobody can say that he has actually seen or
had any experience of it. The assumption that there is such a thing is justified
only in so far as that assumption explains and reconciles phenomena of which
we have experience, and enables us to form theories which can be
scientifically demonstrated correct. What scientists now say is this: that
everything which we see and touch, the air, the infinity of space itself, is
permeated by a something, so subtle that, no matter how continuous a thing
may seem, it is but a concourse of atoms separated by this something, the
Ether. Reasoning drove them to this conclusion.
It is obvious that an effect cannot come out of nothing. Put a clock under a
bell-glass and you hear the ticking. Pump out the air and the ticking becomes
inaudible. What is now not in the glass that was there before? The air. Reason,
therefore, obliges us to conclude that air is the means whereby the ticking is
audible to us. No air, no sound. Next, put a lighted candle on the further side
of the exhausted bell-glass. We can see it clearly enough. The absence of air
does not affect light. But can we believe that there is an absolute gap between
us and the light? No! It is far easier to believe that the bell-glass is as full as
the outside atmosphere of the something that communicates the sensation of
light from the candle to the eye. Again, suppose we measure a bar of iron very

carefully while cold and then heat it. We shall find that it has expanded a
little. The iron atoms, we say, have become more energetic than before, repel
each other and stand further apart. What then is in the intervening spaces? Not
air, which cannot be forced through iron whether hot or cold. No! the ether:
which passes easily through crevices so small as to bar the way to the atoms
of air.

A Corner of M. Marconi’s cabin on board S.S. “Minneapolis,” showing instruments used in
Wireless Telegraphy.

Once more, suppose that to one end of our iron bar we apply the negative
“pole” of an electric battery, and to the other end the positive pole. We see
that a current passes through the bar, whether hot or cold, which implies that
it jumps across all the ether gaps, or rather is conveyed by them from one
atom to another.
The conclusion then is that ether is not merely omnipresent, penetrating all
things, but the medium whereby heat, light, electricity, perhaps even thought

itself, are transmitted from one point to another.
In what manner is the transmission effected? We cannot imagine the ether
behaving in a way void of all system.
The answer is, by a wave motion. The ether must be regarded as a very elastic
solid. The agitation of a portion of it by what we call heat, light, or electricity,
sets in motion adjoining particles, until they are moving from side to side, but
not forwards; the resultant movement resembling that of a snake tethered by
the tail.
These ether waves vary immensely in length. Their qualities and effects upon
our bodies or sensitive instruments depend upon their length. By means of
ingenious apparatus the lengths of various waves have been measured. When
the waves number 500 billion per second, and are but the 40,000th of an inch
long they affect our eyes and are named light—red light. At double the
number and half the length, they give us the sensation of violet light.
When the number increases and the waves shorten further, our bodies are
“blind” to them; we have no sense to detect their presence. Similarly, a slower
vibration than that of red light is imperceptible until we reach the
comparatively slow pace of 100 vibrations per second, when we become
aware of heat.
Ether waves may be compared to the notes on a piano, of which we are
acquainted with some octaves only. The gaps, the unknown octaves, are being
discovered slowly but surely. Thus, for example, the famous X-rays have been
assigned to the topmost octave; electric waves to the notes between light and
heat. Forty years ago Professor Clerk Maxwell suggested that light and
electricity were very closely connected, probably differing only in their wave-
length. His theory has been justified by subsequent research. The velocity of
light (185,000 miles per second) and that of electric currents have been
proved identical. Hertz, a professor in the university of Bonn, also showed
(1887-1889) that the phenomena of light—reflection, refraction, and
concentration of rays—can be repeated with electric currents.
We therefore take the word of scientists that the origin of the phenomena
called light and electricity is the same—vibration of ether. It at once occurs to
the reader that their behaviour is so different that they might as well be
considered of altogether different natures.

For instance, interpose the very thinnest sheet of metal between a candle and
the eye, and the light is cut off. But the sheet will very readily convey
electricity. On the contrary, glass, a substance that repels electricity, is
transparent, i.e. gives passage to light. And again, electricity can be conveyed
round as many corners as you please, whereas light will travel in straight lines
only.
To clear away our doubts we have only to take the lighted candle and again
hold up the metal screen. Light does not pass through, but heat does.
Substitute for the metal a very thin tank filled with a solution of alum, and
then light passes, but heat is cut off. So that heat and electricity both penetrate
what is impenetrable to light; while light forces a passage securely barred
against both electricity and heat. And we must remember that open space
conveys all alike from the sun to the earth.
On meeting what we call solid matter, ether waves are influenced, not because
ether is wanting in the solid matter, but because the presence of something
else than ether affects the intervening ether itself. Consequently glass, to take
an instance, so affects ether that a very rapid succession of waves (light) are
able to continue their way through its interstices, whereas long electric waves
are so hampered that they die out altogether. Metal on the other hand
welcomes slow vibrations (i.e. long waves), but speedily kills the rapid shakes
of light. In other words, transparency is not confined to light alone. All bodies
are transparent to some variety of rays, and many bodies to several varieties.
It may perhaps even be proved that there is no such thing as absolute
resistance, and that our inability to detect penetration is due to lack of
sufficiently delicate instruments.
The cardinal points to be remembered are these:—
That the ether is a universal medium, conveying all kinds and forms of
energy.
That these forms of energy differ only in their rates of vibration.
That the rate of vibration determines what power of penetration the waves
shall have through any given substance.
Now, it is generally true that whereas matter of any kind offers resistance to
light—that is, is not so perfect a conductor as the ether—many substances,
especially metals, are more sensitive than ether to heat and electricity. How

quickly a spoon inserted into a hot cup of tea becomes uncomfortably hot,
though the hand can be held very close to the liquid without feeling more than
a gentle warmth. And we all have noticed that the very least air-gap in an
electric circuit effectively breaks a current capable of traversing miles of wire.
If the current is so intense that it insists on passing the gap, it leaps across
with a report, making a spark that is at once intensely bright and hot. Metal
wires are to electricity what speaking tubes are to sound; they are as it were
electrical tubes through the air and ether. But just as a person listening outside
a speaking tube might faintly hear the sounds passing through it, so an
instrument gifted with an “electric ear” would detect the currents passing
through the wire. Wireless telegraphy is possible because mankind has
discovered instruments which act as electric ears or eyes, catching and
recording vibrations that had hitherto remained undetected.
The earliest known form of wireless telegraphy is transmission of messages
by light. A man on a hill lights a lamp or a fire. This represents his instrument
for agitating the ether into waves, which proceed straight ahead with
incredible velocity until they reach the receiver, the eye of a man watching at
a point from which the light is visible.
Then came electric telegraphy.
At first a complete circuit (two wires) was used. But in 1838 it was
discovered that if instead of two wires only one was used, the other being
replaced by an earth connection, not only was the effect equally powerful, but
even double of what it was with the metallic circuit.
Thus the first step had been taken towards wireless electrical telegraphy.
The second was, of course, to abolish the other wire.
This was first effected by Professor Morse, who, in 1842, sent signals across
the Susquehanna River without metallic connections of any sort. Along each
bank of the river was stretched a wire three times as long as the river was
broad. In the one wire a battery and transmitter were inserted, in the other a
receiving instrument or galvanometer. Each wire terminated at each end in a
large copper plate sunk in the water. Morse’s conclusions were that provided
the wires were long enough and the plates large enough messages could be
transmitted for an indefinite distance; the current passing from plate to plate,
though a large portion of it would be lost in the water.[1]

[1] It is here proper to observe that the term wireless telegraphy, as applied to
electrical systems, is misleading, since it implies the absence of wires;
whereas in all systems wires are used. But since it is generally understood
that by wireless telegraphy is meant telegraphy without metal
connections, and because the more improved methods lessen more and
more the amount of wire used, the phrase has been allowed to stand.

About the same date a Scotchman, James Bowman Lindsay of Dundee, a man
as rich in intellectual attainments as he was pecuniarily poor, sent signals in a
similar manner across the River Tay. In September, 1859, Lindsay read a
paper before the British Association at Dundee, in which he maintained that
his experiments and calculations assured him that by running wires along the
coasts of America and Great Britain, by using a battery having an acting
surface of 130 square feet and immersed sheets of 3000 square feet, and a coil
weighing 300 lbs., he could send messages from Britain to America. Want of
money prevented the poor scholar of Dundee from carrying out his
experiments on a large enough scale to obtain public support. He died in
1862, leaving behind him the reputation of a man who in the face of the
greatest difficulties made extraordinary electrical discoveries at the cost of
unceasing labour; and this in spite of the fact that he had undertaken and
partly executed a gigantic dictionary in fifty different languages!

M. Marconi’s Travelling Station for Wireless Telegraphy.

The transmission of electrical signals through matter, metal, earth, or water, is
effected by conduction, or the leading of the currents in a circuit. When we
come to deal with aërial transmission, i.e. where one or both wires are
replaced by the ether, then two methods are possible, those of induction and
Hertzian waves.
To take the induction method first. Whenever a current is sent through a wire
magnetism is set up in the ether surrounding the wire, which becomes the core
of a “magnetic field.” The magnetic waves extend for an indefinite distance
on all sides, and on meeting a wire parallel to the electrified wire induce in it
a dynamical current similar to that which caused them. Wherever electricity is

present there is magnetism also, and vice versâ. Electricity—produces
magnetism—produces electricity. The invention of the Bell telephone enabled
telegraphers to take advantage of this law.
In 1885 Sir William Preece, now consulting electrical engineer to the General
Post-Office, erected near Newcastle two insulated squares of wire, each side
440 yards long. The squares were horizontal, parallel, and a quarter of a mile
apart. On currents being sent through the one, currents were detected in the
other by means of a telephone, which remained active even when the squares
were separated by 1000 yards. Sir William Preece thus demonstrated that
signals could be sent without even an earth connection, i.e. entirely through
the ether. In 1886 he sent signals between two parallel telegraph wires 4-1/2
miles apart. And in 1892 established a regular communication between
Flatholm, an island fort in the Bristol Channel, and Lavernock, a point on the
Welsh coast 3-1/3 miles distant.
The inductive method might have attained to greater successes had not a
formidable rival appeared in the Hertzian waves.
In 1887 Professor Hertz discovered that if the discharge from a Leyden jar
were passed through wires containing an air-gap across which the discharge
had to pass, sparks would also pass across a gap in an almost complete circle
or square of wire held at some distance from the jar. This “electric eye,” or
detector, could have its gap so regulated by means of a screw that at a certain
width its effect would be most pronounced, under which condition the
detector, or receiver, was “in tune” with the exciter, or transmitter. Hertz thus
established three great facts, that—

(a) A discharge of static (i.e. collected) electricity across an air-gap
produced strong electric waves in the ether on all sides.
(b) That these waves could be caught.
(c) That under certain conditions the catcher worked most effectively.

Out of these three discoveries has sprung the latest phase of wireless
telegraphy, as exploited by Signor Marconi. He, in common with Professors
Branly of Paris, Popoff of Cronstadt, and Slaby of Charlottenburg, besides
many others, have devoted their attention to the production of improved

means of sending and receiving the Hertzian waves. Their experiments have
shown that two things are required in wireless telegraphy—

(i.) That the waves shall have great penetrating power, so as to pierce any
obstacle.
(ii.) That they shall retain their energy, so that a maximum of their
original force shall reach the receiver.

The first condition is fulfilled best by waves of great length; the second by
those which, like light, are of greatest frequency. For best telegraphic results a
compromise must be effected between these extremes, neither the thousand-
mile long waves of an alternating dynamo nor the light waves of many
thousands to an inch being of use. The Hertzian waves are estimated to be
230,000,000 per second; at which rate they would be 1-1/2 yards long. They
vary considerably, however, on both sides of this rate and dimension.
Marconi’s transmitter consists of three parts—a battery; an induction coil,
terminating in a pair of brass balls, one on each side of the air-gap; and a
Morse transmitting-key. Upon the key being depressed, a current from the
battery passes through the coil and accumulates electricity on the brass balls
until its tension causes it to leap from one to the other many millions of times
in what is called a spark. The longer the air-gap the greater must be the
accumulation before the leap takes place, and the greater the power of the
vibrations set up. Marconi found that by connecting a kite or balloon covered
with tinfoil by an aluminium wire with one of the balls, the effect of the
waves was greatly increased. Sometimes he replaced the kite or balloon by a
conductor placed on poles two or three hundred feet high, or by the mast of a
ship.
We now turn to the receiver.
In 1879 Professor D. E. Hughes observed that a microphone, in connection
with a telephone, produced sounds in the latter even when the microphone
was at a distance of several feet from coils through which a current was
passing. A microphone, it may be explained, is in its simplest form a loose
connection in an electric circuit, which causes the current to flow in fits and
starts at very frequent intervals. He discovered that a metal microphone stuck,
or cohered, after a wave had influenced it, but that a carbon microphone was

self-restoring, i.e. regained its former position of loose contact as soon as a
wave effect had ceased.
In 1891 Professor Branly of Paris produced a “coherer,” which was nothing
more than a microphone under another name. Five years later Marconi
somewhat altered Branly’s contrivance, and took out a patent for a coherer of
his own.
It is a tiny glass tube, about two inches long and a tenth of an inch in diameter
inside. A wire enters it at each end, the wires terminating in two silver plugs
fitting the bore of the tube. A space of 1/32 inch is left between the plugs, and
this space is filled with special filings, a mixture of 96 parts of nickel to 4 of
silver, and the merest trace of mercury. The tube is exhausted of almost all its
air before being sealed.
This little gap filled with filings is, except when struck by an electric wave, to
all practical purposes a non-conductor of electricity. The metal particles touch
each other so lightly that they offer great resistance to a current.
But when a Hertzian wave flying through the ether strikes the coherer, the
particles suddenly press hard on one another, and make a bridge through
which a current can pass. The current works a “relay,” or circuit through
which a stronger current passes, opening and closing it as often as the coherer
is influenced by a wave. The relay actuates a tapper that gently taps the tube
after each wave-influence, causing the particles to decohere in readiness for
the succeeding wave, and also a Morse instrument for recording words in dots
and dashes on a long paper tape.
The coherer may be said to resemble an engine-driver, and the “relay” an
engine. The driver is not sufficiently strong to himself move a train, but he
has strength enough to turn on steam and make the engine do the work. The
coherer is not suitable for use with currents of the intensity required to move a
Morse recorder, but it easily switches a powerful current into another circuit.
Want of space forbids a detailed account of Marconi’s successes with his
improved instruments, but the appended list will serve to show how he
gradually increased the distance over which he sent signals through space.
In 1896 he came to England. That year he signalled from a room in the
General Post-Office to a station on the roof 100 yards distant. Shortly
afterwards he covered 2 miles on Salisbury Plain.

In May, 1897, he sent signals from Lavernock Point to Flatholm, 3-1/3 miles.
This success occurred at a critical time, for Sir W. Preece had already, as we
have seen, bridged the same gap by his induction method, and for three days
Marconi failed to accomplish the feat with his apparatus, so that it appeared as
though the newer system were the less effective of the two. But by carrying
the transmitting instrument on to the beach below the cliff on which it had
been standing, and joining it by a wire to the pole already erected on the top
of the cliff, Mr. Marconi, thanks to a happy inspiration, did just what was
needed; he got a greater length of wire to send off his waves from.
Communication was at once established with Flatholm, and on the next day
with Brean Down, on the other side of the Bristol Channel, and 8-2/3 miles
distant. Then we have—

miles
Needles Hotel to Swanage 17-1/2
Salisbury to Bath 34
French Coast to Harwich 90
Isle of Wight to The Lizard 196
At Sea (1901) 350
Dec. 17, 1901, England to America 2099

A more pronounced, though perhaps less sensational, success than even this
last occurred at the end of February, 1902. Mr. Marconi, during a voyage to
America on the s.s. Philadelphia remained in communication with Poldhu,
Cornwall, until the vessel was 1550 miles distant, receiving messages on a
Morse recorder for any one acquainted with the code to read. Signals arrived
for a further 500 miles, but owing to his instruments not being of sufficient
strength, Mr. Marconi could not reply.

Poldhu Towers, the Station put down by the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company, Limited, for
carrying on a system of transatlantic wireless telegraphy between England and America. From
the four towers are suspended the ærial wires which are carried into the buildings in the centre.
The towers are 215 feet in height, and are made of wood.

When the transatlantic achievement was announced at the end of 1901, there
was a tendency in some quarters to decry the whole system. The critics laid
their fingers on two weak points.
In the first place, they said, the speed at which the messages could be
transmitted was too slow to insure that the system would pay. Mr. Marconi
replied that there had been a time when one word per minute was considered a
good working rate across the Atlantic cable; whereas he had already sent
twenty-two words per minute over very long distances. A further increase of
speed was only a matter of time.

The second objection raised centred on the lack of secrecy resulting from
signals being let loose into space to strike any instrument within their range;
and also on the confusion that must arise when the ether was traversed by
many sets of electric waves.
The young Italian inventor had been throughout his experiments aware of
these defects and sought means to remedy them. In his earliest attempts we
find him using parabolic metal screens to project his waves in any required
direction and prevent their going in any other. He also employed strips of
metal in conjunction with the coherer, the strips or “wings” being of such a
size as to respond most readily to waves of a certain length.
The electric oscillations coming from the aērial wires carried on poles, kites,
&c., were of great power, but their energy dispersed very quickly into space in
a series of rapidly diminishing vibrations. This fact made them affect to a
greater or less degree any receiver they might encounter on their wanderings.
If you go into a room where there is a piano and make a loud noise near the
instrument a jangle of notes results. But if you take a tuning-fork and after
striking it place it near the strings, only one string will respond, i.e. that of the
same pitch as the fork.
What is required in wireless telegraphy is a system corresponding to the use
of the tuning-fork. Unfortunately, it has been discovered that the syntony or
tuning of transmitter and receiver reduces the distance over which they are
effective. An electric “noise” is more far-reaching than an electric “note.”
Mr. Marconi has, however, made considerable advances towards combining
the sympathy and secrecy of the tuning system with the power of the “noise”
system. By means of delicately adjusted “wings” and coils he has brought it
about that a series of waves having small individual strength, but great
regularity, shall produce on the receiver a cumulative effect, storing, as it
were, electricity on the surface of the receiver “wings” until it is of sufficient
power to overcome the resistance of the coherer.
That tuned wireless telegraphy is, over moderate distances, at least as secret
as that through wires (which can be tapped by induction) is evident from the
fact that during the America Cup Yacht Races Mr. Marconi sent daily to the
New York Herald messages of 4000 total words, and kept them private in spite
of all efforts to intercept them. He claims to have as many as 250 “tunes”;
and, indeed, there seems to be no limit to their number, so that the would-be

“tapper” is in the position of a man trying to open a letter-lock of which he
does not know the cipher-word. He may discover the right tune, but the
chances are greatly against him. We may be certain that the rapid advance in
wireless telegraphy will not proceed much further before syntonic messages
can be transmitted over hundreds if not thousands of miles.
It is hardly necessary to dwell upon the great prospect that the new telegraphy
opens to mankind. The advantages arising out of a ready means of
communication, freed from the shackles of expensive connecting wires and
cables are, in the main, obvious enough. We have only to imagine all the
present network of wires replaced or supplemented by ether-waves, which
will be able to act between points (e.g. ships and ships, ships and land,
moving and fixed objects generally) which cannot be connected by metallic
circuits.
Already ocean voyages are being shortened as regards the time during which
passengers are out of contact with the doings of the world. The transatlantic
journey has now a newsless period of but three days. Navies are being fitted
out with instruments that may play as important a part as the big guns
themselves in the next naval war. A great maritime nation like our own should
be especially thankful that the day is not far distant when our great empire
will be connected by invisible electric links that no enemy may discover and
cut.
The romantic side of wireless telegraphy has been admirably touched in some
words uttered by Professor Ayrton in 1899, after the reading of a paper by Mr.
Marconi before the Institution of Electrical Engineers.
“If a person wished to call to a friend” (said the Professor), “he would use a
loud electro-magnetic voice, audible only to him who had the electro-
magnetic ear.
“‘Where are you?’ he would say.
“The reply would come—‘I am at the bottom of a coal mine,’ or ‘Crossing the
Andes,’ or ‘In the middle of the Pacific.’ Or, perhaps, in spite of all the
calling, no reply would come, and the person would then know his friend was
dead. Let them think of what that meant; of the calling which went on every
day from room to room of a house, and then imagine that calling extending

from pole to pole; not a noisy babble, but a call audible to him who wanted to
hear and absolutely silent to him who did not.”

Guglielmo Marconi.

When will Professor Ayrton’s forecast come true? Who can say? Science is so
full of surprises that the ordinary man wonders with a semi-fear what may be
the next development; and wise men like Lord Kelvin humbly confess that in
comparison with what has yet to be learnt about the mysterious inner
workings of Nature their knowledge is but as ignorance.

HIGH-SPEED TELEGRAPHY.
The wonderful developments of wireless telegraphy must not make us forget
that some very interesting and startling improvements have been made in
connection with the ordinary wire-circuit method: notably in the matter of
speed.
At certain seasons of the year or under special circumstances which can
scarcely be foreseen, a great rush takes place to transmit messages over the
wires connecting important towns. Now, the best telegraphists can with
difficulty keep up a transmitting speed of even fifty words a minute for so
long as half-an-hour. The Morse alphabet contains on the average three
signals for each letter, and the average length of a word is six letters. Fifty
words would therefore contain between them 900 signals, or fifteen a second.
The strain of sending or noting so many for even a brief period is very
wearisome to the operator.
Means have been found of replacing the telegraph clerk, so far as the actual
signalling is concerned, by mechanical devices.
In 1842 Alexander Bain, a watchmaker of Thurso, produced what is known as
a “chemical telegraph.” The words to be transmitted were set up in large
metal type, all capitals, connected with the positive pole of a battery, the
negative pole of which was connected to earth. A metal brush, divided into
five points, each terminating a wire, was passed over the metal type. As often
as a division of the brush touched metal it completed the electric circuit in the
wire to which it was joined, and sent a current to the receiving station, where
a similar brush was passing at similar speed over a strip of paper soaked in
iodide of potassium. The action of the electricity decomposed the solution,
turning it blue or violet. The result was a series of letters divided
longitudinally into five belts separated by white spaces representing the
intervals between the contact points of the brush.

The receiving instrument used by Messrs. Pollak & Virag in their high-speed system of
telegraphy. This instrument is capable of receiving and photographically recording messages at
the astonishing speed of 50,000 words an hour.

The Bain Chemical Telegraph was able to transmit the enormous number of
1500 words per minute; that is, at ten times the rate of ordinary conversation!
But even when improvements had reduced the line wires from five to one, the
system, on account of the method of composing the message to be sent, was
not found sufficiently practical to come into general use.
Its place was taken by slower but preferable systems: those of duplex and
multiplex telegraphy.
When a message is sent over the wires, the actual time of making the signals
is more than is required for the current to pass from place to place. This fact
has been utilised by the inventors of methods whereby two or more messages
may not only be sent the same way along the same wire, but may also be sent
in different directions. Messages are “duplex” when they travel across one
another, “multiplex” when they travel together.

The principle whereby several instruments are able to use the same wire is
that of distributing among the instruments the time during which they are in
contact with the line.
Let us suppose that four transmitters are sending messages simultaneously
from London to Edinburgh.
Wires from all four instruments are led into a circular contact-maker, divided
into some hundreds of insulated segments connected in rotation with the four
transmitters. Thus instrument A will be joined to segments 1, 5, 9, 13;
instrument B to segments 2, 6, 10, 14; instrument C with segments 3, 7, 11,
15; and so on.
Along the top of the segments an arm, connected with the telegraph line to
Edinburgh, revolves at a uniform rate. For about 1/500 of a second it unites a
segment with an instrument. If there are 150 segments on the “distributor,”
and the arm revolves three times a second, each instrument will be put into
contact with the line rather oftener than 110 times per second. And if the top
speed of fifty words a minute is being worked to, each of the fifteen signals
occurring in each second will be on the average divided among seven
moments of contact.
A similar apparatus at Edinburgh receives the messages. It is evident that for
the system to work satisfactorily, or even to escape dire confusion, the
revolving arms must run at a level speed in perfect unison with one another.
When the London arm is over segment 1, the Edinburgh arm must cover the
same number. The greatest difficulty in multiplex telegraphy has been to
adjust the timing exactly.
Paul la Cour of Copenhagen invented for driving the arms a device called the
Phonic Wheel, as its action was regulated by the vibrations of a tuning-fork.
The wheel, made of soft iron, and toothed on its circumference, revolves at a
short distance from the pole of a magnet. As often as a current enters the
magnet the latter attracts the nearest tooth of the wheel; and if a regular series
of currents pass through it the motion of the wheel will be uniform. M. la
Cour produced the regularity of current impulses in the motor magnet by
means of a tuning-fork, which is unable to vibrate more than a certain number
of times a second, and at each vibration closed a circuit sending current into
the magnet. To get two tuning-forks of the same note is an easy matter; and

consequently a uniformity of rotation at both London and Edinburgh stations
may be insured.
So sensitive is this “interrupter” system that as many as sixteen messages can
be sent simultaneously, which means that a single wire is conveying from 500
to 800 words a minute. We can easily understand the huge saving that results
from such a system; the cost of instruments, interrupter, &c., being but small
in proportion to that of a number of separate conductors.
The word-sending capacity of a line may be even further increased by the use
of automatic transmitters able to work much faster in signal-making than the
human brain and hand. Sir Charles Wheatstone’s Automatic Transmitter has
long been used in the Post-Office establishments.
The messages to be sent are first of all punched on a long tape with three
parallel rows of perforations. The central row is merely for guiding the tape
through the transmitting machine. The positions of the holes in the two
outside rows relatively to each other determine the character of the signal to
be sent. Thus, when three holes (including the central one) are abreast, a
Morse “dot” is signified; when the left-hand hole is one place behind the right
hand, a “dash” will be telegraphed.
In the case of a long communication the matter is divided among a number of
clerks operating punching machines. Half-a-dozen operators could between
them punch holes representing 250 to 300 words a minute; and the transmitter
is capable of despatching as many in the same time, while it has the additional
advantage of being tireless.
The action of the transmitter is based upon the reversal of the direction or
nature of current. The punched tape is passed between an oscillating lever,
carrying two points, and plates connected with the two poles of the battery. As
soon as a hole comes under a pin the pin drops through and makes a contact.
At the receiving end the wire is connected with a coil wound round the pole
of a permanent bar-magnet. Such a magnet has what is known as a north pole
and a south pole, the one attractive and the other repulsive of steel or soft
iron. Any bar of soft iron can be made temporarily into a magnet by twisting
round it a few turns of a wire in circuit with the poles of a battery. But which
will be the north and which the south pole depends on the direction of the
current. If, then, a current passes in one direction round the north pole of a

permanent magnet it will increase the magnet’s attractive power, but will
decrease it if sent in the other direction.
The “dot” holes punched in the tape being abreast cause first a positive and
then a negative current following at a very short interval; but the “dash” holes
not being opposite allow the positive current to occupy the wires for a longer
period. Consequently the Morse marker rests for correspondingly unequal
periods on the recording “tape,” giving out a series of dots and dashes, as the
inker is snatched quickly or more leisurely from the paper.
The Wheatstone recorder has been worked up to 400 words a minute, and
when two machines are by the multiplex method acting together this rate is of
course doubled.
As a speed machine it has, however, been completely put in the shade by a
more recent invention of two Hungarian electricians, Anton Pollak and Josef
Virag, which combines the perforated strip method of transmission with the
telephone and photography. The message is sent off by means of a punched
tape, and is recorded by means of a telephonic diaphragm and light marking a
sensitised paper.
In 1898 the inventors made trials of their system for the benefit of the United
Electrical Company of Buda-Pesth. The Hungarian capital was connected by
two double lines of wire with a station 200 miles distant, where the two sets
were joined so as to give a single circuit of 400 miles in length. A series of
tests in all weathers showed that the Pollak-Virag system could transmit as
many as 100,000 words an hour over that distance.
From Hungary the inventors went to the United States, in which country of
“records” no less than 155,000 words were despatched and received in the
sixty minutes. This average—2580 words per minute, 43 per second—is truly
remarkable! Even between New York and Chicago, separated by 950 odd
miles, the wires kept up an average of 1000 per minute.
The apparatus that produces these marvellous results is of two types. The one
type records messages in the Morse alphabet, the other makes clearly-written
longhand characters. The former is the faster of the two, but the legibility of
the other more than compensates for the decrease of speed by one-half.

Specimens of the punched tape used for transmitting messages by the Pollak-Virag system, and
of a message as it is delivered by the receiving machine.

The Morse alphabet method closely resembles the Wheatstone system. The
message is prepared for transmission by being punched on a tape. But there is
this difference in the position of the holes, that whereas in the Wheatstone
method two holes are used for each dot and dash, only one is required in the
Pollak-Virag. If to the right of the central guiding line it signifies a “dash,” if
to the left, a “dot.”
The “reversal-of-current” method, already explained, causes at the receiver
end an increase or decrease in the power of a permanent magnet to attract or
repel a diaphragm, the centre of which is connected by a very fine metal bar
with the centre of a tiny mirror hinged at one side on two points. A very slight
movement of the diaphragm produces an exaggerated movement of the
mirror, which, as it tilts backwards and forwards, reflects the light from an
electric lamp on to a lens, which concentrates the rays into a bright spot, and
focuses them on to a surface of sensitised paper.

In their earliest apparatus the inventors attached the paper to the
circumference of a vertical cylinder, which revolved at an even pace on an
axle, furnished at the lower end with a screw thread, so that the portion of
paper affected by the light occupied a spiral path from top to bottom of the
cylinder.
In a later edition, however, an endless band of sensitised paper is employed,
and the lamp is screened from the mirror by a horizontal mantle in which is
cut a helical slit making one complete turn of the cylinder in its length. The
mantle is rotated in unison with the machinery driving the sensitised band;
and as it revolves, the spot at which the light from the filament can pass
through the slit to the mirror is constantly shifting from right to left, and the
point at which the reflected light from the mirror strikes the sensitised paper
from left to right. At the moment when a line is finished, the right extremity
of the mantle begins to pass light again, and the bright spot of light
recommences its work at the left edge of the band, which has now moved on a
space.
The movements of the mirror backwards and forwards produce on the paper a
zigzag tracing known as syphon-writing. The record, which is continuous
from side to side of the band, is a series of zigzag up-and-down strokes,
corresponding to the dots and dashes of the Morse alphabet.
The apparatus for transmitting longhand characters is more complicated than
that just described. Two telephones are now used, and the punched tape has in
it five rows of perforations.
If we take a copy-book and examine the letters, we shall see that they all
occupy one, two, or three bands of space. For instance, a, between the lines,
occupies one band; g, two bands; and f, three. In forming letters, the
movements of the fingers trace curves and straight lines, the curves being the
resultants of combined horizontal and vertical movements.
Messrs. Pollak and Virag, in order to produce curves, were obliged to add a
second telephone, furnished also with a metal bar joined to the mirror, which
rests on three points instead of on two. One of these points is fixed, the other
two represent the ends of the two diaphragm bars, which move the mirror
vertically and horizontally respectively, either separately or simultaneously.

A word about the punched paper before going further. It contains, as we have
said, five rows of perforations. The top three of these are concerned only with
the up-and-down strokes of the letters, the bottom two with the cross strokes.
When a hole of one set is acting in unison with a hole of the other set a
composite movement or curve results.
The topmost row of all sends through the wires a negative current of known
strength; this produces upward and return strokes in the upper zone of the
letters: for instance, the upper part of a t. The second row passes positive
currents of equal strength with the negative, and influences the up-and-down
strokes of the centre zone, e.g. those of o; the third row passes positive
currents twice as strong as the negative, and is responsible for double-length
vertical strokes in the centre and lower zones, e.g. the stroke in p.
In order that the record shall not be a series of zigzags it is necessary that the
return strokes in the vertical elements shall be on the same path as the out
strokes; and as the point of light is continuously tending to move from left to
right of the paper there must at times be present a counteracting tendency
counterbalancing it exactly, so that the path of the light point is purely
vertical. At other times not merely must the horizontal movements balance
each other, but the right-to-left element must be stronger than the left-to-right,
so that strokes such as the left curve of an e may be possible. To this end rows
4 and 5 of the perforations pass currents working the second telephone
diaphragm, which moves the mirror on a vertical axis so that it reflects the ray
horizontally.
It will be noticed that the holes in rows 3, 4, 5 vary in size to permit the
passage of currents during periods of different length. In this manner the little
junction-hooks of such letters as r, w, v, b are effected.
As fast as the sensitised paper strip is covered with the movements of the
dancing spot of light it is passed on over rollers through developing and fixing
chemical baths; so that the receiving of messages is purely automatic.
The reader can judge for himself the results of this ingenious system as shown
in a short section of a message transmitted by Mr. Pollak. The words shown
actually occupied two seconds in transmission. They are beautifully clear.
It is said that by the aid of a special “multiplex” device thirty sets of Pollak-
Virag apparatus can be used simultaneously on a line! The reader will be able,

by the aid of a small calculation, to arrive at some interesting figures as
regards their united output.

THE TELEPHONE.
A common enough sight in any large town is a great sheaf of fine wires
running across the streets and over the houses. If you traced their career in
one direction you would find that they suddenly terminate, or rather combine
into cables, and disappear into the recesses of a house, which is the Telephone
Exchange. If you tracked them the other way your experience would be varied
enough. Some wires would lead you into public institutions, some into
offices, some into snug rooms in private houses. At one time your journey
would end in the town, at another you would find yourself roaming far into
the country, through green fields and leafy lanes until at last you ran the wire
to earth in some large mansion standing in a lordly park. Perhaps you might
have to travel hundreds of miles, having struck a “trunk” line connecting two
important cities; or you might even be called upon to turn fish and plunge
beneath the sea for a while, groping your way along a submarine cable.
In addition to the visible overhead wires that traverse a town there are many
led underground through special conduits. And many telephone wires never
come out of doors at all, their object being to furnish communication between
the rooms of the same house. The telephone and its friend, the electric-bell,
are now a regular part of the equipment of any large premises. The master of
the house goes to his telephone when he wishes to address the cook or the
steward, or the head-gardener or the coachman. It saves time and labour.
Should he desire to speak to his town-offices he will, unless connected direct,
“ring up” the Exchange, into which, as we have seen, flow all the wires of the
subscribers to the telephone system of that district. The ringing-up is usually
done by rapidly turning a handle which works an electric magnet and rings a
bell in the Exchange. The operator there, generally a girl, demands the
number of the person with whom the ringer wants to speak, rings up that
number, and connects the wires of the two parties.
In some exchanges, e.g. the new Post-Office telephone exchanges, the place
of electric-bells is taken by lamps, to the great advantage of the operators,
whose ears are thus freed from perpetual jangling. The action of unhooking
the telephone receiver at the subscriber’s end sends a current into a relay
which closes the circuit of an electric lamp opposite the subscriber’s number

in the exchange. Similarly, when the conversation is completed the action of
hanging up the receiver again lights another lamp of a different colour, given
the exchange warning that the wires are free again.
In America, the country of automatic appliances, the operator is sometimes
entirely dispensed with. A subscriber is able, by means of a mechanical
contrivance, to put himself in communication with any other subscriber unless
that subscriber is engaged, in which case a dial records the fact.
The popularity of the telephone may be judged from the fact that in 1901 the
National Telephone Company’s system transmitted over 807 millions of
messages, as compared with 89 millions of telegrams sent over the Post
Office wires. In America and Germany, however, the telephone is even more
universally employed than in England. In the thinly populated prairies of West
America the farm-houses are often connected with a central station many
miles off, from which they receive news of the outer world and are able to
keep in touch with one another. We are not, perhaps, as a nation sufficiently
alive to the advantages of an efficient telephone system; and on this account
many districts remain telephoneless because sufficient subscribers cannot be
found to guarantee use of a system if established. It has been seriously urged
that much of our country depopulation might be counteracted by a universal
telephone service, which would enable people to live at a distance from the
towns and yet be in close contact with them. At present, for the sake of
convenience and ease of “getting at” clients and customers, many business
men prefer to have their homes just outside the towns where their business is.
A cheap and efficient service open to every one would do away with a great
deal of travelling that is necessary under existing circumstances, and by
making it less important to live near a town allow people to return to the
country.
Even Norway has a good telephone system. The telegraph is little used in the
more thinly inhabited districts, but the telephone may be found in most
unexpected places, in little villages hidden in the recesses of the fiords.
Switzerland, another mountainous country, but very go-ahead in all electrical
matters, is noted for the cheapness of its telephone services. At Berne or
Geneva a subscriber pays £4 the first year, £2, 12s. the second year, and but
£1, 12s. the third. Contrast these charges with those of New York, where £15,
10s. to £49, 10s. is levied annually according to service.

The telephone as a public benefactor is seen at its best at Buda-Pesth, the
twin-capital of Hungary. In 1893, one Herr Theodore Buschgasch founded in
that city a “newspaper”—if so it may be called—worked entirely on the
telephone. The publishing office was a telephone exchange; the wires and
instruments took the place of printed matter. The subscribers were to be
informed entirely by ear of the news of the day.
The Telefon Hirmondo or “Telephonic Newsteller,” as the “paper” was
named, has more than six thousand subscribers, who enjoy their telephones
for the very small payment of eighteen florins, or about a penny a day, for
twelve hours a day.
News is collected at the central office in the usual journalistic way by
telephone, telegraph, and reporters. It is printed by lithography on strips of
paper six inches wide and two feet long. These strips are handed to “stentors,”
or men with powerful and trained voices, who read the contents to
transmitting instruments in the offices, whence it flies in all directions to the
ears of the subscribers.
These last know exactly when to listen and what description of information
they will hear, for each has over his receiver a programme which is rigidly
adhered to. It must be explained at once that the Telefon Hirmondo is more
than a mere newspaper, for it adds to its practical use as a first-class journal
that of entertainer, lecturer, preacher, actor, political speaker, musician. The
Telefon offices are connected by wire with the theatres, churches, and public
halls, drawing from them by means of special receivers the sounds that are
going on there, and transmitting them again over the wires to the thousands of
subscribers. The Buda-Pesthian has therefore only to consult his programme
to see when he will be in touch with his favourite actor or preacher. The ladies
know just when to expect the latest hints about the fashions of the day. Nor
are the children forgotten, for a special period is set aside weekly for their
entertainment in the shape of lectures or concerts.
The advertising fiend, too, must have his say, though he pays dearly for it. On
payment of a florin the stentors will shout the virtues of his wares for a space
of twelve seconds. The advertising periods are sandwiched in between items
of news, so that the subscriber is bound to hear the advertisements unless he is
willing to risk missing some of the news if he hangs up his receiver until the
“puff” is finished.

Thanks to the Telefon Hirmondo the preacher, actor, or singer is obliged to
calculate his popularity less by the condition of the seats in front of him than
by the number of telephones in use while he is performing his part. On the
other hand, the subscriber is spared a vast amount of walking, waiting, cab-
hire, and expense generally. In fact, if the principle is much further developed,
we shall begin to doubt whether a Buda-Pesthian will be able to discover
reasons for getting out of bed at all if the receiver hanging within reach of his
hand is the entrance to so many places of delight. Will he become a very lazy
person; and what will be the effect on his entertainers when they find
themselves facing benches that are used less every day? Will the sight of a
row of telephone trumpets rouse the future Liddon, Patti, Irving, or Gladstone
to excel themselves? It seems rather doubtful. Telephones cannot look
interested or applaud.
What is inside the simple-looking receiver that hangs on the wall beside a
small mahogany case, or rests horizontally on a couple of crooks over the
case? In the older type of instrument the transmitter and receiver are separate,
the former fixed in front of the case, the latter, of course, movable so that it
can be applied to the ear. But improved patterns have transmitter and receiver
in a single movable handle, so shaped that the earpiece is by the ear while the
mouthpiece curves round opposite the mouth. By pressing a small lever with
the fingers the one or the other is brought into action when required.
The construction of the instrument, of which we are at first a little afraid, and
with which we later on learn to become rather angry, is in its general lines
simple enough. The first practical telephone, constructed in 1876 by Graham
Bell, a Scotchman, consisted of a long wooden or ebonite handle down the
centre of which ran a permanent bar-magnet, having at one end a small coil of
fine insulated wire wound about it The ends of the wire coil are led through
the handles to two terminals for connection with the line wires. At a very
short distance from the wire-wound pole of the magnet is firmly fixed by its
edges a thin circular iron plate, covered by a funnel-shaped mouthpiece.
The iron plate is, when at rest, concave, its centre being attracted towards the
pole of the magnet. When any one speaks into the mouthpiece the sound
waves agitate the diaphragm (or plate), causing its centre to move inwards
and outwards. The movements of the diaphragm affect the magnetism of the
magnet, sometimes strengthening it, sometimes weakening it, and
consequently exciting electric currents of varying strength in the wire coil.

These currents passing through the line wires to a similar telephone excite the
coil in it, and in turn affect the magnetism of the distant magnet, which
attracts or releases the diaphragm near its pole, causing undulations of the air
exactly resembling those set up by the speaker’s words. To render the
telephone powerful enough to make conversation possible over long distances
it was found advisable to substitute for the one telephone a special transmitter,
and to insert in the circuit a battery giving a much stronger current than could
possibly be excited by the magnet in the telephone at the speaker’s end.
Edison in 1877 invented a special transmitter made of carbon. He discovered
that the harder two faces of carbon are pressed together the more readily will
they allow current to pass; the reason probably being that the points of contact
increase in number and afford more bridges for the current.
Accordingly his transmitter contains a small disc of lampblack (a form of
carbon) connected to the diaphragm, and another carbon or platinum disc
against which the first is driven with varying force by the vibrations of the
voice.
The Edison transmitter is therefore in idea only a modification of the
microphone. It acts as a regulator of current, in distinction to the Bell
telephone, which is only an exciter of current. Modern forms of telephones
unite the Edison transmitter with the Bell receiver.
The latter is extremely sensitive to electric currents, detecting them even
when of the minutest power. We have seen that Marconi used a telephone in
his famous transatlantic experiments to distinguish the signals sent from
Cornwall. A telephone may be used with an “earth return” instead of a second
wire; but as this exposes it to stray currents by induction from other wires
carried on the same poles or from the earth itself, it is now usual to use two
wires, completing the metallic circuit. Even so a subscriber is liable to
overhear conversations on wires neighbouring his own; the writer has lively
recollections of first receiving news of the relief of Ladysmith in this manner.
Owing to the self-induction of wires in submarine cables and the consequent
difficulty of forcing currents through them, the telephone is at present not
used in connection with submarine lines of more than a very moderate length.
England has, however, been connected with France by a telephone cable from
St. Margaret’s Bay to Sangatte, 23 miles; and Scotland with Ireland, Stranraer
to Donaghadee, 26 miles. The former cable enables speech between London

and Marseilles, a distance of 900 miles; and the latter makes it possible to
speak from London to Dublin viâ Glasgow. The longest direct line in
existence is that between New York and Chicago, the complete circuit of
which uses 1900 miles of stout copper wire, raised above the ground on poles
35 feet high.
The efficiency of the telephone on a well laid system is so great that it makes
very little difference whether the persons talking with one another are 50 or
500 miles apart. There is no reason why a Cape-to-Cairo telephone should not
put the two extremities of Africa in clear vocal communication. We may even
live to see the day when a London business man will be able to talk with his
agent in Sydney, Melbourne, or Wellington.
A step towards this last achievement has been taken by M. Germain, a French
electrician, who has patented a telephone which can be used with stronger
currents than are possible in ordinary telephones; thereby, of course,
increasing the range of speech on submarine cables.
The telephone that we generally use has a transmitter which permits but a
small portion of the battery power to pass into the wires, owing to the
resistance of the carbon diaphragm. The weakness of the current is to a great
extent compensated by the exceedingly delicate nature of the receiver.
M. Germain has reversed the conditions with a transmitter that allows a very
high percentage of the current to flow into the wires, and a comparatively
insensitive receiver. The result is a “loud-speaking telephone”—not a novelty,
for Edison invented one as long ago as 1877—which is capable of
reproducing speech in a wonderfully powerful fashion.
M. Germain, with the help of special tubular receivers, has actually sent
messages through a line having the same resistance as that of the London-
Paris line, so audibly that the words could be heard fifteen yards from the
receiver in the open air!

Wireless Telephony.
In days when wireless telegraphy is occupying such a great deal of the
world’s attention, it is not likely to cause much astonishment in the reader to
learn that wireless transmission of speech over considerable distances is an
accomplished fact. We have already mentioned (see “Wireless Telegraphy”)

that by means of parallel systems of wires Sir William Preece bridged a large
air-gap, and induced in the one sounds imparted to the other.
Since then two other methods have been introduced; and as a preface to the
mention of the first we may say a few words about Graham Bell’s
Photophone.
In this instrument light is made to do the work of a metal connection between
speaker and listener. Professor Bell, in arranging the Photophone, used a
mouthpiece as in his electric telephone, but instead of a diaphragm working in
front of a magnet to set up electric impulses along a wire he employed a
mirror of very thin glass, silvered on one side. The effect of sound on this
mirror was to cause rapid alterations of its shape from concave to convex, and
consequent variations of its reflecting power. A strong beam of light was
concentrated on the centre of the mirror through a lens, and reflected by the
mirror at an angle through another lens in the direction of the receiving
instrument. The receiver consisted of a parabolic reflector to catch the rays
and focus them on a selenium cell connected by an electric circuit with an
ordinary telephone earpiece.
On delivering a message into the mouthpiece the speaker would, by agitating
the mirror, send a succession of light waves of varying intensity towards the
distant selenium cell. Selenium has the peculiar property of offering less
resistance to electrical currents when light is thrown upon it than when it is in
darkness: and the more intense is the light the less is the obstruction it affords.
The light-waves from the mirror, therefore, constantly alter its capacity as a
conductor, allowing currents to pass through the telephone with varying
power.
In this way Professor Bell bridged 800 yards of space; over which he sent,
besides articulate words, musical notes, using for the latter purpose a
revolving perforated disc to interrupt a constant beam of light a certain
number of times per second. As the speed of the disc increased the rate of the
light-flashes increased also, and produced in the selenium cell the same
number of passages to the electric current, converted into a musical note by
the receiver. So that by means of mechanical apparatus a “playful sunbeam”
could literally be compelled to play a tune.
From the Photophone we pass to another method of sound transmission by
light, with which is connected the name of Mr. Hammond V. Hayes of Boston,

Massachusetts. It is embodied in the Radiophone, or the Ray-speaker, for it
makes strong rays of light carry the human voice.
Luminous bodies give off heat. As the light increases, so as a general rule
does the heat also. At present we are unable to create strong light without
having recourse to heat to help us, since we do not know how to cause other
vibrations of sufficient rapidity to yield the sensation of light. But we can
produce heat directly, and heat will set atoms in motion, and the ether too,
giving us light, but taking as reward a great deal of the energy exerted. Now,
the electric arc of a searchlight produces a large amount of light and heat. The
light is felt by the eye at a distance of many miles, but the body is not
sensitive enough to be aware of the heat emanating from the same source. Mr.
Hayes has, however, found the heat accompanying a searchlight beam quite
sufficient to affect a mechanical “nerve” in a far-away telephone receiver.
The transmitting apparatus is a searchlight, through the back of which run
four pairs of wires connected with a telephone mouthpiece after passing
through a switch and resistance-box or regulator. The receiver is a concave
mirror, in the focus of which is a tapering glass bulb, half filled with
carbonised filament very sensitive to heat. The tapering end of the bulb
projects through the back of the mirror into an ear tube.
If a message is to be transmitted the would-be speaker turns his searchlight in
the direction of the person with whom he wishes to converse, and makes the
proper signals. On seeing them the other presents his mirror to the beam and
listens.
The speaker’s voice takes control of the searchlight beam. The louder the
sound the more brilliantly glows the electric arc; the stronger becomes the
beam, the greater is the amount of heat passed on to the mirror and gathered
on the sensitive bulb. The filament inside expands. The tapering point
communicates the fact to the earpiece.
This operation being repeated many times a second the earpiece fills with
sound, in which all the modulations of the far-distant voice are easily
distinguishable.
Two sets of the apparatus above described are necessary for a conversation,
the functions of the searchlight and the bulb not being reversible. But
inasmuch as all large steamers carry searchlights the necessary installation

may be completed at a small expense. Mr. Hayes’ invention promises to be a
rival to wireless telegraphy over comparatively short distances. It can be
relied upon in all weathers, and is a fast method of communication. Like the
photophone it illustrates the inter-relationship of the phenomena of Sound,
Light, and Heat, and the readiness with which they may be combined to attain
an end.
Next we turn from air to earth, and to the consideration of the work of Mr. A.
F. Collins of Philadelphia. This electrician merely makes use of the currents
flowing in all directions through the earth, and those excited by an electric
battery connected with earth. The outfit requisite for sending wireless spoken
messages consists of a couple of convenient stands, as many storage batteries,
sets of coils, and receiving and transmitting instruments.
The action of the transmitter is to send from the battery a series of currents
through the coils, which transmit them, greatly intensified, to the earth by
means of a wire connected with a buried wire-screen. The electric
disturbances set up in the earth travel in all directions, and strike a similar
screen buried beneath the receiving instrument, where the currents affect the
delicate diaphragm of the telephone earpiece.
The system is, in fact, upon all fours with Mr. Marconi’s, the distinguishing
feature being that the ether of the atmosphere is used in the latter case, that of
the earth in the former. The intensity coils are common to both; the buried
screens are the counterpart of the aërial kites or balloons; the telephone
transmitter corresponds to the telegraphic transmitting key; the earpiece to the
coherer and relay. No doubt in time Mr. Collins will “tune” his instruments, so
obtaining below ground the same sympathetic electric vibrations which Mr.
Marconi, Professor Lodge, or others have employed to clothe their aërial
messages in secrecy.

THE PHONOGRAPH.
Even if Thomas Edison had not done wonders with electric lighting,
telephones, electric torpedoes, new processes for separating iron from its ore,
telegraphy, animated photography, and other things too numerous to mention,
he would still have made for himself an enduring name as the inventor of the
Phonograph. He has fitly been called the “Wizard of the West” from his
genius for conjuring up out of what would appear to the multitude most
unpromising materials startling scientific marvels, among which none is more
truly wizard-like than the instrument that is as receptive of sound as the
human ear, and of illimitable reproducing power. By virtue of its elfishly
human characteristic, articulate speech, it occupies, and always will occupy, a
very high position as a mechanical wonder. When listening to a telephone we
are aware of the fact that the sounds are immediate reproductions of a living
person’s voice, speaking at the moment and at a definite distance from us; but
the phonographic utterances are those of a voice perhaps stilled for ever, and
the difference adds romance to the speaking machine.
The Phonograph was born in 1876. As we may imagine, its appearance
created a stir. A contributor to the Times wrote in 1877: “Not many weeks
have passed since we were startled by the announcement that we could
converse audibly with each other, although hundreds of miles apart, by means
of so many miles of wire with a little electric magnet at each end.
“Another wonder is now promised us—an invention purely mechanical in its
nature, by means of which words spoken by the human voice can be, so to
speak, stored up and reproduced at will over and over again hundreds, it may
be thousands, of times. What will be thought of a piece of mechanism by
means of which a message of any length can be spoken on to a plate of metal
—that plate sent by post to any part of the world and the message absolutely
respoken in the very voice of the sender, purely by mechanical agency? What,
too, shall be said of a mere machine, by means of which the old familiar voice
of one who is no longer with us on earth can be heard speaking to us in the
very tones and measure to which our ears were once accustomed?”
The first Edison machine was the climax of research in the realm of sound. As
long ago as 1856 a Mr. Leo Scott made an instrument which received the

formidable name of Phonautograph, on account of its capacity to register
mechanically the vibrations set up in the atmosphere by the human voice or
by musical instruments. A large metal cone like the mouth of an ear-trumpet
had stretched across its smaller end a membrane, to which was attached a very
delicate tracing-point working on the surface of a revolving cylinder covered
with blackened paper. Any sound entering the trumpet agitated the membrane,
which in turn moved the stylus and produced a line on the cylinder
corresponding to the vibration. Scott’s apparatus could only record. It was, so
to speak, the first half of the phonograph. Edison, twenty years later, added
the active half. His machine, as briefly described in the Times, was simple; so
very simple that many scientists must have wondered how they failed to
invent it themselves.
A metal cylinder grooved with a continuous square-section thread of many
turns to the inch was mounted horizontally on a long axle cut at one end with
a screw-thread of the same “pitch” as that on the cylinder. The axle, working
in upright supports, and furnished with a heavy flywheel to render the rate of
revolution fairly uniform, was turned by a handle. Over the grooved cylinder
was stretched a thin sheet of tinfoil, and on this rested lightly a steel tracing-
point, mounted at the end of a spring and separated from a vibrating
diaphragm by a small pad of rubber tubing. A large mouthpiece to concentrate
sound on to the diaphragm completed the apparatus.
To make a record with this machine the cylinder was moved along until the
tracing-point touched one extremity of the foil. The person speaking into the
mouthpiece turned the handle to bring a fresh surface of foil continuously
under the point, which, owing to the thread on the axle and the groove on the
cylinder being of the same pitch, was always over the groove, and burnished
the foil down into it to a greater or less depth according to the strength of the
impulses received from the diaphragm.

A unique group of Phonographs. 1. The oldest phonograph in existence, now in South
Kensington Museum. 2. Tinfoil instrument. 3. A cheaper form of the same. 4. A “spectacle-form”
graphophone. 5. An exactly similar instrument, half-size scale. 6. A doll fitted with phonograph.

The record being finished, the point was lifted off the foil, the cylinder turned
back to its original position, and the point allowed to run again over the
depressions it had made in the metal sheet. The latter now became the active
part, imparting to the air by means of the diaphragm vibrations similar in
duration and quality to those that affected it when the record was being made.
It is interesting to notice that the phonograph principle was originally
employed by Edison as a telephone “relay.” His attention had been drawn to
the telephone recently produced by Graham Bell, and to the evil effects of
current leakage in long lines. He saw that the amount of current wasted
increased out of proportion to the length of the lines—even more than in the
proportion of the squares of their lengths—and he hoped that a great saving of
current would be effected if a long line were divided into sections and the
sound vibrations were passed from one to the other by mechanical means. He

used as the connecting link between two sections a strip of moistened paper,
which a needle, attached to a receiver, indented with minute depressions, that
handed on the message to another telephone. The phonograph proper, as a
recording machine, was an after-thought.
Edison’s first apparatus, besides being heavy and clumsy, had in practice
faults which made it fall short of the description given in the Times. Its tone
was harsh. The records, so far from enduring a thousand repetitions, were
worn out by a dozen. To these defects must be added a considerable difficulty
in adjusting a record made on one machine to the cylinder of another
machine.
Edison, being busy with his telephone and electric lamp work, put aside the
phonograph for a time. Graham Bell, his brother, Chichester Bell, and Charles
Sumner Tainter, developed and improved his crude ideas. They introduced the
Graphophone, using easily removable cylinder records. For the tinfoil was
substituted a thin coating of a special wax preparation on light paper
cylinders. Clockwork-driven motors replaced the hand motion, and the new
machines were altogether more handy and effective. As soon as he had time
Edison again entered the field. He conceived the solid wax cylinder, and
patented a small shaving apparatus by means of which a record could be
pared away and a fresh surface be presented for a new record.
The phonograph or graphophone of to-day is a familiar enough sight; but
inasmuch as our readers may be less intimately acquainted with its
construction and action than with its effects, a few words will now be added
about its most striking features.
In the first place, the record remains stationary while the trumpet, diaphragm
and stylus pass over it. The reverse was the case with the tinfoil instrument.
The record is cut by means of a tiny sapphire point having a circular concave
end very sharp at the edges, to gouge minute depressions into the wax. The
point is agitated by a delicate combination of weights and levers connecting it
with a diaphragm of French glass 1/140 inch thick. The reproducing point is a
sapphire ball of a diameter equal to that of the gouge. It passes over the
depressions, falling into them in turn and communicating its movements to a
diaphragm, and so tenderly does it treat the records that a hundred repetitions
do not inflict noticeable damage.

It is a curious instance of the manner in which man unconsciously copies
nature that the parts of the reproducing attachment of a phonograph contains
parts corresponding in function exactly to those bones of the ear known as the
Hammer, Anvil, and Stirrup.
To understand the inner working of the phonograph the reader must be
acquainted with the theory of sound. All sound is the result of impulses
transmitted by a moving body usually reaching the ear through the medium of
the air. The quantity of the sound, or loudness, depends on the violence of the
impulse; the tone, or note, on the number of impulses in a given time (usually
fixed as one second); and the quality, or timbre, as musicians say, on the
existence of minor vibrations within the main ones.
If we were to examine the surface of a phonograph record (or phonogram)
under a powerful magnifying glass we should see a series of scoops cut by the
gouge in the wax, some longer and deeper than others, long and short, deep
and shallow, alternating and recurring in regular groups. The depth, length,
and grouping of the cuts decides the nature of the resultant note when the
reproducing sapphire point passes over the record—at a rate of about ten
inches a second.
The study of a tracing made on properly prepared paper by a point agitated by
a diaphragm would enable us to understand easily the cause of that mysterious
variation in timbre which betrays at once what kind of instrument has emitted
a note of known pitch. For instance, let us take middle C, which is the result
of a certain number of atmospheric blows per second on the drum of the ear.
The same note may come from a piano, a violin, a banjo, a man’s larynx, an
organ, or a cornet; but we at once detect its source. It is scarcely imaginable
that a piano and a cornet should be mistaken for one another. Now, if the
tracing instrument had been at work while the notes were made successively it
would have recorded a wavy line, each wave of exactly the same length as its
fellows, but varying in its outline according to the character of the note’s
origin. We should notice that the waves were themselves wavy in section,
being jagged like the teeth of a saw, and that the small secondary waves
differed in size.
The minor waves are the harmonics of the main note. Some musical
instruments are richer in these harmonics than others. The fact that these
delicate variations are recorded as minute indentations in the wax and
reproduced is a striking proof of the phonograph’s mechanical perfection.

Furthermore, the phonograph registers not only these composite notes, but
also chords or simultaneous combinations of notes, each of which may
proceed from a different instrument. In its action it here resembles a man who
by constant practice is able to add up the pounds, shillings, and pence
columns in his ledger at the same time, one wave system overlapping and
blending with another.
The phonograph is not equally sympathetic with all classes of sounds. Banjo
duets make good records, but the guitar gives a poor result. Similarly, the
cornet is peculiarly effective, but the bass drum disappointing. The deep chest
notes of a man come from the trumpet with startling truth, but the top notes on
which the soprano prides herself are often sadly “tinny.” The phonograph,
therefore, even in its most perfect form is not the equal of the exquisitely
sensitive human ear; and this may partially be accounted for by the fact that
the diaphragm in both recorder and reproducer has its own fundamental note
which is not in harmony with all other notes, whereas the ear, like the eye,
adapts itself to any vibration.
Yet the phonograph has an almost limitless répertoire. It can justly be claimed
for it that it is many musical instruments rolled into one. It will reproduce
clearly and faithfully an orchestra, an instrumental soloist, the words of a
singer, a stump orator, or a stage favourite. Consequently we find it every
where—at entertainments, in the drawing-room, and even tempting us at the
railway station or other places of public resort to part with our superfluous
pence. At the London Hippodrome it discourses to audiences of several
thousand persons, and in the nursery it delights the possessors of ingeniously-
constructed dolls which, on a button being pressed and concealed machinery
being brought into action, repeat some well-known childish melody.
It must not be supposed that the phonograph is nothing more than a superior
kind of scientific toy. More serious duties than those of mere entertainment
have been found for it.
At the last Presidential Election in the States the phonograph was often called
upon to harangue large meetings in the interests of the rival candidates, who
were perhaps at the time wearing out their voices hundreds of miles away
with the same words.
Since the pronunciation of a foreign language is acquired by constant
imitation of sounds, the phonograph, instructed by an expert, has been used to

repeat words and phrases to a class of students until the difficulties they
contain have been thoroughly mastered. The sight of such a class hanging on
the lips—or more properly the trumpet—of a phonograph gifted with the true
Parisian accent may be common enough in the future.
As a mechanical secretary and substitute for the shorthand writer the
phonograph has certainly passed the experimental stage. Its daily use by some
of the largest business establishments in the world testify to its value in
commercial life. Many firms, especially American, have invested heavily in
establishing phonograph establishments to save labour and final expense. The
manager, on arriving at his office in the morning, reads his letters, and as the
contents of each is mastered, dictates an answer to a phonograph cylinder
which is presently removed to the typewriting room, where an assistant,
placing it upon her phonograph and fixing the tubes to her ears, types what is
required. It is interesting to learn that at Ottawa, the seat of the Canadian
Government, phonographs are used for reporting the parliamentary
proceedings and debates.
There is therefore a prospect that, though the talking-machine may lose its
novelty as an entertainer, its practical usefulness will be largely increased.
And while considering the future of the instrument, the thought suggests itself
whether we shall be taking full advantage of Mr. Edison’s notable invention if
we neglect to make records of all kinds of intelligible sounds which have
more than a passing interest. If the records were made in an imperishable
substance they might remain effective for centuries, due care being taken of
them in special depositories owned by the nation. To understand what their
value would be to future generations we have only to imagine ourselves
listening to the long-stilled thunder of Earl Chatham, to the golden eloquence
of Burke, or the passionate declamations of Mrs. Siddons. And in the
narrower circle of family interests how valuable a part of family heirlooms
would be the phonograms containing a vocal message to posterity from
Grandfather this, or Great-aunt that, whose portraits in the drawing-room
album do little more than call attention to the changes in dress since the time
when their subjects faced the camera!
Record-Making and Manufacture.—Phonographic records are of two shapes,
the cylindrical and the flat, the latter cut with a volute groove continuously
diminishing in diameter from the circumference to the centre. Flat records are
used in the Gramophone—a reproducing machine only. Their manufacture is

effected by first of all making a record on a sheet of zinc coated with a very
thin film of wax, from which the sharp steel point moved by the recording
diaphragm removes small portions, baring the zinc underneath. The plate is
then flooded with an acid solution, which eats into the bared patches, but does
not affect the parts still covered with wax. The etching complete, the wax is
removed entirely, and a cast or electrotype negative record made from the
zinc plate. The indentations of the original are in this represented by
excrescences of like size; and when the negative block is pressed hard down
on to a properly prepared disc of vulcanite or celluloid, the latter is indented
in a manner that reproduces exactly the tones received on the “master” record.
Cylindrical records are made in two ways, by moulding or by copying. The
second process is extremely simple. The “master” cylinder is placed on a
machine which also rotates a blank cylinder at a short distance from and
parallel to the first. Over the “master” record passes a reproducing point,
which is connected by delicate levers to a cutting point resting on the “blank,”
so that every movement of the one produces a corresponding movement of the
other.
This method, though accurate in its results, is comparatively slow. The
moulding process is therefore becoming the more general of the two. Edison
has recently introduced a most beautiful process for obtaining negative
moulds from wax positives. Owing to its shape, a zinc cylinder could not be
treated like a flat disc, as, the negative made, it could not be detached without
cutting. Edison, therefore, with characteristic perseverance, sought a way of
electrotyping the wax, which, being a non-conductor of electricity, would not
receive a deposit of metal. The problem was how to deposit on it.
Any one who has seen a Crookes’ tube such as is used for X-ray work may
have noticed on the glass a black deposit which arises from the flinging off
from the negative pole of minute particles of platinum. Edison took advantage
of this repellent action; and by enclosing his wax records in a vacuum
between two gold poles was able to coat them with an infinitesimally thin
skin of pure gold, on which silver or nickel could be easily deposited. The
deposit being sufficiently thick the wax was melted out and the surface of the
electrotype carefully cleaned. To make castings it was necessary only to pour
in wax, which on cooling would shrink sufficiently to be withdrawn. The
delicacy of the process may be deduced from the fact that some of the
sibilants, or hissing sounds of the voice, are computed to be represented by

depressions less than a millionth of an inch in depth, and yet they are most
distinctly reproduced! Cylinder records are made in two sizes, 2-1/2 and 5
inches in diameter respectively. The larger size gives the most satisfactory
renderings, as the indentations are on a larger scale and therefore less worn by
the reproducing point. One hundred turns to the inch is the standard pitch of
the thread; but in some records the number is doubled.
Phonographs, Graphophones, and Gramophones are manufactured almost
entirely in America, where large factories, equipped with most perfect plant
and tools, work day and night to cope with the orders that flow in freely from
all sides. One factory alone turns out a thousand machines a day, ranging in
value from a few shillings to forty pounds each. Records are made in England
on a large scale; and now that the Edison-Bell firm has introduced the
unbreakable celluloid form their price will decrease. By means of the Edison
electrotyping process a customer can change his record without changing his
cylinder. He takes the cylinder to the factory, where it is heated, placed in the
mould, and subjected to great pressure which drives the soft celluloid into the
mould depressions; and behold! in a few moments “Auld Lang Syne” has
become “Home, Sweet Home,” or whatever air is desired. Thus altering
records is very little more difficult than getting a fresh book at the circulating
library.

The Photographophone.
This instrument is a phonograph working entirely by means of light and
electricity.
The flame of an electric lamp is brought under the influence of sound
vibrations which cause its brilliancy to vary at every alteration of pitch or
quality.
The light of the flame is concentrated through a lens on to a travelling
photographic sensitive film, which, on development in the ordinary way, is
found to be covered with dark and bright stripes proportionate in tone to the
strength of the light at different moments. The film is then passed between a
lamp and a selenium plate connected with an electric circuit and a telephone.
The resistance of the selenium to the current varies according to the power of
the light thrown upon it. When a dark portion of the film intercepts the light
of the lamp the selenium plate offers high resistance; when the light finds its

way through a clear part of the film the resistance weakens. Thus the
telephone is submitted to a series of changes affecting the “receiver.” As in
the making of the record speech-vibrations affect light, and the light affects a
sensitive film; so in its reproduction the film affects a sensitive selenium
plate, giving back to a telephone exactly what it received from the sound
vibrations.
One great advantage of Mr. Ruhmer’s method is that from a single film any
number of records can be printed by photography; another, that, as with the
Telegraphone (see below), the same film passed before a series of lamps
successively is able to operate a corresponding number of telephones.
The inventor is not content with his success. He hopes to record not merely
sounds but even pictures by means of light and a selenium plate.

The Telephonograph.
Having dealt with the phonograph and the telephone separately, we may
briefly consider one or two ingenious combinations of the two instruments.
The word Telephonograph signifies an apparatus for recording sounds sent
from a distance. It takes the place of the human listener at the telephone
receiver.
Let us suppose that a Reading subscriber wishes to converse along the wires
with a friend in London, but that on ringing up his number he discovers that
the friend is absent from his home or office. He is left with the alternative of
either waiting till his friend returns, which may cause a serious loss of time, or
of dictating his message, a slow and laborious process. This with the ordinary
telephonic apparatus. But if the London friend be the possessor of a
Telephonograph, the person answering the call-bell can, if desired to do so,
switch the wires into connection with it and start the machinery; and in a very
short time the message will be stored up for reproduction when the absent
friend returns.
The Telephonograph is the invention of Mr. J. E. O. Kumberg. The message is
spoken into the telephone transmitter in the ordinary way, and the vibrations
set up by the voice are caused to act upon a recording stylus by the impact of
the sound waves at the further end of the wires. In this manner a phonogram is
produced on the wax cylinder in the house or office of the person addressed,
and it may be read off at leisure. A very sensitive transmitter is employed, and

if desired the apparatus can be so arranged that by means of a double-channel
tube the words spoken are simultaneously conveyed to the telephone and to an
ordinary phonograph, which insures that a record shall be kept of any
message sent.
The Telegraphone, produced by Mr. Valdemar Poulsen, performs the same
functions as the telephonograph, but differs from it in being entirely electrical.
It contains no waxen cylinder, no cutting-point; their places are taken
respectively by a steel wire wound on a cylindrical drum (each turn carefully
insulated from its neighbours) and by a very small electro-magnet, which has
two delicate points that pass along the wire, one on either side, resting lightly
upon it.
As the drum rotates, the whole of the wire passes gradually between the two
points, into which a series of electric shocks is sent by the action of the
speaker’s voice at the further end of the wires. The shocks magnetise the
portion of steel wire which acts as a temporary bridge between the two points.
At the close of three and a half minutes the magnet has worked from one end
of the wire coil to the other; it is then automatically lifted and carried back to
the starting-point in readiness for reproduction of the sounds. This is
accomplished by disconnecting the telegraphone from the telephone wires and
switching it on to an ordinary telephonic earpiece or receiver. As soon as the
cylinder commences to revolve a second time, the magnet is influenced by the
series of magnetic “fields” in the wires, and as often as it touches a
magnetised spot imparts an impulse to the diaphragm of the receiver, which
vibrates at the rate and with the same force as the vibrations originally set up
in the distant transmitter. The result is a clear and accurate reproduction of the
message, even though hours and even days may have elapsed since its arrival.
As the magnetic effects on the wire coil retain their power for a considerable
period, the message may be reproduced many times. As soon as the wire-
covered drum is required for fresh impressions, the old one is wiped out by
passing a permanent magnet along the wire to neutralise the magnetism of the
last message.
Mr. Poulsen has made an instrument of a different type to be employed for the
reception of an unusually lengthy communication. Instead of a wire coil on a
cylinder, a ribbon of very thin flat steel spring is wound from one reel on to
another across the poles of two electro-magnets, which touch the lower side
only of the strip. The first magnet is traversed by a continuous current to

efface the previous record; the second magnetises the strip in obedience to
impulses from the telephone wires. The message complete, the strip is run
back, and the magnets connected with receivers, which give out loud and
intelligent speech as the strip again traverses them. The Poulsen machine
makes the transmission of the same message simultaneously through several
telephones an easy matter, as the strip can be passed over a series of electro-
magnets each connected with a telephone.

THE TELAUTOGRAPH.
It is a curious experience to watch for the first time the movements of a tiny
Telautograph pen as it works behind a glass window in a japanned case. The
pen, though connected only with two delicate wires, appears instinct with
human reason. It writes in a flowing hand, just as a man writes. At the end of
a word it crosses the t’s and dots the i’s. At the end of a line it dips itself in an
inkpot. It punctuates its sentences correctly. It illustrates its words with
sketches. It uses shorthand as readily as longhand. It can form letters of all
shapes and sizes.
And yet there is no visible reason why it should do what it does. The japanned
case hides the guiding agency, whatever it may be. Our ears cannot detect any
mechanical motion. The writing seems at first sight as mysterious as that
which appeared on the wall to warn King Belshazzar.
In reality it is the outcome of a vast amount of patience and mechanical
ingenuity culminating in a wonderful instrument called the Telautograph. The
Telautograph is so named because by its aid we can send our autographs, i.e.
our own particular handwriting, electrically over an indefinite length of wire,
as easily as a telegraph clerk transmits messages in the Morse alphabet.
Whatever the human hand does on one telautograph at one end of the wires,
that will be reproduced by a similar machine at the other end, though the latter
be hundreds of miles away.

By kind permission of The Telautograph Co.
The Telautograph. The upper portion is the Receiver, the lower (with cover removed) is the
Transmitter.

The instrument stands about eighteen inches high, and its base is as many
inches square. It falls into two parts, the receiver and the transmitter. The
receiver is vertical and forms the upright and back portion of the telautograph.
At one side of it hangs an ordinary telephone attachment. The transmitter, a
sloping desk placed conveniently for the hand, is the front and horizontal
portion. The receiver of one station is connected with the transmitter of
another station; there being ordinarily no direct communication between the
two parts of the same instrument.
An attempt will be made to explain, with the help of a simple diagram, the
manner in which the telautograph performs its duties.

These duties are threefold. In the first place, it must reproduce whatever is
written on the transmitter. Secondly, it must reproduce only what is written,
not all the movements of the hand. Thirdly, it must supply the recording pen
with fresh paper to write on, and with fresh ink to write with.
In our diagram we must imagine that all the coverings of the telautograph
have been cleared away to lay bare the most essential parts of the mechanism.
For the sake of simplicity not all the coils, wires, and magnets having
functions of their own are represented, and the drawing is not to scale. But
what is shown will enable the reader to grasp the general principles which
work the machine.
Turning first of all to the transmitter, we have P, a little platform hinged at the
back end, and moving up and down very slightly in front, according as
pressure is put on to or taken off it by the pencil. Across it a roll of paper is
shifted by means of the lever S, which has other uses as well. To the right of P
is an electric bell-push, E, and on the left K, another small button.
The pencil is at the junction of two small bars CC’, which are hinged at their
other end to the levers AA’. Any motion of the pencil is transmitted by CC’ to
AA’, and by them to the arms LL’, the extremities of which, two very small
brushes ZZ’, sweep along the quadrants RR’. This is the first point to observe,
that the position of the pencil decides on which sections of the quadrants these
little brushes rest, and consequently how much current is to be sent to the
distant station. The quadrants are known technically as rheostats, or current-
controllers. Each quadrant is divided into 496 parts, separated from each other
by insulating materials, so that current can pass from one to the other only by
means of some connecting wire. In our illustration only thirteen divisions are
given, for the sake of clearness. The dark lines represent the insulation. WW’
are the very fine wire loops connecting each division of the quadrant with its
neighbours. If then a current from the battery B enters the rheostat at division
1 it will have to pass through all these wires before it can reach division 13.
The current always enters at 1, but the point of departure from the rheostat
depends entirely upon the position of the brushes Z or Z’. If Z happens to be
on No. 6 the current will pass through five loops of wire, along the arm L, and
so through the main wire to the receiving station; if on No. 13, through twelve
loops.

THE TELAUTOGRAPH

Before going any further we must have clear ideas on the subject of electrical
resistance, upon which the whole system of the telautograph is built up.
Electricity resembles water in its objection to flow through small passages. It
is much harder to pump water through a half-inch pipe than through a one-
inch pipe, and the longer the pipe is, whatever its bore, the more work is
required. So then, two things affect resistance—size of pipe or wire, and
length of pipe or wire.
The wires WW’ are very fine, and offer very high resistance to a current; so
high that by the time the current from battery B has passed through all the

wire loops only one-fifteenth or less of the original force is left to traverse the
long-distance wire.
The rheostats act independently of one another. As the pencil moves over the
transmitting paper, a succession of currents of varying intensity is sent off by
each rheostat to the receiving station.
The receiver, to which we must now pay attention, has two arms DD’, and
two rods FF’, corresponding in size with AA’ and CC’ of the transmitter. The
arms DD’ are moved up and down by the coils TT’ which turn on centres in
circular spaces at the bend of the magnets MM’. The position of these coils
relatively to the magnets depend on the strength of the currents coming from
the transmitting station. Each coil strains at a small spiral spring until it has
reached the position in which its electric force is balanced by the retarding
influence of the spring. One of the cleverest things in the telautograph is the
adjustment of these coils so that they shall follow faithfully the motions of the
rods LL’ in the transmitter.

By kind permission of The Telautograph Co.
An example of the work done by the Telautograph. The upper sketch shows a design drawn on
the transmitter; the lower is the same design as reproduced by the receiving instrument, many
miles distant.

We are now able to trace the actions of sending a message. The sender first
presses the button E to call the attention of some one at the receiving station
to the fact that a message is coming, either on the telephone or on the paper. It
should be remarked, by-the-bye, that the same wires serve for both telephone
and telautograph, the unhooking of the telephone throwing the telautograph
out of connection for the time.

He then presses the lever S towards the left, bringing his transmitter into
connection with the distant receiver, and also moving a fresh length of paper
on to the platform P. With his pencil he writes his message, pressing firmly on
the paper, so that the platform may bear down against an electric contact, X.
As the pencil moves about the paper the arms CC’ are constantly changing
their angles, and the brushes ZZ’ are passing along the segments of the
rheostats.
Currents flow in varying intensity away to the coils TT’ and work the arms
DD’, the wires FF’, and the pen, a tiny glass tube.
In the perfectly regulated telautograph the arms AA’ and the arms DD’ will
move in unison, and consequently the position of the pen must be the same
from moment to moment as that of the pencil.
Mr. Foster Ritchie, the clever inventor of this telautograph, had to provide for
many things besides mere slavish imitation of movement. As has been stated
above, the pen must record only those movements of the pencil which are
essential. Evidently, if while the pencil returns to dot an i a long line were
registered by the pen corresponding to the path of the pencil, confusion would
soon ensue on the receiver; and instead of a neatly-written message we should
have an illegible and puzzling maze of lines. Mr. Ritchie has therefore taken
ingenious precautions against any such mishap. The platen P on being
depressed by the pencil touches a contact, X, which closes an electric circuit
through the long-distance wires and excites a magnet at the receiving end.
That attracts a little arm and breaks another circuit, allowing the bar Y to fall
close to the paper. The wires FF’ and the pen are now able to rest on the paper
and trace characters. But as soon as the platen P rises, on the removal of the
pencil from the transmitting paper, the contact at X is broken, the magnet at
the receiver ceases to act, the arm it attracted falls back and sets up a circuit
which causes the bar to spring up again and lift the pen. So that unless you are
actually pressing the paper with your pencil, the pen is not marking, though it
may be moving.
As soon as a line is finished a fresh surface of paper is required at both ends.
The operator pushes the lever S sideways, and effects the change
mechanically at his end. At the same time a circuit is formed which excites
certain magnets at the receiver and causes the shifting forward there also of
the paper, and also breaks the writing current, so that the pen returns for a
moment to its normal position of rest in the inkpot.

It may be asked: If the wires are passing currents to work the writing
apparatus, how can they simultaneously affect the lifting-bar, Y? The answer
is that currents of two different kinds are used, a direct current for writing, a
vibratory current for depressing the lifting-bar. The direct current passes from
the battery B through the rheostats RR’ along the wires, through the coils
working the arms DD’ and into the earth at the far end; but the vibratory
current, changing its direction many times a second and so neutralising itself,
passes up one wire and back down the other through the lifting-bar connection
without interfering with the direct current.
The message finished, the operator depresses with the point of his pencil the
little push-key, K, and connects his receiver with the distant transmitter in
readiness for an answer.
The working speed of the telautograph is that of the writer. If shorthand be
employed, messages can be transmitted at the rate of over 100 words per
minute. As regards the range of transmission, successful tests have been made
by the postal authorities between Paris and London, and also between Paris
and Lyons. In the latter case the messages were sent from Paris to Lyons and
back directly to Paris, the lines being connected at Lyons, to give a total
distance of over 650 miles. There is no reason why much greater length of
line should not be employed.
The telautograph in its earlier and imperfect form was the work of Professor
Elisha Gray, who invented the telephone almost simultaneously with
Professor Graham Bell. His telautograph worked on what is known as the
step-by-step principle, and was defective in that its speed was very limited. If
the operator wrote too fast the receiving pen lagged behind the transmitting
pencil, and confusion resulted. Accordingly this method, though ingenious,
was abandoned, and Mr. Ritchie in his experiments looked about for some
preferable system, which should be simpler and at the same time much
speedier in its action. After four years of hard work he has brought the
rheostat system, explained above, to a pitch of perfection which will be at
once appreciated by any one who has seen the writing done by the instrument.
The advantages of the Telautograph over the ordinary telegraphy may be
briefly summed up as follows:—
Anybody who can write can use it; the need of skilled operators is abolished.

A record is automatically kept of every message sent.
The person to whom the message is sent need not be present at the receiver.
He will find the message written out on his return.
The instrument is silent and so insures secrecy. An ordinary telegraph may be
read by sound; but not the telautograph.
It is impossible to tap the wires unless, as is most unlikely, the intercepting
party has an instrument in exact accord with the transmitter.
It can be used on the same wires as the ordinary telephone, and since a
telephone is combined with it, the subscriber has a double means of
communication. For some items of business the telephone may be used as
preferable; but in certain cases, the telautograph. A telephone message may be
heard by other subscribers; it is impossible to prove the authenticity of such a
message unless witnesses have been present at the transmitting end; and the
message itself may be misunderstood by reason of bad articulation. But the
telautograph preserves secrecy while preventing any misunderstanding.
Anything written by it is for all practical purposes as valid as a letter.
We must not forget its extreme usefulness for transmitting sketches. A very
simple diagram often explains a thing better than pages of letter-press. The
telautograph may help in the detection of criminals, a pictorial presentment of
whom can by its means be despatched all over the country in a very short
time. And in warfare an instrument flashing back from the advance-guard
plans of the country and of the enemy’s positions might on occasion prove of
the greatest importance.

MODERN ARTILLERY.
The vast subject of artillery in its modern form, including under this head for
convenience’ sake not only heavy ordnance but machine-guns and small-
arms, can of necessity only be dealt with most briefly in this chapter.
It may therefore be well to take a general survey and to define beforehand any
words or phrases which are used technically in describing the various
operations.
The employment of firearms dates from a long-distant past, and it is
interesting to note that many an improvement introduced during the last
century is but the revival of a former invention which only lack of accuracy in
tools and appliances had hitherto prevented from being brought into practical
usage.
So far back as 1498 the art of rifling cannon in straight grooves was known,
and a British patent was taken out in 1635 by Rotsipan. The grooves were
first made spiral or screwed by Koster of Birmingham about 1620. Berlin
possesses a rifled cannon with thirteen grooves dated 1664. But the first
recorded uses of such weapons in actual warfare was during Louis Napoleon’s
Italian campaign in 1859, and two years later by General James of the United
States Army.
The system of breech-loading, again, is as old as the sixteenth century, and
we find a British patent of 1741; while the first United States patent was given
in 1811 for a flint-lock weapon.
Magazine guns of American production appeared in 1849 and 1860, but these
were really an adaptation of the old matchlock revolvers, said to belong to the
period 1480-1500. There is one in the Tower of London credited to the
fifteenth century, and a British patent of 1718 describes a well-constructed
revolver carried on a tripod and of the dimensions of a modern machine-gun.
The inventor gravely explains that he has provided round chambers for round
bullets to shoot Christians, and square chambers with square missiles for use
against the Turks!

The word “ordnance” is applied to heavy guns of all kinds, and includes guns
mounted on fortresses, naval guns, siege artillery, and that for use in the field.
These guns are all mounted on stands or carriages, and may be divided into
three classes:—

(i.) Cannon, or heavy guns.
(ii.) Howitzers, for field, mountain, or siege use, which are lighter and
shorter than cannon, and designed to throw hollow projectiles with
comparatively small charges.
(iii.) Mortars, for throwing shells at a great elevation.

The modern long-range guns and improved howitzers have, however,
virtually superseded mortars. Machine-guns of various forms are
comparatively small and light, transportable by hand, and filling a place
between cannon and small-arms, the latter term embracing the soldier’s
personal armament of rifle and pistol or revolver, which are carried in the
hand.
A group of guns of the like design are generally given the name of their first
inventor, or the place of manufacture: such as the Armstrong gun, the Vickers-
Maxim, the Martini-Henry rifle, or the Enfield.
The indifferent use of several expressions in describing the same weapon is,
however, rather confusing. One particular gun may be thus referred to:—by
its weight in tons or cwt., as “the 35-ton gun”; by the weight of its projectile,
as “a 68-pounder”; by its calibre, that is, size of bore, as “the 4-inch gun.” Of
these the heavier breech-loading (B.-L.) and quick-firing (Q.-F.) guns are
generally known by the size of bore; small Q.-F.’s, field-guns, &c., by the
weight of projectile. It is therefore desirable to enter these particulars together
when making any list of service ordnance for future reference.
No individual gun, whether large or small, is a single whole, but consists of
several pieces fastened together by many clever devices.
The principal parts of a cannon are:—

(1) The chase, or main tube into which the projectile is loaded;
terminating at one end in the muzzle.

(2) The breech-piece, consisting of (a) the chamber, which is bored out
for a larger diameter than the chase to contain the firing-charge. (b) The
breech-plug, which is closed before the charge is exploded and screwed
tightly into place, sealing every aperture by means of a special device
called the “obturator,” in order to prevent any gases passing out round it
instead of helping to force the projectile forwards towards the muzzle.

The whole length of inside tube is termed the barrel, as in a machine-gun,
rifle, or sporting-piece, but in the two latter weapons the breech-opening is
closed by sliding or springing back the breech-block or bolt into firing
position.
Old weapons as a rule were smooth-bored (S.-B.), firing a round missile
between which and the barrel a considerable amount of the gases generated by
the explosion escaped and caused loss of power, this escape of gas being
known as windage.
In all modern weapons we use conical projectiles, fitted near the base with a
soft copper driving-band, the diameter of which is somewhat larger than that
of the bore of the gun, and cut a number of spiral grooves in the barrel. The
enormous pressure generated by the explosion of the charge forces the
projectile down the bore of the gun and out of the muzzle. The body of the
projectile, made of steel or iron, being smaller in diameter than the bore,
easily passes through, but the driving-band being of greater diameter, and
being composed of soft copper, can only pass down the bore with the
projectile by flowing into the grooves, thus preventing any escape of gas, and
being forced to follow their twist. It therefore rotates rapidly upon its own
longitudinal axis while passing down the barrel, and on leaving the muzzle
two kinds of velocity have been imparted to it;—first, a velocity of motion
through the air; secondly, a velocity of rotation round its axis which causes it
to fly steadily onward in the required direction, i.e. a prolongation of the axis
of the gun. Thus extreme velocity and penetrating power, as well as
correctness of aim, are acquired.
The path of a projectile through the air is called its trajectory, and if
uninterrupted its flight would continue on indefinitely in a perfectly straight
line. But immediately a shot has been hurled from the gun by the explosion in
its rear two other natural forces begin to act upon it:—
Gravitation, which tends to bring it to earth.

Air-resistance, which gradually checks its speed.
(Theoretically, a bullet dropped perpendicularly from the muzzle of a
perfectly horizontal rifle would reach the ground at the same moment as
another bullet fired from the muzzle horizontally, the action of gravity being
the same in both cases.)
Its direct, even course is therefore deflected till it forms a curve, and sooner or
later it returns to earth, still retaining a part of its velocity. To counteract the
attraction of gravity the shot is thrown upwards by elevating the muzzle, care
being taken to direct the gun’s action to the same height above the object as
the force of gravitation would draw the projectile down during the time of
flight. The gunner is enabled to give the proper inclination to his piece by
means of the sights; one of these, near the muzzle, being generally fixed,
while that next the breech is adjustable by sliding up an upright bar which is
so graduated that the proper elevation for any required range is given.
The greater the velocity the flatter is the trajectory, and the more dangerous to
the enemy. Assuming the average height of a man to be six feet, all the
distance intervening between the point where a bullet has dropped to within
six feet of the earth, and the point where it actually strikes is dangerous to any
one in that interval, which is called the “danger zone.” A higher initial
velocity is gained by using stronger firing charges, and a more extended flight
by making the projectile longer in proportion to its diameter. The reason why
a shell from a cannon travels further than a rifle bullet, both having the same
muzzle velocity, is easily explained.
A rifle bullet is, let us assume, three times as long as it is thick; a cannon shell
the same. If the shell have ten times the diameter of the bullet, its “nose” will
have 10 × 10 = 100 times the area of the bullet’s nose; but its mass will be 10
× 10 × 10 = 1000 times that of the bullet.
In other words, when two bodies are proportional in all their dimensions their
air-resistance varies as the square of their diameters, but their mass and
consequently their momentum varies as the cube of their diameters. The shell
therefore starts with a great advantage over the bullet, and may be compared
to a “crew” of cyclists on a multicycle all cutting the same path through the
air; whereas the bullet resembles a single rider, who has to overcome as much
air-resistance as the front man of the “crew” but has not the weight of other
riders behind to help him.

As regards the effect of rifling, it is to keep the bullet from turning head over
heels as it flies through the air, and to maintain it always point forwards.
Every boy knows that a top “sleeps” best when it is spinning fast. Its
horizontal rotation overcomes a tendency to vertical movement towards the
ground. In like manner a rifle bullet, spinning vertically, overcomes an
inclination of its atoms to move out of their horizontal path. Professor John
Perry, F.R.S., has illustrated this gyroscopic effect, as it is called, of a whirling
body with a heavy flywheel in a case, held by a man standing on a pivoted
table. However much the man may try to turn the top from its original
direction he will fail as long as its velocity of rotation is high. He may move
the top relatively to his body, but the table will turn so as to keep the centre
line of the top always pointing in the same direction.

Rifles.
Up to the middle of last century our soldiers were armed with the flint-lock
musket known as “Brown Bess,” a smooth-bore barrel 3/4-inch in diameter,
thirty-nine inches long, weighing with its bayonet over eleven pounds. The
round leaden bullet weighed an ounce, and had to be wrapped in a “patch” or
bit of oily rag to make it fit the barrel and prevent windage; it was then
pushed home with a ramrod on to the powder-charge, which was ignited by a
spark passing from the flint into a priming of powder. How little its accuracy
of aim could be depended upon, however, is proved by the word of command
when advancing upon an enemy, “Wait till you see the whites of their eyes,
boys, before you fire!”
In the year 1680 each troop of Life Guards was supplied with eight rifled
carbines, a modest allowance, possibly intended to be used merely by those
acting as scouts. After this we hear nothing of them until in 1800 the 95th
Regiment received a 20-bore muzzle-loading rifle, exchanged about 1835 for
the Brunswick rifle firing a spherical bullet, an improvement that more than
doubled its effective range. The companies so armed became known as the
Rifle Brigade. At last, in 1842, the old flint-lock was superseded for the whole
army by the original percussion musket, a smooth-bore whose charge was
exploded by a percussion cap made of copper. [That this copper had some
commercial value was shown by the rush of “roughs” to Aldershot and
elsewhere upon a field-day to collect the split fragments which strewed the
ground after the troops had withdrawn.]

Soon afterward the barrel was rifled and an elongated bullet brought into use.
This missile was pointed in front, and had a hollowed base so contrived that it
expanded immediately the pressure of exploding gases was brought to bear on
it, and thus filled up the grooves, preventing any windage. The one adopted
by our army in the year 1852 was the production of M. Minié, a Frenchman,
though an expanding bullet of English invention had been brought forward
several years before.
Meanwhile the Prussians had their famous needle-gun, a breech-loading rifled
weapon fired by a needle attached to a sliding bolt; as the bolt is shot forward
the needle pierces the charge and ignites the fulminate by friction. This rifle
was used in the Prusso-Austrian war of 1866 some twenty years after its first
inception, and the French promptly countered it by arming their troops with
the Chassepôt rifle, an improved edition of the same principle. A piece which
could be charged and fired in any position from five to seven times as fast as
the muzzle-loader, which the soldier had to load standing, naturally caused a
revolution in the infantry armament of other nations.
The English Government, as usual the last to make a change, decided in 1864
upon using breech-loading rifles. Till a more perfect weapon could be
obtained the Enfields were at a small outlay converted into breech-loaders
after the plans of Mr. Snider, and were henceforward known as Snider-
Enfields. Eventually—as the result of open competition—the Martini-Henry
rifle was produced by combining Henry’s system of rifling with Martini’s
mechanism for breech-loading. This weapon had seven grooves with one turn
in twenty-two inches, and weighed with bayonet 10 lb. 4 oz. It fired with
great accuracy, the trajectory having a rise of only eight feet at considerable
distances, so that the bullet would not pass over the head of a cavalry man.
Twenty rounds could be fired in fifty-three seconds.
Now in the latter years of the century all these weapons have been superseded
by magazine rifles, i.e. rifles which can be fired several times without
recourse to the ammunition pouch. They differ from the revolver in having
only one firing chamber, into which the cartridges are one by one brought by
a simple action of the breech mechanism, which also extracts the empty
cartridge-case. The bore of these rifles is smaller and the rifling sharper; they
therefore shoot straighter and harder than the large bore, and owing to the use
of new explosives the recoil is less.

The French Lebel magazine rifle was the pioneer of all now used by European
nations, though a somewhat similar weapon was familiar to the Americans
since 1849, being first used during the Civil War. The Henry rifle, as it was
called, afterwards became the Winchester.
The German army rifle is the Mauser, so familiar to us in the hands of the
Boers during the South African War—loading five cartridges at once in a case
or “clip” which falls out when emptied. The same rifle has been adopted by
Turkey, and was used by the Spaniards in the late Spanish-American War.
The Austrian Mannlicher, adopted by several continental nations, and the
Krag-Jorgensen now used in the north of Europe and as the United States
army weapon, resemble the Mauser in most particulars. Each of these loads
the magazine in one movement with a clip.
The Hotchkiss magazine rifle has its magazine in the stock, holding five extra
cartridges pushed successively into loading position by a spiral spring.
Our forces are now armed principally with the Lee-Enfield, which is taking
the place of the Lee-Metford issued a few years ago. These are small-bore
rifles of .303 inch calibre, having a detachable box, which is loaded with ten
cartridges (Lee-Metford eight) passed up in turn by a spring into the breech,
whence, when the bolt is closed, they are pushed into the firing-chamber. The
empty case is ejected by pulling back the bolt, and at the same time another
cartridge is pressed up from the magazine and the whole process repeated.
When the cut-off is used the rifle may be loaded and fired singly, be the
magazine full or empty.
The Lee-Enfield has five grooves (Lee-Metford ten), making one complete
turn from right to left in every ten inches. It weighs 9 lb. 4 oz., and the barrel
is 30.197 inches long. The range averages 3500 yards.
We are now falling into line with other powers by adopting the “clip” form
instead of the box for loading. The sealed pattern of the new service weapon
is thus provided, and has also been made somewhat lighter and shorter while
preserving the same velocity.
We are promised an even more rapid firing rifle than any of these, one in
which the recoil is used to work the breech and lock so that it is a veritable
automatic gun. Indeed, several continental nations have made trial of such
weapons and reported favourably upon them. One lately tried in Italy works

by means of gas generated by the explosion passing through a small hole to
move a piston-rod. It is claimed that the magazine can hold as many as fifty
cartridges and fire up to thirty rounds a minute; but the barrel became so hot
after doing this that the trial had to be stopped.
The principal result of automatic action would probably be excessive waste of
cartridges by wild firing in the excitement of an engagement. It is to-day as
true as formerly that it takes on the average a man’s weight of lead to kill him
in battle.
To our neighbours across the Channel the credit also belongs of introducing
smokeless powder, now universally used; that of the Lee-Metford being
“cordite.” To prevent the bullets flattening on impact they are coated with a
hard metal such as nickel and its alloys. If the nose is soft, or split beforehand,
a terribly enlarged and lacerated wound is produced; so the Geneva
Convention humanely prohibited the use of such missiles in warfare.
Before quitting this part of our subject it is as well to add a few words about
pistols.
These have passed through much the same process of evolution as the rifle,
and have now culminated in the many-shotted revolver.
During the period 1480-1500 the match-lock revolver is said to have been
brought into use; and one attributed to this date may be seen in the Tower of
London.
Two hundred years ago, Richards, a London gunsmith, converted the ancient
wheel-lock into the flint-lock; he also rifled his barrel and loaded it at the
breech. The Richards weapon was double-barrelled, and unscrewed for
loading at the point where the powder-chamber ended; the ball was placed in
this chamber in close contact with the powder, and the barrel rescrewed. The
bullet being a soft leaden ball, was forced, when the charge was fired, through
the rifled barrel with great accuracy of aim.
The percussion cap did not oust the flint-lock till less than a century ago,
when many single-barrelled pistols, such as the famous Derringer, were
produced; these in their turn were replaced by the revolver which Colt
introduced in 1836-1850. Smith and Wesson in the early sixties improved
upon it by a device for extracting the empty cartridges automatically.
Livermore and Russell of the United States invented the “clip,” containing

several cartridges; but the equally well-known Winchester has its cartridges
arranged in a tube below the barrel, whence a helical spring feeds them to the
breech as fast as they are needed.
At the present time each War Department has its own special service weapon.
The German Mauser magazine-pistol for officer’s use fires ten shots in ten
seconds, a slight pressure of the trigger setting the full machinery in motion;
the pressure of gas at each explosion does all the rest of the work—extracts
and ejects the cartridge case, cocks the hammer, and presses springs which
reload and close the weapon, all in a fraction of a second. The Mannlicher is
of the same automatic type, but its barrel moves to the front, leaving space for
a fresh cartridge to come up from the magazine below, while in the Mauser
the breech moves to the rear during recoil. The range is half a mile. The
cartridges are made up in sets of ten in a case, which can be inserted in one
movement.

Machine-Guns.
Intermediate between hand-borne weapons and artillery, and partaking of the
nature of both, come the machine-guns firing small projectiles with
extraordinary rapidity.
Since the United States made trial of Dr. Gatling’s miniature battery in the
Civil War (1862-1865), invention has been busy evolving more and more
perfect types, till the most modern machine-gun is a marvel of ingenuity and
effectiveness.
The Gatling machine-gun, which has been much improved in late years by the
Accles system of “feed,” and is not yet completely out of date, consists of a
circular series of ten barrels—each with its own lock—mounted on a central
shaft and revolved by a suitable gear. The cartridges are successively fed by
automatic actions into the barrels, and the hammers are so arranged that the
entire operation of loading, closing the breech, firing and withdrawing the
empty cartridge-cases (which is known as their “longitudinal reciprocating
motion”) is carried on while the locks are kept in constant revolution, along
with the barrels and breech, by means of a hand-crank. One man places a
feed-case filled with cartridges into the hopper, another turns the crank. As the
gun is rotated the cartridges drop one by one from the feed-cases into the
grooves of the carrier, and its lock loads and fires each in turn. While the gun

revolves further the lock, drawing back, extracts and drops the empty case; it
is then ready for the next cartridge.
In action five cartridges are always going through some process of loading,
while five empty shells are in different stages of ejection. The latest type,
fitted with an electro-motor, will fire at the rate of one thousand rounds per
minute, and eighty rounds have actually been fired within ten seconds! It is
not, however, safe to work these machine-guns so fast, as the cartridges are
apt to be occasionally pulled through unfired and then explode among the
men’s legs. The automatic guns, on the contrary, as they only work by the
explosion, are free from any risk of such accidents.
The feed-drums contain 104 cartridges, and can be replaced almost instantly.
One drumful can be discharged in 5-1/4 seconds. The small-sized Gatling has
a drum-feed of 400 cartridges in sixteen sections of twenty-five each passed
up without interruption.
The gun is mounted for use so that it can be pointed at any angle, and through
a wide lateral range, without moving the carriage.
The Gardner.—The Gatling, as originally made, was for a time superseded by
the Gardner, which differed from it in having the barrels (four or fewer in
number) fixed in the same horizontal plane. This was worked by a rotatory
handle on the side of the gun. The cartridges slid down a feed-case in a
column to the barrel, where they were fired by a spring acting on a hammer.
The Nordenfelt.—Mr. Nordenfelt’s machine-gun follows this precedent; its
barrels—10, 5, 4, 2, or 1 in number—also being arranged horizontally in a
strong, rigid frame. Each barrel has its own breech-plug, striker, spring, and
extractor, and each fires independently of the rest, so that all are not out of
action together. The gun has a swivelled mount easily elevated and trained,
and the steel frames take up the force of the discharge. In rapid firing one
gunner can work the firing-handle while another lays and alters the direction.
The firing is operated by a lever working backwards and forwards by hand,
and the gun can be discharged at the rate of 600 rounds per minute.
The Hotchkiss.—The Hotchkiss gun, or revolving cannon, is on a fresh
system, that of intermittent rotation of the barrels without any rotation of
breech or mechanism. There is only one loading piston, one spring striker, and

one extractor for all the barrels. The shock of discharge is received against a
massive fixed breech, which distributes it to the whole body.
Like the Nordenfelt, however, it can be dismounted and put together again
without the need of tools. The above pattern throws 1 lb. projectiles.
The Maxim.—Differing from all these comes the Maxim gun, so much in
evidence now with both land and sea service. It is made up of two portions:—

(1) Fixed: a barrel-casing, which is also a water-jacket, and breech-
casing.
(2) Recoiling: a barrel and two side plates which carry lock and crank.

This recoiling portion works inside the fixed.
The gun is supplied with ammunition by a belt holding 250 cartridges passing
through a feed-block on the top. Its mechanism is worked automatically; first
by the explosion of the charge, which causes the barrel to recoil backwards
and extends a strong spring which, on reasserting itself, carries it forwards
again. The recoiling part moves back about an inch, and this recoil is utilised
by bringing into play mechanism which extracts the empty cartridge-case, and
on the spring carrying the barrel forward again moves a fresh one into
position. Under the barrel casing is the ejector tube through which the empty
cartridge-cases are ejected from the gun.
The rate of fire of the Maxim gun is 600 rounds per minute. Deliberate fire
means about 70 rounds per minute; rapid fire will explode 450 rounds in the
same time. As the barrel becomes very hot in use the barrel-casing contains
seven pints of water to keep it cool. About 2000 rounds can be fired at short
intervals; but in continuous firing the water boils after some 600 rounds, and
needs replenishing after about 1000. A valved tube allows steam, but not
water to escape.
The operator works this gun by pressing a firing-lever or button. After starting
the machine he merely sits behind the shield, which protects him from the
enemy, directing it, as it keeps on firing automatically so long as the bands of
cartridges are supplied and a finger held on the trigger or button. By setting
free a couple of levers with his left hand, and pressing his shoulder against the

padded shoulder-piece, he is able to elevate or depress, or train the barrel
horizontally, without in any way interfering with the hail of missiles.
We use two sizes, one with .45 bore for the Navy, which takes an all-lead
bullet weighing 480 grains, and the other with .303 bore, the ordinary nickel-
coated rifle bullet for the Army. But as the Maxim gun can be adapted to
every rifle-calibre ammunition it is patronised by all governments.
The gun itself weighs 56 lbs., and is mounted for use in various ways: on a
tripod, a field stand, or a field carriage with wheels. This carriage has sixteen
boxes of ammunition, each containing a belt of 250 cartridges, making 4000
rounds altogether. Its total weight is about half a ton, so that it can be drawn
by one horse, and it is built for the roughest cross-country work. A little
machine, which can be fixed to the wheel, recharges the belts with cartridges
by the working of a handle.
For ships the Maxim is usually mounted on the ordinary naval cone mount, or
it can be clamped to the bulwark of the deck or the military “top” on the mast.
But there is a most ingenious form of parapet mounting, known as the
garrison mount, which turns the Maxim into a “disappearing gun,” and can be
used equally well for fortress walls or improvised entrenchments. The gun is
placed over two little wheels on which it can be run along by means of a
handle pushed behind in something the fashion of a lawn-mower. Arrived at
its destination, the handle, which is really a rack, is turned downwards, and on
twisting one of the wheels the gun climbs it by means of a pinion-cog till it
points over the wall, to which hooks at the end of two projecting bars firmly
fix it, the broadened end of the handle being held by its weight to the ground.
It is locked while in use, but a few turns of the wheel cause it to sink out of
sight in as many seconds.
The rifle-calibre guns may also be used as very light horse artillery to
accompany cavalry by being mounted on a “galloping carriage” drawn by a
couple of horses, and with two seats for the operators. The carriage conveys
3000 rounds, and the steel-plated seats turn up and form shields during action.
It is interesting to notice that an extra light form of the gun is made which
may be carried strapped on an infantryman’s back and fired from a tripod.
Two of these mounted on a double tricycle can be propelled at a good pace

along a fairly level road, and the riders dismounting have, in a few moments,
a valuable little battery at their disposal.
The Pom-pom, of which we have heard so much in the late war, is a large
edition of the Maxim automatic system with some differences in the system.
Its calibre is 1-1/2 inches. Instead of bullets it emits explosive shells 1 lb. in
weight, fitted with percussion fuses which burst them into about twelve or
fourteen pieces. The effective range is up to 2000 yards, and it will carry to
4000 yards. An improved Pom-pom recently brought out hurls a 1-1/4 lb. shell
with effect at a mark 3000 yards away, and as far as 6000 yards before its
energy is entirely exhausted. The muzzle velocity of this weapon is 2350 feet
a second as against the 1800 feet of the older pattern. They both fire 300
rounds a minute.
The Colt automatic gun is an American invention whose automatic action is
due to explosion of the charge, not to recoil. The force by which the motions
of firing, extracting, and loading are performed is derived from the powder-
gases, a portion of which—passing through a small vent in the muzzle—acts
by means of a lever on the mechanism of the gun.
This is also in two parts: (a) barrel, attached to (b) breech-casing, in which
gear for charging, firing, and ejecting is contained. The barrel, made of a
strong alloy of nickel, has its cartridges fed in by means of belts coiled in
boxes attached to the breech-casing, the boxes moving with the latter so that
the movements of the gun do not affect it. These boxes contain 250 cartridges
each and are easily replaced.
The feed-belt is inserted, and the lever thrown down and moved backward—
once by hand—as far as it will go; this opens the breech and passes the first
cartridge from the belt to the carrier. The lever is then released and the spring
causes it to fly forward, close the vent, and transfer the cartridge from the
carrier to the barrel, also compressing the mainspring and opening and closing
the breech.
On pulling the trigger the shot is fired, and after the bullet has passed the little
vent, but is not yet out of the muzzle, the force of the expanding gas, acting
through the vent on the piston, sets a gas-lever in operation which acts on the
breech mechanism, opens breech, ejects cartridge-case, and feeds another
cartridge into the carrier. The gas-lever returning forces the cartridge home in
the barrel and closes and locks the breech.

The hammer of the gun acts as the piston of an air-pump, forcing a strong jet
of air into the chamber, and through the barrel, thus removing all unburnt
powder, and thoroughly cleansing it. The metal employed is strong enough to
resist the heaviest charge of nitro-powder, and the accuracy of its aim is not
disturbed by the vibrations of rapid fire. It does not heat fast, so has no need
of a water-jacket, any surplus heat being removed by a system of radiation.
The bore is made of any rifle calibre for any small-arm ammunition, and is
fitted with a safety-lock. For our own pieces we use the Lee-Metford
cartridges. Four hundred shots per minute can be fired.
The gun consists altogether of ninety-four pieces, but the working-pieces, i.e.
those only which need be separated for cleaning, &c., when in the hands of
the artilleryman, are less than twenty. It can be handled in action by one man,
the operation resembling that of firing a pistol.
The machine weighs 40 lbs., and for use by cavalry or infantry can be
mounted on the Dundonald Galloping Carriage. The ammunition-box,
containing 2000 rounds ready for use, carries the gun on its upper side, and is
mounted on a strong steel axle. A pole with a slotted end is inserted into a
revolving funnel on the bend of the shaft, the limbering-up being completed
by an automatic bolt and plug.
The gun-carriage itself is of steel, with hickory wheels and hickory and steel
shafts, detachable at will. The simple harness suits any saddled cavalry horse,
and the shafts work in sockets behind the rider’s legs. Its whole weight with
full load of ammunition is under four hundredweight.

Heavy Ordnance.
As with rifles and the smaller forms of artillery, so also with heavy ordnance,
the changes and improvements within the last fifty years have been greater
than those made during the course of all the previous centuries.
These changes have affected alike not only the materials from which a
weapon is manufactured, the relative size of calibre and length of bore, the
fashion of mounting and firing, but also the form and weight of the projectile,
the velocity with which it is thrown, and even the substances used in expelling
it from the gun.

Compare for a moment the old cast-iron muzzle-loaders, stubby of stature,
which Wellington’s bronzed veterans served with round cannon balls, well
packed in greasy clouts to make them fit tight, or with shell and grape shot,
throughout the hard-fought day of Waterloo, from a distance which the
chroniclers measure by paces, so near stood the opposing ranks to one
another.
Or stand in imagination upon one of Nelson’s stately men-o’-war and watch
the grimy guns’ crews, eight or ten to each, straining on the ropes. See the still
smoking piece hauled inboard, its bore swabbed out to clean and cool it, then
recharged by the muzzle; home go powder, wad, and the castor full of balls or
the chain shot to splinter the enemy’s masts, rammed well down ere the gun is
again run out through the port-hole. Now the gunner snatches the flaming
lintstock and, signal given, applies it to the powder grains sprinkled in the
touch-hole. A salvo of fifty starboard guns goes off in one terrific broadside,
crashing across the Frenchman’s decks at such close quarters that in two or
three places they are set on fire by the burning wads. Next comes a cry of
“Boarders!” and the ships are grappled as the boarding-party scrambles over
the bulwarks to the enemy’s deck, a brisk musket-fire from the crowded
rigging protecting their advance; meanwhile the larboard guns, with their
simultaneous discharge, are greeting a new adversary.
Such was war a century ago. Compare with it the late South African
Campaign where the range of guns was estimated in miles, and after a combat
lasting from morn to eve, the British general could report: “I do not think we
have seen a gun or a Boer all day.”
The days of hand-to-hand fighting have passed, the mêlée in the ranks may be
seen no more; in a few years the bayonet may be relegated to the limbo of the
coat-of-mail or the cast-iron culverin. Yet the modern battle-scene bristles
with the most death-dealing weapons which the ingenuity of man has ever
constructed. The hand-drawn machine-gun discharges in a couple of minutes
as many missiles as a regiment of Wellington’s infantry, with a speed and
precision undreamt of by him. The quick-firing long-range naval guns now in
vogue could annihilate a fleet or destroy a port without approaching close
enough to catch a glimpse of the personnel of their opponents. The deadly
torpedo guards our waterways more effectually than a squadron of ships.
All resources of civilisation have been drawn upon, every triumph of
engineering secured, to forge such weapons as shall strike the hardest and

destroy the most pitilessly. But strange and unexpected the result! Where we
counted our battle-slain by thousands we now mourn over the death of
hundreds; where whole regiments were mown down our ambulances gather
wounded in scattered units. Here is the bright side of modern war.
The muzzle-loading gun has had its day, a very long day and a successful one.
Again and again it has reasserted itself and ousted its rivals, but at last all
difficulties of construction have been surmounted and the breech-loader has
“come to stay.”
However, our services still contain a large number of muzzle-loading guns,
many of them built at quite a recent period, and adapted as far as possible to
modern requirements. So to these we will first turn our attention.
The earliest guns were made of cast-iron, but this being prone to burst with a
large charge, bronze, brass, and other tougher materials were for a long time
employed. Most elaborately chased and ornamented specimens of these old
weapons are to be seen in the Tower, and many other collections.
In the utilitarian days of the past century cheapness and speed in manufacture
were more sought after than show. Iron was worked in many new ways to
resist the pressure of explosion.
Armstrong of Elswick conceived the idea of building up a barrel of coiled
iron by joining a series of short welded cylinders together, and closing them
by a solid forged breech-piece. Over all, again, wrought-iron coils were
shrunk. Subsequently he tried a solid forged-iron barrel bored out to form a
tube. Neither make proving very satisfactory, steel tubes were next used, but
were too expensive and uncertain at that stage of manufacture. Again coiled
iron was called into requisition, and Mr. Frazer of the Royal Gun Factory
introduced a system of double and triple coils which was found very
successful, especially when a thin steel inner tube was substituted for the iron
one (1869).
All these weapons were rifled, so that there was of necessity a corresponding
difference in the projectile employed. Conical shells being used, studs were
now placed on the body of the shell to fit into the rifling grooves, which were
made few in number and deeply cut. This was apt to weaken the bore of the
gun; but on the other hand many studs to fit into several shallow grooves
weakened the cover of the shells.

Various modifications were tried, and finally a gas-check which expands into
the grooves was placed at the base of the shell.
The muzzle-loader having thus been turned into a very efficient modern
weapon the next problem to be solved was how to throw a projectile with
sufficient force to penetrate the iron and steel armour-plates then being
generally applied to war-ships. “Build larger guns” was the conclusion arrived
at, and presently the arsenals of the Powers were turning out mammoth
weapons up to 100 tons, and even 110 tons in weight with a calibre of 16
inches and more for their huge shells. Then was the mighty 35-ton “Woolwich
Infant” born (1872), and its younger but still bigger brothers, 81 tons, 16-inch
bore, followed by the Elswick 100-ton giants, some of which were mounted
on our defences in the Mediterranean. But the fearful concussion of such
enormous guns when fixed in action on board ship injured the superstruction,
and even destroyed the boats, and the great improvements made in steel both
for guns and armour soon led to a fresh revolution. Henceforward instead of
mounting a few very heavy guns we have preferred to trust to the weight of
metal projected by an increased number of smaller size, but much higher
velocity. And these guns are the quick-firing breech-loaders.
The heaviest of our up-to-date ordnance is of moderate calibre, the largest
breech-loaders being 12-inch, 10-inch, and 9.2-inch guns. But the
elaborateness of its manufacture is such that one big gun takes nearly as long
to “build up” as the ship for which it is destined. Each weapon has to pass
through about sixteen different processes:—

(1) The solid (or hollow) ingot is forged.
(2) Annealed, to get rid of strains.
(3) It is placed horizontally on a lathe and rough-turned.
(4) Rough-bored in a lathe.
(5) Hardened. Heated to a high temperature and plunged, while hot, into
a bath of rape oil kept cold by a water-bath. It cools slowly for seven to
eight hours, being moved about at intervals by a crane. This makes the
steel more elastic and tenacious.
(6) Annealed, i.e. reheated to 900° Fahr. and slowly cooled. Siemens’
pyrometer is used in these operations.

(7) Tested by pieces cut off.
(8) Turned and bored for the second time.
(9) Carefully turned again for shrinkage. Outer coil expanded till large
enough to fit easily over inner. Inside, set up vertically in a pit, has
outside lowered on to it, water and gas being applied to make all shrink
evenly. Other projections, hoops, rings, &c., also shrunk on.
(10) Finish—bored and chambered.
(11) Broached, or very fine bored, perhaps lapped with lead and emery.
(12) Rifled horizontally in a machine.
(13) Prepared for breech fittings.
(14) Taken to the Proof Butts for trial.
(15) Drilled for sockets, sights, &c. Lined and engraved. Breech fittings,
locks, electric firing gear, &c., added. Small adjustments made by filing.
(16) Browned or painted.

When worn the bore can be lined with a new steel tube.
These lengthy operations completed, our gun has still to be mounted upon its
field-carriage, naval cone, or disappearing mounting, any of which are
complicated and delicately-adjusted pieces of mechanism, the product of
much time and labour, which we have no space here to describe.
Some account of the principal parts of these guns has already been given, but
the method by which the breech is closed remains to be dealt with.
It will be noticed that though guns now barely reach half the weight of the
monster muzzle-loaders, they are even more effective. Thus the 46-ton (12-
inch) gun hurls an 850-lb. projectile with a velocity of 2750 foot-seconds, and
uses a comparatively small charge. The famous “81-ton” needed a very big
charge for its 1700-lb. shell, and had little more than half the velocity and no
such power of penetration. This change has been brought about by using a
slower-burning explosive very powerful in its effects; enlarging the chamber
to give it sufficient air space, and lengthening the chase of the gun so that

every particle of the powder-gas may be brought into action before the shot
leaves the muzzle. This system and the substitution of steel for the many
layers of welded iron, makes our modern guns long and slim in comparison
with the older ones.
To resist the pressure of the explosion against the breech end, a tightly-fitting
breech-plug must be employed. The most modern and ingenious is the Welin
plug, invented by a Swedish engineer. The ordinary interrupted screw breech-
plug has three parts of its circumference plane and the other three parts
“threaded,” or grooved, to screw into corresponding grooves in the breech;
thus only half of the circumference is engaged by the screw. Mr. Welin has cut
steps on the plug, three of which would be threaded to one plane segment,
each locking with its counterpart in the breech. In this case there are three
segments engaged to each one left plane, and the strength of the screw is
almost irresistible. The plug, which is hinged at the side, has therefore been
shortened by one-third, and is light enough to swing clear with one touch of
the handwheel that first rotates and unlocks it.
The method of firing is this: The projectile lifted (by hydraulic power on a
ship) into the loading tray is swung to the mouth of the breech and pushed
into the bore. A driving-band attached near its base is so notched at the edges
that it jams the shell closely and prevents it slipping back if loaded at a high
angle of elevation. The powder charge being placed in the chamber the
breech-plug is now swung-to and turned till it locks close. The vent-axial or
inner part of this breech-plug (next to the charge), which is called from its
shape the “mushroom-head,” encloses between its head and the screw-plug
the de Bange obturator, a flat canvas pad of many layers soaked with mutton
fat tightly packed between discs of tin. When the charge explodes, the
mushroom-head—forced back upon the pad—compresses it till its edges
bulge against the tube and prevent any escape of gas breechwards.
The electric spark which fires the charge is passed in from outside by means
of a minute and ingenious apparatus fitted into a little vent or tube in the
mushroom-head. As the electric circuit cannot be completed till the breech-
plug is screwed quite home there is now no more fear of a premature
explosion than of double loading. If the electric gear is disordered the gun can
be fired equally well and safely by a percussion tube.
This description is of a typical large gun, and may be applied to all calibres
and also to the larger quick-firers. The mechanism as the breech is swung

open again withdraws the empty cartridge. So valuable has de Bange’s
obturator proved, however, that guns up to the 6-inch calibre now have the
powder charge thrown into the chamber in bags, thus saving the weight of the
metal tubes hitherto necessary.
Of course several types of breech-loading guns are used in the Service, but the
above are the most modern.
The favourite mode of construction at the present time is the wire-wound
barrel, the building up of which is completed by covering the many layers of
wire with an outer tube or jacket expanded by heat before it is slipped on in
order that it may fit closely when cold. A previous make, without wire, is
strengthened by rings or hoops also shrunk on hot.
The quick-firers proper are of many sizes, 8-inch, 7.5-inch, 6-inch, 4.7-inch,
4-inch, and 3-inch (12-pounders). The naval type is as a rule longer and
lighter than those made for the rough usage of field campaigning and have a
much greater range. There are also smaller quick-firers, 3-pounders and 6-
pounders with bore something over 1-inch and 2-inch (Nordenfelt, Hotchkiss,
Vickers-Maxim). Some of the high velocity 12-pounders being employed as
garrison guns along with 6-inch and 4.7-inch, and the large calibre howitzers.
We still use howitzer batteries of 5-inch bore in the field and in the siege-
train, all being short, rifled, breech-loading weapons, as they throw a heavy
shell with smallish charges at a high angle of elevation, but cover a relatively
short distance. A new pattern of 8-inch calibre is now under consideration.
It is interesting to contrast the potencies of some of these guns, all of which
use cordite charges.

Muzzle
Number of
Weight of Velocity in
Calibre. Charge. Rounds per
Shot. Foot
Minute.
Seconds.
12 inch 207 lbs. 850 lbs. 2750 1
8 inch 52 lbs 210 lbs 2750 5
6 inch 25 lbs 100 lbs 2775 8
4.7 inch 9 lbs 45 lbs 2600 12
3 inch 2 lbs. 9 oz. 12.5 lbs 2600 20

In the armament of our fine Navy guns are roughly distributed as follows:—
81-ton, 13-1/2-inch, and superseded patterns of machine-guns such as
Gatling’s, Gardner’s, and Nordenfelt’s, besides a few surviving muzzle-
loaders, &c., are carried only by the oldest battleships.

The Simms armour-clad motor-car for coast defence.
Maxim guns and Pom-pom in action.

The first-class battleships are chiefly supplied with four 12-inch guns in
barbettes, twelve 6-inch as secondary batteries, and a number of smaller
quick-firers on the upper decks and in the fighting tops, also for use in the
boats, to which are added several Maxims.
The first-class cruisers have 9.2 as their largest calibre, with a lessened
proportion of 6-inch, &c. Some of the newest bear only 7-1/2 or 6-inch guns
as their heaviest ordnance; like the second-class cruisers which, however, add
several 4.7’s between these and their small quick-firers.
Vessels of inferior size usually carry nothing more powerful than the 4.7.
All are now armed with torpedo tubes.
These same useful little quick-firers and machine-guns have been the lethal
weapons which made the armoured trains so formidable. Indeed, there seems
no limit to their value both for offence and defence, for the battle chariot of
the ancient Briton has its modern successor in the Simms’ motor war car
lately exhibited at the Crystal Palace. This armour-plated movable fort is
intended primarily for coast defence, but can work off beaten tracks over
almost any sort of country. It is propelled at the rate of nine miles an hour by
a 16-horse-power motor, carrying all its own fuel, two pom-poms, two small
Maxims, and 10,000 rounds of ammunition, besides the necessary
complement of men and searchlights for night use, &c., &c.
The searchlight, by the way, has taken the place of all former inventions
thrown from guns, such as ground-light balls, or parachute lights with a time-
fuse which burst in the air and remained suspended, betraying the enemy’s
proceedings.
In like manner the linked chain and “double-headed” shot, the “canister”—
iron balls packed in thin iron or tin cylinders which would travel about 350
yards—the “carcasses” filled with inflammable composition for firing ships
and villages, are as much out of date as the solid round shot or cannon-ball.
Young Shrapnell’s invention a century ago of the form of shell that bears his
name, a number of balls arranged in a case containing also a small bursting-
charge fired either by percussion or by a time-fuse, has practically replaced
them all. Thrown with great precision of aim its effective range is now up to
5000 yards. A 15-pounder shrapnell shell, for instance, contains 192 bullets,

and covers several hundred yards with the scattered missiles flying with
extreme velocity.
Common shell, from 2-1/2 to 3 calibres long, contains an explosive only.
Another variety is segment shell, made of pieces built up in a ring with a
bursting charge in the centre which presently shatters it.
The Palliser shell has a marvellous penetrating power when used against iron
plates. But, mirabile dictu! experiments tried within the past few months
prove that a soft cap added externally enables a projectile to pierce with ease
armour which had previously defied every attack.

Explosives.
Half a century ago gunpowder was still the one driving power which started
the projectile on its flight. It is composed of some 75 parts of saltpetre or
nitrate of potash, 15 parts of carefully prepared charcoal, and 10 parts of
sulphur. This composition imprisons a large amount of oxygen for
combustion and is found to act most successfully when formed into rather
large prismatic grains.
On the abolition of the old flint-lock its place was taken by a detonating
substance enclosed in a copper cap, and some time later inventors came
forward with new and more powerful explosives to supersede the use of
gunpowder.
By treating cotton with nitric and sulphuric acid reaction gun-cotton was
produced; and a year later glycerine treated in the same manner became
known to commerce as nitro-glycerine. This liquid form being inconvenient
to handle, some inert granular substance such as infusorial earth was used to
absorb the nitro-glycerine, and dynamite was the result.
The explosion of gun-cotton was found to be too sudden and rapid for rifles
or cannon; it was liable to burst the piece instead of blowing out the charge.
In order to lessen the rapidity of its ignition ordinary cotton was mixed with
it, or its threads were twisted round some inert substance.
When repeating-rifles and machine-guns came into general use a smokeless
powder became necessary. Such powders as a rule contain nitro-cellulose
(gun-cotton) or nitro-glycerine, or both. These are combined into a plastic,

gluey composition, which is then made up into sticks or pellets of various
shapes, and usually of large size to lessen the extreme rapidity of their
combustion. Substances such as tan, paraffin, starch, bran, peat, &c., &c., and
many mineral salts, are used in forming low explosives from high ones.
To secure complete combustion some of the larger pellets are made with a
central hole, or even pierced by many holes, so that the fire penetrates the
entire mass and carries off all its explosive qualities.
Our cordite consists of nitro-glycerine dissolving di-nitro cellulose by the
acid of a volatile solvent and a mineral jelly or oil. This compound is semi-
fluid, and being passed like macaroni through round holes in a metal plate it
forms strings or cords of varying size according to the diameter of the holes.
Hence the name, cordite.
Many experiments in search of more powerful explosives resulted in an
almost universal adoption of picric acid as the base. This acid is itself
produced by the action of nitric acid upon carbolic acid, and each nation has
its own fashion of preparing it for artillery.
The French began with mélinite in 1885, this being a mixture of picric acid
and gun-cotton.
The composition of lyddite (named from its place of manufacture, Lydd, in
Kent) is a jealously-guarded British secret. This substance was first used in 5-
inch howitzers during the late Soudan campaign, playing a part in the
bombardment of Omdurman. The effect of the 50-lb. lyddite shells upon the
South African kopjes is described as astounding. When the yellow cloud had
cleared away trees were seen uprooted, rocks pulverised, the very face of the
earth had changed.
Several attempts have been made to utilise dynamite for shells, some of the
guns employing compressed air as their motive power. The United States
some years ago went to great expense in setting up for this purpose heavy
pneumatic plant, which has recently been disposed of as too cumbrous.
Dudley’s “Aërial Torpedo” gun discharged a 13-lb. shell containing explosive
gelatine, gun-cotton, and fulminate of mercury by igniting the small cordite
charge in a parallel tube, through a vent in which the partially cooled gases
acted on the projectile in the barrel. This was rotated in the air by inclined
blades on a tailpiece, as the barrel could not be rifled for fear of the heat set

up by friction. Some guns actuated on much the same principle are said to
have been used with effect in the Hispano-American war. Mr. Hudson Maxim
with his explosive “maximite” claims to throw half a ton of dynamite about a
mile, and a one-ton shell to half that distance.
But even these inventors are outstripped by Professor Birkeland, who
undertakes to hurl a projectile weighing two tons from an iron tube coiled
with copper wire down which an electric current is passed; thus doing away
entirely with the need of a firing-charge.

In the Gun Factory.
Let us pay a visit to one of our gun factories and get some idea of the
multiform activities necessary to the turning out complete of a single piece of
ordnance or a complicated machine-gun. We enter the enormous workshop,
glazed as to roof and sides, full of the varied buzz and whirr and clank of the
machinery. Up and down the long bays stand row upon row of lathes, turning,
milling, polishing, boring, rifling—all moving automatically, and with a
precision which leaves nothing to be desired. The silent attendants seem to
have nothing in their own hands, they simply watch that the cutting does not
go too far, and with a touch of the guiding handles regulate the pace or
occasionally insert a fresh tool. The bits used in these processes are self-
cleaning, so the machinery is never clogged; and on the ground lie little heaps
of brass chips cut away by the minute milling tools; or in other places it is
bestrewn with shavings of brass and steel which great chisels peel off as
easily as a carpenter shaves a deal board.
Here an enormous steel ingot, forged solid, heated again and again in a huge
furnace and beaten by steam-hammers, or pressed by hydraulic power
between each heating till it is brought to the desired size and shape, is having
its centre bored through by a special drill which takes out a solid core. This
operation is termed “trepanning,” and is applied to guns not exceeding eight
inches; those of larger calibre being rough-bored on a lathe, and mandrils
placed in them during the subsequent forgings. The tremendous heat
generated during the boring processes—we may recall how Benjamin
Thompson made water boil by the experimental boring of a cannon—is kept
down by streams of soapy water continually pumped through and over the
metal. We notice this flow of lubricating fluid in all directions, from oil
dropping slowly on to the small brass-milling machines to this fountain-play

of water which makes a pleasant undertone amidst the jangle of the machines.
But these machines are less noisy than we anticipated; in their actual working
they emit scarcely the slightest sound. What strikes us more than the supreme
exactness with which each does its portion of the work, is the great
deliberateness of its proceeding. All the hurry and bustle is above us, caused
by the driving-bands from the engine, which keeps the whole machinery of
the shed in motion. Suddenly, with harsh creakings, a great overhead crane
comes jarring along the bay, drops a chain, grips up a gun-barrel, and,
handling this mass of many tons’ weight as easily as we should lift a walking-
stick, swings it off to undergo another process of manufacture.
We pass on to the next lathe where a still larger forging is being turned
externally, supported on specially devised running gear, many different
cutters acting upon it at the same time, so that it is gradually assuming the
tapering, banded appearance familiar to us in the completed state.
We turn, fairly bewildered, from one stage of manufacture to another. Here is
a gun whose bore is being “chambered” to the size necessary for containing
the firing charge. Further along we examine a more finished weapon in
process of preparation to receive the breech-plug and other fittings. Still
another we notice which has been “fine-bored” to a beautifully smooth
surface but is being improved yet more by “lapping” with lead and emery
powder.
In the next shed a marvellous machine is rifling the interior of a barrel with a
dexterity absolutely uncanny, for the tool which does the rifling has to be
rotated in order to give the proper “twist” at the same moment as it is
advancing lengthwise down the bore. The grooves are not made
simultaneously but as a rule one at a time, the distance between them being
kept by measurements on a prepared disc.
Now we have reached the apparatus for the wire-wound guns, a principle
representing the ne plus ultra of strength and durability hitherto evolved. The
rough-bored gun is placed upon a lathe which revolves slowly, drawing on to
it from a reel mounted at one side a continuous layer of steel ribbon about a
quarter of an inch wide. On a 12-inch gun there is wound some 117 miles of
this wire! fourteen layers of it at the muzzle end and seventy-five at the
breech end. Heavy weights regulate the tension of the wire, which varies for

each layer, the outermost being at the lowest tension, which will resist a
pressure of over 100 tons to the square inch.
We next enter the division in which the gun cradles and mounts are prepared,
where we see some of the heaviest work carried out by electric dynamos, the
workman sitting on a raised platform to keep careful watch over his business.
Passing through this with interested but cursory inspection of the cone
mountings for quick-firing naval guns, some ingenious elevating and training
gear and a field carriage whose hydraulic buffers merit closer examination,
we come to the shell department where all kinds of projectiles are
manufactured. Shrapnel in its various forms, armour-piercing shells, forged
steel or cast-iron, and small brass cartridges for the machine-guns may be
found here; and the beautifully delicate workmanship of the fuse
arrangements attracts our admiration. But we may not linger; the plant for the
machine-guns themselves claim our attention.
Owing to the complexity and minute mechanism of these weapons almost a
hundred different machines are needed, some of the milling machines taking
a large selection of cutters upon one spindle. Indeed, in many parts of the
works one notices the men changing their tools for others of different size or
application. Some of the boring machines work two barrels at the same time,
others can drill three barrels or polish a couple simultaneously. But there are
hundreds of minute operations which need to be done separately, down to the
boring of screw holes and cutting the groove on a screw-head. Many
labourers are employed upon the lock alone. And every portion is gauged
correctly to the most infinitesimal fraction, being turned out by the thousand,
that every separate item may be interchangeable among weapons of the same
make.
Look at the barrel which came grey and dull from its first turning now as it is
dealt with changing into bright silver. Here it is adjusted upon the hydraulic
rifling machine which will prepare it to carry the small-arm bullet (.303
inch). That one of larger calibre is rifled to fire a small shell. Further on, the
barrels and their jackets are being fitted together and the different parts
assembled and screwed up. We have not time to follow the perfect implement
to its mounting, nor to do more than glance at those howitzers and the breech
mechanism of the 6-inch quick-firers near which our guide indicates piles of

flat cases to keep the de Bange obturators from warping while out of use. For
the afternoon is waning and the foundry still unvisited.
To reach it we pass through the smith’s shop and pause awhile to watch a
supply of spanners being roughly stamped by an immense machine out of
metal plates and having their edges tidied off before they can be further
perfected. A steam-hammer is busily engaged in driving mandrils of
increasing size through the centre of a red-hot forging. The heat from the
forges is tremendous, and though it is tempered by a spray of falling water we
are glad to escape into the next shed.
Here we find skilled workmen carefully preparing moulds by taking in sand
the exact impression of a wooden dummy. Fortunately we arrive just as a
series of casts deeply sunk in the ground are about to be made. Two brawny
labourers bear forward an enormous iron crucible, red-hot from the furnace,
filled with seething liquid—manganese bronze, we are told—which, when an
iron bar is dipped into it, throws up tongues of beautiful greenish-golden
flame. The smith stirs and clears off the scum as coolly as a cook skims her
broth! Now it is ready, the crucible is again lifted and its contents poured into
a large funnel from which it flows into the moulds beneath and fills them to
the level of the floor. At each one a helper armed with an iron bar takes his
stand and stirs again to work up all dross and air-bubbles to the surface
before the metal sets—a scene worthy of a painter’s brush.
And so we leave them.

DIRIGIBLE TORPEDOES.
The history of warlike inventions is the history of a continual see-saw
between the discovery of a new means of defence and the discovery of a
fresh means of attack. At one time a shield is devised to repel a javelin; at
another a machine to hurl the javelin with increased violence against the
shield; then the shield is reinforced by complete coats of mail, and so on. The
ball of invention has rolled steadily on into our own times, gathering size as it
rolls, and bringing more and more startling revolutions in the art of war. To-
day it is a battle between the forces of nature, controllable by man in the
shape of “high explosives,” and the resisting power of metals tempered to
extreme toughness.
At present it looks as if, on the sea at least, the attack were stronger than the
defence. Our warships may be cased in the hardest metal several inches thick
until they become floating forts, almost impregnable to the heaviest shells.
They may be provided with terrible engines able to give blow for blow, and
be manned with the stoutest hearts in the world. And yet, were a sea-fight in
progress, a blow, crushing and resistless, might at any time come upon the
vessel from a quarter whence, even though suspected, its coming might
escape notice—below the waterline. Were it possible to case an ironclad from
deck to keel in foot-thick plating, the metal would crumple like a biscuit-box
under the terrible impact of the torpedo.
This destructive weapon is an object of awe not so much from what it has
done as from what it can do. The instances of a torpedo shivering a vessel in
actual warfare are but few. Yet its moral effect must be immense. Even
though it may miss its mark, the very fact of its possible presence will,
especially at night-time, tend to keep the commanding minds of a fleet very
much on the stretch, and to destroy their efficiency. A torpedo knows no half
measures. It is either entirely successful or utterly useless. Its construction
entails great expense, but inasmuch as it can, if directed aright, send a million
of the enemy’s money and a regiment of men to the bottom, the discharge of
a torpedo is, after all, but the setting of a sprat to catch a whale.

The aim of inventors has been to endow the dirigible torpedo, fit for use in
the open sea, with such qualities that when once launched on its murderous
course it can pursue its course in the required direction without external help.
The difficulties to be overcome in arriving at a serviceable weapon have been
very great owing to the complexity of the problem. A torpedo cannot be fired
through water like a cannon shell through air. Water, though yielding, is
incompressible, and offers to a moving body a resistance increasing with the
speed of that body. Therefore the torpedo must contain its own motive power
and its own steering apparatus, and be in effect a miniature submarine vessel
complete in itself. To be out of sight and danger it must travel beneath the
surface and yet not sink to the bottom; to be effective it must possess great
speed, a considerable sphere of action, and be able to counteract any chance
currents it may meet on its way.
Among purely automobile torpedoes the Whitehead is easily first. After thirty
years it still holds the lead for open sea work. It is a very marvel of ingenious
adaptation of means to an end, and as it has fulfilled most successfully the
conditions set forth above for an effective projectile it will be interesting to
examine in some detail this most valuable weapon.
In 1873 one Captain Lupuis of the Austrian navy experimented with a small
fireship which he directed along the surface of the sea by means of ropes and
guiding lines. This fireship was to be loaded with explosives which should
ignite immediately on coming into collision with the vessel aimed at. The
Austrian Government declared his scheme unworkable in its crude form, and
the Captain looked about for some one to help him throw what he felt to be a
sound idea into a practical shape. He found the man he wanted in Mr.
Whitehead, who was at that time manager of an engineering establishment at
Fiume. Mr. Whitehead fell in enthusiastically with his proposition, at once
discarded the complicated system of guiding ropes, and set to work to solve
the problem on his own lines. At the end of two years, during which he
worked in secret, aided only by a trusted mechanic and a boy, his son, he
constructed the first torpedo of the type that bears his name. It was made of
steel, was fourteen inches in diameter, weighed 300 lbs., and carried eighteen
pounds of dynamite as explosive charge. But its powers were limited. It could
attain a rate of but six knots an hour under favourable conditions, and then
for a short distance only. Its conduct was uncertain. Sometimes it would run
along the surface, at others make plunges for the bottom. However, the
British Government, recognising the importance of Mr. Whitehead’s work,

encouraged him to perfect his instrument, and paid him a large sum for the
patent rights. Pattern succeeded pattern, until comparative perfection was
reached.
Described briefly, the Whitehead torpedo is cigar-shaped, blunt-nosed and
tapering gradually towards the tail, so following the lines of a fish. Its length
is twelve times its diameter, which varies in different patterns from fourteen
to nineteen inches. At the fore end is the striker, and at the tail are a couple of
three-bladed screws working on one shaft in opposite directions, to
economise power and obviate any tendency of the torpedo to travel in a
curve; and two sets of rudders, the one horizontal, the other vertical. The
latest form of the torpedo has a speed of twenty-nine knots and a range of
over a thousand yards.
The torpedo is divided into five compartments by watertight steel bulkheads.
At the front is the explosive head, containing wet gun-cotton, or some other
explosive. The “war head,” as it is called, is detachable, and for practice
purposes its place is taken by a dummy-head filled with wood to make the
balance correct.
Next comes the air chamber, filled with highly-compressed air to drive the
engines; after it the balance chamber, containing the apparatus for keeping
the torpedo at its proper depth; then the engine-room; and, last of all, the
buoyancy chamber, which is air-tight and prevents the torpedo from sinking
at the end of its run.
To examine the compartments in order:—
In the very front of the torpedo is the pistol and primer-charge for igniting the
gun-cotton. Especial care has been taken over this part of the mechanism, to
prevent the torpedo being as dangerous to friends as to foes. The pistol
consists of a steel plug sliding in a metal tube, at the back end of which is the
fulminating charge. Until the plug is driven right in against this charge there
can be no explosion. Three precautions are taken against this happening
prematurely. In the first place, there is on the forward end of the plug a thread
cut, up which a screw-fan travels as soon as it strikes the water. Until the
torpedo has run forty-five feet the fan has not reached the end of its travel,
and the plug consequently cannot be driven home. Even when the plug is
quite free only a heavy blow will drive it in, as a little copper pin has to be
sheared through by the impact. And before the screw can unwind at all, a

safety-pin must be withdrawn at the moment of firing. So that a torpedo is
harmless until it has passed outside the zone of danger to the discharging
vessel.
The detonating charge is thirty-eight grains of fulminate of mercury, and the
primer-charge consists of six one-ounce discs of dry gun-cotton contained in
a copper cylinder, the front end of which is connected with the striker-tube of
the pistol. The fulminate, on receiving a blow, expands 2500 times, giving a
violent shock to the gun-cotton discs, which in turn explode and impart a
shock to the main charge, 200 lbs. of gun-cotton.
The air chamber is made of the finest compressed steel, or of phosphor-
bronze, a third of an inch thick. When ready for action this chamber has to
bear a pressure of 1350 lbs. to the square inch. So severe is the compression
that in the largest-sized torpedoes the air in this chamber weighs no less than
63 lbs. The air is forced in by very powerful pumps of a special design. Aft of
this chamber is that containing the stop-valve and steering-gear. The stop-
valve is a species of air-tap sealing the air chamber until the torpedo is to be
discharged. The valve is so arranged that it is impossible to insert the torpedo
into the firing-tube before the valve has been opened, and so brought the air
chamber into communication with the starting-valve, which does not admit
air to the engines till after the projectile has left the tube.
The steering apparatus is undoubtedly the most ingenious of the many clever
contrivances packed into a Whitehead torpedo. Its function is to keep the
torpedo on an even keel at a depth determined before the discharge. This is
effected by means of two agencies, a swinging weight, and a valve which is
driven in by water pressure as the torpedo sinks. When the torpedo points
head downwards the weight swings forward, and by means of connecting
levers brings the horizontal rudders up. As the torpedo rises the weight
becomes vertical and the rudder horizontal. This device only insures that the
torpedo shall travel horizontally. The valve makes it keep its proper depth by
working in conjunction with the pendulum. The principle, which is too
complicated for full description, is, put briefly, a tendency of the valve to
correct the pendulum whenever the latter swings too far. Lest the pendulum
should be violently shaken by the discharge there is a special controlling gear
which keeps the rudders fixed until the torpedo has proceeded a certain
distance, when the steering mechanism is released. The steering-gear does
not work directly on the rudder. Mr. Whitehead found in his earlier

experiments that the pull exerted by the weight and valve was not sufficient
to move the rudders against the pressure of the screws. He therefore
introduced a beautiful little auxiliary engine, called the servo-motor, which is
to the torpedo what the steam steering-gear is to a ship. The servo-motor,
situated in the engine-room, is only four inches long, but the power it exerts
by means of compressed air is so great that a pressure of half an ounce
exerted by the steering-gear produces a pull of 160 lbs. on the rudders.
The engines consist of three single-action cylinders, their cranks working at
an angle of 120° to one another, so that there is no “dead” or stopping point
in their action. They are very small, but, thanks to the huge pressure in the air
chamber, develop nearly thirty-one horse-power. Lest they should “race,” or
revolve too quickly, while passing from the tube to the water and do
themselves serious damage, they are provided with a “delay action valve,”
which is opened by the impact of the torpedo against the water. Further, lest
the air should be admitted to the cylinders at a very high pressure gradually
decreasing to zero, a “reducing valve” or governor is added to keep the
engines running at a constant speed.
Whitehead torpedoes are fired from tubes above or below the waterline. Deck
tubes have the advantage of being more easily aimed, but when loaded they
are a source of danger, as any stray bullet or shell from an enemy’s ship
might explode the torpedo with dire results. There is therefore an increasing
preference for submerged tubes. An ingenious device is used for aiming the
torpedo, which makes allowances for the speed of the ship from which it is
fired, the speed of the ship aimed at, and the speed of the torpedo itself.
When the moment for firing arrives, the officer in charge presses an electric
button, which sets in motion an electric magnet fixed to the side of the tube.
The magnet releases a heavy ball which falls and turns the “firing rod.”
Compressed air or a powder discharge is brought to bear on the rear end of
the torpedo, which, if submerged, darts out from the vessel’s side along a
guiding bar, from which it is released at both ends simultaneously, thus
avoiding the great deflection towards the stern which would occur were a
broadside torpedo not held at the nose till the tail is clear. This guiding
apparatus enables a torpedo to leave the side of a vessel travelling at high
speed almost at right angles to the vessel’s path.
It will be easily understood that a Whitehead torpedo is a costly projectile,
and that its value—£500 or more—makes the authorities very careful of its

welfare. During practice with “blank” torpedoes a “Holmes light” is attached.
This light is a canister full of calcium phosphide to which water penetrates
through numerous holes, causing gas to be thrown off and rise to the surface,
where, on meeting with the oxygen of the air, it bursts into flame and gives
off dense volumes of heavy smoke, disclosing the position of the torpedo by
night or day.
At Portsmouth are storehouses containing upwards of a thousand torpedoes.
Every torpedo is at intervals taken to pieces, examined, tested, and put
together again after full particulars have been taken down on paper. Each
steel “baby” is kept bright and clean, coated with a thin layer of oil, lest a
single spot of rust should mar its beauty. An interesting passage from
Lieutenant G. E. Armstrong’s book on “Torpedoes and Torpedo Vessels” will
illustrate the scrupulous exactness observed in all things relating to the
torpedo depôts: “As an example of the care with which the stores are kept it
may be mentioned that a particular tiny pattern of brass screw which forms
part of the torpedo’s mechanism and which is valued at about twopence-
halfpenny per gross, is never allowed to be a single number wrong. On one
occasion, when the stocktaking took place, it was found that instead of 5000
little screws being accounted for by the man who was told off to count them,
there were only 4997. Several foolscap letters were written and exchanged
over these three small screws, though their value was not more than a small
fraction of a farthing.”
The classic instance of the effectiveness of this type of torpedo is the battle of
the Yalu, fought between the Japanese and Chinese fleets in 1894. The
Japanese had been pounding their adversaries for hours with their big guns
without producing decisive results. So they determined upon a torpedo attack,
which was delivered early in the morning under cover of darkness, and
resulted in the destruction of a cruiser, the Ting Yuen. The next night a second
incursion of the Japanese destroyers wrecked another cruiser, the Lai Yuen,
which sunk within five minutes of being struck; sank the Wei Yuen, an old
wooden vessel used as a training-school; and blew a large steam launch out
of the water on to an adjacent wharf. These hits “below the belt” were too
much for the Chinese, who soon afterwards surrendered to their more
scientific and better equipped foes.
If a general naval war broke out to-day most nations would undoubtedly pin
their faith to the Whitehead torpedo for use in the open sea, now that its

accuracy has been largely increased by the gyroscope, a heavy flywheel
attachment revolving rapidly at right angles to the path of the torpedo, and
rendering a change of direction almost impossible.
For harbour defence the Brennan or its American rival, the Sims-Edison,
might be employed. They are both torpedoes dirigible from a fixed base by
means of connecting wires. The presence of these wires constitutes an
obstacle to their being of service in a fleet action.
The Brennan is used by our naval authorities. It is the invention of a
Melbourne watchmaker. Being a comparatively poor man, Mr. Brennan
applied to the Colonial Government for grants to aid him in the manufacture
and development of his torpedo, and he was supplied with sufficient money
to perfect it. In 1881 he was requested by our Admiralty to bring his
invention to England, where it was experimented upon, and pronounced so
efficient for harbour and creek defence that at the advice of the Royal
Engineers Mr. Brennan was paid large sums for his patents and services.
The Brennan torpedo derives its motive power from a very powerful engine
on shore, capable of developing 100 horse-power, with which it is connected
by stout piano wires. One end of these wires is wound on two reels inside the
torpedo, each working a screw; the other end is attached to two winding
drums driven at high velocity by the engine on shore. As the drums wind in
the wire the reels in the torpedo revolve; consequently, the harder the torpedo
is pulled back the faster it moves forward, liked a trained trotting mare. The
steering of the torpedo is effected by alterations in the relative speeds of the
drums, and consequently of the screws. The drums run loose on the engine
axle, and are thrown in or out of gear by means of a friction-brake, so that
their speed can be regulated without altering the pace of the engines. Any
increase in the speed of one drum causes a corresponding decrease in the
speed of the other. The torpedo can be steered easily to right or left within an
arc of forty degrees on each side of straight ahead; but when once launched it
cannot be retrieved except by means of a boat. Its path is marked by a
Holmes light, described above. It has a 200-lb. gun-cotton charge, and is
fitted with an apparatus for maintaining a proper depth very similar to that
used in the Whitehead torpedo.
The Sims-Edison torpedo differs from the Brennan in its greater obedience to
orders and in its motive power being electrically transmitted through a single

connecting cable. It is over thirty feet in length and two feet in diameter.
Attached to the torpedo proper by rods is a large copper float, furnished with
balls to show the operator the path of the torpedo. The torpedo itself is in four
parts: the explosive head; the magazine of electric cables, which is paid out
as the torpedo travels; the motor room; and the compartment containing the
steering-gear. The projectile has a high speed and long range—over four
thousand yards. It can twist and turn in any direction, and, if need be, be
called to heel. Like the Brennan, it has the disadvantage of a long trailing
wire, which could easily become entangled; and it might be put out of action
by any damage inflicted on its float by the enemy’s guns. But it is likely to
prove a very effective harbour-guard if brought to the test.
In passing to the Orling-Armstrong torpedo we enter the latest phase of
torpedo construction. Seeing the disadvantages arising from wires,
electricians have sought a means of controlling torpedoes without any
tangible connection. Wireless telegraphy showed that such a means was not
beyond the bounds of possibility. Mr. Axel Orling, a Swede, working in
concert with Mr. J. T. Armstrong, has lately proved that a torpedo can be
steered by waves of energy transmitted along rays of light, or perhaps it
would be more correct to say along shafts of a form of X-rays.
Mr. Orling claims for his torpedo that it is capable of a speed of twenty-two
knots or more an hour; that it can be called to heel, and steered to right or left
at will; that as long as it is in sight it is controllable by rays invisible to the
enemy; that not merely one, but a number of torpedoes can be directed by the
same beams of light; that, as it is submerged, it would, even if detected, be a
bad mark for the enemy’s guns.
The torpedo carries a shaft which projects above the water, and bears on its
upper end a white disc to receive the rays and transmit them to internal
motors to be transmuted into driving power. The rod also carries at night an
electric light, shaded on the enemy’s side, but rendering the whereabouts of
the torpedo very visible to the steerer.
Mr. Orling’s torpedo acts throughout in a cruelly calculating manner. Before
its attack a ship would derive small advantage from a crinoline of steel
netting; for the large torpedo conceals in its head a smaller torpedo, which, as
soon as the netting is struck, darts out and blasts an opening through which
its longer brother, after a momentary delay, can easily follow. The netting

penetrated, the torpedo has yet to strike twice before exploding. On the first
impact, a pin, projecting from the nose, is driven in to reverse the engines,
and at the same time a certain nut commences to travel along a screw. The nut
having worked its way to the end of the thread, the head of the torpedo fills
slowly through a valve, giving it a downward slant in front. The engines are
again reversed and the nut again travels, this time bringing the head of the
torpedo up, so as to strike the vessel at a very effective angle from below.
This torpedo has passed beyond the experimental stage. It is reported that by
command of the Swedish Government, to whom Mr. Orling offered his
invention, and of the King, who takes a keen interest in the ideas of his young
countryman, a number of experiments were some time ago carried out in the
Swedish rivers. Torpedoes were sent 2-1/2 miles, directed as desired, and
made to rise or sink—all this without any tangible connection. The
Government was sufficiently satisfied with the result to take up the patents,
as furnishing a cheap means of defending their coasts.
Mr. Orling has described what he imagines would happen in case of an attack
on a position protected by his ingenious creations. “Suppose that I had twelve
torpedoes hidden away under ten feet of water in a convenient little cove, and
that I was directed to annihilate a hostile fleet just appearing above the
horizon. Before me, on a little table perhaps, I should have my apparatus;
twelve buttons would be under my fingers. Against each button there would
be a description of the torpedo to which it was connected; it would tell me its
power of destruction, and the power of its machinery, and for what distance it
would go. On each button, also, would be indicated the time that I must press
it to release the torpedoes. Well now, I perceive a large vessel in the van of
the approaching fleet. I put my fingers on the button which is connected with
my largest and most formidable weapon. I press the button—perhaps for
twelve seconds. The torpedo is pushed forward from its fastenings by a
special spring, a small pin is extracted from it, and immediately the motive
machinery is set in motion, and underneath the water goes my little agent of
destruction, and there is nothing to tell the ship of its doom. I place my hand
on another button, and according to the time I press it I steer the torpedo; the
rudder answers to the rays, and the rays answer to the will of my mind.”[2]
[2] Pearson’s Magazine.

If this torpedo acts fully up to its author’s expectations, naval warfare, at least
as at present conducted, will be impossible. There appears to be no reason
why this torpedo should not be worked from shipboard; and we cannot
imagine that hostile ships possessing such truly infernal machines would care
to approach within miles of one another, especially if the submarine be
reinforced by the aërial torpedo, different patterns of which are in course of
construction by Mr. Orling and Major Unge, a brother Swede. The Orling
type will be worked by the new rays, strong enough to project it through
space. Major Unge’s will depend for its motive power upon a succession of
impulses obtained by the ignition of a slow-burning gas, passing through a
turbine in the rear of the torpedo. The inventor hopes for a range of at least
six miles.
What defence would be possible against such missiles? Liable to be shattered
from below, or shivered from above, the warship will be placed at an ever-
increasing disadvantage. Its size will only render it an easier mark; its
strength, bought at the expense of weight, will be but the means of insuring a
quicker descent to the sea’s bottom. Is it not probable that sea-fights will
become more and more matters of a few terrible, quickly-delivered blows?
Human inventions will hold the balance more and more evenly between
nations of unequal size, first on sea, then on land, until at last, as we may
hope, even the hottest heads and bravest hearts will shrink from courting
what will be less war than sheer annihilation, and war, man’s worst enemy,
will be itself annihilated.

SUBMARINE BOATS.
The introduction of torpedoes for use against an enemy’s ships below the
waterline has led by natural stages to the evolution of a vessel which may
approach unsuspected close enough to the object of attack to discharge its
missile effectively. Before the searchlight was adopted a night surprise gave
due concealment to small craft; but now that the gloom of midnight can be in
an instant flooded with the brilliance of day a more subtle mode of attack
becomes necessary.
Hence the genesis of the submarine or submersible boat, so constructed as to
disappear beneath the sea at a safe distance from the doomed ship, and when
its torpedo has been sped to retrace its invisible course until outside the
radius of destruction.
To this end many so-called submarine boats have been invented and
experimented with during recent years. The idea is an ancient one revived, as
indeed are the large proportion of our boasted modern discoveries.
Aristotle describes a vessel of this kind (a diving-bell rather than a boat,
however), used in the siege of Tyre more than two thousand years ago; and
also refers to the divers being provided with an air-tube, “like the trunk of an
elephant,” by means of which they drew a fresh supply of air from above the
surface—a contrivance adopted in more than one of our modern submarines.
Alexander the Great is said to have employed divers in warfare; Pliny speaks
of an ingenious diving apparatus, and Bacon refers to air-tubes used by
divers. We even find traces of weapons of offence being employed. Calluvius
is credited with the invention of a submarine gun for projecting Greek fire.
The Bishop of Upsala in the sixteenth century gives a somewhat elaborate
description of certain leather skiffs or boats used to scuttle ships by attacking
them from beneath, two of which he claims to have personally examined. In
1629 we read that the Barbary corsairs fixed submarine torpedoes to the
enemy’s keel by means of divers.
As early as 1579 an English gunner named William Bourne patented a
submarine boat of his own invention fitted with leather joints, so contrived as

to be made smaller or larger by the action of screws, ballasted with water, and
having an air-pipe as mast. The Campbell-Ash submarine tried in 1885 was
on much the same principle.
Cornelius van Drebbel, an ingenious Dutchman who settled in England
before 1600, produced certain submersible vessels and obtained for them the
patronage of two kings. He claims to have discovered a means of re-
oxygenating the foul air and so enabling his craft to remain a long time below
water; whether this was done by chemical treatment, compressed air, or by
surface tubes no record remains. Drebbel’s success was such that he was
allowed to experiment in the Thames, and James I. accompanied him on one
of his sub-aquatic journeys. In 1626 Charles I. gave him an order to make
“boates to go under water,” as well as “water mines, water petards,” &c.,
presumably for the campaign against France, but we do not hear of these
weapons of destruction being actually used upon this occasion.

The “Holland” Submarine Boat.

These early craft seem to have been generally moved by oars working in air-
tight leather sockets; but one constructed at Rotterdam about 1654 was
furnished with a paddle-wheel.
Coming now nearer to our own times, we find that an American called
Bushnell had a like inspiration in 1773, when he invented his famous
“Turtles,” small, upright boats in which one man could sit, submerge himself
by means of leather bottles with the mouths projecting outside, propel
himself with a small set of oars and steer with an elementary rudder. An
unsuccessful attempt was made to blow up the English fleet with one of these

“Turtles” carrying a torpedo, but the current proved too strong, and the
missile exploded at a harmless distance, the operator being finally rescued
from an unpremeditated sea-trip! Bushnell was the author of the removable
safety-keel now uniformly adopted.
Soon afterwards another New Englander took up the running, Fulton—one of
the cleverest and least appreciated engineers of the early years of the
nineteenth century. His Nautilus, built in the French dockyards, was in many
respects the pattern for our own modern submarines. The cigar-shaped copper
hull, supported by iron ribs, was twenty-four feet four inches long, with a
greatest diameter of seven feet. Propulsion came from a wheel, rotated by a
hand winch, in the centre of the stern; forward was a small conning-tower,
and the boat was steered by a rudder. There was a detachable keel below; and
fitted into groves on the top were a collapsible mast and sail for use on the
surface of the water. An anchor was also carried externally. In spite of the
imperfect materials at his disposal Fulton had much success. At Brest he took
a crew of three men twenty-five feet down, and on another day blew up an
old hulk. In the Seine two men went down for twenty minutes and steered
back to their starting-point under water. He also put in air at high pressure
and remained submerged for hours. But France, England, and his own
country in turn rejected his invention; and, completely discouraged, he bent
his energies to designing boat engines instead.
In 1821 Captain Johnson, also an American, made a submersible vessel 100
feet long, designed to fetch Napoleon from St. Helena, travelling for the most
part upon the surface. This expedition never came off.
Two later inventions, by Castera and Payerne, in 1827 and 1846 respectively,
were intended for more peaceful objects. Being furnished with diving-
chambers, the occupants could retrieve things from the bottom of the sea;
Castera providing his boat with an air-tube to the surface.
Bauer, another inventor, lived for some years in England under the patronage
of Prince Albert, who supplied him with funds for his experiments. With
Brunel’s help he built a vessel which was indiscreetly modified by the naval
authorities, and finally sank and drowned its crew. Going then to Russia he
constructed sundry submarines for the navy; but was in the end thrown over,
and, like Fulton, had to turn himself to other employment.

The fact is that up to this period the cry for a practical submarine to use in
warfare had not yet arisen, or these inventions would have met with a far
different reception. Within the last half century all has changed. America and
France now rival each other in construction, while the other nations of
Europe look on with intelligent interest, and in turn make their contributions
towards solving the problem of under-wave propulsion.
America led the way during the Civil War blockades in 1864, when the
Housatonic was sunk in Charleston harbour, and damage done to other ships.
But these experimental torpedo-boats were clumsy contrivances compared
with their modern successors, for they could only carry their destructive
weapon at the end of a spar projecting from the bows—to be exploded upon
contact with the obstacle, and probably involve the aggressor in a common
ruin. So nothing more was done till the perfecting of the Whitehead torpedo
(see Dirigible Torpedoes) gave the required impetus to fresh enterprise.
France, experimenting in the same direction, produced in 1889 Goubet’s
submarine, patent of a private inventor, who has also been patronised by
other navies. These are very small boats, the first, 16-1/2 feet long, carrying a
crew of two or three men. Goubet No. 2, built in 1899, is 26-1/4 feet long,
composed of several layers of gun-metal united by strong screw-bolts, and so
able to resist very great pressure. They are egg-or spindle-shaped, supplied
with compressed air, able to sink and rise by rearrangement of water-ballast.
Reservoirs in the hull are gradually filled for submersion with water, which is
easily expelled when it is desired to rise again. If this system goes wrong a
false keel of thirty-six hundredweight can be detached and the boat springs
up to the surface. The propulsive force is electricity, which works the driving-
screw at the rear, and the automobile torpedo is discharged from its tube by
compressed air.
“By the aid of an optical tube, which a pneumatic telescopic apparatus
enables the operator to thrust above the surface and pull down in a moment,
the captain of the Goubet can, when near the surface, see what is going on all
round him. This telescope has a system of prisms and lenses which cause the
image of the sea-surface to be deflected down to the eye of the observer
below.
“Fresh air for the crew is provided by reservoirs of oxygen, and
accumulations of foul air can be expelled by means of a small pump. Enough

fresh air can be compressed into the reservoirs to last the crew for a week or
more.”
The Gymnote, laid down in 1898, is more than double the size of the Goubet;
it is cigar-shaped, 29 feet long by 6 feet diameter, with a displacement of
thirty tons. The motive power is also electricity stored in accumulators for
use during submersion, and the speed expected—but not realised—was to be
ten knots.
Five years later this type was improved upon in the Gustave Zédé, the largest
submarine ever yet designed. This boat, built of phosphor-bronze, with a
single screw, measures 131 feet in length and has a displacement of 266 tons;
she can contain a crew of nine officers and men, carries three torpedoes—
though with one torpedo tube instead of two—has a lightly armoured
conning-tower, and is said to give a surface speed of thirteen knots and to
make eight knots when submerged. At a trial of her powers made in the
presence of M. Lockroy, Minister of Marine, she affixed an unloaded torpedo
to the battleship Magenta and got away unobserved. The whole performance
of the boat on that occasion was declared to be most successful. But its cost
proved excessive considering the small radius of action obtainable, and a
smaller vessel of the same type, the Morse (118 × 9 feet), is now the official
size for that particular class.
In 1896 a competition was held and won by the submersible Narval of M.
Laubeuf, a craft shaped much like the ordinary torpedo-boat. On the surface
or awash the Narval works by means of a Brulé engine burning oil fuel to
heat its boilers; but when submerged for attack with funnel shut down is
driven by electric accumulators. She displaces 100 odd tons and is provided
with four Dzewiecki torpedo tubes. Her radius of action, steaming awash, is
calculated at some 250 miles, or seventy miles when proceeding under water
at five knots an hour. This is the parent of another class of boats designed for
offensive tactics, while the Morse type is adapted chiefly for coast and
harbour defence. The French navy includes altogether thirty submarine craft,
though several of these are only projected at present, and none have yet been
put to the practical tests of actual warfare—the torpedoes used in
experimenting being, of course, blank.
Meanwhile in America experiments have also been proceeding since 1887,
when Mr. Holland of New York produced the vessel that bears his name.

This, considerably modified, has now been adopted as model by our Navy
Department, which is building some half-dozen on very similar lines. Though
it is not easy to get any definite particulars concerning French submarines
Americans are less reticent, and we have graphic accounts of the Holland and
her offspring from those who have visited her.
These vessels, though cigar-shaped liked most others, in some respects
resemble the Narval, being intended for long runs on the surface, when they
burn oil in a four-cylinder gasolene engine of 160 horse-power. Under water
they are propelled by an electric waterproof motor of seventy horse-power,
and proceed at a pace of seven knots per hour. There is a superstructure for
deck, with a funnel for the engine and a small conning-tower protected by 4-
inch armour. The armament carried comprises five 18-inch Whitehead
torpedoes, 11 feet 8 inches long. One hundred and twenty tons is the
displacement, including tank capacity for 850 gallons of gasolene; the full
length is 63 feet 4 inches, with a beam of 11 feet 9 inches.

An interior view of the “Holland.” The large pendulum on the right actuates mechanism to
keep the Submarine at the required depth below the surface.

The original Holland boat is thus described by an adventurous correspondent
who took a trip in her[3]: “The Holland is fifty-three feet long, and in its
widest part it is 10-1/4 feet in diameter. It has a displacement of seventy-four
tons, and what is called a reserve buoyancy of 2-1/2 tons which tends to
make it come to the surface.
[3] Pearson’s Magazine.

“The frames of the boat are exact circles of steel. They are set a little more
than a foot apart. They diminish gradually in diameter from the centre of the
boat to the bow and stern. On the top of the boat a flat superstructure is built
to afford a walking platform, and under this are spaces for exhaust pipes and
for the external outfit of the boat, such as ropes and a small anchor. The steel
plates which cover the frame are from one-half to three-eighths of an inch in
thickness.
“From what may be called the centre of the boat a turret extends upwards
through the superstructure for about eighteen inches. It is two feet in
diameter, and is the only means of entrance to the boat. It is the place from
which the boat is operated. At the stern is an ordinary three-bladed propeller
and an ordinary rudder, and in addition there are two horizontal rudders
—‘diving-rudders’ they are called—which look like the feet of a duck spread
out behind as it swims along the water.
“From the bow two-thirds of the way to the stern there is a flooring, beneath
which are the storage batteries, the tank for the gasolene, and the tanks which
are filled with water for submerging; in the last one-third of the boat the
flooring drops away, and the space is occupied by the propelling machinery.
“There are about a dozen openings in the boat, the chief being three Kingston
valves, by means of which the submerging tanks are filled or emptied. Others
admit water to pressure gauges, which regulate or show the depth of the
vessel under water. There are twelve deadlights in the top and sides of the
craft. To remain under water the boat must be kept in motion, unless an
anchor is used.

“It can be steered to the surface by the diving rudders, or sent flying to the
top through emptying the storage tanks. If it strikes bottom, or gets stuck in
the mud, it can blow itself loose by means of its compressed air. It cannot be
sunk unless pierced above the flooring. It has a speed capacity of from eight
to ten knots either on the surface or under water.
“It can go 1500 miles on the surface without renewing its supply of gasolene.
It can go fully forty knots under water without coming to the surface, and
there is enough compressed air in the tanks to supply a crew with fresh air for
thirty hours, if the air is not used for any other purpose, such as emptying the
submerging tanks. It can dive to a depth of twenty feet in eight seconds.
“The interior is simply packed with machinery. As you climb down the turret
you are confronted with it at once. There is a diminutive compass which must
be avoided carefully by the feet. A pressure gauge is directly in front of the
operator’s eye as he stands in position. There are speaking-tubes to various
parts of the boat, and a signal-bell to the engine-room.
“As the operator’s hands hang by his sides, he touches a wheel on the port
side, by turning which he steers the little vessel, and one on the starboard
side, by turning which he controls the diving machinery. After the top is
clamped down the operator can look out through plate-glass windows, about
one inch wide and three inches long, which encircle the turret.
“So long as the boat is running on the surface these are valuable, giving a
complete view of the surroundings if the water is smooth. After the boat goes
beneath the surface, these windows are useless; it is impossible to see
through the water. Steering must be done by compass; until recently
considered an impossible task in a submarine boat. A tiny electric light in the
turret shows the operator the direction in which he is going, and reveals the
markings on the depth gauges. If the boat should pass under an object, such
as a ship, a perceptible shadow would be noticed through the deadlights, but
that is all. The ability to see fishes swimming about in the water is a pleasant
fiction.
“The only clear space in the body of the boat is directly in front of the bench
on which the man in the turret is standing. It is where the eighteen-inch
torpedo-tube, and the eight and five-eighths inch aërial gun are loaded.

“Along the sides of this open space are six compressed-air tanks, containing
thirty cubic feet of air at a pressure of 2000 lbs. to a square inch. Near by is a
smaller tank, containing three cubic feet of air at a fifty pounds pressure. A
still smaller tank contains two cubic feet of air at a ten pounds pressure.
These smaller tanks supply the compressed air which, with the smokeless
powder, is used in discharging the projectiles from the boat.
“Directly behind the turret, up against the roof on the port side, is the little
engine by which the vessel is steered; it is worked by compressed air.
Fastened to the roof on the starboard side is the diving-engine, with discs that
look as large as dinner-plates stood on end. These discs are diaphragms on
which the water-pressure exerts an influence, counteracting certain springs
which are set to keep the diving rudders at a given pitch, and thus insuring an
immersion of an exact depth during a run.
“At one side is a cubic steel box—the air compressor; and directly in the
centre of this part of the boat is a long pendulum, just as there is in the
ordinary torpedo, which, by swinging backwards and forwards as the boat
dives and rises, checks a tendency to go too far down, or to come up at too
sharp an angle. On the floor are the levers which, when raised and moved in
certain directions, fill or empty the submerging tanks. On every hand are
valves and wheels and pipes in such apparent confusion as to turn a layman’s
head.
“There are also pumps in the boat, a ventilating apparatus, and a sounding
contrivance, by means of which the channel is picked out when running
under water. This sounding contrivance consists of a heavy weight attached
to a piano wire passing from a reel out through a stuffing-box in the bottom.
There are also valves which release fresh air to the crew, although in ordinary
runs of from one-half to one hour this is not necessary, the fresh air received
from the various exhausts in the boat being sufficient to supply all necessities
in that length of time.”
Another submersible of somewhat different design is the production of the
Swedish inventor, Mr. Nordenfelt. This boat is 9-1/2 metres in length, and has
a displacement of sixty tons. Like the Goubet it sinks only in a horizontal
position, while the Holland plunges downward at a slight angle. On the
surface a steam-engine of 100 horse-power propels it, and when the funnel is
closed down and the vessel submerges itself, the screws are still driven by

superheated steam from the large reservoir of water boiling at high pressure
which maintains a constant supply, three circulation pumps keeping this in
touch with the boiler. The plunge is accomplished by means of two protected
screws, and when they cease to move the reserve buoyancy of the boat brings
it back to the surface. It is steered by a rudder which a pendulum regulates.
The most modern of these boats is of English manufacture, built at Barrow,
and tried in Southampton Water.
The vessels hitherto described should be termed submersible rather than
submarine, as they are designed to usually proceed on the surface, and
submerge themselves only for action when in sight of the enemy.
American ingenuity has produced an absolutely unique craft to which the
name submarine may with real appropriateness be applied, for, sinking in
water 100 feet deep, it can remain below and run upon three wheels along the
bottom of the sea. This is the Argonaut, invented by Mr. Simon Lake of
Baltimore, and its main portion consists of a steel framework of cylindrical
form which is surmounted by a flat, hollow steel deck. During submersion
the deck is filled with water and thus saved from being crushed by outside
pressure as well as helping to sink the craft.
When moving on the surface it has the appearance of an ordinary ship, with
its two light masts, a small conning-tower on which is the steering-wheel,
bowsprit, ventilators, a derrick, suction-pump, and two anchors. A gasolene
engine of special design is used for both surface and submerged cruising
under ordinary circumstances, but in time of war storage batteries are
available. An electric dynamo supplies light to the whole interior, including a
4000 candle-power searchlight in the extreme bow which illuminates the
pathway while under water.
On the boat being stopped and the order given to submerge, the crew first
throw out sounding lines to make sure of the depth. They then close down
external openings, and retreat into the boat through the conning-tower, within
which the helmsman takes his stand, continuing to steer as easily as when
outside. The valves which fill the deck and submersion tanks are opened, and
the Argonaut drops gently to the floor of the ocean. The two apparent masts
are in reality 3-inch iron pipes which rise thirty feet or more above the deck,
and so long as no greater depth is attained, they supply the occupants with

fresh air and let exhausted gases escape, but close automatically when the
water reaches their top.
Once upon the bottom of the sea this versatile submarine begins its journey
as a tricycle. It is furnished with a driving-wheel on either side, each of which
is 6-1/2 feet in diameter and weighs 5000 lbs.; and is guided by a third wheel
weighing 2000 lbs. journalled in the rudder. On a hard bottom or against a
strong tide the wheels are most effective owing to their weight, but in passing
through soft sand or mud the screw propeller pushes the boat along, the
driving-wheels running “loose.” In this way she can travel through even
waist-deep mud, the screw working more strongly than on the surface,
because it has such a weight of water to help it, and she moves more easily
uphill.
In construction the Argonaut is shaped something like a huge cigar, her
strong steel frames, spaced twenty inches apart, being clad with steel plates
3/8-inch thick double riveted over them. Great strength is necessary to resist
the pressure of superincumbent water, which at a depth of 100 feet amounts
to 44 lbs. per square inch.
Originally she was built 36 feet long, but was subsequently lengthened by
some 20 odd feet, and has 9 feet beam. She weighs fifty-seven tons when
submerged. A false section of keel, 4000 lbs. in weight, can on emergency be
instantly released from inside; and two downhaul weights, each of 1000 lbs.,
are used as an extra precaution for safety when sinking in deep water.
The interior is divided into various compartments, the living quarters
consisting of the cabin, galley, operating chamber and engine-room. There
are also a division containing stores and telephone, the intermediate, and the
divers’ room. The “operating” room contains the levers, handwheels, and
other mechanism by which the boat’s movements are governed. A water
gauge shows her exact depth below the surface; a dial on either side indicates
any inclination from the horizontal. Certain levers open the valves which
admit water to the ballast-tanks in the hold; another releases the false keel;
there is a cyclometer to register the wheel travelling, and other gauges mark
the pressure of steam, speed of engines, &c.
A compass in the conning-tower enables the navigator to steer a true course
whether above or below the surface. This conning-tower, only six feet high,
rises above the centre of the living quarters, and is of steel with small

windows in the upper part. Encircling it to about three-quarters of its height is
a reservoir for gasolene, which feeds into a smaller tank within the boat for
consumption. The compressed air is stored in two Mannesmann steel
reservoirs which have been tested to a pressure of 4000 lbs. per square inch.
This renews the air-supply for the crew when the Argonaut is long below, and
also enables the diving operations to be carried on.
The maximum speed at which the Argonaut travels submerged is five knots
an hour, and when she has arrived at her destination—say a sunken coal
steamer—the working party pass into the “intermediate” chamber, whose air-
tight doors are then closed. A current of compressed air is then turned on until
the air is equal in pressure to that in the divers’ room. The doors of this close
over india rubber to be air and water-tight; one communicates with the
“intermediate,” the other is a trap which opens downwards into the sea.
Through three windows in the prow those remaining in the room can watch
operations outside within a radius varying according to the clearness of the
water. The divers assume their suits, to the helmets of which a telephone is
attached, so arranged that they are able to talk to each other as well as to
those in the boat. They are also provided with electric lamps, and a brilliant
flood of light streams upon them from the bows of the vessel. The derrick can
be used with ease under water, and the powerful suction-pump will “retrieve”
coal from a submerged vessel into a barge above at the rate of sixty tons per
hour.
It will thus be seen how valuable a boat of this kind may be for salvage
operations, as well as for surveying the bottom of harbours, river mouths, sea
coasts, and so on. In war time it can lay or examine submarine mines for
harbour defence, or, if employed offensively, can enter the enemy’s harbour
with no chance of detection, and there destroy his mines or blow up his ships
with perfect impunity.
To return the Argonaut to the surface it is only necessary to force compressed
air into the space below the deck and the four tanks in the hold. Her
buoyancy being thus gradually restored she rises slowly and steadily till she
is again afloat upon the water, and steams for land.
We have now glanced briefly at some of the most interesting attempts—out
of many dozens—to produce a practicable submarine vessel in bygone days;
and have inquired more closely into the construction of several modern

designs; among these the Holland has received especial attention, as that is
the model adopted by our Admiralty, and our own new boats only differ in
detail from their American prototype. But before quitting this subject it will
be well to consider what is required from the navigating engineer, and how
far present invention has supplied the demand.

The “Holland” Submarine in the last stages of submersion.

The perfect submarine of fiction was introduced by Jules Verne, whose
Nautilus remains a masterpiece of scientific imagination. This marvellous
vessel ploughed the seas with equal power and safety, whether on the surface
or deeply sunk beneath the waves, bearing the pressure of many atmospheres.
It would rest upon the ocean floor while its inmates, clad in diving suits,
issued forth to stroll amid aquatic forests and scale marine mountains. It
gathered fabulous treasures from pearl beds and sunken galleons; and could
ram and sink an offending ship a thousand times its size without dinting or
loosening a plate on its own hull. No weather deflected its compass, no
movement disturbed its equilibrium. Its crew followed peacefully and
cheerfully in their spacious cabins a daily round of duties which electric
power and automatic gear reduced to a minimum. Save for the misadventure
of a shortened air-supply when exploring the Polar pack, and the clash of
human passions, Captain Nemo’s guests would have voyaged in a floating
paradise.
Compare with this entrancing creation the most practical vessels of actual
experiment. They are small, blind craft, groping their way perilously when
below the surface, the steel and electrical machinery sadly interfering with
any trustworthy working of their compass, and the best form of periscope
hitherto introduced forming a very imperfect substitute for ordinary vision.
Their speed, never very fast upon the surface, is reduced by submersion to
that of the oldest and slowest gunboats. Their radius of action is also
circumscribed—that is, they cannot carry supplies sufficient to go a long
distance, deal with a hostile fleet, and then return to headquarters without
replenishment.
Furthermore, there arise the nice questions of buoyancy combined with
stability when afloat, of sinking quickly out of sight, and of keeping a correct
balance under water. The equilibrium of such small vessels navigating
between the surface and the bottom is extremely sensitive; even the
movements to and fro of the crew are enough to imperil them. To meet this
difficulty the big water-ballast tanks, engines and accumulators are
necessarily arranged at the bottom of the hull, and a pendulum working a
helm automatically is introduced to keep it longitudinally stable.
To sink the boat, which is done by changing the angle of the propeller in the
Goubet and some others, and by means of horizontal rudders and vanes in the

Nordenfelt and Holland, it must first be most accurately balanced, bow and
stern exactly in trim. Then the boat must be put into precise equilibrium with
the water—i.e. must weigh just the amount of water displaced. For this its
specific gravity must be nearly the same as that of the water (whether salt or
fresh), and a small accident might upset all calculations. Collision, even with
a large fish, could destroy the steering-gear, and a dent in the side would also
tend to plunge it at once to destruction.
Did it escape these dangers and succeed in steering an accurate course to its
goal, we have up to now little practical proof that the mere act of discharging
its torpedo—though the weight of the missile is intended to be automatically
replaced immediately it drops from the tube—may not suffice to send the
vessel either to bottom or top of the sea. In the latter case it would be within
the danger zone of its alarmed enemy and at his mercy, its slow speed (even
if uninjured) leaving it little chance of successful flight.
But whatever the final result, one thing is certain, that—untried as it is—the
possible contingency of a submarine attack is likely to shake the morale of an
aggressive fleet.
“When the first submarine torpedo-boat goes into action,” says Mr. Holland,
“she will bring us face to face with the most perplexing problem ever met in
warfare. She will present the unique spectacle, when used in attack, of a
weapon against which there is no defence.... You can send nothing against the
submarine boat, not even itself.... You cannot see under water, hence you
cannot fight under water. Hence you cannot defend yourself against an attack
under water except by running away.”
This inventor is, however, an enthusiast about the future awaiting the
submarine as a social factor. His boat has been tested by long voyages on and
below water with complete success. The Argonaut also upon one occasion
travelled a thousand miles with five persons, and proved herself “habitable,
seaworthy, and under perfect control.”
Mr. Holland confidently anticipates in the near future a Channel service of
submerged boats run by automatic steering-gear upon cables stretched from
coast to coast, and eloquently sums up its advantages.
The passage would be always practicable, for ordinary interruptions such as
fog and storms cannot affect the sea depths.

An even temperature would prevail summer and winter, the well-warmed and
lighted boats being also free from smoke and spray.
No nauseating smells would proceed from the evenly-working electric
engines. No motion cause sea-sickness, no collision be apprehended—as each
line would run on its own cable, and at its own specified depth, a telephone
keeping it in communication with shore.
In like manner a service might be plied over lake bottoms, or across the bed
of wide rivers whose surface is bound in ice. Such is the submarine boat as
hitherto conceived for peace or war—a daring project for the coming
generation to justify.

ANIMATED PICTURES.
Has it ever occurred to the reader to ask himself why rain appears to fall in
streaks though it arrives at earth in drops? Or why the glowing end of a
charred stick produces fiery lines if waved about in the darkness? Common
sense tells us the drop and the burning point cannot be in two places at one
and the same time. And yet apparently we are able to see both in many
positions simultaneously.
This seeming paradox is due to “persistence of vision,” a phenomenon that
has attracted the notice of scientific men for many centuries. Persistence may
be briefly explained thus:—
The eye is extremely sensitive to light, and will, as is proved by the visibility
of the electric spark, lasting for less than the millionth part of a second,
receive impressions with marvellous rapidity.
But it cannot get rid of these impressions at the same speed. The duration of a
visual impression has been calculated as one-tenth to one-twenty-first of a
second. The electric spark, therefore, appears to last much longer than it
really does.
Hence it is obvious that if a series of impressions follow one another more
rapidly than the eye can free itself of them, the impressions will overlap, and
one of four results will follow.

(a) Apparently uninterrupted presence of an image if the same image be
repeatedly represented.
(b) Confusion, if the images be all different and disconnected.
(c) Combination, if the images of two or a very few objects be presented
in regular rotation.
(d) Motion, if the objects be similar in all but one part, which occupies a
slightly different portion in each presentation.

In connection with (c) an interesting story is told of Sir J. Herschel by
Charles Babbage:—[4]
[4] Quoted from Mr. Henry V. Hopwood’s “Living Pictures,” to which book
the author is indebted for much of his information in this chapter.

“One day Herschel, sitting with me after dinner, amusing himself by spinning
a pear upon the table, suddenly asked whether I could show him the two sides
of a shilling at the same moment. I took out of my pocket a shilling, and
holding it up before the looking-glass, pointed out my method. ‘No,’ said my
friend, ‘that won’t do;’ then spinning my shilling upon the table, he pointed
out his method of seeing both sides at once. The next day I mentioned the
anecdote to the late Dr. Fitton, who a few days after brought me a beautiful
illustration of the principle. It consisted of a round disc of card suspended
between two pieces of sewing silk. These threads being held between the
finger and thumb of each hand, were then made to turn quickly, when the disc
of card, of course, revolved also. Upon one side of this disc of card was
painted a bird, upon the other side an empty bird-cage. On turning the thread
rapidly the bird appeared to have got inside the cage. We soon made
numerous applications, as a rat on one side and a trap on the other, &c. It was
shown to Captain Kater, Dr. Wollaston, and many of our friends, and was,
after the lapse of a short time, forgotten. Some months after, during dinner at
the Royal Society Club, Sir Joseph Banks being in the chair, I heard Mr.
Barrow, then secretary to the Admiralty, talking very loudly about a
wonderful invention of Dr. Paris, the object of which I could not quite
understand. It was called the Thaumatrope, and was said to be sold at the
Royal Institution, in Albemarle Street. Suspecting that it had some connection
with our unnamed toy I went next morning and purchased for seven shillings
and sixpence a thaumatrope, which I afterwards sent down to Slough to the
late Lady Herschel. It was precisely the thing which her son and Dr. Fitton
had contributed to invent, which amused all their friends for a time, and had
then been forgotten.”
The thaumatrope, then, did nothing more than illustrate the power of the eye
to weld together a couple of alternating impressions. The toys to which we
shall next pass represent the same principle working in a different direction
towards the production of the living picture.
Now, when we see a man running (to take an instance) we see the same body
and the same legs continuously, but in different positions, which merge

insensibly the one into the other. No method of reproducing that impression
of motion is possible if only one drawing, diagram, or photograph be
employed.
A man represented with as many legs as a centipede would not give us any
impression of running or movement; and a blur showing the positions taken
successively by his legs would be equally futile. Therefore we are driven
back to a series of pictures, slightly different from one another; and in order
that the pictures may not be blurred a screen must be interposed before the
eye while the change from picture to picture is made. The shorter the period
of change, and the greater the number of pictures presented to illustrate a
single motion, the more realistic is the effect. These are the general principles
which have to be observed in all mechanism for the production of an illusory
effect of motion. The persistence of vision has led to the invention of many
optical toys, the names of which, in common with the names of most
apparatus connected with the living picture, are remarkable for their length.
Of these toys we will select three for special notice.
In 1833 Plateau of Ghent invented the phenakistoscope, “the thing that gives
one a false impression of reality”—to interpret this formidable word. The
phenakistoscope is a disc of card or metal round the edge of which are drawn
a succession of pictures showing a man or animal in progressive positions.
Between every two pictures a narrow slit is cut. The disc is mounted on an
axle and revolved before a mirror, so that a person looking through the slits
see one picture after another reflected in the mirror.
The zoetrope, or Wheel of Life, which appeared first in 1860, is a
modification of the same idea. In this instrument the pictures are arranged on
the inner side of a hollow cylinder revolving on a vertical axis, its sides being
perforated with slits above the pictures. As the slit in both cases caused
distortion M. Reynaud, a Frenchman, produced in 1877 the praxinoscope,
which differed from the zoetrope in that the pictures were not seen directly
through slits, but were reflected by mirrors set half-way between the pictures
and the axis of the cylinder, a mirror for every picture. Only at the moment
when the mirror is at right angles to the line of sight would the picture be
visible. M. Reynaud also devised a special lantern for projecting
praxinoscope pictures on to a screen.

These and other somewhat similar contrivances, though ingenious, had very
distinct limitations. They depended for their success upon the inventiveness
and accuracy of the artist, who was confined in his choice of subject; and
could, owing to the construction of the apparatus, only represent a small
series of actions, indefinitely repeated by the machine. And as a complete
action had to be crowded into a few pictures, the changes of position were
necessarily abrupt.
To make the living picture a success two things were needed; some method of
securing a very rapid series of many pictures, and a machine for reproducing
the series, whatever its length. The method was found in photography, with
the advance of which the living picture’s progress is so closely related, that it
will be worth while to notice briefly the various improvements of
photographic processes. The old-fashioned Daguerreotype process,
discovered in 1839, required an exposure of half-an-hour. The introduction of
wet collodion reduced this tax on a sitter’s patience to ten seconds. In 1878
the dry plate process had still further shortened the exposure to one second;
and since that date the silver-salt emulsions used in photography have had
their sensitiveness to light so much increased, that clear pictures can now be
made in one-thousandth of a second, a period minute enough to arrest the
most rapid movements of animals.
By 1878, therefore, instantaneous photography was ready to aid the living
picture. Previously to that year series of photographs had been taken from
posed models, without however extending the choice of subjects to any great
extent. But between 1870 and 1880 two men, Marey and Muybridge, began
work with the camera on the movements of horses. Marey endeavoured to
produce a series of pictures round the edge of one plate with a single lens and
repeated exposures.[5] Muybridge, on the other hand, used a series of
cameras. He erected a long white background parallel to which were
stationed the cameras at equal distances. The shutters of the cameras were
connected to threads laid across the interval between the background and the
cameras in such a manner that a horse driven along the track snapped them at
regular intervals, and brought about successive exposures. Muybridge’s
method was carried on by Anschütz, a German, who in 1899 brought out his
electrical Tachyscope, or “quick-seer.” Having secured his negatives he
printed off transparent positives on glass, and arranged these last round the
circumference of a large disc rotating in front of a screen, having in it a hole

the size of the transparencies. As each picture came opposite the hole a
Geissler tube was momentarily lit up behind it by electrical contact, giving a
fleeting view of one phase of a horse’s motion.
[5] A very interesting article in the May, 1902, issue of Pearson’s Magazine
deals with the latest work of Professor Marey in the field of the
photographic representation of the movements of men, birds, and
quadrupeds.

The introduction of the ribbon film in or about 1888 opened much greater
possibilities to the living picture than would ever have existed had the glass
plate been retained. It was now comparatively easy to take a long series of
pictures; and accordingly we find Messrs. Friese-Greene and Evans
exhibiting in 1890 a camera capable of securing three hundred exposures in
half a minute, or ten per second.
The next apparatus to be specially mentioned is Edison’s Kinetoscope, which
he first exhibited in England in 1894. As early as 1887 Mr. Edison had tried
to produce animated pictures in a manner analogous to the making of a
sound-record on a phonograph (see p. 56). He wrapped round a cylinder a
sheet of sensitized celluloid which was covered, after numerous exposures,
by a spiral line of tiny negatives. The positives made from these were
illuminated in turn by flashes of electric light. This method was, however,
entirely abandoned in the perfected kinetoscope, an instrument for viewing
pictures the size of a postage stamp, carried on a continuously moving
celluloid film between the eye of the observer and a small electric lamp. The
pictures passed the point of inspection at the rate of forty-six per second (a
rate hitherto never approached), and as each picture was properly centred a
slit in a rapidly revolving shutter made it visible for a very small fraction of a
second. Holes punched at regular intervals along each side of the film
engaged with studs on a wheel, and insured a regular motion of the pictures.
This principle of a perforated film has been used by nearly all subsequent
manufacturers of animatographs.
To secure forty-six negatives per second Edison invented a special exposure
device. Each negative would have but one-forty-sixth of a second to itself,
and that must include the time during which the fresh surface of film was
being brought into position before the lens. He therefore introduced an
intermittent gearing, which jerked the film forwards forty-six times per
second, but allowed it to remain stationary for nine-tenths of the period

allotted to each picture. During the time of movement the lens was covered
by the shutter. This principle of exposure has also been largely adopted by
other inventors. By its means weak negatives are avoided, while pictures
projected on to a screen gain greatly in brilliancy and steadiness.
The capabilities of a long flexible film-band having been shown by Edison,
he was not long without imitators. Phantoscopes, Bioscopes, Photoscopes,
and many other instruments followed in quick succession. In 1895 Messrs.
Lumière scored a great success with their Cinematograph, which they
exhibited at Marseilles and Paris; throwing the living picture as we now
know it on to a screen for a large company to see. This camera-lantern opens
the era of commercial animated-photography. The number of patents taken
out since 1895 in connection with living-picture machines is sufficient proof
that inventors have either found in this particular branch of photography a
peculiar fascination, or have anticipated from it a substantial profit.
A company known as the Mutoscope and Biograph Company has been
formed for the sole object of working the manufacture and exhibition of the
living picture on a great commercial scale. The present company is American,
but there are subsidiary allied companies in many parts of the world,
including the British Isles, France, Italy, Belgium, Germany, Austria, India,
Australia, South Africa. The part that the company has played in the
development of animated photography will be easily understood from the
short account that follows.
The company controls three machines, the Mutograph, or camera for making
negatives; the Biograph, or lantern for throwing pictures on to the screen; and
the Mutoscope, a familiar apparatus in which the same pictures may be seen
in a different fashion on the payment of a penny.
Externally the Mutograph is remarkable for its size, which makes it a giant of
its kind. The complete apparatus weighs, with its accumulators, several
hundreds of pounds. It takes a very large picture, as animatograph pictures go
—two by two-and-a-half inches, which, besides giving increased detail,
require less severe magnification than is usual with other films. The camera
can make up to a hundred exposures per second, in which time twenty-two
feet of film will have passed before the lens.
The film is so heavy that were it arrested bodily during each exposure and
then jerked forward again, it might be injured. The mechanism of the

mutograph, driven at regular speed, by an electric motor, has been so
arranged as to halt only that part of the film which is being exposed, the rest
moving forward continuously. The exposed portion, together with the next
surface, which has accumulated in a loop behind it, is dragged on by two
rollers that are in contact with the film during part only of their revolutions.
Thus the jerky motion is confined to but a few inches of the film, and even at
the highest speeds the camera is peculiarly free from vibration.
An exposed mutograph film is wound for development round a skeleton reel,
three feet in diameter and seven long, which rotates in a shallow trough
containing the developing solution. Development complete, the reel is lifted
from its supports and suspended over a succession of other troughs for
washing, fixing, and final washing. When dry the negative film is passed
through a special printing frame in contact with another film, which receives
the positive image for the biograph. The difficulty of handling such films will
be appreciated to a certain extent even by those whose experience is confined
to the snaky behaviour of a short Kodak reel during development.
The Mutoscope Company’s organisation is as perfect as its machinery. It has
representatives in all parts of the world. Wherever stirring events are taking
place, whether in peace or war, a mutograph operator will soon be on the spot
with his heavy apparatus to secure pictures for world-wide exhibition. It need
hardly be said that great obstacles, human and physical, have often to be
overcome before a film can be exposed; and considerable personal danger
encountered. We read that an operator, despatched to Cuba during the
Spanish-American War was left three days and nights without food or water
to guard his precious instruments, the party that had landed him having
suddenly put to sea on sighting a Spanish cruiser. Another is reported to have
had a narrow escape from being captured at sea by the Spaniards after a hot
chase. It is also on record that a mutograph set up in Atlantic City to take a
procession of fire-engines was charged and shattered by one of the engines;
that the operators were flung into the crowd: and that nevertheless the box
containing the exposed films was uninjured, and on development yielded a
very sensational series of pictures lasting to the moment of collision.
The Mutoscope Company owns several thousand series of views, none
probably more valuable than those of his Holiness the Pope, who graciously
gave Mr. W. K. Dickson five special sittings, during which no less than

17,000 negatives were made, each one of great interest to millions of people
throughout the world.
The company spares neither time nor money in its endeavour to supply the
public with what will prove acceptable. A year’s output runs into a couple of
hundred miles of film. As much as 700 feet is sometimes expended on a
single series, which may be worth anything up to £1000.
The energy displayed by the operators is often marvellous. To take instances.
The Derby of 1898 was run at 3.20 p.m. At ten o’clock the race was run again
by Biograph on the great sheet at the Palace Theatre. On the home-coming of
Lord Kitchener from the Soudan Campaign, a series of photographs was
taken at Dover in the afternoon and exhibited the same evening! Or again, to
consider a wider sphere of action, the Jubilee Procession of 1897 was
watched in New York ten days after the event; two days later in Chicago; and
in three more the films were attracting large audiences in San Francisco, 5000
miles from the actual scene of the procession!
One may easily weary of a series of single views passed slowly through a
magic-lantern at a lecture or entertainment. But when the Biograph is
flashing its records at lightning speed there is no cause for dullness. It is
impossible to escape from the fascination of movement. A single photograph
gives the impression of mere resemblance to the original; but a series, each
reinforcing the signification of the last, breathes life into the dead image, and
deludes us into the belief that we see, not the representation of a thing, but
the thing itself. The bill of fare provided by the Biograph Company is varied
enough to suit the most fastidious taste. Now it is the great Naval Review off
Spithead, or President Faure shooting pheasants on his preserves near Paris.
A moment’s pause and then the magnificent Falls of Niagara foam across the
sheet; Maxim guns fire harmlessly; panoramic scenes taken from
locomotives running at high velocity unfold themselves to the delighted
spectators, who feel as if they really were speeding over open country, among
towering rocks, or plunging into the darkness of a tunnel. Here is an express
approaching with all the quiver and fuss of real motion, so faithfully rendered
that it seems as if a catastrophe were imminent; when, snap! we are
transported a hundred miles to watch it glide into a station. The doors open,
passengers step out and shake hands with friends, porters bustle about after
luggage, doors are slammed again, the guard waves his flag, and the carriages
move slowly out of the picture. Then our attention is switched away to the

10-inch disappearing gun, landing and firing at Sandy Hook. And next, as
though to show that nothing is beneath the notice of the biograph, we are
perhaps introduced to a family of small pigs feeding from a trough with
porcine earnestness and want of manners.
It must not be thought that the Living Picture caters for mere entertainment
only. It serves some very practical and useful ends. By its aid the movements
of machinery and the human muscles may be studied in detail, to aid a
mechanical or medical education. It furnishes art schools with all the poses of
a living model. Less serious pursuits, such as dancing, boxing, wrestling and
all athletic sports and exercise, will find a use for it. As an advertising
medium it stands unrivalled, and we shall owe it a deep debt of gratitude if it
ultimately supplants the flaring posters that disfigure our towns and desecrate
our landscapes. Not so long since, the directors of the Norddeutscher-Lloyd
Steamship Company hired the biograph at the Palace Theatre, London, to
demonstrate to anybody who cared to witness a very interesting exhibition
that their line of vessels should always be used for a journey between
England and America.
The Living Picture has even been impressed into the service of the British
Empire to promote emigration to the Colonies. Three years ago Mr. Freer
exhibited at the Imperial Institute and in other places in England a series of
films representing the 1897 harvest in Manitoba. Would-be emigrants were
able to satisfy themselves that the great Canadian plains were fruitful not
only on paper. For could they not see with their own eyes the stately
procession of automatic “binders” reaping, binding, and delivering sheaves of
wheat, and puffing engines threshing out the grain ready for market? A far
preferable method this to the bogus descriptions of land companies such as
lured poor Chuzzlewit and Mark Tapley into the deadly swamps of “Eden.”
Again, what more calculated to recruit boys for our warships than the fine
Polytechnic exhibition known as “Our Navy”? What words, spoken or
printed, could have the effect of a series of vivid scenes truthfully rendered,
of drills on board ship, the manning and firing of big guns, the limbering-up
of smaller guns, the discharge of torpedoes, the headlong rush of the
“destroyers”?
The Mutoscope, to which reference has been made above, may be found in
most places of public entertainment, in refreshment bars, on piers, in

exhibitions, on promenades. A penny dropped into a slot releases a handle,
the turning of which brings a series of pictures under inspection. The
pictures, enlarged from mutograph films, are mounted in consecutive order
round a cylinder, standing out like the leaves of a book. When the cylinder is
revolved by means of the handle the picture cards are snapped past the eye,
giving an effect similar to the lifelike projections on a biograph screen. From
900 to 1000 pictures are mounted on a cylinder.
The advantages of the mutoscope—its convenient size, its simplicity, and the
ease with which its contents may be changed to illustrate the topics and
events of the day—have made the animated photograph extremely popular. It
does for vision what the phonograph does for sound. In a short time we shall
doubtless be provided with handy machines combining the two functions and
giving us double value for our penny.
The real importance and value of animated photography will be more easily
estimated a few years hence than to-day, when it is still more or less of a
novelty. The multiplication of illustrated newspapers and magazines points to
a general desire for pictorial matter to help down the daily, weekly, or
monthly budget of news, even if the illustrations be imaginative products of
Fleet Street rather than faithful to fact. The reliable living picture (we expect
the “set-scene”) which “holds up a mirror to nature,” will be a companion
rather than a rival of journalism, following hard on the description in print of
an event that has taken place under the eye of the recording camera. The zest
with which we have watched during the last two years biographic views of
the embarkation and disembarkation of troops, of the transport of big guns
through drifts and difficult country, and of the other circumstances of war, is
largely due to the descriptions we have already read of the things that we see
on the screen. And, on the other hand, the impression left by a series of
animated views will dwell in our memories long after the contents of the
newspaper columns have become confused and jumbled. It is therefore
especially to be hoped that photographic records will be kept of historic
events, such as the Jubilee, the Queen’s Funeral, King Edward’s Coronation,
so that future generations may, by the turning of a handle, be brought face to
face with the great doings of a bygone age.

THE GREAT PARIS TELESCOPE
A telescope so powerful that it brings the moon apparently to within thirty-
five miles of the earth; so long that many a cricketer could not throw a ball
from one end of it to the other; so heavy that it would by itself make a
respectable load for a goods train; so expensive that astronomically-inclined
millionaires might well hesitate to order a similar one for their private use.
Such is the huge Paris telescope that in 1900 delighted thousands of visitors
in the French Exposition, where, among the many wonderful sights to be seen
on all sides, it probably attracted more notice than any other exhibit. This
triumph of scientific engineering and dogged perseverance in the face of
great difficulties owes its being to a suggestion made in 1894 to a group of
French astronomers by M. Deloncle. He proposed to bring astronomy to the
front at the coming Exposition, and to effect this by building a refracting
telescope that in size and power should completely eclipse all existing
instruments and add a new chapter to the “story of the heavens.”
To the mind unversed in astronomy the telescope appeals by the magnitude of
its dimensions, in the same way as do the Forth Bridge, the Eiffel Tower, the
Big Wheel, the statue of Liberty near New York harbour, the Pyramids, and
most human-made “biggest on records.”
At the time of M. Deloncle’s proposal the largest refracting telescope was the
Yerkes’ at William’s Bay, Wisconsin, with an object-glass forty inches in
diameter; and next to it the 36-inch Lick instrument on Mount Hamilton,
California, built by Messrs. Alvan Clark of Cambridgeport, Massachusetts.
Among reflecting telescopes the prior place is still held by Lord Rosse’s, set
up on the lawn of Birr Castle half a century ago. Its speculum, or mirror,
weighing three tons, lies at the lower end of a tube six feet across and sixty
feet long. This huge reflector, being mounted in meridian, moves only in a
vertical direction. A refracting telescope is one of the ordinary pocket type,
having an object-lens at one end and an eyepiece at the other. A reflector, on
the other hand, has no object-lens, its place being taken by a mirror that
gathers the rays entering the tube and reflects them back into the eyepiece,
which is situated nearer the mouth end of the tube than the mirror itself.

Each system has its peculiar disadvantages. In reflectors the image is more or
less distorted by “spherical aberration.” In refractors the image is
approximately perfect in shape, but liable to “chromatic aberration,” a
phenomenon especially noticeable in cheap telescopes and field-glasses,
which often show objects fringed with some of the colours of the spectrum.
This defect arises from the different refrangibility of different light rays.
Thus, violet rays come to a focus at a shorter distance from the lens than red
rays, and when one set is in focus to the eye the other must be out of focus. In
carefully-made and expensive instruments compound lenses are used, which
by the employment of different kinds of glass bring all the colours to
practically the same focus, and so do away with chromatic aberration.
To reduce colour troubles to a minimum M. Deloncle proposed that the
object-lens should have a focal distance of about two hundred feet, since a
long focus is more easily corrected than a short one, and a diameter of over
fifty-nine inches. The need for so huge a lens arises out of the optical
principles of a refractor. The rays from an object—a star, for instance—strike
the object-glass at the near end, and are bent by it into a converging beam, till
they all meet at the focus. Behind the focus they again separate, and are
caught by the eyepiece, which reduces them to a parallel beam small enough
to enter the pupil. We thus see that though the unaided eye gathers only the
few rays that fall directly from the object on to the pupil, when helped by the
telescope it receives the concentrated rays falling on the whole area of the
object-glass; and it would be sensible of a greatly increased brightness had
not this light to be redistributed over the image, which is the object magnified
by the eyepiece. Assuming the aperture of the pupil to be one-tenth of an
inch, and the object to be magnified a hundred times, the object-lens should
have a hundred times the diameter of the pupil to render the image as bright
as the object itself. If the lens be five instead of ten inches across, a great loss
of light results, as in the high powers of a microscope, and the image loses in
distinctness what it gains in size.
As M. Deloncle meant his telescope to beat all records in respect of
magnification, he had no choice but to make a lens that should give
proportionate illumination, and itself be of unprecedented size.
At first M. Deloncle met with considerable opposition and ridicule. Such a
scheme as his was declared to be beyond accomplishment. But in spite of
many prophecies of ultimate failure he set to work, entrusting the

construction of the various portions of his colossal telescope to well-tried
experts. To M. Gautier was given the task of making all the mechanical parts
of the apparatus; to M. Mantois the casting of the giant lenses; to M. Despret
the casting of the huge mirror, to which reference will be made immediately.
The first difficulty to be encountered arose from the sheer size of the
instrument. It was evidently impossible to mount such a leviathan in the
ordinary way. A tube, 180 feet long, could not be made rigid enough to move
about and yet permit careful observation of the stars. Even supposing that it
were satisfactorily mounted on an “equatorial foot” like smaller glasses, how
could it be protected from wind and weather? To cover it, a mighty dome,
two hundred feet or more in diameter, would be required; a dome exceeding
by over seventy feet the cupola of St. Peter’s, Rome; and this dome must
revolve easily on its base at a pace of about fifty feet an hour, so that the
telescope might follow the motion of the heavenly bodies.
The constructors therefore decided to abandon any idea of making a telescope
that could be moved about and pointed in any desired direction. The
alternative course open to them was to fix the telescope itself rigidly in
position, and to bring the stars within its field by means of a mirror mounted
on a massive iron frame—the two together technically called a siderostat.
The mirror and its support would be driven by clockwork at the proper
sidereal rate. The siderostat principle had been employed as early as the
eighteenth century, and perfected in recent years by Léon Foucault, so that in
having recourse to it the builders of the telescope were not committing
themselves to any untried device.
In days when the handling of masses of iron, and the erection of huge metal
constructions have become matters of everyday engineering life, no peculiar
difficulty presented itself in connection with the metal-work of the telescope.
The greatest possible care was of course observed in every particular. All
joints and bearings were adjusted with an extraordinary accuracy; and all the
cylindrical moving parts of the siderostat verified till they did not vary from
perfect cylindricity by so much as one twenty-five-thousandth of an inch!
The tube of the telescope, 180 feet long, consisted of twenty-four sections,
fifty-nine inches in diameter, bolted together and supported on seven massive
iron pillars. It weighed twenty-one tons. The siderostat, twenty-seven feet
high, and as many in length, weighed forty-five tons. The lower portion,

which was fixed firmly on a bed of concrete, had on the top a tank filled with
quicksilver, in which the mirror and its frame floated. The quicksilver
supported nine-tenths of the weight, the rest being taken by the levers used to
move the mirror. Though the total weight of the mirror and frame was
thirteen tons, the quicksilver offered so little resistance that a pull of a few
pounds sufficed to rotate the entire mass.
The real romance of the construction of this huge telescope centres on the
making of the lenses and mirror. First-class lenses for all photographic and
optical purposes command a very high price on account of the care and
labour that has to be expended on their production; the value of the glass
being trifling by comparison. Few, if any, trades require greater mechanical
skill than that of lensmaking; the larger the lens the greater the difficulties it
presents, first in the casting, then in the grinding, last of all in the polishing.
The presence of a single air-bubble in the molten glass, the slightest
irregularity of surface in the polishing may utterly destroy the value of a lens
otherwise worth several thousands of pounds.

Reproduced by the permission of Proprietors of “Knowledge.”
General view, of the Great Paris Telescope, showing the eye-end. The tube is 180 feet long, and
59 inches in diameter. It weighs 21 tons.

The object-glass of the great telescope was cast by M. Mantois, famous as the
manufacturer of large lenses. The glass used was boiled and reboiled many
times to get rid of all bubbles. Then it was run into a mould and allowed to
cool very gradually. A whole month elapsed before the breaking of a mould,
when the lens often proved to be cracked on the surface, owing to the exterior
having cooled faster than the interior and parted company with it. At last,
however, a perfect cast resulted.
M. Despret undertook the even more formidable task of casting the mirror at
his works at Jeumont, North France. A special furnace and oven, capable of
containing over fifteen tons of molten glass, had to be constructed. The
mirror, 6-1/2 feet in diameter and eleven inches thick, absorbed 3-3/4 tons of
liquid glass; and so great was the difficulty of cooling it gradually, that out of
the twenty casts eighteen were failures.
The rough lenses and mirror having been ground to approximate correctness
in the ordinary way, there arose the question of polishing, which is generally
done by one of the most sensitive and perfect instruments existing-the human
hand. In this case, owing to the enormous size of the objects to be treated,
hand work would not do. The mere hot touch of a workman would raise on
the glass a tiny protuberance, which would be worn level with the rest of the
surface by the polisher, and on the cooling of the part would leave a
depression, only 1-75,000 of an inch deep, perhaps, but sufficient to produce
distortion, and require that the lens should be ground down again, and the
whole surface polished afresh.
M. Gautier therefore polished by machinery. It proved a very difficult process
altogether, on account of frictional heating, the rise of temperature in the
polishing room, and the presence of dust. To insure success it was found
necessary to warm all the polishing machinery, and to keep it at a fixed
temperature.
At the end of almost a year the polishing was finished, after the lenses and
mirror had been subjected to the most searching tests, able to detect

irregularities not exceeding 1-250,000 of an inch. M. Gautier applied to the
mirror M. Foucault’s test, which is worth mentioning. A point of light thrown
by the mirror is focused through a telescope. The eyepiece is then moved
inwards and outwards so as to throw the point out of focus. If the point
becomes a luminous circle surrounded by concentric rings, the surface
throwing the light point is perfectly plane or smooth. If, however, a pushing-
in shows a vertical flattening of the point, and a pulling-out a horizontal
flattening, that part is concave; if the reverse happens, convexity is the cause.
For the removal of the mirror from Jeumont to Paris a special train was
engaged, and precautions were taken rivalling those by which travelling
Royalty is guarded. The train ran at night without stopping, and at a constant
pace, so that the vibration of the glass atoms might not vary. On arriving at
Paris, the mirror was transferred to a ponderous waggon, and escorted by a
body of men to the Exposition buildings. The huge object-lens received
equally careful treatment.
The telescope was housed at the Exhibition in a long gallery pointing due
north and south, the siderostat at the north end. At the other, the eyepiece,
end, a large amphitheatre accommodated the public assembled to watch the
projection of stellar or lunar images on to a screen thirty feet high, while a
lecturer explained what was visible from time to time. The images of the sun
and moon as they appeared at the primary focus in the eyepiece measured
from twenty-one to twenty-two inches in diameter, and the screen projections
were magnified from these about thirty times superficially.
The eyepiece section consisted of a short tube, of the same breadth as the
main tube, resting on four wheels that travelled along rails. Special gearing
moved this truck-like construction backwards and forwards to bring a sharp
focus into the eyepiece or on to a photographic plate. Focusing was thus easy
enough when once the desired object came in view; but the observer being
unable to control the siderostat, 250 feet distant, had to telephone directions
to an assistant stationed near the mirror whenever he wished to examine an
object not in the field of vision.
By the courtesy of the proprietors of the Strand Magazine we are allowed to
quote M. Deloncle’s own words describing his emotions on his first view
through the giant telescope:—

“As is invariably the case, whenever an innovation that sets at nought old-
established theories is brought forward, the prophecies of failure were many
and loud, and I had more than a suspicion that my success would cause less
satisfaction to others than to myself. Better than any one else I myself was
cognisant of the unpropitious conditions in which my instrument had to work.
The proximity of the river, the dust raised by hundreds of thousands of
trampling feet, the trepidation of the soil, the working of the machinery, the
changes of temperature, the glare from the thousands of electric lamps in
close proximity—each of these circumstances, and many others of a more
technical nature, which it would be tedious to enumerate, but which were no
less important, would have been more than sufficient to make any astronomer
despair of success even in observatories where all the surroundings are
chosen with the utmost care.
“In regions pure of calm and serene air large new instruments take months,
more often years, to regulate properly.
“In spite of everything, however, I still felt confident. Our calculations had
been gone over again and again, and I could see nothing that in my opinion
warranted the worst apprehensions of my kind critics.
“It was with ill-restrained impatience that I waited for the first night when the
moon should show herself in a suitable position for being observed; but the
night arrived in due course.
“Everything was in readiness. The movable portion of the roof of the building
had been slid back, and the mirror of the siderostat stood bared to the sky.
“In the dark, square chamber at the other end of the instrument, 200 feet
away, into which the eyepiece of the instrument opened, I had taken my
station with two or three friends. An attendant at the telephone stood waiting
at my elbow to transmit my orders to his colleague in charge of the levers that
regulated the siderostat and its mirror.
“The moon had risen now, and her silvery glory shone and sparkled in the
mirror.
“‘A right declension,’ I ordered.
“The telephone bell rang in reply. ‘Slowly, still slower; now to the left—
enough; again a right declension—slower; stop now—very, very slowly.’

“On the ground-glass before our eyes the moon’s image crept up from one
corner until it had overspread the glass completely. And there we stood in the
centre of Paris, examining the surface of our satellite with all its craters and
valleys and bleak desolation.
“I had won the day.”

PHOTOGRAPHING THE INVISIBLE.
Most of us are able to recognise when we see them shadowgraphs taken by
the aid of the now famous X-rays. They generally represent some part of the
structure of men, beasts, birds, or fishes. Very dark patches show the position
of the bones, large and small; lighter patches the more solid muscles clinging
to the bony framework; and outside these again are shadowy tracts
corresponding to the thinnest and most transparent portions of the fleshy
envelope.
In an age fruitful as this in scientific marvels, it often takes some
considerable time for the public to grasp the full importance of a fresh
discovery. But when, in 1896, it was announced that Professor Röntgen of
Würzburg had actually taken photographs of the internal organs of still living
creatures, and penetrated metal and other opaque substances with a new kind
of ray, great interest was manifested throughout the civilised world. On the
one hand the “new photography” seemed to upset popular ideas of opacity;
on the other it savoured strongly of the black art, and, by its easy excursions
through the human body, seemed likely to revolutionise medical and surgical
methods. At first many strange ideas about the X-rays got afloat, attributing
to them powers which would have surprised even their modest discoverer. It
was also thought that the records were made in a camera after the ordinary
manner of photography, but as a matter of fact Röntgen used neither lens nor
camera, the operation being similar to that of casting a shadow on a wall by
means of a lamp. In X-radiography a specially constructed electrically-lit
glass tube takes the place of the lamp, and for the wall is substituted a
sensitised plate. The object to be radiographed is merely inserted between
them, its various parts offering varying resistance to the rays, so that the plate
is affected unequally, and after exposure may be developed and printed from
it the usual way. Photographs obtained by using X-rays are therefore properly
called shadowgraphs or skiagraphs.
The discovery that has made Professor Röntgen famous is, like many great
discoveries, based upon the labours of other men in the same field. Geissler,
whose vacuum tubes are so well known for their striking colour effects, had
already noticed that electric discharges sent through very much rarefied air or

gases produced beautiful glows. Sir William Crookes, following the same
line of research, and reducing with a Sprengel air-pump the internal pressure
of the tubes to 1/100000 of an atmosphere, found that a luminous glow
streamed from the cathode, or negative pole, in a straight line, heating and
rendering phosphorescent anything that it met. Crookes regarded the glow as
composed of “radiant matter,” and explained its existence as follows. The
airy particles inside the tube, being few in number, are able to move about
with far greater freedom than in the tightly packed atmosphere outside the
tube. A particle, on reaching the cathode, is repelled violently by it in a
straight line, to “bombard” another particle, the walls of the tube, or any
object set up in its path, the sudden arrest of motion being converted into
light and heat.
By means of special tubes he proved that the “radiant matter” could turn little
vanes, and that the flow continued even when the terminals of the shocking-
coil were outside the glass, thus meeting the contention of Puluj that the
radiant matter was nothing more than small particles of platinum torn from
the terminals. He also showed that, when intercepted, radiant matter cast a
shadow, the intercepting object receiving the energy of the bombardment; but
that when the obstruction was removed the hitherto sheltered part of the glass
wall of the tube glowed with a brighter phosphorescence than the part which
had become “tired” by prolonged bombardment. Experiments further
revealed the fact that the shaft of “Cathode rays” could be deflected by a
magnet from their course, and that they affected an ordinary photographic
plate exposed to them.
In 1894 Lenard, a Hungarian, and pupil of the famous Hertz, fitted a
Crookes’ tube with a “window” of aluminium in its side replacing a part of
the glass, and saw that the course of the rays could be traced through the
outside air. From this it was evident that something else than matter must be
present in the shaft of energy sent from the negative terminal of the tube, as
there was no direct communication between the interior and the exterior of
the tube to account for the external phosphorescence. Whatever was the
nature of the rays he succeeded in making them penetrate and impress
themselves on a sensitised plate enclosed in a metal box.
Then in 1896 came Röntgen’s great discovery that the rays from a Crookes’
tube, after traversing the glass, could pierce opaque matter. He covered the
tube with thick cardboard, but found that it would still cast the shadows of

books, cards, wood, metals, the human hand, &c., on to a photographic plate
even at the distance of some feet. The rays would also pass through the wood,
metal, or bones in course of time; but certain bodies, notably metals, offered
a much greater resistance than others, such as wood, leather, and paper.
Professor Röntgen crowned his efforts by showing that a skeleton could be
“shadow-graphed” while its owner was still alive.
Naturally everybody wished to know not only what the rays could do, but
what they were. Röntgen, not being able to identify them with any known
rays, took refuge in the algebraical symbol of the unknown quantity and
dubbed them X-rays. He discovered this much, however, that they were
invisible to the eye under ordinary conditions; that they travelled in straight
lines only, passing through a prism, water, or other refracting bodies without
turning aside from their path; and that a magnet exerted no power over them.
This last fact was sufficient of itself to prevent their confusion with the
radiant matter “cathode rays” of the tube. Röntgen thought, nevertheless, that
they might be the cathode rays transmuted in some manner by their passage
through the glass, so as to resemble in their motion sound-waves, i.e. moving
straight forward and not swaying from side to side in a series of zig-zags. The
existence of such ether waves had for some time before been suspected by
Lord Kelvin.
Other authorities have other theories. We may mention the view that X
represents the ultra-violet rays of the spectrum, caused by vibrations of such
extreme rapidity as to be imperceptible to the human eye, just as sounds of
extremely high pitch are inaudible to the ear. This theory is to a certain extent
upheld by the behaviour of the photographic plate, which is least affected by
the colours of the spectrum at the red end and most by those at the violet end.
A photographer is able to use red or orange light in his dark room because his
plates cannot “see” them, though he can; whereas the reverse would be the
case with X-rays. This ultra-violet theory claims for X-rays a rate of ether
vibration of trillions of waves per second.
An alternative theory is to relegate the rays to the gap in the scale of ether-
waves between heatwaves and light-waves. But this does not explain any
more satisfactorily than the other the peculiar phenomenon of non-refraction.
The apparatus employed in X-photography consists of a Crookes’ tube of a
special type, a powerful shocking or induction coil, a fluorescent screen and

photographic plates and appliances for developing, &c., besides a supply of
high-pressure electricity derived from the main, a small dynamo or batteries.
A Crookes’ tube is four to five inches in diameter, globular in its middle
portion, but tapering away towards each end. Through one extremity is led a
platinum wire, terminating in a saucer-shaped platinum plate an inch or so
across. At the focus of this, the negative terminal, is fixed a platinum plate at
an angle to the path of the rays so as to deflect them through the side of the
tube. The positive terminal penetrates the glass at one side. The tube contains,
as we have seen, a very tiny residue of air. If this were entirely exhausted the
action of the tube would cease; so that some tubes are so arranged that when
rarefaction becomes too high the passage of an electrical current through
small bars of chemicals, whose ends project through the sides of the tube,
liberates gas from the bars in sufficient quantity to render the tube active
again.
When the Ruhmkorff induction coil is joined to the electric circuit a series of
violent discharges of great rapidity occur between the tube terminals,
resembling in their power the discharge of a Leyden jar, though for want of a
dense atmosphere the brilliant spark has been replaced by a glow and brush-
light in the tube. The coil is of large dimensions, capable of passing a spark
across an air-gap of ten to twelve inches. It will perhaps increase the reader’s
respect for X-rays to learn that a coil of proper size contains upwards of
thirteen miles of wire; though indeed this quantity is nothing in comparison
with the 150 miles wound on the huge inductorium formerly exhibited at the
London Polytechnic.
If we were invited to an X-ray demonstration we should find the operator and
his apparatus in a darkened room. He turns on the current and the darkness is
broken by a velvety glow surrounding the negative terminal, which gradually
extends until the whole tube becomes clothed in a green phosphorescence. A
sharply-defined line athwart the tube separates the shadowed part behind the
receiving plate at the negative focus—now intensely hot—from that on which
the reflected rays fall directly.
One of us is now invited to extend a hand close to the tube. The operator then
holds on the near side of the hand his fluorescent screen, which is nothing
more than a framework supporting a paper smeared on one side with platino-
cyanide of barium, a chemical that, in common with several others, was

discovered by Salvioni of Perugia to be sensitive to the rays and able to make
them visible to the human eye. The value of the screen to the X-radiographer
is that of the ground-glass plate to the ordinary photographer, as it allows him
to see exactly what things are before the sensitised plate is brought into
position, and in fact largely obviates the necessity for making a permanent
record.
The screen shows clearly and in full detail all the bones of the hand—so
clearly that one is almost irresistibly drawn to peep behind to see if a real
hand is there. One of us now extends an arm and the screen shows us the ulna
and the radius working round each other, now both visible, now one
obscuring the other. On presenting the body to the course of the rays a
remarkable shadow is cast on to the screen. The spinal column and the ribs;
the action of the heart and lungs are seen quite distinctly. A deep breath
causes the movement of a dark mass—the liver. There is no privacy in
presence of the rays. The enlarged heart, the diseased lung, the ulcerated liver
betrays itself at once. In a second of time the phosphorescent screen reveals
what might baulk medical examination for months.
If a photographic slide containing a dry-plate be substituted for the focusing-
screen, the rays soon penetrate any covering in which the plate may be
wrapped to protect it from ordinary light rays. The process of taking a
shadowgraph may therefore be conducted in broad daylight, which is under
certain conditions a great advantage, though the sensitiveness of plates
exposed to Röntgen rays entails special care being taken of them when they
are not in use. In the early days of X-radiography an exposure of some
minutes was necessary to secure a negative, but now, thanks to the
improvements in the tubes, a few seconds is often sufficient.
The discovery of the X-rays is a great discovery, because it has done much to
promote the noblest possible cause, the alleviation of human suffering. Not
everybody will appreciate a more rapid mode of telegraphy, or a new method
of spinning yarn, but the dullest intellect will give due credit to a scientific
process that helps to save life and limb. Who among us is not liable to break
an arm or leg, or suffer from internal injuries invisible to the eye? Who
among us therefore should not be thankful on reflecting that, in event of such
a mishap, the X-rays will be at hand to show just what the trouble is, how to
deal with it, and how far the healing advances day by day? The X-ray

apparatus is now as necessary for the proper equipment of a hospital as a
camera for that of a photographic studio.
It is especially welcome in the hospitals which accompany an army into the
field. Since May 1896 many a wounded soldier has had reason to bless the
patient work that led to the discovery at Würzburg. The Greek war, the war in
Cuba, the Tirah campaign, the Egyptian campaign, and the war in South
Africa, have given a quick succession of fine opportunities for putting the
new photography to the test. There is now small excuse for the useless and
agonising probings that once added to the dangers and horrors of the military
hospital. Even if the X-ray equipment, by reason of its weight, cannot
conveniently be kept at the front of a rapidly moving army, it can be set up in
the “advanced” or “base” hospitals, whither the wounded are sent after a first
rough dressing of their injuries. The medical staff there subject their patients
to the searching rays, are able to record the exact position of a bullet or shell-
fragment, and the damage it has done; and by promptly removing the intruder
to greatly lessen its power to harm.
The Röntgen ray has added to the surgeon’s armoury a powerful weapon. Its
possibilities are not yet fully known, but there can be no doubt that it marks a
new epoch in surgical work. And for this reason Professor Röntgen deserves
to rank with Harvey, the discoverer of the blood’s circulation; with Jenner,
the father of vaccination; and with Sir James Young Simpson, the first doctor
to use chloroform as an anæsthetic.

Photography in the Dark.
Strange as it seems to take photographs with invisible rays, it is still stranger
to be able to affect sensitised plates without apparently the presence of any
kind of rays.
Professor W. J. Russell, Vice-President of the Royal Society of London, has
discovered that many substances have the power of impressing their outlines
automatically on a sensitive film, if the substance be placed in a dark
cupboard in contact with, or very close to a dry-plate.
After some hours, or it may be days, development of the plate will reveal a
distinct impression of the body in question. Dr. Russell experimented with
wood, metal, leaves, drawings, printed matter, lace. Zinc proved to be an

unusually active agent. A plate of the metal, highly polished and then ruled
with patterns, had at the end of a few days imparted a record of every scratch
and mark to the plate. And not only will zinc impress itself, but it affects
substances which are not themselves active, throwing shadowgraphs on to the
plate. This was demonstrated with samples of lace, laid between a plate and a
small sheet of bright zinc; also with a skeleton leaf. It is curious that while
the interposition of thin films of celluloid, gutta-percha, vegetable parchment,
and gold-beater’s skin—all inactive—between the zinc and the plate has no
obstructive effect, a plate of thin glass counteracts the action of the zinc.
Besides zinc, nickel, aluminium, pewter, lead, and tin among the metals
influence a sensitised plate. Another totally different substance, printer’s ink,
has a similar power; or at least some printer’s ink, for Professor Russell
found that different samples varied greatly in their effects. What is especially
curious, the printed matter on both sides of a piece of newspaper appeared on
the plate, and that the effect proceeded from the ink and not from any rays
passing from beyond it is proved by the fact that the type came out dark in
the development, whereas if it had been a case of shadowgraphy, the ink by
intercepting rays would have produced white letters. Professor Russell has
also shown that modern writing ink is incapable of producing an impression
unaided, but that on the other hand paper written on a hundred years ago or a
printed book centuries old will, with the help of zinc, yield a picture in which
even faded and uncertain characters appear quite distinctly. This opens the
way to a practical use of the discovery, in the deciphering of old and partly
obliterated manuscripts.
A very interesting experiment may be made with that useful possession—a
five-pound note. Place the note printed side next to the plate, and the printing
appears dark; but insert the note between a zinc sheet and the plate, its back
being this time towards the sensitised surface, and the printing appears white;
and the zinc, after contact with the printed side, will itself yield a picture of
the inscription as though it had absorbed some virtue from the note!
As explanation of this paradoxical dark photography—or whatever it is—two
theories may be advanced. The one—favoured by Professor Russell—is that
all “active” substances give off vapours able to act on a photographic plate.
In support of this may be urged the fact that the interposition of glass
prevents the making of dark pictures. But on the other hand it must be
remembered that celluloid and sheet-gelatine, also air-tight substances, are
able to store up light and to give it out again. It is well known among

photographers that to allow sunlight to fall on the inside of a camera is apt to
have a “fogging” effect on a plate that is exposed in the camera afterwards,
though the greatest care be taken to keep all external light from the plate. But
here the glass again presents a difficulty, for if this were a case of reflected
light, glass would evidently be less obstructive than opaque vegetable
parchment or gutta-percha.

SOLAR MOTORS.
One day George Stephenson and a friend stood watching a train drawn by
one of his locomotives.
“What moves that train?” asked Stephenson.
“The engine,” replied his friend.
“And what moves the engine?”
“The steam.”
“And what produces the steam?”
“Coal.”
“And what produces coal?”
This last query nonplussed his friend, and Stephenson himself replied, “The
sun.”
The “bottled sunshine” that drove the locomotive was stored up millions of
years ago in the dense forests then covering the face of the globe. Every day
vegetation was built by the sunbeams, and in the course of ages this growth
was crushed into fossil form by the pressure of high-piled rock and débris.
To-day we cast “black diamonds” into our grates and furnaces, to call out the
warmth and power that is a legacy from a period long prior to the advent of
fire-loving man, often forgetful of its real source.
We see the influence of the sun more directly in the motions of wind and
water. Had not the sun’s action deposited snow and rain on the uplands of the
world, there would be no roaring waterfall, no rushing torrent, no smooth-
flowing stream. But for the sun heating the atmosphere unequally, there
would not be that rushing of cool air to replace hot which we know as wind.
We press Sol into our service when we burn fuel; our wind-mills and water-
mills make him our slave. Of late years many prophets have arisen to warn us
that we must not be too lavish of our coal; that the time is not so far distant,

reckoning by centuries, when the coal-seams of the world will be worked out
and leave our descendants destitute of what plays so important a part in
modern life. Now, though waste is unpardonable, and the care for posterity
praiseworthy, there really seems to be no good reason why we should alarm
ourselves about the welfare of the people of the far future. Even if coal fails,
the winds and the rivers will be there, and the huge unharnessed energy of the
tides, and the sun himself is ready to answer appeals for help, if rightly
shaped. He does not demand the prayers of Persian fire-worshippers, but
rather the scientific gathering of his good gifts.
Place your hand on a roof lying square to the summer sun, and you will find
it too hot for the touch. Concentrate a beam of sunshine through a small
burning-glass. How fierce is the small glowing focal spot that makes us draw
our hands suddenly away! Suppose now a large glass many feet across
bending several square yards of sun rays to a point, and at that point a boiler.
The boiler would develop steam, and the steam might be led into cylinders
and forced to drudge for us.
Do many of us realise the enormous energy of a hot summer’s day? The heat
falling in the tropics on a single square foot of the earth’s surface has been
estimated as the equivalent of one-third of a horse-power. The force of
Niagara itself would on this basis be matched by the sunshine streaming on to
a square mile or so. A steamship might be propelled by the heat that scorches
its decks.
For many centuries inventors have tried to utilise this huge waste power. We
all know how, according to the story, Archimedes burnt up the Roman ships
besieging his native town, Syracuse, by concentrating on them the sun heat
cast from hundreds of mirrors. This story is less probable than interesting as a
proof that the ancients were aware of the sun’s power. The first genuine solar
machine was the work of Ericsson, the builder of the Monitor. He focused
sun heat on a boiler, which gave the equivalent of one horse-power for every
hundred square feet of mirrors employed. This was not what engineers would
call a “high efficiency,” a great deal of heat being wasted, but it led the way
to further improvements.
In America, especially in the dry, arid regions, where fuel is scarce and the
sun shines pitilessly day after day, all the year round, sun-catchers of various
types have been erected and worked successfully. Dr. William Calver, of

Washington, has built in the barren wastes of Arizona huge frames of mirrors,
travelling on circular rails, so that they may be brought to face the sun at all
hours between sunrise and sunset. Dr. Calver employs no less than 1600
mirrors. As each of these mirrors develops 10-15 degrees of heat it is
obvious, after an appeal to simple arithmetic, that the united efforts of these
reflectors should produce the tremendous temperature 16,000-24,000
degrees, which, expressed comparatively, means the paltry 90 degrees in the
shade beneath which we grow restive multiplied hundreds of times. Hitherto
the greatest known heat had been that of the arc of the electric lamp, in which
the incandescent particles between pole and pole attain 6000 degrees
Fahrenheit.
The combined effect of the burning mirrors is irresistible. They can, we are
told, in a few moments reduce Russian iron to the consistency of warmed
wax, though it mocks the heat of many blast-furnaces. They will bake bricks
twenty times as rapidly as any kiln, and the bricks produced are not the
friable blocks which a mason chips easily with his trowel, but bodies so hard
as to scratch case-hardened steel.
There are at work in California sun-motors of another design. The reader
must imagine a huge conical lamp-shade turned over on to its smaller end, its
inner surface lined with nearly 1800 mirrors 2 feet long and 3 inches broad,
the whole supported on a light iron framework, and he will have a good idea
of the apparatus used on the Pasadena ostrich farm. The machine is arranged
in meridian, that is, at right angles to the path of the sun, which it follows all
day long by the agency of clockwork. In the focus of the mirrors is a boiler,
13 feet 6 inches long, coated with black, heat-absorbing substances. This
boiler holds over 100 gallons of water, and being fed automatically will raise
steam untended all the day through. The steam is led by pipes to an engine
working a pump, capable of delivering 1400 gallons per minute.
The cheapness of the apparatus in proportion to its utility is so marked that,
in regions where sunshine is almost perpetual, the solar motor will in time
become as common as are windmills and factory chimneys elsewhere. If the
heat falling on a few square yards of mirror lifts nearly 100,000 gallons of
water an hour, there is indeed hope for the Sahara, the Persian Desert, Arabia,
Mongolia, Mexico, Australia. That is to say, if the water under the earth be in
these parts as plentiful as the sunshine above it. The effect of water on the
most unpromising soil is marvellous. Already in Algeria the French have

reclaimed thousands of square miles by scientific irrigation. In Australia huge
artesian wells have made habitable for man and beast millions of acres that
were before desert.
It is only a just retribution that the sun should be harnessed and compelled to
draw water for tracts to which he has so long denied it. The sun-motor is only
just entering on its useful career, and at present we can but dream of the great
effects it may have on future civilisation. Yet its principle is so simple, so
scientific, and so obvious, that it is easy to imagine it at no far distant date a
dangerous rival to King Coal himself. To quarry coal from the bowels of the
earth and transform it into heat, is to traverse two sides of a triangle, the third
being to use the sunshine of the passing hour.

LIQUID AIR.
Among common phenomena few are more interesting than the changes
undergone by the substance called water. Its usual form is a liquid. Under the
influence of frost it becomes hard as iron, brittle as glass. At the touch of fire
it passes into unsubstantial vapour.
This transformation illustrates the great principle that the form of every
substance in the universe is a question of heat. A metal transported from the
earth to the sun would first melt and then vaporise; while what we here know
only as vapours would in the moon turn into liquids.
We notice that, as regards bulk, the most striking change is from liquid to
gaseous form. In steam the atoms and molecules of water are endowed with
enormous repulsive vigour. Each atom suddenly shows a huge distaste for the
company of its neighbours, drives them off, and endeavours to occupy the
largest possible amount of private space.
Now, though we are accustomed to see water-atoms thus stirred into an
activity which gives us the giant steam as servant, it has probably fallen to
the lot of but few of us to encounter certain gaseous substances so utterly
deprived of their self-assertiveness as to collapse into a liquid mass, in which
shape they are quite strangers to us. What gaseous body do we know better
than the air we breathe? and what should we less expect to be reducible to the
consistency of water? Yet science has lately brought prominently into notice
that strange child of pressure and cold, Liquid Air; of which great things are
prophesied, and about which many strange facts may be told.
Very likely our readers have sometimes noticed a porter uncoupling the air-
tube between two railway carriages. He first turns off the tap at each end of
the tube, and then by a twist disconnects a joint in the centre. At the moment
of disconnection what appears to be a small cloud of steam issues from the
joint. This is, however, the result of cold, not heat, the tube being full of
highly-compressed air, which by its sudden expansion develops cold
sufficient to freeze any particles of moisture in the surrounding air.

Keep this in mind, and also what happens when you inflate your cycle-tyre.
The air-pump grows hotter and hotter as inflation proceeds: until at last, if of
metal, it becomes uncomfortably warm. The heat is caused by the forcing
together of air-molecules, and inasmuch as all force produces heat, your
strength is transformed into warmth.
In these two operations, compression and expansion, we have the key to the
creation of liquid air—the great power, as some say, of to-morrow.

By kind permission of The Liquid Air Co.
A view of the Liquid Air Co.’s factory at Pimlico. On the left are the three compressors,
squeezing the air at pressures of 90, 500 and 2,200 lbs. to the square inch respectively. On the
right is the reservoir in which the liquid is stored.

Suppose we take a volume of air and squeeze it into 1/100 of its original
space. The combativeness of the air-atoms is immensely increased. They
pound each other frantically, and become very hot in the process. Now, by
cooling the vessel in which they are, we rob them of their energy. They
become quiet, but they are much closer than before. Then imagine that all of
a sudden we let them loose again. The life is gone out of them, their heat has
departed, and on separating they shiver grievously. In other words, the heat
contained by the 1/100 volume is suddenly compelled to “spread itself thin”
over the whole volume: result—intense cold. And if this air be brought to
bear upon a second vessel filled likewise with compressed air, the cold will
be even more intense, until at last the air-atoms lose all their strength and
collapse into a liquid.

Liquid air is no new thing. Who first made it is uncertain. The credit has been
claimed for several people, among them Olzewski, a Pole, and Pictet, a
Swiss. As a mere laboratory experiment the manufacture of liquid air in small
quantities has been known for twenty years or more. The earlier process was
one of terrific compression alone, actually forcing the air molecules by sheer
strength into such close contact that their antagonism to one another was
temporarily overcome. So expensive was the process that the first ounce of
liquid air is estimated to have cost over £600!
In order to make liquid air an article of commerce the most important
condition was a wholesale decrease in cost of production. In 1857 C. W.
Siemens took out a patent for making the liquid on what is known as the
regenerative principle, whereby the compressed air is chilled by expanding a
part of it. Professor Dewar—a scientist well known for his researches in the
field of liquid gases—had in 1892 produced liquid air by a modification of
the principle at comparatively small cost; and other inventors have since then
still further reduced the expense, until at the present day there appears to be a
prospect of liquid air becoming cheap enough to prove a dangerous rival to
steam and electricity.
A company, known as the Liquid Air, Power and Automobile Company, has
established large plants in America and England for the manufacture of the
liquid on a commercial scale. The writer paid a visit to their depot in
Gillingham Street, London, where he was shown the process by Mr. Hans
Knudsen, the inventor of much of the machinery there used. The reader will
doubtless like to learn the “plain, unvarnished truth” about the creation of this
peculiar liquid, and to hear of the freaks in which it indulges—if indeed those
may be called freaks which are but obedience to the unchanging laws of
Nature.
On entering the factory the first thing that strikes the eye and ear is the
monstrous fifty horse-power gas-engine, pounding away with an energy that
shakes the whole building. From its ponderous flywheels great leather belts
pass to the compressors, three in number, by which the air, drawn from
outside the building through special purifiers, is subjected to an increasing
pressure. Three dials on the wall show exactly what is going on inside the
compressors. The first stands at 90 lbs. to the square inch, the second at 500,
and the third at 2200, or rather less than a ton pressure on the area of a penny!
The pistons of the low-pressure compressor is ten inches in diameter, but that

of the high pressure only two inches, or 1/25 of the area, so great is the
resistance to be overcome in the last stage of compression.
Now, if the cycle-pump heats our hands, it will be easily understood that the
temperature of the compressors is very high. They are water-jacketed like the
cylinders of a gas-engine, so that a circulating stream of cold water may
absorb some of the heat. The compressed air is passed through spiral tubes
winding through large tanks of water which fairly boils from the fierceness of
the heat of compression.
When the air has been sufficiently cooled it is allowed to pass into a small
chamber, expanding as it goes, and from the small into a larger chamber,
where the cold of expansion becomes so acute that the air-molecules collapse
into liquid, which collects in a special receptacle. Arrangements are made
whereby any vapour rising from the liquid passes through a space outside the
expansion chambers, so that it helps to cool the incoming air and is not
wasted.
The liquid-air tank is inside a great wooden case, carefully protected from the
heat of the atmosphere by non-conducting substances. A tap being turned, a
rush of vapour shoots out, soon followed by a clear, bluish liquid, which is
the air we breathe in a fresh guise.
A quantity of it is collected in a saucepan. It simmers at first, and presently
boils like water on a fire. The air-heat is by comparison so great that the
liquid cannot resist it, and strives to regain its former condition.
You may dip your finger into the saucepan—if you withdraw it again quickly
—without hurt. The cushion of air that your finger takes in with it protects
you against harm—for a moment. But if you held it in the liquid for a couple
of seconds you would be minus a digit. Pour a little over your coat sleeve. It
flows harmlessly to the ground, where it suddenly expands into a cloud of
chilly vapour.
Put some in a test tube and cork it up. The cork soon flies out with a report—
the pressure of the boiling air drives it. Now watch the boiling process. The
nitrogen being more volatile—as it boils at a lower temperature than oxygen
—passes off first, leaving the pure, blue oxygen. The temperature of this
liquid is over 312 degrees below zero (as far below the temperature of the air
we breathe as the temperature of molten lead is above it!). A tumbler of liquid

oxygen dipped into water is soon covered with a coating of ice, which can be
detached from the tumbler and itself used as a cup to hold the liquid. If a bit
of steel wire be now twisted round a lighted match and the whole dipped into
the cup, the steel flares fiercely and fuses into small pellets; which means that
an operation requiring 3000 degrees Fahrenheit has been accomplished in a
liquid 300 degrees below zero!
Liquid air has curious effects upon certain substances. It makes iron so brittle
that a ladle immersed for a few moments may be crushed in the hands; but,
curiously enough, it has a toughening effect on copper and brass. Meat, eggs,
fruit, and all bodies containing water become hard as steel and as breakable
as glass. Mercury is by it congealed to the consistency of iron; even alcohol,
that can brave the utmost Arctic cold, succumbs to it. The writer was present
when some thermometers, manufactured by Messrs. Negretti and Zambra,
were tested with liquid air. The spirit in the tubes rapidly descended to 250
degrees below zero, then sank slowly, and at about 260 degrees froze and
burst the bulb. The measuring of such extreme temperatures is a very difficult
matter in consequence of the inability of spirit to withstand them, and special
apparatus, registering cold by the shrinkage of metal, must be used for testing
some liquid gases, notably liquid hydrogen, which is so much colder than
liquid air that it actually freezes it into a solid ice form!
For handling and transporting liquid gases glass receptacles with a double
skin from which all air has been exhausted are employed. The surrounding
vacuum is so perfect an insulator that a “Dewar bulb” full of liquid air
scarcely cools the hand, though the intervening space is less than an inch.
This fact is hard to square with the assertion of scientific men that our
atmosphere extends but a hundred or two miles from the earth’s surface, and
that the recesses of space are a vacuum. If it were so, how would heat reach
us from the sun, ninety-two millions of miles away?
One use at least for liquid air is sufficiently obvious. As a refrigerating agent
it is unequalled. Bulk for bulk its effect is of course far greater than that of
ice; and it has this advantage over other freezing compounds, that whereas
slow freezing has a destructive effect upon the tissues of meat and fruit, the
instantaneous action of liquid air has no bad results when the thing frozen is
thawed out again. The Liquid Air Company therefore proposes erecting
depôts at large ports for supplying ships, to preserve the food, cool the cabins
in the tropics, and, we hope, to alleviate some of the horrors of the stokehold.

Liquid air is already used in medical and surgical science. In surgery it is
substituted for anæsthetics, deadening any part of the body on which an
operation has to be performed. In fever hospitals, too, its cooling influence
will be welcomed; and liquid oxygen takes the places of compressed oxygen
for reviving the flickering flame of life. It will also prove invaluable for
divers and submarine boats.
In combination with oil and charcoal liquid air, under the name of
“oxyliquit,” becomes a powerful blasting agent. Cartridges of paper filled
with the oil and charcoal are provided with a firing primer. When everything
is ready for the blasting the cartridges are dropped into a vessel full of liquid
air, saturated, placed in position, and exploded. Mr. Knudsen assured the
writer that oxyliquit is twice as powerful as nitro-glycerine, and its cost but
one-third of that of the other explosive. It is also safer to handle, for in case
of a misfire the cartridge becomes harmless in a few minutes, after the liquid
air has evaporated.
But the greatest use will be found for liquid air when it exerts its force less
violently. It is the result of power; its condition is abnormal; and its return to
its ordinary state is accompanied by a great development of energy. If it be
placed in a closed vessel it is capable of exerting a pressure of 12,000 lbs. to
the square inch. Its return to atmospheric condition may be regulated by
exposing it more or less to the heat of the atmosphere. So long as it remains
liquid it represents so much stored force, like the electricity stored in
accumulators. The Liquid Air Company have at their Gillingham Street depôt
a neat little motor car worked by liquid air. A copper reservoir, carefully
protected, is filled with the liquid, which is by mechanical means squirted
into coils, in which it rapidly expands, and from them passes to the cylinders.
A charge of eighteen gallons will move the car forty miles at an average pace
of twelve miles an hour, without any of the noise, dirt, smell, or vapour
inseparable from the employment of steam or petroleum. The speed of the car
is regulated by the amount of liquid injected into the expansion coils.
We now come to the question of cost—the unromantic balance in which new
discoveries are weighed and many found wanting. The storage of liquid air is
feasible for long periods. (A large vacuum bulb filled and exposed to the
atmosphere had some of the liquid still unevaporated at the end of twenty-
two days.) But will it be too costly for ordinary practical purposes now
served by steam and electricity? The managers of the Liquid Air Company,

while deprecating extravagant prophecies about the future of their
commodity, are nevertheless confident that it has “come to stay.” With the
small 50 horse-power plant its production costs upwards of one shilling a
gallon, but with much larger plant of 1000 horse-power they calculate that the
expenses will be covered and a profit left if they retail it at but one penny the
gallon. This great reduction in cost arises from the economising of “waste
energy.” In the first place the power of expansion previous to the liquefaction
of the compressed air will be utilised to work motors. Secondly, the heat of
the cooling tanks will be turned to account, and even the “exhaust” of a motor
would be cold enough for ordinary refrigerating. It is, of course, impossible
to get more out of a thing than has been put into it; and liquid air will
therefore not develop even as much power as was required to form it. But its
handiness and cleanliness strongly recommend it for many purposes, as we
have seen; and as soon as it is turned out in large quantities new uses will be
found for it. Perhaps the day will come when liquid-air motors will replace
the petrol car, and in every village we shall see hung out the sign, “Liquid air
sold here.” As the French say, “Qui vivra verra.”

HORSELESS CARRIAGES.
A body of enterprising Manchester merchants, in the year 1754, put on the
road a “flying coach,” which, according to their special advertisement,
would, “however incredible it may appear, actually, barring accidents, arrive
in London in four and a half days after leaving Manchester.” According to the
Lord Chancellor of the time such swift travelling was considered dangerous
as well as wonderful—the condition of the roads might well make it so—and
also injurious to health. “I was gravely advised,” he says, “to stay a day in
York on my journey between Edinburgh and London, as several passengers
who had gone through without stopping had died of apoplexy from the
rapidity of the motion.”
As the coach took a fortnight to pass from the Scotch to the English capital,
at an average pace of between three and four miles an hour, it is probable that
the Chancellor’s advisers would be very seriously indisposed by the mere
sight of a motor-car whirling along in its attendant cloud of dust, could they
be resuscitated for the purpose. And we, on the other hand, should prefer to
get out and walk to “flying” at the safe speed of their mail coaches.

By kind permission of The Speedwell Motor Co.
M. Serpollet on the “Easter Egg,” which at Nice covered a kilometre in the record time of 29-
4/5 secs. (over 75 miles per hour). This car is run with steam.

The improvement of highroads, and road-making generally, accelerated the
rate of posting. In the first quarter of the nineteenth century an average of ten
or even twelve miles an hour was maintained on the Bath Road. But that pace
was considered inadequate when the era of the “iron horse” commenced, and
the decay of stage-driving followed hard upon the growth of railways. What
should have been the natural successor of the stage-coach was driven from
the road by ill-advised legislation, which gave the railroads a monopoly of
swift transport, which has but lately been removed.
The history of the steam-coach, steam-carriage, automobile, motor-car—to
give it its successive names—is in a manner unique, showing as it does,
instead of steady development of a practical means of locomotion, a sudden
and decisive check to an invention worthy of far better treatment than it
received. The compiler of even a short survey of the automobile’s career is
obliged to divide his account into two main portions, linked together by a few
solitary engineering achievements.

The first period (1800-1836), will, without any desire to arrogate for England
more than her due or to belittle the efforts of any other nations, be termed the
English period, since in it England took the lead, and produced by far the
greatest number of steam-carriages. The second (1870 to the present day)
may, with equal justice, be styled the Continental period, as witnessing the
great developments made in automobilism by French, German, Belgian, and
American engineers: England, for reasons that will be presently noticed,
being until quite recently too heavily handicapped to take a part in the
advance.
Historical.—It is impossible to discover who made the first self-moving
carriage. In the sixteenth century one Johann Haustach, a Nuremberg
watchmaker, produced a vehicle that derived its motive power from coiled
springs, and was in fact a large edition of our modern clockwork toys. About
the same time the Dutch, and among them especially one Simon Stevin, fitted
carriages with sails, and there are records of a steam-carriage as early as the
same century.
But the first practical, and at least semi-successful, automobile driven by
internal force was undoubtedly that of a Frenchman, Nicholas Joseph Cugnot,
who justly merits the title of father of automobilism. His machine, which is
to-day one of the most treasured exhibits in the Paris Museum of Arts and
Crafts, consisted of a large carriage, having in front a pivoted platform
bearing the machinery, and resting on a solid wheel, which propelled as well
as steered the vehicle. The boiler, of stout riveted copper plates, had below it
an enclosed furnace, from which the flames passed upwards through the
water through a funnel. A couple of cylinders, provided with a simple
reversing gear, worked a ratchet that communicated motion to the driving-
wheel. This carriage did not travel beyond a very slow walking pace, and
Cugnot therefore added certain improvements, after which (1770) it reached
the still very moderate speed of four miles an hour, and distinguished itself by
charging and knocking down a wall, a feat that is said to have for a time
deterred engineers from developing a seemingly dangerous mode of
progression.
Ten years later Dallery built a steam car, and ran it in the streets of Amiens—
we are not told with what success; and before any further advance had been
made with the automobile the French Revolution put a stop to all inventions
of a peaceful character among our neighbours.

In England, however, steam had already been recognised as the coming
power. Richard Trevethick, afterwards to become famous as a railroad
engineer, built a steam motor in 1802, and actually drove it from Cambourne
to Plymouth, a distance of ninety miles. But instead of following up this
success, he forsook steam-carriages for the construction of locomotives,
leaving his idea to be expanded by other men, who were convinced that a
vehicle which could be driven over existing roads was preferable to one that
was helpless when separated from smooth metal rails. Between the years
1800 and 1836 many steam vehicles for road traffic appeared from time to
time, some, such as David Gordon’s (propelled by metal legs pressing upon
the ground), strangely unpractical, but the majority showing a steady
improvement in mechanical design.
As it will be impossible, without writing a small book, to name all the
English constructors of this period, we must rest content with the mention of
the leading pioneers of the new locomotion.
Sir Goldsworthy Gurney, an eminent chemist, did for mechanical road
propulsion what George Stephenson was doing for railway development. He
boldly spent large sums on experimental vehicles, which took the form of six-
wheeled coaches. The earliest of these were fitted with legs as well as
driving-wheels, since he thought that in difficult country wheels alone would
not have sufficient grip. (A similar fallacy was responsible for the cogged
wheels on the first railways.) But in the later types legs were abandoned as
unnecessary. His coaches easily climbed the steepest hills round London,
including Highgate Hill, though a thoughtful mathematician had proved by
calculations that a steam-carriage, so far from mounting a gradient, could not,
without violating all natural laws, so much as move itself on the level!
Having satisfied himself of their power, Gurney took his coaches further
afield. In 1829 was published the first account of a motor trip made by him
and three companions through Reading, Devizes, and Melksham. The pace
was, we read, at first only about six miles an hour, including stoppages. They
drove very carefully to avoid injury to the persons or feelings of the country
folk; but at Melksham, where a fair was in progress, they had to face a
shower of stones, hurled by a crowd of roughs at the instigation of some
coaching postilions, who feared losing their livelihood if the new method of
locomotion became general. Two of the tourists were severely hurt, and
Gurney was obliged to take shelter in a brewery, where constables guarded

his coach. On the return journey the party timed their movements so as to
pass through Melksham while the inhabitants were all safely in bed.
The coach ran most satisfactorily, improving every mile. “Our pace was so
rapid,” wrote one of the company, “that the horses of the mail-cart which
accompanied us were hard put to it to keep up with us. At the foot of Devizes
Hill we met a coach and another vehicle, which stopped to see us mount this
hill, an extremely steep one. We ascended it at a rapid rate. The coach and
passengers, delighted at this unexpected sight, honoured us with shouts of
applause.”
In 1830 Messrs. Ogle and Summers completely beat the road record on a
vehicle fitted with a tubular boiler. This car, put through its trials before a
Special Commission of the House of Commons, attained the astonishing
speed of 35 miles an hour on the level, and mounted a hill near Southampton
at 24-1/2 miles an hour. It worked at a boiler pressure of 250 lbs. to the
square inch, and though not hung on springs, ran 800 miles without a
breakdown. This performance appears all the more extraordinary when we
remember the roads of that day were not generally as good as they are now,
and that in the previous year Stephenson’s “Rocket,” running on rails, had not
reached a higher velocity.
The report of the Parliamentary Commission on horseless carriages was most
favourable. It urged that the steam-driven car was swifter and lighter than the
mail-coaches; better able to climb and descend hills; safer; more economical;
and less injurious to the roads; and, in conclusion, that the heavy charges
levied at the toll-gates (often twenty times those on horse vehicles) were
nothing short of iniquitous.
As a result of this report, motor services, inaugurated by Walter Hancock,
Braithwayte, and others, commenced between Paddington and the Bank,
London and Greenwich, London and Windsor, London and Stratford.
Already, in 1829, Sir Charles Dance had a steam-coach running between
Cheltenham and Gloucester. In four months it ran 3500 miles and carried
3000 passengers, traversing the nine miles in three-quarters of an hour;
although narrow-minded landowners placed ridges of stone eighteen inches
deep on the road by way of protest.
The most ambitious service of all was that between London and Birmingham,
established in 1833 by Dr. Church. The rolling-stock consisted of a single

very much decorated coach.
The success of the road-steamer seemed now assured, when a cloud appeared
on the horizon. It had already been too successful. The railway companies
were up in arms. They saw plainly that if once the roads were covered with
vehicles able to transport the public at low fares quickly from door to door on
existing thoroughfares, the construction of expensive railroads would be
seriously hindered, if not altogether stopped. So, taking advantage of two
motor accidents, the companies appealed to Parliament—full of horse-loving
squires and manufacturers, who scented profit in the railways—and though
scientific opinion ran strongly in favour of the steam-coach, a law was passed
in 1836 which rendered the steamers harmless by robbing them of their
speed. The fiat went forth that in future every road locomotive should be
preceded at a distance of a hundred yards by a man on foot carrying a red
flag to warn passengers of its approach. This law marks the end of the first
period of automobilism as far as England is concerned. At one blow it
crippled a great industry, deprived the community of a very valuable means
of transport, and crushed the energies of many clever inventors who would
soon, if we may judge by the rapid advances already made in construction,
have brought the steam-carriage to a high pitch of perfection. In the very year
in which they were suppressed the steam services had proved their efficiency
and safety. Hancock’s London service alone traversed 4200 miles without
serious accident, and was so popular that the coaches were generally
crowded. It is therefore hard to believe that these vehicles did not supply a
public want, or that they were regarded by those who used them as in any
way inferior to horse-drawn coaches. Yet ignorant prejudice drove them off
the road for sixty years; and to-day it surprises many Englishmen to learn that
what is generally considered a novel method of travelling was already fairly
well developed in the time of their grandfathers.
Second Period (1870 onwards).—To follow the further development of the
automobile we must cross the Channel once again. French invention had not
been idle while Gurney and Hancock were building their coaches. In 1835 M.
Dietz established a service between Versailles and Paris, and the same year
M. D’Asda carried out some successful trials of his steam “diligence” under
the eyes of Royalty. But we find that for the next thirty-five years the steam-
carriage was not much improved, owing to want of capital among its French
admirers. No Gurney appeared, ready to spend his thousands in
experimenting; also, though the law left road locomotion unrestricted, the

railways offered a determined opposition to a possibly dangerous rival. So
that, on the whole, road transport by steam fared badly till after the terrible
Franco-Prussian war, when inventors again took courage. M. Bollée, of
Mans, built in 1873 a car, “l’Obéissante,” which ran from Mans to Paris; and
became the subject of allusions in popular songs and plays, while its name
was held up as an example to the Paris ladies. Three years later he
constructed a steam omnibus to carry fifty persons, and in 1878 exhibited a
car that journeyed at the rate of eighteen miles an hour from Paris to Vienna,
where it aroused great admiration.
After the year 1880 French engineers divided their attention between the
heavy motor omnibus and light vehicles for pleasure parties. In 1884 MM.
Bouton and Trépardoux, working conjointly with the Comte de Dion,
produced a steam-driven tricycle, and in 1887 M. Serpollet followed suit with
another, fitted with the peculiar form of steam generator that bears his name.
Then came in 1890 a very important innovation, which has made
automobilism what it now is. Gottlieb Daimler, a German engineer,
introduced the petrol gas-motor. Its comparative lightness and simplicity at
once stamped it as the thing for which makers were waiting. Petrol-driven
vehicles were soon abroad in considerable numbers and varieties, but they
did not attract public attention to any great extent until, in 1894, M. Pierre
Giffard, an editor of the Petit Journal, organised a motor race from Paris to
Rouen. The proprietors of the paper offered handsome prizes to the
successful competitors. There were ten starters, some on steam, others on
petrol cars. The race showed that, so far as stability went, Daimler’s engine
was the equal of the steam cylinder. The next year another race of a more
ambitious character was held, the course being from Paris to Bordeaux and
back. Subscriptions for prizes flowed in freely. Serpollet, de Dion, and Bollée
prepared steam cars that should win back for steam its lost supremacy, while
the petrol faction secretly built motors of a strength to relegate steam once
and for all to a back place. Electricity, too, made a bid unsuccessfully for the
prize in the Jeantaud car, a special train being engaged in advance to
distribute charged accumulators over the route. The steamers broke down
soon after the start, so that the petrol cars “walked over” and won a most
decisive victory.
The interest roused in the race led the Comte de Dion to found the
Automobile Club of France, which drew together all the enthusiastic
admirers of the new locomotion. Automobilism now became a sport, a craze.

The French, with their fine straight roads, and a not too deeply ingrained love
of horseflesh, gladly welcomed the flying car, despite its noisy and
malodorous properties.
Orders flowed in so freely that the motor makers could not keep pace with
the demand, or promise delivery within eighteen months. Rich men were
therefore obliged to pay double prices if they could find any one willing to
sell—a state of things that remains unto this day with certain makes of
French cars. Poorer folks contented themselves with De Dion motor tricycles,
which showed up so well in the 1896 Paris-Marseilles race; or with the neat
little three-wheeled cars of M. Bollée. Motor racing became the topic of the
hour. Journals were started for the sole purpose of recording the doings of
motorists; and few newspapers of any popularity omitted a special column of
motor news. Successive contests on the highroads at increasing speeds
attracted increased interest. The black-goggled, fur-clad chauffeur who
carried off the prizes found himself a hero.
In short, the hold which automobilism has over our neighbours may be
gauged from the fact that in 1901 it was estimated that nearly a thousand
motor cars assembled to see the sport on the Longchamps Course (the scene
of that ultra-“horsey” event, the Grand Prix), and the real interest of the meet
did not centre round horses of flesh and blood.
The French have not a monopoly of devotion to automobilism. The speedy
motor car is too much in accord with the bustling spirit of the age; its delights
too easily appreciated to be confined to one country. Allowing France the first
place, America, Germany, and Belgium are not far behind in their addiction
to the “sport,” and even in Britain, partially freed since 1896 from the red-
flag tyranny, thanks to the efforts of Sir David Salomons, there are most
visible signs that the era of the horse is beginning its end.

Types of Car.
Automobiles may be classified according to the purpose they serve,
according to their size and weight, or according to their motive power. We
will first review them under the latter head.
A. Petrol.—The petrol motor, suitable alike for large cars of 40 to 60 horse-
power and for the small bicycle weighing 70 lbs. or so, at present

undoubtedly occupies the first place in popular estimation on account of its
comparative simplicity, which more than compensates certain defects that
affect persons off the vehicle more than those on it—smell and noise.
The chief feature of the internal explosion motor is that at one operation it
converts fuel directly into energy, by exploding it inside a cylinder. It is
herein more economical than steam, which loses power while passing from
the boiler to the driving-gear.
Petrol cycles and small cars have usually only one cylinder, but large vehicles
carry two, three, and sometimes four cylinders. Four and more avoid that
bugbear of rotary motion, “dead points,” during which the momentum of the
machinery alone is doing work; and for that reason the engines of racing cars
are often quadrupled.
For the sake of simplicity we will describe the working of a single cylinder,
leaving the reader to imagine it acting alone or in concert with others as he
pleases.
In the first place the fuel, petrol, is a very inflammable distillation of
petroleum: so ready to ignite that it must be most rigorously guarded from
naked lights; so quick to evaporate that the receptacles containing it, if not
quite airtight, will soon render it “stale” and unprofitable for motor driving.
The engine, to mention its most important parts, consists of a single-action
cylinder (giving a thrust one way only); a heavy flywheel revolving in an
airtight circular case, and connected to the piston by a hinged rod which
converts the reciprocating movement of the piston into a rotary movement of
the crank-shaft built in with the wheel; inlet and outlet valves; a carburettor
for generating petrol gas, and a device to ignite the gas-and-air mixture in the
cylinder.
The action of the engine is as follows: as the piston moves outwards in its
first stroke it sucks through the inlet valve a quantity of mixed air and gas,
the proportions of which are regulated by special taps. The stroke ended, the
piston returns, compressing the mixture and rendering it more combustible.
Just as the piston commences its second outward stroke an electric spark
passed through the mixture mechanically ignites it, and creates an explosion,
which drives the piston violently forwards. The second return forces the burnt
gas through the exhaust-valve, which is lifted by cog-gear once in every two

revolutions of the crank, into the “silencer.” The cycle of operations is then
repeated.
We see that during three-quarters of the “cycle”—the suction, compression,
and expulsion—the work is performed entirely by the flywheel. It follows
that a single-cylinder motor, to work at all, must rotate the wheel at a high
rate. Once stopped, it can be restarted only by the action of the handle or
pedals; a task often so unpleasant and laborious that the driver of a car, when
he comes to rest for a short time only, disconnects his motor from the driving-
gear and lets it throb away idly beneath him.
The means of igniting the gas in the cylinders may be either a Bunsen burner
or an electric spark. Tube ignition is generally considered inferior to electrical
because it does not permit “timing” of the explosion. Large cars are often
fitted with both systems, so as to have one in reserve should the other break
down.
Electrical ignition is most commonly produced by the aid of an intensity coil,
which consists of an inner core of coarse insulated wire, called the primary
coil; and an outer, or secondary coil, of very fine wire. A current passes at
intervals, timed by a cam on the exhaust-valve gear working a make-and-
break contact blade, from an accumulator through the primary coil, exciting
by induction a current of much greater intensity in the secondary. The
secondary is connected to a “sparking plug,” which screws into the end of the
cylinder, and carries two platinum points about 1/32 of an inch apart. The
secondary current leaps this little gap in the circuit, and the spark, being
intensely hot, fires the compressed gas. Instead of accumulators a small
dynamo, driven by the motor, is sometimes used to produce the primary
current.
By moving a small lever, known as the “advancing lever,” the driver can
control the time of explosion relatively to the compression of the gas, and
raise or lower the speed of the motor.
The strokes of the petrol-driven cylinder are very rapid, varying from 1000 to
3000 a minute. The heat of very frequent explosions would soon make the
cylinder too hot to work were not measures adopted to keep it cool. Small
cylinders, such as are carried on motor cycles, are sufficiently cooled by a
number of radiating ribs cast in a piece with the cylinder itself; but for large
machines a water jacket or tank surrounding the cylinder is a necessity. Water

is circulated through the jacket by means of a small centrifugal pump
working off the driving gear, and through a coil of pipes fixed in the front of
the car to catch the draught of progression. So long as the jacket and tubes are
full of water the temperature of the cylinder cannot rise above boiling point.
Motion is transmitted from the motor to the driving-wheels by intermediate
gear, which in cycles may be only a leather band or couple of cogs, but in
cars is more or less complicated. Under the body of the car, running usually
across it, is the countershaft, fitted at each end with a small cog which drives
a chain passing also over much larger cogs fixed to the driving-wheels. The
countershaft engages with the cylinder mechanism by a “friction-clutch,” a
couple of circular faces which can be pressed against one another by a lever.
To start his car the driver allows the motor to obtain a considerable
momentum, and then, using the friction lever, brings more and more stress on
to the countershaft until the friction-clutch overcomes the inertia of the car
and produces movement.
Gearing suitable for level stretches would not be sufficiently powerful for
hills: the motor would slow and probably stop from want of momentum. A
car is therefore fitted with changing gears, which give two or three speeds,
the lower for ascents, the higher for the level: and on declines the friction-
clutch can be released, allowing the car to “coast.”
B. Steam Cars.—Though the petrol car has come to the front of late years it
still has a powerful rival in the steam car. Inventors have made strenuous
efforts to provide steam-engines light enough to be suitable for small pleasure
cars. At present the Locomobile (American) and Serpollet (French) systems
are increasing their popularity. The Locomobile, the cost of which (about
£120) contrasts favourably with that of even the cheaper petrol cars, has a
small multitubular boiler wound on the outside with two or three layers of
piano wire, to render it safe at high pressures. As the boiler is placed under
the seat it is only fit and proper that it should have a large margin of safety.
The fuel, petrol, is passed through a specially designed burner, pierced with
hundreds of fine holes arranged in circles round air inlets. The feed-supply to
the burner is governed by a spring valve, which cuts off the petrol
automatically as soon as the steam in the boiler reaches a certain pressure.
The locomobile runs very evenly and smoothly, and with very little noise, a
welcome change after the very audible explosion motor.

The Serpollet system is a peculiar method of generating steam. The boiler is
merely a long coil of tubing, into which a small jet of water is squirted by a
pump at every stroke of the cylinders. The steam is generated and used in a
moment, and the speed of the machine is regulated by the amount of water
thrown by the pumps. By an ingenious device the fuel supply is controlled in
combination with the water supply, so that there may not be any undue waste
in the burner.
C. Electricity.—Of electric cars there are many patterns, but at present they
are not commercially so practical as the other two types. The great drawbacks
to electrically-driven cars are the weight of the accumulators (which often
scale nearly as much as all the rest of the vehicle), and the difficulty of
getting them recharged when exhausted. We might add to these the rapidity
with which the accumulators become worn out, and the consequent expense
of renewal. T. A. Edison is reported at work on an accumulator which will
surpass all hitherto constructed, having a much longer life, and weighing very
much less, power for power. The longest continuous run ever made with
electricity, 187 miles at Chicago, compares badly with the feat of a petrol car
which on November 23, 1900, travelled a thousand miles on the Crystal
Palace track in 48 hours 24 minutes, without a single stop. Successful
attempts have been made by MM. Pieper and Jenatsky to combine the petrol
and electric systems, by an arrangement which instead of wasting power in
the cylinders when less speed is required, throws into action electric dynamos
to store up energy, convertible, when needed, into motive power by reversing
the dynamo into a motor. But the simple electric car will not be a universal
favourite until either accumulators are so light that a very large store of
electricity can be carried without inconvenient addition of weight, or until
charging stations are erected all over the country at distances of fifty miles or
so apart.
Whether steam will eventually get the upper hand of the petrol engine is at
present uncertain. The steam car has the advantage over the gas-engine car in
ease of starting, the delicate regulation of power, facility of reversing,
absence of vibration, noise and smell, and freedom from complicated gears.
On the other hand the petrol car has no boiler to get out of order or burst, no
troublesome gauges requiring constant attention, and there is small difficulty
about a supply of fuel. Petrol sufficient to give motive power for hundreds of
miles can be carried if need be; and as long as there is petrol on board the car
is ready for work at a moment’s notice. Judging by the number of the various

types of vehicles actually at work we should say that while steam is best for
heavy traction, the gas-engine is most often employed on pleasure cars.

By kind permission of The Liquid Air Co.
This graceful little motor-car is driven by Liquid Air. It makes absolutely no smell or noise.

D. Liquid Air will also have to be reckoned with as a motive power. At
present it is only on its probation; but the writer has good authority for stating
that before these words appear in print there will be on the roads a car driven
by liquid air, and able to turn off eighty miles in the hour.
Manufacture.—As the English were the pioneers of the steam car, so are the
Germans and French the chief manufacturers of the petrol car. While the
hands of English manufacturers were tied by shortsighted legislation,
continental nations were inventing and controlling valuable patents, so that
even now our manufacturers are greatly handicapped. Large numbers of
petrol cars are imported annually from France, Germany, and Belgium. Steam
cars come chiefly from America and France. The former country sent us
nearly 2000 vehicles in 1901. There are signs, however, that English

engineers mean to make a determined effort to recover lost ground; and it is
satisfactory to learn that in heavy steam vehicles, such as are turned out by
Thorneycroft and Co., this country holds the lead. We will hope that in a few
years we shall be exporters in turn.
Having glanced at the history and nature of the various types of car, it will be
interesting to turn to a consideration of their travelling capacities. As we have
seen, a steam omnibus attained, in 1830, a speed of no less than thirty-five
miles an hour on what we should call bad roads. It is therefore to be expected
that on good modern roads the latest types of car would be able to eclipse the
records of seventy years ago. That such has indeed been the case is evident
when we examine the performances of cars in races organised as tests of
speed. France, with its straight, beautifully-kept, military roads, is the country
par excellence for the chauffeur. One has only to glance at the map to see
how the main highways conform to Euclid’s dictum that a straight line is the
shortest distance between any two points, e.g. between Rouen and Dieppe,
where a park of artillery, well posted, could rake the road either way for
miles.
The growth of speed in the French races is remarkable. In 1894 the winning
car ran at a mean velocity of thirteen miles an hour; in 1895, of fifteen. The
year 1898 witnessed a great advance to twenty-three miles, and the next year
to thirty miles. But all these speeds paled before that of the Paris to Bordeaux
race of 1901, in which the winner, M. Fournier, traversed the distance of 327-
1/2 miles at a rate of 53-3/4 miles per hour! The famous Sud express, running
between the same cities, and considered the fastest long-distance express in
the world, was beaten by a full hour. It is interesting to note that in the same
races a motor bicycle, a Werner, weighing 80 lbs. or less, successfully
accomplished the course at an average rate of nearly thirty miles an hour. The
motor-car, after waiting seventy years, had had its revenge on the railways.
This was not the only occasion on which an express service showed up badly
against its nimble rival of the roads. In June, 1901, the French and German
authorities forgot old animosities in a common enthusiasm for the
automobile, and organised a race between Paris and Berlin. It was to be a big
affair, in which the cars of all nations should fight for the speed
championship. Every possible precaution was taken to insure the safety of the
competitors and the spectators. Flags of various colours and placards marked
out the course, which lay through Rheims, Luxembourg, Coblentz, Frankfurt,

Eisenach, Leipsic, and Potsdam to the German capital. About fifty towns and
large villages were “neutralised”—that is to say, the competitors had to
consume a certain time in traversing them. At the entrance to each neutralised
zone a “control” was established. As soon as a competitor arrived, he must
slow down, and a card on which was written the time of his arrival was
handed to a “pilot,” who cycled in front of the car to the other “control” at the
farther end of the zone, from which, when the proper time had elapsed, the
car was dismissed. Among other rules were: that no car should be pushed or
pulled during the race by any one else than the passengers; that at the end of
the day only a certain time should be allowed for cleaning and repairs; and
that a limited number of persons, varying with the size of the car, should be
permitted to handle it during that period.
A small army of automobile club representatives, besides thousands of police
and soldiers, were distributed along the course to restrain the crowds of
spectators. It was absolutely imperative that for vehicles propelled at a rate of
from 50 to 60 miles an hour a clear path should be kept.
At dawn, on July 27th, 109 racing machines assembled at the Fort de
Champigny, outside Paris, in readiness to start for Berlin. Just before half-
past three, the first competitor received the signal; two minutes later the
second; and then at short intervals for three hours the remaining 107, among
whom was one lady, Mme. de Gast. At least 20,000 persons were present,
even at that early hour, to give the racers a hearty farewell, and demonstrate
the interest attaching in France to all things connected with automobilism.
Great excitement prevailed in Paris during the three days of the race. Every
few minutes telegrams arrived from posts on the route telling how the
competitors fared. The news showed that during the first stage at least a hard
fight for the leading place was in progress. The French cracks, Fournier,
Charron, De Knyff, Farman, and Girardot pressed hard on Hourgières, No. 2
at the starting-point. Fournier soon secured the lead, and those who
remembered his remarkable driving in the Paris-Bordeaux race at once
selected him as the winner. Aix-la-Chapelle, 283 miles from Paris and the end
of the first stage, was reached in 6 hours 28 minutes. Fournier first, De Knyff
second by six minutes.

By kind permission of The Liquid Air Co.
Diagram of the Liquid Air Motor-Car, showing A, reservoir of liquid air; B, pipes in which the
liquid is transformed into atmospheric air under great pressure; C, cylinders for driving the
rear wheels by means of chain-gear.

On the 28th the racing became furious. Several accidents occurred. Edge,
driving the only English car, wrecked his machine on a culvert, the sharp
curve of which flung the car into the air and broke its springs. Another ruined
his chances by running over and killing a boy. But Fournier, Antony, De
Knyff, and Girardot managed to avoid mishaps for that day, and covered the
ground at a tremendous pace. At Düsseldorf Girardot won the lead from
Fournier, to lose it again shortly. Antony, driving at a reckless speed, gained
ground all day, and arrived a close second at Hanover, the halting-place, after
a run averaging, in spite of bad roads and dangerous corners, no less than 54
miles an hour!
The chauffeur in such a race must indeed be a man of iron nerves. Through
the great black goggles which shelter his face from the dust-laden hurricane
set up by the speed he travels at he must keep a perpetual, piercingly keen

watch. Though travelling at express speed, there are no signals to help him;
he must be his own signalman as well as driver. He must mark every loose
stone on the road, every inequality, every sudden rise or depression; he must
calculate the curves at the corners and judge whether his mechanician,
hanging out on the inward side, will enable a car to round a turn without
slackening speed. His calculations and decisions must be made in the fraction
of a second, for a moment’s hesitation might be disaster. His driving must be
furious and not reckless; the timid chauffeur will never win, the careless one
will probably lose. His head must be cool although the car leaps beneath him
like a wild thing, and the wind lashes his face. At least one well-tried driver
found the mere mental strain too great to bear, and retired from the contest;
and we may be sure that few of the competitors slept much during the nights
of the race.
At four o’clock on the 29th Fournier started on the third stage, which
witnessed another bout of fast travelling. It was now a struggle between him
and Antony for first place. The pace rose at times to eighty miles an hour, a
speed at which our fastest expresses seldom travel. Such a speed means huge
risks, for stopping, even with the powerful brakes fitted to the large cars,
would be a matter of a hundred yards or more. Not far from Hanover Antony
met with an accident—Girardot now held second place; and Fournier finished
an easy first. All along the route crowds had cheered him, and hurled
bouquets into the car, and wished him good speed; but in Berlin the
assembled populace went nearly frantic at his appearance. Fournier was
overwhelmed with flowers, laurel wreaths, and other offerings; dukes,
duchesses, and the great people of the land pressed for presentations; he was
the hero of the hour.
Thus ended what may be termed a peaceful invasion of Germany by the
French. Among other things it had shown that over an immense stretch of
country, over roads in places bad as only German roads can be, the
automobile was able to maintain an average speed superior to that of the
express trains running between Paris and Berlin; also that, in spite of the
large number of cars employed in the race, the accidents to the public were a
negligible quantity. It should be mentioned that the actual time occupied by
Fournier was 16 hours 5 minutes; that out of the 109 starters 47 reached
Berlin; and that Osmont on a motor cycle finished only 3 hours and 10
minutes behind the winner.

In England such racing would be undesirable and impossible, owing to the
crookedness of our roads. It would certainly not be permissible so long as the
12 miles an hour limit is observed. At the present time an agitation is on foot
against this restriction, which, though reasonable enough among traffic and in
towns, appears unjustifiable in open country. To help to convince the
magisterial mind of the ease with which a car can be stopped, and therefore
of its safety even at comparatively high speeds, trials were held on January 2,
1902, in Welbeck Park. The results showed that a car travelling at 13 miles an
hour could be stopped dead in 4 yards; at 18 miles in 7 yards; at 20 miles in
13 yards; or in less than half the distance required to pull up a horse-vehicle
driven at similar speeds.
Uses.—Ninety-five per cent of motors, at least in England, are attached to
pleasure vehicles, cycles, voiturettes, and large cars. On account of the
costliness of cars motorists are far less numerous than cyclists; but those
people whose means enable them to indulge in automobilism find it
extremely fascinating. Caricaturists have presented to us in plenty the
gloomier incidents of motoring—the broken chain, the burst tyre, the
“something gone wrong.” It requires personal experience to understand how
lightly these mishaps weigh against the exhilaration of movement, the rapid
change of scene, the sensation of control over power which can whirl one
along tirelessly at a pace altogether beyond the capacities of horseflesh. If
proof were wanted of the motor car’s popularity it will be seen in the
unconventional dress of the chauffeur. The breeze set up by his rapid rush is
such as would penetrate ordinary clothing; he dons cumbrous fur cloaks. The
dust is all-pervading at times; he swathes himself in dust-proof overalls, and
mounts large goggles edged with velvet, while a cap of semi-nautical cut
tightly drawn down over neck and ears serves to protect those portions of his
anatomy. The general effect is peculiarly unpicturesque; but even the most
artistically-minded driver is ready to sacrifice appearances to comfort and the
proper enjoyment of his car.
In England the great grievance of motorists arises from the speed limit
imposed by law. To restrict a powerful car to twelve miles an hour is like
confining a thoroughbred to the paces of a broken-down cab horse. Careless
driving is unpardonable, but its occasional existence scarcely justifies the
intolerant attitude of the law towards motorists in general. It must, however,
be granted in justice to the police that the chauffeur, from constant

transgression of the law, becomes a bad judge of speed, and often travels at a
far greater velocity than he is willing to admit.
The convenience of the motor car for many purposes is immense, especially
for cross-country journeys, which may be made from door to door without
the monotony or indirectness of railway travel. It bears the doctor swiftly on
his rounds. It carries the business man from his country house to his office. It
delivers goods for the merchant; parcels for the post office.
In the warfare of the future, too, it will play its part, whether to drag heavy
ordnance and stores, or to move commanding officers from point to point, or
perform errands of mercy among the wounded. By the courtesy of the
Locomobile Company we are permitted to append the testimony of Captain
R. S. Walker, R.E., to the usefulness of a car during the great Boer War.
“Several months ago I noticed a locomobile car at Cape Town, and being
struck with its simplicity and neatness, bought it and took it up country with
me, with a view to making some tests with it over bad roads, &c. Its first trip
was over a rough course round Pretoria, especially chosen to find out defects
before taking it into regular use. Naturally, as the machine was not designed
for this class of work, there were several. In about a month these had all been
found out and remedied, and the car was in constant use, taking stores, &c.,
round the towns and forts. It also performed some very useful work in
visiting out-stations, where searchlights were either installed or wanted, and
in this way visited nearly all the bigger towns in the Transvaal. It was
possible to go round all the likely positions for a searchlight in one day at
every station, which frequently meant considerably over fifty miles of most
indifferent roads—more than a single horse could have been expected to do
—and the car generally carried two persons on these occasions. The car was
also used as a tender to a searchlight plant, on a gun-carriage and limber,
being utilised to fetch gasolene, carbons, water, &c., &c., and also to run the
dynamo for charging the accumulators used for sparking, thus saving running
the gasolene motor for this purpose. To do this the trail of the carriage, on
which was the dynamo, was lowered on to the ground, the back of the car
was pulled up, one wheel being supported on the dynamo pulley and the
other clear of the ground, and two bolts were passed through the balance-gear
to join it. On one occasion the car ran a 30 c.m. searchlight for an hour,
driving a dynamo in this way. In consequence of this a trailer has been made
to carry a dynamo and projector for searchlighting in the field, but so far this

has not been so used. The trailer hooks into an eye, passing just behind the
balance-gear. A Maxim, Colt, or small ammunition cart, &c., could be
attached to this same eye.
“Undoubtedly the best piece of work done by the car so far was its trial trip
with the trailer, when it blew up the mines at Klein Nek. These mines were
laid some eight months previously, and had never been looked to in the
interval. There had been several bad storms, the Boers and cattle had been
frequently through the Nek, it had been on fire, and finally it was shelled with
lyddite. The mines, eighteen in number, were found to be intact except two,
which presumably had been fired off by the heat of the veldt fire. All the
insulation was burnt off the wires, and the battery was useless. It had been
anticipated that a dynamo exploder would be inadequate to fire these mines,
so a 250 volt two h.p. motor, which happened to be in Pretoria, weighing
about three or four hundredweight, was placed on the trailer; a quarter of a
mile of insulated cable, some testing gear, the kits of three men and their
rations for three days, with a case of gasolene for the car, were also carried on
the car and trailer, and the whole left Pretoria one morning and trekked to
Rietfontein. Two of us were mounted, the third drove the car. At Rietfontein
we halted for the night, and started next morning with an escort through
Commando Nek, round the north of the Magaliesburg, to near Klein Nek,
where the road had to be left, and the car taken across country through bush
veldt. At the bottom the going was pretty easy; only a few bushes had to be
charged down, and the grass, &c., rather wound itself around the wheels and
chain. As the rise became steeper the stones became very large, and the car
had to be taken along very gingerly to prevent breaking the wheels. A halt
was made about a quarter of a mile from the top of the Nek, where the mines
were. These were reconnoitered, and the wire, &c., was picked up; that
portion which was useless was placed on top of the charges, and the
remainder taken to the car. The dynamo was slid off the trailer, the car backed
against it; one wheel was raised slightly and placed against the dynamo
pulley, which was held up to it by a man using his rifle as a lever; the other
wheel was on the ground with a stone under it. The balance gear being free,
the dynamo was excited without the other wheel moving, and the load being
on for a very short time (that is, from the time of touching lead on dynamo
terminal to firing of the mine) no harm could come to the car. When all the
leads had been joined to the dynamo the car was started, and after a short
time, when it was judged to have excited, the second terminal was touched, a

bang and clouds of dust resulted, and the Klein Nek Minefield had ceased to
exist. The day was extremely hot, and the work had not been light, so the tea,
made with water drawn direct from the boiler, which we were able to serve
round to the main body of our escort was much appreciated, and washed
down the surplus rations we dispensed with to accommodate the battery and
wire, which we could not leave behind for the enemy.
“On the return journey we found this extra load too much for the car, and had
great difficulty getting up to Commando Nek, frequently having to stop to get
up steam, so these materials were left at the first blockhouse, and the journey
home continued in comfort.
“A second night at Rietfontein gave us a rest after our labour, and the third
afternoon saw us on our way back to Pretoria. As luck would have it, a
sandstorm overtook the car, which had a lively time of it. The storm began by
blowing the sole occupant’s hat off, so, the two mounted men being a long
way behind, he shut off steam and chased his hat. In the meantime the wind
increased, and the car sailed off ‘on its own,’ and was only just caught in time
to save a smash. Luckily the gale was in the right direction, for the fire was
blown out, and it was impossible to light a match in the open. The car sailed
into a poort on the outskirts of Pretoria, got a tow from a friendly cart through
it, and then steamed home after the fire had been relit.
“The load carried on this occasion (without the battery, &c.) must have been
at least five hundredweight besides the driver, which, considering the car is
designed to carry two on ordinary roads, and that these roads were by no
means ordinary, was no mean feat. The car, as ordinarily equipped for
trekking, carries the following: Blankets, waterproof sheets, &c., for two
men; four planks for crossing ditches, bogs, stones, &c.; all necessary tools
and spare parts, a day’s supply of gasolene, a couple of telephones, and one
mile of wire. In addition, on the trailer, if used for searchlighting: One 30
c.m. projector, one automatic lamp for projector, one dynamo (100 volts 20
ampères), two short lengths of wire, two pairs of carbons, tools, &c. This
trailer would normally be carried with the baggage, and only picked up by the
car when wanted as a light; that is, as a rule, after arriving in camp, when a
good many other things could be left behind.”
Perhaps the most useful work in store for the motor is to help relieve the
congestion of our large towns and to restore to the country some of its lost

prosperity. There is no stronger inducement to make people live in the
country than rapid and safe means of locomotion, whether public or private.
At present the slow and congested suburban train services on some sides of
London consume as much time as would suffice a motor car to cover twice or
three times the distance. We must welcome any form of travel which will
tend to restore the balance between country and town by enabling the worker
to live far from his work. The gain to the health of the nation arising from
more even distribution of population would be inestimable.
A world’s tour is among the latest projects in automobilism. On April 29,
1902, Dr. Lehwess and nine friends started from Hyde Park Corner for a nine
months’ tour on three vehicles, the largest of them a luxuriously appointed 24
horse-power caravan, built to accommodate four persons. Their route lies
through France, Germany, Russia, Siberia, China, Japan, and the United
States.

HIGH-SPEED RAILWAYS.
A century ago a long journey was considered an exploit, and an exploit to be
carried through as quickly as possible on account of the dangers of the road
and the generally uncomfortable conditions of travel. To-day, though our
express speed is many times greater than that of the lumbering coaches, our
carriages comparatively luxurious, the risk practically nil, the same wish
lurks in the breast of ninety-nine out of a hundred railway passengers—to
spend the shortest time in the train that the time-table permits of. Time
differences that to our grandfathers would have appeared trifling are now
matters of sufficient importance to make rival railway companies anxious to
clip a few minutes off a 100-mile “run” simply because their passengers
appreciate a few minutes’ less confinement to the cars.
During the last fifty years the highest express speeds have not materially
altered. The Great Western Company in its early days ran trains from
Paddington to Slough, 18 miles, in 15-1/2 minutes, or at an average pace of
69-1/2 miles an hour.
On turning to the present regular express services of the world we find
America heading the list with a 50-mile run between Atlantic City and
Camden, covered at the average speed of 68 miles an hour; Britain second
with a 33-mile run between Forfar and Perth at 59 miles; and France a good
third with an hourly average of rather more than 58 miles between Les
Aubrais and S. Pierre des Corps. These runs are longer than that on the Great
Western Railway referred to above (which now occupies twenty-four
minutes), but their average velocity is less. What is the cause of this decrease
of speed? Not want of power in modern engines; at times our trains attain a
rate of 80 miles an hour, and in America a mile has been turned off in the
astonishing time of thirty-two seconds. We should rather seek it in the need
for economy and in the physical limitations imposed by the present system of
plate-laying and railroad engineering. An average speed of ninety miles an
hour would, as things now stand, be too wasteful of coal and too injurious to
the rolling-stock to yield profit to the proprietors of a line; and, except in
certain districts, would prove perilous for the passengers. Before our services
can be much improved the steam locomotive must be supplanted by some

other application of motive power, and the metals be laid in a manner which
will make special provision for extreme speed.
Since rapid transit is as much a matter of commercial importance as of mere
personal convenience it must not be supposed that an average of 50 miles an
hour will continue to meet the needs of travellers. Already practical
experiments have been made with two systems that promise us an ordinary
speed of 100 miles an hour and an express speed considerably higher.
One of these, the monorail or single-rail system, will be employed on a
railroad projected between Manchester and Liverpool. At present passengers
between these two cities—the first to be connected by a railroad of any kind
—enjoy the choice of three rival services covering 34-1/2 miles in three-
quarters of an hour. An eminent engineer, Mr. F. B. Behr, now wishes to add a
fourth of unprecedented swiftness. Parliamentary powers have been secured
for a line starting from Deansgate, Manchester, and terminating behind the
pro-Cathedral in Liverpool, on which single cars will run every ten minutes
at a velocity of 110 miles an hour.
A monorail track presents a rather curious appearance. The ordinary parallel
metals are replaced by a single rail carried on the summit of A-shaped
trestles, the legs of which are firmly bolted to sleepers. A monorail car is
divided lengthwise by a gap that allows it to hang half on either side of the
trestles and clear them as it moves. The double flanged wheels to carry and
drive the car are placed at the apex of the gap. As the “centre of gravity” is
below the rail the car cannot turn over, even when travelling round a sharp
curve.
The first railway built on this system was constructed by M. Charles
Lartigue, a French engineer, in Algeria, a district where an ordinary two-rail
track is often blocked by severe sand-storms. He derived the idea of
balancing trucks over an elevated rail from caravans of camels laden on each
flank with large bags. The camel, or rather its legs, was transformed by the
engineer’s eye into iron trestles, while its burden became a car. A line built as
a result of this observation, and supplied with mules as tractive power, has for
many years played an important part in the esparto-grass trade of Algeria.
In 1886 Mr. Behr decided that by applying steam to M. Lartigue’s system he
could make it successful as a means of transporting passengers and goods. He
accordingly set up in Tothill Fields, Westminster, on the site of the new

Roman Catholic Cathedral, a miniature railway which during nine months of
use showed that the monorail would be practical for heavy traffic, safe, and
more cheaply maintained than the ordinary double-metal railway. The train
travelled easily round very sharp curves and climbed unusually steep
gradients without slipping.
Mr. Behr was encouraged to construct a monorail in Kerry, between Listowel,
a country town famous for its butter, and Ballybunion, a seaside resort of
increasing popularity. The line, opened on the 28th of February 1888, has
worked most satisfactorily ever since, without injury to a single employé or
passenger.
On each side of the trestles, two feet below the apex, run two guide-rails,
against which press small wheels attached to the carriages to prevent undue
oscillation and “tipping” round curves. At the three stations there are, instead
of points, turn-tables or switches on to which the train runs for transference to
sidings.
Road traffic crosses the rail on drawbridges, which are very easily worked,
and which automatically set signals against the train. The bridges are in two
portions and act on the principle of the Tower Bridge, each half falling from a
perpendicular position towards the centre, where the ends rest on the rail,
specially strengthened at that spot to carry the extra weight. The locomotive
is a twin affair; has two boilers, two funnels, two fireboxes; can draw 240
tons on the level at fifteen miles an hour, and when running light travels a
mile in two minutes. The carriages, 18 feet long and carrying twelve
passengers on each side, are divided longitudinally into two parts. Trucks too
are used, mainly for the transport of sand—of which each carries three tons—
from Ballybunion to Listowel: and in the centre of each train is a queer-
looking vehicle serving as a bridge for any one who may wish to cross from
one side of the rail to the other.
Several lines on the pattern of the Ballybunion-Listowel have been erected in
different countries. Mr. Behr was not satisfied with his first success, however,
and determined to develop the monorail in the direction of fast travelling,
which he thought would be most easily attained on a trestle-track. In 1893 he
startled engineers by proposing a Lightning-Express service, to transport
passengers at a velocity of 120 miles an hour. But the project seemed too
ideal to tempt money from the pockets of financiers, and Mr. Behr soon saw

that if a high-speed railway after his own heart were constructed it must be at
his own expense. He had sufficient faith in his scheme to spend £40,000 on
an experimental track at the Brussels Exhibition of 1897. The exhibition was
in two parts, connected by an electric railway, the one at the capital, the other
at Tervueren, seven miles away. Mr. Behr built his line at Tervueren.
The greatest difficulty he encountered in its construction arose from the
opposition of landowners, mostly small peasant proprietors, who were
anxious to make advantageous terms before they would hear of the rail
passing through their lands. Until he had concluded two hundred separate
contracts, by most of which the peasants benefited, his platelayers could not
get to work. Apart from this opposition the conditions were not favourable.
He was obliged to bridge no less than ten roads; and the contour of the
country necessitated steep gradients, sharp curves, long cuttings and
embankments, the last of which, owing to a wet summer, could not be trusted
to stand quite firm. The track was doubled for three miles, passing at each
end round a curve of 1600 feet radius.
The rail ran about four feet above the track on trestles bolted down to steel
sleepers resting on ordinary ballast. The carriage—Mr. Behr used but one on
this line—weighed 68 tons, was 59 feet long and 11 feet wide, and could
accommodate one hundred persons. It was handsomely fitted up, and had
specially-shaped seats which neutralised the effect of rounding curves, and
ended fore and aft in a point, to overcome the wind-resistance in front and the
air-suction behind. Sixteen pairs of wheels on the under side of the carriage
engaged with the two pairs of guide rails flanking the trestles, and eight large
double-flanged wheels, 4-1/2 feet in diameter, carried the weight of the
vehicle. The inner four of these wheels were driven by as many powerful
electric motors contained, along with the guiding mechanism, in the lower
part of the car. The motors picked up current from the centre rail and from
another steel rail laid along the sleepers on porcelain insulators.
The top speed attained was about ninety miles an hour. On the close of the
Exhibition special experiments were made at the request of the Belgian,
French, and Russian Governments, with results that proved that the Behr
system deserved a trial on a much larger scale.
The engineer accordingly approached the British Government with a Bill for
the construction of a high-speed line between Liverpool and Manchester. A

Committee of the House of Commons rejected the Bill on representations of
the Salford Corporation. The Committee had to admit, nevertheless, that the
evidence called was mainly in favour of the system; and, the plans of the rail
having been altered to meet certain objections, Parliamentary consent was
obtained to commence operations when the necessary capital had been
subscribed. In a few years the great seaport and the great cotton town will
probably be within a few minutes’ run of each other.
A question that naturally arises in the mind of the reader is this: could the
cars, when travelling at 110 miles an hour, be arrested quickly enough to
avoid an accident if anything got on the line?
The Westinghouse air-brake has a retarding force of three miles a second. It
would therefore arrest a train travelling at 110 miles per hour in 37 seconds,
or 995 yards. Mr. Behr proposes to reinforce the Westinghouse with an
electric brake, composed of magnets 18 inches long, exerting on the guide
rails by means of current generated by the reversed motors an attractive force
of 200 lbs. per square inch. One great advantage of this brake is that its
efficiency is greatest when the speed of the train is highest and when it is
most needed. The united brakes are expected to stop the car in half the
distance of the Westinghouse alone; but they would not both be applied
except in emergencies. Under ordinary conditions the slowing of a car would
take place only at the termini, where the line ascends gradients into the
stations. There would, however, be small chance of collisions, the railway
being securely fenced off throughout its entire length, and free from level
crossings, drawbridges and points. Furthermore, each train would be its own
signalman. Suppose the total 34-1/2 miles divided into “block” lengths of 7
miles. On leaving a terminus the train sets a danger signal behind it; at 7
miles it sets another, and at 14 miles releases the first signal. So that the
driver of a car would have at least 7 miles to slow down in after seeing the
signals against him. In case of fog he would consult a miniature signal in his
cabin working electrically in unison with the large semaphores.
The Manchester-Liverpool rail will be reserved for express traffic only. Mr.
Behr does not believe in mixing speeds, and considers it one of the
advantages of his system that slow cars and waggons of the ordinary two-rail
type cannot be run on the monorail; because if they could managers might be
tempted to place them there.

A train will consist of a single vehicle for forty, fifty, or seventy passengers,
as the occasion requires. It is calculated that an average of twelve passengers
at one penny per mile would pay all the expenses of running a car.
Mr. Behr maintains that monorails can be constructed far more cheaply than
the two-rail, because they permit sharper curves, and thereby save a lot of
cutting and embankment; and also because the monorail itself, when trestles
and rail are specially strengthened, can serve as its own bridge across roads,
valleys and rivers.
Though the single-rail has come to the front of late, it must not be supposed
that the two-rail track is for ever doomed to moderate speeds only. German
engineers have built an electric two-rail military line between Berlin and
Zossen, seventeen miles long, over which cars have been run at a hundred
miles an hour. The line has very gradual curves, and in this respect is inferior
to the more sinuous monorail. Its chief virtue is the method of applying
motive power—a method common to both systems.
The steam locomotive creates its own motive force, and as long as it has fuel
and water can act independently. The electric locomotive, on the other hand,
receives its power through metallic conductors from some central station.
Should the current fail all the traffic on the line is suspended. So far the
advantage rests with the steamer. But as regards economy the superiority of
the current is obvious. In the electric systems under consideration—the
monorail and Berlin-Zossen—there is less weight per passenger to be shifted,
since a comparatively light motor supersedes the heavy locomotive. The cars
running singly, bridges and track are subjected to less strain, and cost less to
keep in repair. But the greatest saving of all is made in fuel. A steam
locomotive uses coal wastefully, sending a lot of latent power up the funnel
in the shape of half-expanded steam. Want of space prevents the designer
from fitting to a moving engine the more economical machinery to be found
in the central power-station of an electric railway, which may be so situated
—by the water-side or near a pit’s mouth—that fuel can be brought to it at a
trifling cost. Not only is the expense of distributing coal over the system
avoided, but the coal itself, by the help of triple and quadruple expansion
engines should yield two or three times as much energy per ton as is
developed in a locomotive furnace.

Many schemes are afoot for the construction of high-speed railways. The
South-Eastern plans a monorail between Cannon Street and Charing Cross to
avoid the delay that at present occurs in passing from one station to the other.
We hear also of a projected railway from London to Brighton, which will
reduce the journey to half-an-hour; and of another to connect Dover and
London. It has even been suggested to establish monorails on existing tracks
for fast passenger traffic, the expresses passing overhead, the slow and goods
trains plodding along the double metals below.
But the most ambitious programme of all comes from the land of the Czar.
M. Hippolyte Romanoff, a Russian engineer, proposes to unite St. Petersburg
and Moscow by a line that shall cover the intervening 600 miles in three
hours—an improvement of ten hours on the present time-tables. He will use
T-shaped supports to carry two rails, one on each arm, from which the cars
are to hang. The line being thus double will permit the cars—some four
hundred in number—to run to and fro continuously, urged on their way by
current picked up from overhead wires. Each car is to have twelve wheels,
four drivers arranged vertically and eight horizontally, to prevent derailment
by gripping the rail on either side. The stoppage or breakdown of any car will
automatically stop those following by cutting off the current.
In the early days of railway history lines were projected in all directions,
regardless of the fact whether they would be of any use or not. Many of these
lines began, where they ended, on paper. And now that the high-speed
question has cropped up, we must not believe that every projected electric
railway will be built, though of the ultimate prevalence of far higher speeds
than we now enjoy there can be no doubt.
The following is a time-table drawn up on the two-mile-per-minute basis.
A man leaving London at 10 a.m. would reach—

Destination Miles Away Arrival Time
Brighton 50 10.25 a.m.
Portsmouth 60 10.30 a.m.
Birmingham 113 10.57 a.m.
Leeds 188 11.34 a.m.
Liverpool 202 11.41 a.m.
Holyhead 262 12.11 p.m.

Edinburgh 400 1.20 p.m.
Aberdeen 540 2.30 p.m.

What would become of the records established in the “Race to the North” and
by American “fliers”?
And what about continental travel?
Assuming that the Channel Tunnel is built—perhaps a rather large
assumption—Paris will be at our very doors. A commercial traveller will step
into the lightning express at London, sleep for two hours and twenty-four
minutes and wake, refreshed, to find the blue-smocked Paris porters bawling
in his ear. Or even if we prefer to keep the “little silver streak” free from
subterranean burrows, he will be able to catch the swift turbine steamers—of
which more anon—at Dover, slip across to Calais in half-an-hour, and be at
the French capital within four hours of quitting London. And if M.
Romanoff’s standard be reached, the latest thing in hats despatched from
Paris at noon may be worn in Regent Street before two o’clock.
Such speeds would indeed produce a revolution in travelling comparable to
the substitution of the steam locomotive for the stage coach. As has been
pithily said, the effect of steam was to make the bulk of population travel,
whereas they had never travelled before, but the effect of the electric railway
will be to make those who travel travel much further and much oftener.

SEA EXPRESSES.
In the year 1836 the Sirius, a paddle-wheel vessel, crossed the Atlantic from
Cork Harbour to New York in nineteen days. Contrast with the first steam-
passage from the Old World to the New a return journey of the Deutschland,
a North German liner, which in 1900 averaged over twenty-seven miles an
hour between Sandy Hook and Plymouth, accomplishing the whole distance
in the record time of five days seven hours thirty-eight minutes.
This growth of speed is even more remarkable than might appear from the
mere comparison of figures. A body moving through water is so retarded by
the inertia and friction of the fluid that to quicken its pace a force quite out of
proportion to the increase of velocity must be exerted. The proportion cannot
be reduced to an exact formula, but under certain conditions the speed and
the power required advance in the ratio of their cubes; that is, to double a
given rate of progress eight times the driving-power is needed; to treble it,
twenty-seven times.
The mechanism of our fast modern vessels is in every way as superior to that
which moved the Sirius, as the beautifully-adjusted safety cycle is to the
clumsy “boneshaker” which passed for a wonder among our grandfathers. A
great improvement has also taken place in the art of building ships on lines
calculated to offer least resistance to the water, and at the same time afford a
good carrying capacity. The big liner, with its knife-edged bow and tapering
hull, is by its shape alone eloquent of the high speed which has earned it the
title of Ocean Greyhound; and as for the fastest craft of all, torpedo-
destroyers, their designers seem to have kept in mind Euclid’s definition of a
line—length without breadth. But whatever its shape, boat or ship may not
shake itself free of Nature’s laws. Her restraining hand lies heavy upon it. A
single man paddles his weight-carrying dinghy along easily at four miles an
hour; eight men in the pink of condition, after arduous training, cannot urge
their light, slender, racing shell more than twelve miles in the same time.
To understand how mail boats and “destroyers” attain, despite the enormous
resistance of water, velocities that would shame many a train-service, we
have only to visit the stokeholds and engine-rooms of our sea expresses and

note the many devices of marine engineers by which fuel is converted into
speed.
We enter the stokehold through air-locks, closing one door before we can
open the other, and find ourselves among sweating, grimy men, stripped to
the waist. As though life itself depended upon it they shovel coal into the
rapacious maws of furnaces glowing with a dazzling glare under the “forced-
draught” sent down into the hold by the fans whirling overhead. The ignited
furnace gases on their way to the outer air surrender a portion of their heat to
the water from which they are separated by a skin of steel. Two kinds of
marine boiler are used—the fire-tube and the water-tube. In fire-tube boilers
the fire passes inside the tubes and the water outside; in water-tube boilers the
reverse is the case, the crown and sides of the furnace being composed of
sheaves of small parallel pipes through which water circulates. The latter
type, as generating steam very quickly, and being able to bear very high
pressures, is most often found in war vessels of all kinds. The quality sought
in boiler construction is that the heating surface should be very large in
proportion to the quantity of water to be heated. Special coal, anthracite or
Welsh, is used in the navy on account of its great heating power and freedom
from smoke; experiments have also been made with crude petroleum, or
liquid fuel, which can be more quickly put on board than coal, requires the
services of fewer stokers, and may be stored in odd corners unavailable as
coal bunkers.
From the boiler the steam passes to the engine-room, whither we will follow
it. We are now in a bewildering maze of clanking, whirling machinery; our
noses offended by the reek of oil, our ears deafened by the uproar of the
moving metal, our eyes wearied by the efforts to follow the motions of the
cranks and rods.
On either side of us is ranged a series of three or perhaps even four cylinders,
of increasing size. The smallest, known as the high-pressure cylinder,
receives steam direct from the boiler. It takes in through a slide-valve a
supply for a stroke; its piston is driven from end to end; the piston-rod flies
through the cylinder-end and transmits a rotary motion to a crank by means
of a connecting-rod. The half-expanded steam is then ejected, not into the air
as would happen on a locomotive, but into the next cylinder, which has a
larger piston to compensate the reduction of pressure. Number two served,
the steam does duty a third time in number three, and perhaps yet a fourth

time before it reaches the condensers, where its sudden conversion into water
by cold produces a vacuum suction in the last cylinder of the series. The
secret of a marine engine’s strength and economy lies then in its treatment of
the steam, which, like clothes in a numerous family, is not thought to have
served its purpose till it has been used over and over again.
Reciprocating (i.e. cylinder) engines, though brought to a high pitch of
efficiency, have grave disadvantages, the greatest among which is the
annoyance caused by their intense vibration to all persons in the vessel. A
revolving body that is not exactly balanced runs unequally, and transmits a
tremor to anything with which it may be in contact. Turn a cycle upside down
and revolve the driving-wheel rapidly by means of the pedal. The whole
machine soon begins to tremble violently, and dance up and down on the
saddle springs, because one part of the wheel is heavier than the rest, the
mere weight of the air-valve being sufficient to disturb the balance. Now
consider what happens in the engine-room of high-powered vessels. On
destroyers the screws make 400 revolutions a minute. That is to say, all the
momentum of the pistons, cranks, rods, and valves (weighing tons), has to be
arrested thirteen or fourteen times every second. However well the moving
parts may be balanced, the vibration is felt from stem to stern of the vessel.
Even on luxuriously-appointed liners, with engines running at a far slower
speed, the throbbing of the screw (i.e. engines) is only too noticeable and
productive of discomfort.
We shall be told, perhaps, that vibration is a necessary consequence of speed.
This is true enough of all vehicles, such as railway trains, motor-cars, cycles,
which are shaken by the irregularities of the unyielding surface over which
they run, but does not apply universally to ships and boats. A sail or oar-
propelled craft may be entirely free from vibration, whatever its speed, as the
motions arising from water are usually slow and deliberate. In fact, water in
its calmer moods is an ideal medium to travel on, and the trouble begins only
with the introduction of steam as motive force.
But even steam may be robbed of its power to annoy us. The steam-turbine
has arrived. It works a screw propeller as smoothly as a dynamo, and at a
speed that no cylinder engine could maintain for a minute without shaking
itself to pieces.

The steam-turbine is most closely connected with the name of the Hon.
Charles Parsons, son of Lord Rosse, the famous astronomer. He was the first
to show, in his speedy little Turbinia, the possibilities of the turbine when
applied to steam navigation. The results have been such as to attract the
attention of the whole shipbuilding world.
The principle of the turbine is seen in the ordinary windmill. To an axle
revolving in a stationary bearing are attached vanes which oppose a current
of air, water, or steam, at an angle to its course, and by it are moved sideways
through a circular path. Mr. Parsons’ turbine has of course been specially
adapted for the action of steam. It consists of a cylindrical, air-tight chest,
inside which rotates a drum, fitted round its circumference with rows of
curved vanes. The chest itself has fixed immovably to its inner side a
corresponding number of vane rings, alternating with those on the drum, and
so arranged as to deflect the steam on to the latter at the most efficient angle.
The diameter of the chest and drum is not constant, but increases towards the
exhaust end, in order to give the expanding and weakening steam a larger
leverage as it proceeds.
The steam entering the chest from the boiler at a pressure of some hundreds
of pounds to the square inch strikes the first set of vanes on the drum, passes
them and meets the first set of chest-vanes, is turned from its course on to the
second set of drum-vanes, and so on to the other end of the chest. Its power
arises entirely from its expansive velocity, which, rather than turn a number
of sharp corners, will, if possible, compel the obstruction to move out of its
way. If that obstruction be from any cause difficult to stir, the steam must
pass round it until its pressure overcomes the inertia. Consequently the
turbine differs from the cylinder engine in this respect, that steam can pass
through and be wasted without doing any work at all, whereas, unless the
gear of a cylinder moves, and power is exerted, all steam ways are closed,
and there is no waste. In practice, therefore, it is found that a turbine is most
effective when running at high speed.
The first steam-turbines were used to drive dynamos. In 1884 Mr. Parsons
made a turbine in which fifteen wheels of increasing size moved at the
astonishing rate of 300 revolutions per second, and developed 10 horse-
power. In 1888 followed a 120 horse-power turbine, and in 1892 one of 2000
horse-power, provided with a condenser to produce suction. So successful
were these steam fans for electrical work, pumping water and ventilating

mines, that Mr. Parsons determined to test them as a means of propelling
ships. A small vessel 100 feet long and 9 feet in beam was fitted with three
turbines—high, medium, and low pressure, of a total 2000 horse-power—a
proportion of motive force to tonnage hitherto not approached. Yet when tried
over the test course the Turbinia, as the boat was fitly named, ran in a most
disappointing fashion. The screws revolved too fast, producing what is
known as cavitation, or the scooping out of the water by the screws, so that
they moved in a partial vacuum and utilised only a fraction of their force,
from lack of anything to “bite” on. This defect was remedied by employing
screws of coarser pitch and larger blade area, three of which were attached to
each of the three propeller shafts. On a second trial the Turbinia attained 32-
3/4 knots over the “measured mile,” and later the astonishing speed of forty
miles an hour, or double that of the fast Channel packets. At the Spithead
Review in 1897 one of the most interesting sights was the little nimble
Turbinia rushing up and down the rows of majestic warships at the rate of an
express train.

H.M.S. Torpedo Destroyer “Viper.” This vessel was the fastest afloat, attaining the enormous
speed of 41 miles an hour. The screws were worked by turbines, giving 11,000 horse-power. She
was wrecked on Alderney during the Naval Manœuvres of 1901.

After this success Mr. Parsons erected works at Wallsend-on-Tyne for the
special manufacture of turbines. The Admiralty soon placed with him an
order for a torpedo-destroyer—the Viper—of 350 tons; which on its trial trip
exceeded forty-one miles an hour at an estimated horse-power (11,000)
equalling that of our largest battleships. A sister vessel, the Cobra, of like
size, proved as speedy. Misfortune, however, overtook both destroyers. The
Viper was wrecked August 3, 1901, on the coast of Alderney during the
autumn naval manœuvres, and the Cobra foundered in a severe storm on
September 12 of the same year in the North Sea. This double disaster casts no
reflections on the turbine engines; being attributed to fog in the one case and
to structural weakness in the other. The Admiralty has since ordered another
turbine destroyer, and before many years are past we shall probably see all
the great naval powers providing themselves with like craft to act as the “eyes
of the fleet,” and travel at even higher speeds than those of the Viper and
Cobra.
The turbine has been applied to mercantile as well as warlike purposes. There
is at the present time a turbine-propelled steamer, the King Edward, running
in the Clyde on the Fairlie-Campbelltown route. This vessel, 250 feet long,
30 broad, 18 deep, contains three turbines. In each the steam is expanded
fivefold, so that by the time it passes into the condensers it occupies 125
times its boiler volume. (On the Viper the steam entered the turbine through
an inlet eight inches in diameter, and left them by an outlet four feet square.)
In cylinder engines thirty-fold expansion is considered a high ratio; hence the
turbine extracts a great deal more power in proportion from its steam. As a
turbine cannot be reversed, special turbines are attached to the two outside of
the three propeller shafts to drive the vessel astern. The steamer attained 20-
1/2 knots over the “Skelmorlie mile” in fair and calm weather, with 3500
horse-power produced at the turbines. The King Edward is thus the fastest by
two or three knots of all the Clyde steamers, as she is the most comfortable.
We are assured that as far as the turbines are concerned it is impossible by
placing the hand upon the steam-chest to tell whether the drum inside is
revolving or not!

Every marine engine is judged by its economy in the consumption of coal.
Except in times of national peril extra speed produced by an extravagant use
of fuel would be severely avoided by all owners and captains of ships. At low
speeds the turbine develops less power than cylinders from the same amount
of steam, but when working at high velocity it gives at least equal results. A
careful record kept by the managers of the Caledonian Steamship Company
compares the King Edward with the Duchess of Hamilton, a paddle steamer
of equal tonnage used on the same route and built by the same firm. The
record shows that though the paddle-boat ran a fraction of a mile further for
every ton of coal burnt in the furnaces, the King Edward averaged two knots
an hour faster, a superiority of speed quite out of proportion to the slight
excess of fuel. Were the Duchess driven at 18-1/2 knots instead of 16-1/2 her
coal bill would far exceed that of the turbine.
As an outcome of these first trials the Caledonian Company are launching a
second turbine vessel. Three high-speed turbine yachts are also on the stocks;
one of 700 tons, another of 1500 tons, and a third of 170 tons. The last, the
property of Colonel M’Calmont, is designed for a speed of twenty-four knots.
Mr. Parsons claims for his system the following advantages: Greatly
increased speed; increased carrying power of coal; economy in coal
consumption; increased facilities for navigating shallow waters; greater
stability of vessels; reduced weight of machinery (the turbines of the King
Edward weigh but one-half of cylinders required to give the same power);
cheapness of attending the machinery; absence of vibration, lessening wear
and tear of the ship’s hull and assisting the accurate training of guns; lowered
centre of gravity in the vessel, and consequent greater safety during times of
war.
The inventor has suggested a cruiser of 2800 tons, engined up to 80,000
horse-power, to yield a speed of forty-four knots (about fifty miles) an hour.
Figures such as these suggest that we may be on the eve of a revolution of
ocean travel comparable to that made by the substitution of steam for wind
power. Whether the steam-turbine will make for increased speed all round, or
for greater economy, remains to be seen; but we may be assured of a higher
degree of comfort. We can easily believe that improvements will follow in
this as in other mechanical contrivances, and that the turbine’s efficiency has
not yet reached a maximum; and even if our ocean expresses, naval and
mercantile, do not attain the one-mile-a-minute standard, which is still

regarded as creditable to the fastest methods of land locomotion, we look
forward to a time in the near future when much higher speeds will prevail,
and the tedium of long voyages be greatly shortened. Already there is talk of
a service which shall reduce the trans-Atlantic journey to three-and-a-half
days. The means are at hand to make it a fact.

Note.—In the recently-launched turbine destroyer Velox a novel feature
is the introduction of ordinary reciprocating engines fitted in
conjunction with the steam turbines. These engines are of triple-
compound type, and are coupled direct to the main turbines. They take
steam from the boilers direct and exhaust into the high-pressure turbine.
These reciprocating engines are for use at cruising speeds. When higher
power is needed the steam will be admitted to the turbines direct from
the boilers, and the cylinders be thrown out of gear.

MECHANICAL FLIGHT.
Few, if any, problems have so strongly influenced the imagination and
exercised the ingenuity of mankind as that of aërial navigation. There is
something in our nature that rebels against being condemned to the condition
of “featherless bipeds” when birds, bats, and even minute insects have the
whole realm of air and the wide heavens open to them. Who has not, like
Solomon, pondered upon “the way of a bird in the air” with feelings of envy
and regret that he is chained to earth by his gross body; contrasting our
laboured movements from point to point of the earth’s surface with the easy
gliding of the feathered traveller? The unrealised wish has found expression
in legends of Dædalus, Pegasus, in the “flying carpet” of the fairy tale, and in
the pages of Jules Verne, in which last the adventurous Robur on his “Clipper
of the Clouds” anticipates the future in a most startling fashion.
Aeromobilism—to use its most modern title—is regarded by the crowd as the
mechanical counterpart of the Philosopher’s Stone or the Elixir of Life; a
highly desirable but unattainable thing. At times this incredulity is
transformed by highly-coloured press reports into an equally unreasonable
readiness to believe that the conquest of the air is completed, followed by a
feeling of irritation that facts are not as they were represented in print.
The proper attitude is of course half-way between these extremes. Reflection
will show us that money, time, and life itself would not have been freely and
ungrudgingly given or risked by many men—hard-headed, practical men
among them—in pursuit of a Will-o’-the-Wisp, especially in a century when
scientific calculation tends always to calm down any too imaginative scheme.
The existing state of the aërial problem may be compared to that of a railway
truck which an insufficient number of men are trying to move. Ten men may
make no impression on it, though they are putting out all their strength. Yet
the arrival of an eleventh may enable them to overcome the truck’s inertia
and move it at an increasing pace.
Every new discovery of the scientific application of power brings us nearer to
the day when the truck will move. We have metals of wonderful strength in
proportion to their weight; pigmy motors containing the force of giants; a

huge fund of mechanical experience to draw upon; in fact, to paraphrase the
Jingo song, “We’ve got the things, we’ve got the men, we’ve got the money
too”—but we haven’t as yet got the machine that can mock the bird like the
flying express mocks the strength and speed of horses.
The reason of this is not far to seek. The difficulties attending the creation of
a successful flying-machine are immense, some unique, not being found in
aquatic and terrestrial locomotion.
In the first place, the airship, flying-machine, aerostat, or whatever we please
to call it, must not merely move, but also lift itself. Neither a ship nor a
locomotive is called upon to do this. Its ability to lift itself must depend upon
either the employment of large balloons or upon sheer power. In the first case
the balloon will, by reason of its size, be unmanageable in a high wind; in the
second case, a breakdown in the machinery would probably prove fatal.
Even supposing that our aerostat can lift itself successfully, we encounter the
difficulties connected with steering in a medium traversed by ever-shifting
currents of air, which demands of the helmsman a caution and capacity
seldom required on land or water. Add to these the difficulties of leaving the
ground and alighting safely upon it; and, what is more serious than all, the
fact that though success can be attained only by experiment, experiment is in
this case extremely expensive and risky, any failure often resulting in total
ruin of the machine, and sometimes in loss of life. The list of those who have
perished in the search for the power of flight is a very long one.
Yet in spite of these obstacles determined attempts have been and are being
made to conquer the air. Men in a position to judge are confident that the day
of conquest is not very far distant, and that the next generation may be as
familiar with aerostats as we with motor-cars. Speculation as to the future is,
however, here less profitable than a consideration of what has been already
done in the direction of collecting forces for the final victory.
To begin at the beginning, we see that experimenters must be divided into
two great classes: those who pin their faith to airships lighter than air, e.g.
Santos Dumont, Zeppelin, Roze; and those who have small respect for
balloons, and see the ideal air-craft in a machine lifted entirely by means of
power and surfaces pressing the air after the manner of a kite. Sir Hiram
Maxim and Professor S. P. Langley, Mr. Lawrence Hargrave, and Mr. Sydney
Hollands are eminent members of the latter cult.

As soon as we get on the topic of steerable balloons the name of Mr. Santos
Dumont looms large. But before dealing with his exploits we may notice the
airship of Count Zeppelin, an ingenious and costly structure that was tested
over Lake Constance in 1900.
The balloon was built in a large wooden shed, 450 by 78 by 66 feet, that
floated on the lake on ninety pontoons. The shed alone cost over £10,000.
The balloon itself was nearly 400 feet long, with a cylindrical diameter of 39
feet, except at its ends, which were conical, to offer as little resistance as
possible to the air. Externally it afforded the appearance of a single-
compartment bag, but in reality it was divided into seventeen parts, each gas-
tight, so that an accident to one part of the fabric should not imperil the
whole.
A framework of aluminium rods and rings gave the bag a partial rigidity.
Its capacity was 12,000 cubic yards of hydrogen gas, which, as our readers
doubtless know, is much lighter though more expensive than ordinary coal-
gas; each inflation costing several hundreds of pounds.
Under the balloon hung two cars of aluminium, the motors and the screws;
and also a great sliding weight of 600 lbs. for altering the “tip” of the airship;
and rudders to steer its course.
On June 30 a great number of scientific men and experts assembled to
witness the behaviour of a balloon which had cost £20,000. For two days
wind prevented a start, but on July 2, at 7.30 p.m., the balloon emerged from
its shed, and at eight o’clock commenced its first journey, with and against a
light easterly wind for a distance of three and a half miles. A mishap to the
steering-gear occurred early in the trip, and prevented the airship appearing to
advantage, but a landing was effected easily and safely. In the following
October the Count made a second attempt, returning against a wind blowing
at three yards a second, or rather more than six miles an hour.

The air-ship of M. Santos-Dumont rounding the Eiffel Tower during its successful run for the
Henri Deutsch Prize.

Owing to lack of funds the fate of the “Great Eastern” has overtaken the
Zeppelin airship—to be broken up, and the parts sold.
The aged Count had demonstrated that a petroleum motor could be used in
the neighbourhood of gas without danger. It was, however, reserved for a
younger man to give a more decided proof of the steerableness of a balloon.

In 1900 M. Henri Deutsch, a member of the French Aero Club, founded a
prize of £4000, to win which a competitor must start from the Aero Club
Park, near the Seine in Paris, sail to and round the Eiffel Tower, and be back
at the starting-point within a time-limit of half-an-hour.
M. Santos Dumont, a wealthy and plucky young Brazilian, had, previously to
this offer, made several successful journeys in motor balloons in the
neighbourhood of the Eiffel Tower. He therefore determined to make a bid
for the prize with a specially constructed balloon “Santos Dumont V.” The
third unsuccessful attempt ended in disaster to the airship, which fell on to
the houses, but fortunately without injuring its occupant.
Another balloon—“Santos Dumont VI.”—was then built. On Saturday,
October 19th, M. Dumont reached the Tower in nine minutes and recrossed
the starting line in 20-1/2 more minutes, thus complying with the conditions
of the prize with half-a-minute to spare. A dispute, however, arose as to
whether the prize had been actually won, some of the committee contending
that the balloon should have come to earth within the half-hour, instead of
merely passing overhead; but finally the well-merited prize was awarded to
the determined young aeronaut.
The successful airship was of moderate proportions as compared with that of
Count Zeppelin. The cigar-shaped bag was 112 feet long and 20 feet in
diameter, holding 715 cubic yards of gas. M. Dumont showed originality in
furnishing it with a smaller balloon inside, which could be pumped full of air
so as to counteract any leakage in the external bag and keep it taut. The
motor, on which everything depended, was a four-cylinder petrol-driven
engine, furnished with “water-jackets” to prevent over-heating. The motor
turned a large screw—made of silk and stretched over light frames—200
times a minute, giving a driving force of 175 lbs. Behind, a rudder directed
the airship, and in front hung down a long rope suspended by one end that
could be drawn towards the centre of the frame to alter the trim of the ship.
The aeronaut stood in a large wicker basket flanked on either side by bags of
sand ballast. The fact that the motor, once stopped, could only be restarted by
coming to earth again added an element of great uncertainty to all his trips;
and on one occasion the mis-firing of one of the cylinders almost brought
about a collision with the Eiffel Tower.

From Paris M. Dumont went to Monaco at the invitation of the prince of that
principality, and cruised about over the bay in his balloon. His fresh scheme
was to cross to Corsica, but it was brought to an abrupt conclusion by a
leakage of gas, which precipitated balloon and balloonist into the sea.
Dumont was rescued, and at once set about new projects, including a visit to
the Crystal Palace, where he would have made a series of ascents this
summer (1902) but for damage done to the silk of the gas-bag by its
immersion in salt water and the other vicissitudes it had passed through.
Dumont’s most important achievement has been, like that of Count Zeppelin,
the application of the gasolene motor to aeromobilism. In proportion to its
size this form of motor develops a large amount of energy, and its mechanism
is comparatively simple—a matter of great moment to the aeronaut. He has
also shown that under favourable conditions a balloon may be steered against
a head-wind, though not with the certainty that is desirable before air travel
can be pronounced an even moderately simple undertaking. The fact that
many inventors, such as Dr. Barton, M. Roze, Henri Deutsch, are fitting
motors to balloons in the hopes of solving the aërial problem shows that the
airship has still a strong hold on the minds of men. But on reviewing the
successes of such combinations of lifting and driving power it must be
confessed, with all due respect to M. Dumont, that they are somewhat
meagre, and do not show any great advance.
The question is whether these men are not working on wrong lines, and
whether their utmost endeavours and those of their successors will ever
produce anything more than a very semi-successful craft. Their efforts appear
foredoomed to failure. As Sir Hiram Maxim has observed, a balloon by its
very nature is light and fragile, it is a mere bubble. If it were possible to
construct a motor to develop 100 horse-power for every pound of its weight,
it would still be impossible to navigate a balloon against a wind of more than
a certain strength. The mere energy of the motor would crush the gas-bag
against the pressure of the wind, deform it, and render it unmanageable.
Balloons therefore must be at the mercy of the wind, and obliged to submit to
it under conditions not always in accordance with the wish of the aeronaut.
Sir Hiram in condemning the airship was ready with a substitute. On looking
round on the patterns of Nature, he concluded that, inasmuch as all things
that fly are heavier than air, the problem of aërial navigation must be solved
by a machine whose natural tendency is to fall to the ground, and which can
be sustained only by the exertion of great force. Its very weight would enable

it to withstand, at least to a far greater extent than the airship, the varying
currents of the air.
The lifting principle must be analogous to that by which a kite is suspended.
A kite is prevented from rising beyond a certain height by a string, and the
pressure of the wind working against it at an angle tends to lift it, like a soft
wedge continuously driven under it. In practice it makes no difference
whether the kite be stationary in a wind or towed rapidly through a dead
calm; the wedge-like action of the air remains the same.
Maxim decided upon constructing what was practically a huge compound
kite driven by very powerful motors.
But before setting to work on the machine itself he made some useful
experiments to determine the necessary size of his kites or aeroplanes, and
the force requisite to move them.
He accordingly built a “whirling-table,” consisting of a long arm mounted on
a strong pivot at one end, and driven by a 10 horse-power engine. To the free
end, which described a circle of 200 feet in circumference, he attached small
aeroplanes, and by means of delicate balances discovered that at 40 miles an
hour the aeroplane would lift 133 lbs. per horse-power, and at 60 miles per
hour every square foot of surface sustained 8 lbs. weight. He, in common
with other experimenters on the same lines, became aware of the fact that if it
took a certain strain to suspend a stationary weight in the air, to advance it
rapidly as well as to suspend it took a smaller strain. Now, as on sea and
land, increased speed means a very rapid increase in the force required, this is
a point in favour of the flying-machine. Professor Langley found that a brass
plate weighing a pound, when whirled at great speed, was supported in the air
by a pulling pressure of less than one ounce. And, of course, as the speed
increased the plate became more nearly horizontal, offering less resistance to
the air.
It is on this behaviour of the aeroplane that the hopes of Maxim and others
have been based. The swiftly moving aeroplane, coming constantly on to
fresh air, the inertia of which had not been disturbed, would resemble the
skater who can at high speed traverse ice that would not bear him at rest.
Maxim next turned his attention to the construction of the aeroplanes and
engines. He made a special machine for testing fabrics, to decide which

would be most suitable for stretching over strong frames to form the planes.
The fabric must be light, very strong, and offer small frictional resistance to
the air. The testing-machine was fitted with a nozzle, through which air was
forced at a known pace on to the substance under trial, which met the air
current at a certain angle and by means of indicators showed the strength of
its “lift” or tendency to rise, and that of its “drift” or tendency to move
horizontally in the direction of the air-current. A piece of tin, mounted at an
angle of one in ten to the air-current, showed a “lift” of ten times its “drift.”
This proportion was made the standard. Experiments conducted on velvet,
plush, silk, cotton and woollen goods proved that the drift of crape was
several times that of its lift, but that fine linen had a lift equal to nine times its
drift; while a sample of Spencer’s balloon fabric was as good as tin.
Accordingly he selected this balloon fabric to stretch over light but strong
frames. The stretching of the material was no easy matter, as uneven tension
distorted it; but eventually the aeroplanes were completed, tight as
drumheads.
The large or central plane was 50 feet wide and 40 long; on either side were
auxiliary planes, five pairs; giving a total area of 5400 square feet.
The steam-engine built to give the motive power was perhaps the most
interesting feature of the whole construction. Maxim employed steam in
preference to any other power as being one with which he was most familiar,
and yielding most force in proportion to the weight of the apparatus. He
designed and constructed a pair of high-pressure compound engines, the
high-pressure cylinders 5 inches in diameter, the low-pressure 8 inches, and
both 1 foot stroke. Steam was supplied to the high-pressure cylinders at 320
lbs. per square inch from a tubular boiler heated by a gasolene burner so
powerful in its action as to raise the pressure from 100 to 200 lbs. in a
minute. The total weight of the boiler, burner, and engines developing 350
horse-power was 2000 lbs., or about 6 lbs. per horse-power.
The two screw-propellers driven by the engine measured 17 feet 11 inches in
diameter.
The completed flying-machine, weighing 7500 lbs., was mounted on a
railway-truck of 9-foot gauge, in Baldwyn’s Park, Kent, not far from the gun-
factories for which Sir Hiram is famous. Outside and parallel to the 9-foot
track was a second track, 35 feet across, with a reversed rail, so that as soon

as the machine should rise from the inner track long spars furnished with
flanged wheels at their extremities should press against the under side of the
outer track and prevent the machine from rising too far. Dynamometers, or
instruments for measuring strains, were fitted to decide the driving and lifting
power of the screws. Experiments proved that with the engines working at
full power the screw-thrust against the air was 2200 lbs., and the lifting force
of the aeroplanes 10,000 lbs., or 1500 in excess of the machine’s weight.
Everything being ready the machine was fastened to a dynamometer and
steam run up until it strained at its tether with maximum power; when the
moorings were suddenly released and it bounded forward at a terrific pace, so
suddenly that some of the crew were flung violently down on to the platform.
When a speed of 42 miles was reached the inner wheels left their track, and
the outer wheels came into play. Unfortunately, the long 35-foot axletrees
were too weak to bear the strain, and one of them broke. The upper track
gave way, and for the first time in the history of the world a flying-machine
actually left the ground fully equipped with engines, boiler, fuel, and a crew.
The journey, however, was a short one, for part of the broken track fouled the
screws, snapped a propeller blade and necessitated the shutting off of the
steam, which done, the machine settled to earth, the wheels sinking into the
sward and showing by the absence of any marks that it had come directly
downwards and not run along the surface.
The inventor was prevented by other business, and by the want of a
sufficiently large open space, from continuing his experiments, which had
demonstrated that a large machine heavier than air could be made to lift itself
and move at high speed. Misfortune alone prevented its true capacities being
shown.
Another experimenter on similar lines, but on a less heroic scale than Sir
Hiram Maxim, is Professor S. P. Langley, the secretary of the Smithsonian
Institution, Washington. For sixteen years he has devoted himself to a
persevering course of study of the flying-machine, and after oft-repeated
failures has scored a decided success in his Aerodrome, which, though only a
model, has made considerable flights. His researches have proved beyond
doubt that the amount of energy required for flight is but one-fiftieth of what
was formerly regarded as a minimum. A French mathematician had proved
by figures that a swallow must develop the power of a horse to maintain its
rapid flight! Professor Langley’s aerodrome has told a very different tale,

affording another instance of the truth of the saying that an ounce of practice
is worth a pound of theory.
A bird is nearly one thousand times heavier than the air it displaces. As a
motor it develops huge power for its weight, and consumes a very large
amount of fuel in doing so. An observant naturalist has calculated that the
homely robin devours per diem, in proportion to its size, what would be to a
man a sausage two hundred feet long and three inches thick! Any one who
has watched birds pulling worms out of the garden lawn and swallowing
them wholesale can readily credit this.
Professor Langley therefore concentrated himself on the production of an
extremely light and at the same time powerful machine. Like Maxim, he
turned to steam for motive-power, and by rigid economy of weight
constructed an engine with boilers weighing 5 lbs., cylinders of 26 ozs., and
an energy of 1 to 1-1/2 horse-power! Surely a masterpiece of mechanical
workmanship! This he enclosed in a boat-shaped cover which hung from two
pairs of aeroplanes 12-1/2 feet from tip to tip. The whole apparatus weighed
nearly 30 lbs., of which one quarter represented the machinery. Experiments
with smaller aerodromes warned the Professor that rigidity and balance were
the two most difficult things to attain; also that the starting of the machine on
its aerial course was far from an easy matter.
A soaring bird does not rise straight from the ground, but opens its wings and
runs along the ground until the pressure of the air raises it sufficiently to give
a full stroke of its pinions. Also it rises against the wind to get the full benefit
of its lifting force. Professor Langley hired a houseboat on the Potomac
River, and on the top of it built an apparatus from which the aerodrome could
be launched into space at high velocity.
On May 6, 1896, after a long wait for propitious weather, the aerodrome was
despatched on a trial trip. It rose in the face of the wind and travelled for over
half a mile at the rate of twenty-five miles an hour. The water and fuel being
then exhausted it settled lightly on the water and was again launched. Its
flight on both occasions was steady, and limited only by the rapid
consumption of its power-producing elements. The Professor believes that
larger machines would remain in the air for a long period and travel at speeds
hitherto unknown to us.

In both the machines that we have considered the propulsive power was a
screw. No counterpart of it is seen in Nature. This is not a valid argument
against its employment, since no animal is furnished with driving-wheels, nor
does any fish carry a revolving propeller in its tail. But some inventors are
strongly in favour of copying Nature as regards the employment of wings.
Mr. Sydney H. Hollands, an enthusiastic aeromobilist, has devised an
ingenious cylinder-motor so arranged as to flap a pair of long wings, giving
them a much stronger impulse on the down than on the up stroke. The
pectoral muscles of a bird are reproduced by two strong springs which are
extended by the upward motion of the wings and store up energy for the
down-stroke. Close attention is also being paid to the actual shape of a bird’s
wing, which is not flat but hollow on its under side, and at the front has a
slightly downward dip. “Aerocurves” are therefore likely to supersede the
“aeroplane,” for Nature would not have built bird’s wings as they are without
an object. The theory of the aerocurve’s action is this: that the front of the
wing, on striking the air, gives it a downwards motion, and if the wing were
quite flat its rear portion would strike air already in motion, and therefore less
buoyant. The curvature of a floating bird’s wings, which becomes more and
more pronounced towards the rear, counteracts this yielding of the air by
pressing harder upon it as it passes towards their hinder edge.

M. Santos Dumont’s Airship returning to Longchamps after doubling the Eiffel Tower, October
19, 1901.

The aerocurve has been used by a very interesting group of experimenters,
those who, putting motors entirely aside, have floated on wings, and learnt
some of the secrets of balancing in the air. For a man to propel himself by
flapping wings moved by legs or arms is impossible. Sir Hiram Maxim, in
addressing the Aeronautical Society, once said that for a man to successfully
imitate a bird his lungs must weigh 40 lbs., to consume sufficient oxygen, his

breast muscles 75 lbs., and his breast bone be extended in front 21 inches.
And unless his total weight were increased his legs must dwindle to the size
of broomsticks, his head to that of an apple! So that for the present we shall
be content to remain as we are!
Dr. Lilienthal, a German, was the first to try scientific wing-sailing. He
became a regular air gymnast, running down the sides of an artificial mound
until the wings lifted him up and enabled him to float a considerable distance
before reaching earth again. His wings had an area of 160 square feet, or
about a foot to every pound weight. He was killed by the wings collapsing in
mid-air. A similar fate also overtook Mr. Percy Pilcher, who abandoned the
initial run down a sloping surface in favour of being towed on a rope attached
to a fast-moving vehicle. At present Mr. Octave Chanute, of Chicago, is the
most distinguished member of the “gliding” school. He employs, instead of
wings, a species of kite made up of a number of small aerocurves placed one
on the top of another a small distance apart. These box kites are said to give a
great lifting force for their weight.
These and many other experimenters have had the same object in view—to
learn the laws of equilibrium in the air. Until these are fully understood the
construction of large flying-machines must be regarded as somewhat
premature. Man must walk before he can run, and balance himself before he
can fly.
There is no falling off in the number of aërial machines and schemes brought
from time to time into public notice. We may assure ourselves that if patient
work and experiment can do it the problem of “how to fly” is not very far
from solution at the present moment.
As a sign of the times, the War Office, not usually very ready to take up a
new idea, has interested itself in the airship, and commissioned Dr. F. A.
Barton to construct a dirigible balloon which combines the two systems of
aerostation. Propulsion is effected by six sets of triple propellers, three on
each side. Ascent is brought about partly by a balloon 180 feet long,
containing 156,000 cubic feet of hydrogen, partly by nine aeroplanes having
a total superficial area of nearly 2000 square feet. The utilisation of these
aeroplanes obviates the necessity to throw out ballast to rise, or to let out gas
for a descent. The airship, being just heavier than air, is raised by the 135

horse-power motors pressing the aeroplanes against the air at the proper
angle. In descent they act as parachutes.
The most original feature of this war balloon is the automatic water-balance.
At each end of the “deck” is a tank holding forty gallons of water. Two
pumps circulate water through these tanks, the amount sent into a tank being
regulated by a heavy pendulum which turns on the cock leading to the end
which may be highest in proportion as it turns off that leading to the lower
end. The idea is very ingenious, and should work successfully when the time
of trial comes.
Valuable money prizes will be competed for by aeronauts at the coming
World’s Fair at St. Louis in 1903. Sir Hiram Maxim has expressed an
intention of spending £20,000 in further experiments and prizes. In this
country, too, certain journals have offered large rewards to any aeronaut who
shall make prescribed journeys in a given time. It has also been suggested
that aeronautical research should be endowed by the state, since England has
nothing to fear more than the flying machine and the submarine boat, each of
which tends to rob her of the advantages of being an island by exposing her
to unexpected and unseen attacks.
Tennyson, in a fine passage in “Locksley Hall,” turns a poetical eye towards
the future. This is what he sees—

“For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see,
Saw the vision of the world and all the wonder that
would be,
Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic
sail,
Pilots of the purple twilight dropping down with costly
bales,
Heard the heavens fill with shouting, then there rained a
ghostly dew,
From the nations’ airy navies, grappling in the central
blue.”

Expressed in more prosaic language, the flying-machine will primarily be
used for military purposes. A country cannot spread a metal umbrella over

itself to protect its towns from explosives dropped from the clouds.
Mail services will be revolutionised. The pleasure aerodrome will take the
place of the yacht and motor-car, affording grand opportunities for the
mountaineer and explorer (if the latter could find anything new to explore).
Then there will also be a direct route to the North Pole over the top of those
terrible icefields that have cost civilisation so many gallant lives. And
possibly the ease of transit will bring the nations closer together, and produce
good-fellowship and concord among them. It is pleasanter to regard the
flying-machine of the future as a bringer of peace than as a novel means of
spreading death and destruction.

TYPE-SETTING BY MACHINERY.
To the Assyrian brickmakers who, thousands of years ago, used blocks
wherewith to impress on their unbaked bricks hieroglyphics and symbolical
characters, must be attributed the first hesitating step towards that most
marvellous and revolutionary of human discoveries—the art of printing. Not,
however, till the early part of the fifteenth century did Gutenberg and Coster
conceive the brilliant but simple idea of printing from separate types, which
could be set in different orders and combinations to represent different ideas.
For Englishmen, 1474 deserves to rank with 1815, as in that year a very
Waterloo was won on English soil against the forces of ignorance and
oppression, though the effects of the victory were not at once evident.
Considering the stir made at the time by the appearance of Caxton’s first
book at Westminster, it seems strange that an invention of such importance as
the printing-press should have been frowned upon by those in power, and so
discouraged that for nearly two centuries printing remained an ill-used and
unprogressive art, a giant half strangled in his cradle. Yet as soon as prejudice
gave it an open field, improved methods followed close on one another’s
heels. To-day we have in the place of Caxton’s rude hand-made press great
cylinder machines capable of absorbing paper by the mile, and grinding out
20,000 impressions an hour as easily as a child can unwind a reel of cotton.
Side by side with the problem how to produce the greatest possible number
of copies in a given time from one machine, has arisen another:—how to set
up type with a proportionate rapidity. A press without type is as useless as a
chaff-cutter without hay or straw. The type once assembled, as many casts or
stereotypes can be made from it as there are machines to be worked. But to
arrange a large body of type in a short time brings the printer face to face
with the need of employing the expensive services of a small army of
compositors—unless he can attain his end by some equally efficient and less
costly means. For the last century a struggle has been in progress between the
machine compositor and the human compositor, mechanical ingenuity against
eye and brains. In the last five years the battle has turned most decidedly in
favour of the machine. To-day there are in existence two wonderful
contrivances which enable a man to set up type six times as fast as he could
by hand from a box of type, with an ease that reminds one of the mythical

machine for the conversion of live pigs into strings of sausages by an
uninterrupted series of movements.
These machines are called respectively the Linotype and Monotype. Roughly
described, they are to the compositor what a typewriter is to a clerk—forming
words in obedience to the depression of keys on a keyboard. But whereas the
typewriter merely imprints a single character on paper, the linotype and
monotype cast, deliver, and set up type from which an indefinite number of
impressions can be taken. They meet the compositor more than half-way, and
simplify his labour while hugely increasing his productiveness.
As far back as 1842 periodicals were mechanically composed by a machine
which is now practically forgotten. Since that time hundreds of other
inventions have been patented, and some scores of different machines tried,
though with small success in most cases; as it was found that quality of
composition was sacrificed to quantity, and that what at first appeared a short
cut to the printing-press was after all the longest way round, when corrections
had all been attended to. A really economical type-setter must be accurate as
well as prolific. Slipshod work will not pay in the long run.
Such a machine was perfected a few years ago by Ottmar Mergenthaler of
Baltimore, who devised the plan of casting a whole line of type. The Linotype
Composing Machine, to give it its full title, produces type all ready for the
presses in “slugs” or lines—hence the name, Lin’ o’ type. It deserves at least
a short description.
The Linotype occupies about six square feet of floor space, weighs one ton,
and is entirely operated by one man. Its most prominent features are a sloping
magazine at the top to hold the brass matrices, or dies from which the type is
cast, a keyboard controlling the machinery to drop and collect the dies, and a
long lever which restores the dies to the magazine when done with.

By kind permission of The Linotype Co.
The Linotype Machine. By pressing keys on the key-board the operator causes lines of type to
be set up, cast, and arranged on the “galley” ready for the printers.

The operator sits facing the keyboard, in which are ninety keys, variously
coloured to distinguish the different kinds of letters. His hands twinkle over
the keys, and the brass dies fly into place. When a key is depressed a die
shoots from the magazine on to a travelling belt and is whirled off to the
assembling-box. Each die is a flat, oblong brass plate, of a thickness
varying with the letter, having a large V-shaped notch in the top, and the
letter cut half-way down on one of the longer sides. A corresponding letter

is stamped on the side nearest to the operator so that he may see what he is
doing and make needful corrections.
As soon as a word is complete, he touches the “spacing” lever at the side of
the keyboard. The action causes a “space” to be placed against the last die
to separate it from the following word. The operations are repeated until the
tinkle of a bell warns him that, though there may be room for one or two
more letters, the line will not admit another whole syllable. The line must
therefore be “justified,” that is, the spaces between the words increased till
the vacant room is filled in. In hand composition this takes a considerable
time, and is irksome; but at the linotype the operator merely twists a handle
and the wedge-shaped “spaces,” placed thin end upwards, are driven up
simultaneously, giving the lateral expansion required to make the line of the
right measure.
A word about the “spaces,” or space-bands. Were each a single wedge the
pressure would be on the bottom only of the dies, and their tops, being able
to move slightly, would admit lead between them. To obviate this a small
second wedge, thin end downwards, is arranged to slide on the larger
wedge, so that in all positions parallelism is secured. This smaller wedge is
of the same shape as the dies and remains stationary in line with them, the
larger one only moving.
The line of dies being now complete, it is automatically borne off and
pressed into contact with the casting wheel. This wheel, revolving on its
centre, has a slit in it corresponding in length and width to the size of line
required. At first the slit is horizontal, and the dies fit against it so that the
row of sunk letters on the faces are in the exact position to receive the
molten lead, which is squirted through the slit from behind by an automatic
pump, supplied from a metal-pot. The pot is kept at a proper heat of 550°
Fahrenheit by the flames of a Bunsen burner.
The lead solidifies in an instant, and the “slug” of type is ready for removal,
after its back has been carefully trimmed by a knife. The wheel revolves for
a quarter-turn, bringing the slit into a vertical position; a punch drives out
the “slug,” which is slid into the galley to join its predecessors. The wheel
then resumes its former horizontal position in readiness for another cast.

The assembled dies have for the time done their work and must be returned
to the magazine. The mechanism used to effect this is peculiarly ingenious.
An arm carrying a ribbed bar descends. The dies are pushed up, leaving the
“spaces” behind to be restored to their proper compartment, till on a level
with the ribbed bar, on to which they are slid by a lateral movement, the
notches of the V-shaped opening in the top side of each die engaging with
the ribs on the bar. The bar then ascends till it is in line with a longer bar of
like section passing over the open top of the entire magazine. A set of
horizontal screw-bars, rotating at high speed, transfer the dies from the
short to the long bar, along which they move till, as a die comes above its
proper division of the magazine, the arrangement of the teeth allows it to
drop. While all this has been going on, the operator has composed another
line of moulds, which will in turn be transferred to the casting wheel, and
then back to the magazine. So that the three operations of composing,
casting, and sorting moulds are in progress simultaneously in different parts
of the machine; with the result that as many as 20,000 letters can be formed
by an expert in the space of an hour, against the 1500 letters of a skilled
hand compositor.
How about corrections? Even a comma too few or too many needs the
whole line cast over again. It is a convincing proof of the difference in
speed between the two methods that a column of type can be corrected
much faster by the machine, handicapped as it is by its solid “slugs,” than
by hand. No wonder then that more than 1000 linotypes are to be found in
the printing offices of Great Britain.
The Monotype, like the Linotype, aims at speed in composition, but in its
mechanism it differs essentially from the linotype. In the first place, the
apparatus is constructed in two quite separate parts. There is a keyboard,
which may be on the third floor of the printing offices, and the casting
machine, which ceaselessly casts and sets type in the basement. Yet they are
but one whole. The connecting link is the long strip of paper punched by the
keyboard mechanism, and then transferred to the casting machine to bring
about the formation of type. The keyboard is the servant of man; the casting
machine is the slave of the keyboard.

Secondly, the Monotype casts type, not in blocks or a whole line, but in
separate letters. It is thus a complete type-foundry. Order it to cast G’s and
it will turn them out by the thousand till another letter is required.
Thirdly, by means of the punched paper roll, the same type can be set up
time after time without a second recourse to the keyboard, just as a tune is
ground repeatedly out of a barrel organ.
The keyboard has a formidable appearance. It contains 225 keys, providing
as many characters; also thirty keys to regulate the spacing of the words. At
the back of the machine a roll of paper runs over rollers and above a row of
thirty little punches worked by the keys. A key being depressed, an opened
valve admits air into two cylinders, each driving a punch. The punches fly
up and cut two neat little holes in the paper. The roll then moves forward for
the next letter. At the end of the word a special lever is used to register a
space, and so on to the end of the line. The operator then consults an
automatic indicator which tells him exactly how much space is left, and
how much too long or too short the line would be if the spaces were of the
normal size. Supposing, for instance, that there are ten spaces, and that
there is one-tenth of an inch to spare. It is obvious that by extending each
space one-hundredth of an inch the vacant room will be exactly filled.
Similarly, if the ten normal spaces would make the line one-tenth of an inch
too long, by decreasing the spaces each one-hundredth inch the line will
also be “justified.”

By kind permission of The Monotype Co.
The Monotype Casting Machine. A punched paper roll fed through the top of the machine
automatically casts and sets up type in separate letters.

But the operator need not trouble his head about calculations of this kind.
His indicator, a vertical cylinder covered with tiny squares, in each of which
are printed two figures, tell him exactly what he has to do. On pressing a
certain key the cylinder revolves and comes to rest with the tip of a pointer
over a square. The operator at once presses down the keys bearing the
numbers printed on that square, confident that the line will be of the proper
length.
As soon as the roll is finished, it is detached from the keyboard and
introduced to the casting machine. Hitherto passive, it now becomes active.

Having been placed in position on the rollers it is slowly unwound by the
machinery. The paper passes over a hollow bar in which there are as many
holes as there were punches in the keyboard, and in precisely the same
position. When a hole in the paper comes over a hole in the hollow bar air
rushes in, and passing through a tube actuates the type-setting machinery in
a certain manner, so as to bring the desired die into contact with molten
lead. The dies are, in the monotype, all carried in a magazine about three
inches square, which moves backwards or forwards, to right or left, in
obedience to orders from the perforated roll. The dies are arranged in
exactly the same way as the keys on the keyboard. So that, supposing A to
have been stamped on the roll, one of the perforations causes the magazine
to slide one way, while the other shoves it another, until the combined
motions bring the matrix engraved with the A underneath the small hole
through which molten lead is forced. The letter is ejected and moves
sideways through a narrow channel, pushing preceding letters before it, and
the magazine is free for other movements.
At the end of each word a “space” or blank lead is cast, its size exactly
determined by the “justifying” hole belonging to that line. Word follows
word till the line is complete; then a knife-like lever rises, and the type is
propelled into the “galley.” Though a slave the casting machine will not
tolerate injustice. Needles Hotel to SwanShould the compositor have made
a mistake, so that the line is too long or too short, automatic machinery at
once comes into play, and slips the driving belt from the fixed to the loose
pulley, thus stopping the machine till some one can attend to it. But if the
punching has been correctly done, the machine will work away unattended
till, a whole column of type having been set up, it comes to a standstill.
The advantages of the Monotype are easily seen. In order to save money a
man need not possess the complete apparatus. If he has the keyboard only
he becomes to a certain extent his own compositor, able to set up the type,
as it were by proxy, at any convenient time. He can give his undivided
attention to the keyboard, stop work whenever he likes without keeping a
casting-machine idle, and as soon as his roll is complete forward it to a
central establishment where type is set. There a single man can superintend
the completion of half-a-dozen men’s labours at the keyboard. That means a
great reduction of expense.

In due time he receives back his copy in the shape of set-up type, all ready
to be corrected and transferred to the printing machines. The type done
with, he can melt it down without fear of future regret, for he knows that the
paper roll locked up in his cupboard will do its work a second time as well
as it did the first. Should he need the same matter re-setting, he has only to
send the roll through the post to the central establishment.
Thanks to Mr. Lanston’s invention we may hope for the day when every
parish will be able to do its own printing, or at least set up its own
magazine. The only thing needful will be a monotype keyboard supplied by
an enlightened Parish Council—as soon as the expense appears justifiable
—and kept in the Post Office or Village Institute. The payment of a small
fee will entitle the Squire to punch out his speech on behalf of the
Conservative Candidate, the Schoolmaster to compose special information
for his pupils, the Rector to reduce to print pamphlets and appeals to
charity. And if those of humbler degree think they can strike eloquence
from the keys, they too will of course be allowed to turn out their ideas
literally by the yard.

PHOTOGRAPHY IN COLOURS.
While photography was still in its infancy many people believed that, a
means having been found of impressing the representation of an object on a
sensitised surface, a short time only would have to elapse before the
discovery of some method of registering the colours as well as the forms of
nature.
Photography has during the last forty years passed through some startling
developments, especially as regards speed. Experts, such as M. Marey, have
proved the superiority of the camera over the human eye in its power to
grasp the various phases of animal motion. Even rifle bullets have been
arrested in their lightning flight by the sensitised plate. But while the
camera is a valuable aid to the eye in the matter of form, the eye still has the
advantage so far as colour is concerned. It is still impossible for a
photographer by a simple process similar to that of making an ordinary
black-and-white negative, to affect a plate in such a manner that from it
prints may be made by a single operation showing objects in their natural
colours. Nor, for the matter of that, does colour photography direct from
nature seem any nearer attainment now than it was in the time of Daguerre.
There are, however, extant several methods of making colour photographs
in an indirect or roundabout way. These various “dodges” are, apart from
their beautiful results, so extremely ingenious and interesting that we
propose to here examine three of the best known.
The reader must be careful to banish from his mind those coloured
photographs so often to be seen in railway carriages and shop windows,
which are purely the result of hand-work and mechanical printing, and
therefore not colour photographs at all.
Before embarking on an explanation of these three methods it will be
necessary to examine briefly the nature of those phenomena on which all
are based—light and colour. The two are really identical, light is colour and
colour is light.

Scientists now agree that the sensation of light arises from the wave-like
movements of that mysterious fluid, the omnipresent ether. In a beam of
white light several rates of wave vibrations exist side by side. Pass the beam
through a prism and the various rapidities are sorted out into violet, indigo,
blue, green, yellow, orange and red, which are called the pure colours, since
if any of them be passed again through a prism the result is still that colour.
Crimson, brown, &c., the composite colours, would, if subjected to the
prism, at once split up into their component pure colours.
There are several points to be noticed about the relationship of the seven
pure colours. In the first place, though they are all allies in the task of
making white light, there is hostility among them, each being jealous of the
others, and only waiting a chance to show it. Thus, suppose that we have on
a strip of paper squares of the seven colours, and look at the strip through a
piece of red glass we see only one square—the red—in its natural colour,
since that square is in harmony only with red rays. (Compare the sympathy
of a piano with a note struck on another instrument; if C is struck, say on a
violin, the piano strings producing the corresponding note will sound, but
the other strings will be silent.) The orange square suggests orange, but the
green and blue and violet appear black. Red glass has arrested their ether
vibrations and said “no way here.” Green and violet would serve just the
same trick on red or on each other. It is from this readiness to absorb or stop
dissimilar rays that we have the different colours in a landscape flooded by
a common white sunlight. The trees and grass absorb all but the green rays,
which they reflect. The dandelions and buttercups capture and hold fast all
but the yellow rays. The poppies in the corn send us back red only, and the
cornflowers only blue; but the daisy is more generous and gives up all the
seven. Colour therefore is not a thing that can be touched, any more than
sound, but merely the capacity to affect the retina of the eye with a certain
number of ether vibrations per second, and it makes no difference whether
light is reflected from a substance or refracted through a substance; a red
brick and a piece of red glass have similar effects on the eye.
This then is the first thing to be clearly grasped, that whenever a colour has
a chance to make prisoners of other colours it will do so.
The second point is rather more intricate, viz. that this imprisonment is
going on even when friendly concord appears to be the order of the day. Let

us endeavour to present this clearly to the reader. Of the pure colours,
violet, green and red—the extremes and the centre—are sufficient to
produce white, because each contains an element of its neighbours. Violet
has a certain amount of indigo, green some yellow, red some orange; in fact
every colour of the spectrum contains a greater or less degree of several of
the others, but not enough to destroy its own identity. Now, suppose that we
have three lanterns projecting their rays on to the same portion of a white
sheet, and that in front of the first is placed a violet glass, in front of the
second a green glass, in front of the third a red glass. What is the result? A
white light. Why? Because they meet on equal terms, and as no one of them
is in a point of advantage no prisoners can be made and they must work in
harmony. Next, turn down the violet lantern, and green and red produce a
yellow, half-way between them; turn down red and turn up violet, indigo-
blue results. All the way through a compromise is effected.
But supposing that the red and green glasses are put in front of the same
lantern and the white light sent through them—where has the yellow gone
to? only a brownish-black light reaches the screen. The same thing happens
with red and violet or green and violet.
Prisoners have been taken, because one colour has had to demand passage
from the other. Red says to green, “You want your rays to pass through me,
but they shall not.” Green retorts, “Very well; but I myself have already cut
off all but green rays, and if they don’t pass you, nothing shall.” And the
consequence of the quarrel is practical darkness.
The same phenomenon may be illustrated with blue and yellow. Lights of
these two colours projected simultaneously on to a sheet yield white; but
white light sent through blue and yellow glass in succession produces a
green light. Also, blue paint mixed with yellow gives green. In neither case
is there darkness or entire cutting-off of colour, as in the case of Red +
Violet or Green + Red.
The reason is easy to see.
Blue light is a compromise of violet and green; yellow of green and red.
Hence the two coloured lights falling on the screen make a combination
which can be expressed as an addition sum.

Blue = green + violet.
Yellow = green + red.
——————————
green + violet + red = white.
But when light is passed through two coloured glasses in succession, or
reflected from two layers of coloured paints, there are prisoners to be made.
Blue passes green and violet only.
Yellow passes green and red only.
So violet is captured by yellow, and red by blue, green being free to pass on
its way.
There is, then, a great difference between the mixing of colours, which
evokes any tendency to antagonism, and the adding of colours under such
conditions that they meet on equal terms. The first process happens, as we
have seen, when a ray of light is passed through colours in succession; the
second, when lights stream simultaneously on to an object. A white screen,
being capable of reflecting any colour that falls on to it, will with equal
readiness show green, red, violet, or a combination; but a substance that is
in white light red, or green, or violet will capture any other colour. So that if
for the white screen we substituted a red one, violet or green falling
simultaneously, would yield blackness, because red takes both prisoners; if
it were violet, green would be captured, and so on.
From this follows another phenomenon: that whereas projection of two or
more lights may yield white, white cannot result from any mixture of
pigments. A person with a whole boxful of paints could not get white were
he to mix them in an infinitude of different ways; but with the aid of his
lanterns and as many differently coloured glasses the feat is easy enough.
Any two colours which meet on equal terms to make white are called
complementary colours.

Thus yellow (= red + green lights) is complementary of violet.
Thus pink (= red + violet lights) is complementary of green.

Thus blue (= violet + green lights) is complementary of red.

This does not of course apply to mixture of paints, for complementary
colours must act together, not in antagonism.
If the reader has mastered these preliminary considerations he will have no
difficulty in following out the following processes.
(a) The Joly Process, invented by Professor Joly of Dublin. A glass plate is
ruled across with fine parallel lines—350 to the inch, we believe. These
lines are filled in alternately with violet, green, and red matter, every third
being violet, green or red as the case may be. The colour-screen is placed in
the camera in front of the sensitised plate. Upon an exposure being made,
all light reflected from a red object (to select a colour) is allowed to pass
through the red lines, but blocked by all the green and violet lines. So that
on development that part of the negative corresponding to the position of
the red object will be covered with dark lines separated by transparent belts
of twice the breadth. From the negative a positive is printed, which of
course shows transparent lines separated by opaque belts of twice their
breadth. Now, suppose that we take the colour-screen and place it again in
front of the plate in the position it occupied when the negative was taken,
the red lines being opposite the transparent parts of the positive will be
visible, but the green and violet being blocked by the black deposit behind
them will not be noticeable. So that the object is represented by a number of
red lines, which at a small distance appear to blend into a continuous whole.
The violet and green affect the plate in a corresponding manner; and
composite colours will affect two sets of lines in varying degrees, the lights
from the two sets blending in the eye. Thus yellow will obtain passage from
both green and red, and when the screen is held up against the positive, the
light streaming through the green and red lines will blend into yellow in the
same manner as they would make yellow if projected by lanterns on to a
screen. The same applies to all the colours.
The advantage of the Joly process is that in it only one negative has to be
made.
(b) The Ives Process.—Mr. Frederic Eugene Ives, of Philadelphia, arrives at
the same result as Professor Joly, but by an entirely different means. He

takes three negatives of the same object, one through a violet-blue, another
through a green, and a third through a red screen placed in front of the lens.
The red negative is affected by red rays only; the green by green rays only,
and the violet-blue by violet-blue rays only, in the proper gradations. That is
to say, each negative will have opaque patches wherever the rays of a
certain kind strike it; and the positive printed off will be by consequence
transparent at the same places. By holding the positive made from the red-
screen negative against a piece of red glass, we should see light only in
those parts of the positive which were transparent. Similarly with the green
and violet positives if viewed through glasses of proper colour. The most
ingenious part of Mr. Ives’ method is the apparatus for presenting all three
positives (lighted through their coloured glasses) to the eye simultaneously.
When properly adjusted, so that their various parts exactly coincide, the eye
blends the three together, seeing green, red, or violet separately, or blended
in correct proportions. The Kromoscope, as the viewing apparatus is
termed, contains three mirrors, projecting the reflections from the positives
in a single line. As the three slides are taken stereoscopically the result
gives the impression of solidity as well as of colour, and is most realistic.
(c) The Sanger Shepherd Process.—This is employed mostly for lantern
transparencies. As in the Ives process, three negatives and three transparent
positives are made. But instead of coloured glasses being used to give effect
to the positives the positives themselves are dyed, and placed one on the top
of another in close contact, so that the light from the lantern passes through
them in succession. We have therefore now quitted the realms of harmony
for that of discord, in which prisoners are made; and Mr. Shepherd has had
to so arrange matters that in every case the capture of prisoners does not
interfere with the final result, but conduces to it.
In the first place, three negatives are secured through violet, green, and red
screens. Positives are printed by the carbon process on thin celluloid films.
The carbon film contains gelatine and bichromate of potassium. The light
acts on the bichromate in such a way as to render the gelatine insoluble. The
result is that, though in the positives there is at first no colour, patches of
gelatine are left which will absorb dyes of various colours. The dyeing
process requires a large amount of care and patience.

Now, it would be a mistake to suppose that each positive is dyed in the
colour of the screen through which its negative was taken. A moment’s
consideration will show us why.
Let us assume that we are photographing a red object, a flower-pot for
instance. The red negative represents the pot by a dark deposit. The positive
printed off will consequently show clear glass at that spot, the unaffected
gelatine being soluble. So that to dye the plate would be to make all red
except the very part which we require red; and on holding it up to the light
the flower-pot would appear as a white transparent patch.
How then is the problem to be solved?
Mr. Shepherd’s process is based upon an ordered system of prisoner-taking.
Thus, as red in this particular case is wanted it will be attained by the other
two positives (which are placed in contact with the red positive, so that all
three coincide exactly), robbing white light of all but its red rays.
Now if the other positives were dyed green and violet, what would happen?
They would not produce red, but by robbing white light between them of
red, green, and violet, would produce blackness, and we should be as far as
ever from our object.
The positives are therefore dyed, not in the same colours as the screens used
when the negatives were made, but in their complementary colours, i.e. as
explained above, those colours which added to the colour of the screen
would make white.
The red screen negative is therefore dyed (violet + green) = blue. The green
negative (red + violet) = pink. The violet negative (red + green) = yellow.
To return to our flower-pot. The red-screen positive (dyed blue) is, as we
saw, quite transparent where the pot should be. But behind the transparent
gap are the pink and yellow positives.
White light (= violet + green + red) passes through pink (= violet + red),
and has to surrender all its green rays. The violet and red pass on and
encounter yellow (= green + red), and violet falls a victim to green, leaving
red unmolested.

If the flower-pot had been white all three positives would have contained
clear patches unaffected by the three dyes, and the white light would have
been unobstructed. The gradations and mixtures of colours are obtained by
two of the screens being influenced by the colour of the object. Thus, if it
were crimson, both violet and red-screen negatives would be affected by the
rays reflected by it, and the green screen negative not at all. Hence the pink
positive would be pink, the yellow clear, and the blue clear.
White light passing through is robbed by pink of green, leaving red + violet
= crimson.

Colour Printing.
Printing in ink colours is done in a manner very similar to the Sanger
Shepherd lantern slide process. Three blocks are made, by the help of
photography, through violet, green and red screens, and etched away with
acid, like ordinary half-tone black-and-white blocks. The three blocks have
applied to them ink of a complementary colour to the screen they represent,
just as in the Sanger Shepherd process the positives were dyed. The three
inks are laid over one another on the paper by the blocks, the relieved parts
of which (corresponding to the undissolved gelatine of the Shepherd
positives) only take the ink. White light being reflected through layers of
coloured inks is treated in just the same way as it would be were it
transmitted through coloured glasses, yielding all the colours in
approximately correct gradations.

LIGHTING.
The production of fire by artificial means has been reasonably regarded as
the greatest invention in the history of the human race. Prior to the day
when a man was first able to call heat from the substances about him the
condition of our ancestors must have been wretched indeed. Raw food was
their portion; metals mingled with other matter mocked their efforts to
separate them; the cold of winter drove them to the recesses of gloomy
caverns, where night reigned perpetual.
The production of fire also, of course, entailed the creation of light, which
in its developments has been of an importance second only to the improved
methods of heating. So accustomed are we to our candles, our lamps, our
gas-jets, our electric lights, that it is hard for us to imagine what an
immense effect their sudden and complete removal would have on our
existence. At times, when floods, explosions, or other accidents cause a
temporary stoppage of the gas or current supply, a town may for a time be
plunged into darkness; but this only for a short period, the distress of which
can be alleviated by recourse to paraffin lamps, or the more homely candle.
The earliest method of illumination was the rough-and-ready one of
kindling a pile of brushwood or logs. The light produced was very uncertain
and feeble, but possibly sufficient for the needs of the cave-dweller. With
the advance of civilisation arose an increasing necessity for a more steady
illuminant, discovered in vegetable oils, burned in lamps of various designs.
Lamps have been found in old Egyptian and Etruscan tombs constructed
thousands of years ago. These lamps do not differ essentially from those in
use to-day, being reservoirs fitted with a channel to carry a wick.
But probably from the difficulty of procuring oil, lamps fell into
comparative disuse, or rather were almost unknown, in many countries of
Europe as late as the fifteenth century; when the cottage and baronial hall
were alike lit by the blazing torch fixed into an iron sconce or bracket on
the wall.

The rushlight, consisting of a peeled rush, coated by repeated dipping into a
vessel of melted fat, made a feeble effort to dispel the gloom of long winter
evenings. This was succeeded by the tallow and more scientifically made
wax candle, which last still maintains a certain popularity.
How our grandmothers managed to “keep their eyes” as they worked at
stitching by the light of a couple of candles, whose advent was the event of
the evening, is now a mystery. To-day we feel aggrieved if our lamps are
not of many candle-power, and protest that our sight will be ruined by what
one hundred and fifty years ago would have seemed a marvel of
illumination. In the case of lighting necessity has been the mother of
invention. The tendency of modern life is to turn night into day. We go to
bed late and we get up late; this is perhaps foolish, but still we do it. And,
what is more, we make increasing use of places, such as basements,
underground tunnels, and “tubes,” to which the light of heaven cannot
penetrate during any of the daily twenty-four hours.
The nineteenth century saw a wonderful advance in the science of
illumination. As early as 1804 the famous scientist, Sir Humphrey Davy,
discovered the electric arc, presently to be put to such universal use. About
the same time gas was first manufactured and led about in pipes. But before
electricity for lighting purposes had been rendered sufficiently cheap the
discovery of the huge oil deposits in Pennsylvania flooded the world with
an inexpensive illuminant. As early as the thirteenth century Marco Polo,
the explorer, wrote of a natural petroleum spring at Baku, on the Caspian
Sea: “There is a fountain of great abundance, inasmuch as a thousand
shiploads might be taken from it at one time. This oil is not good to use
with food, but it is good to burn; and is also used to anoint camels that have
the mange. People come from vast distances to fetch it, for in all other
countries there is no oil.” His last words have been confuted by the
American oil-fields, yielding many thousands of barrels a day—often in
such quantities that the oil runs to waste for lack of a buyer.
The rivals for pre-eminence in lighting to-day are electricity, coal gas,
petroleum, and acetylene gas. The two former have the advantage of being
easily turned on at will, like water; the third is more generally available.

The invention of the dynamo by Gramme in 1870 marks the beginning of
an epoch in the history of illumination. With its aid current of such intensity
as to constantly bridge an air-gap between carbon points could be generated
for a fraction of the cost entailed by other previous methods. Paul
Jablochkoff devised in 1876 his “electric candle”—a couple of parallel
carbon rods separated by an insulating medium that wasted away under the
influence of heat at the same rate as the rods. The “candles” were used with
rapidly-alternating currents, as the positive “pole” wasted twice as quickly
as the negative. During the Paris Exhibition of 1878 visitors to Paris were
delighted by the new method of illumination installed in some of the
principal streets and theatres.
The arc-lamp of to-day, such as we see in our streets, factories, and railway
stations, is a modification of M. Jablochkoff’s principle. Carbon rods are
used, but they are pointed towards each other, the distance between their
extremities being kept constant by ingenious mechanical contrivances. Arc-
lamps of all types labour under the disadvantage of being, by necessity,
very powerful; and were they only available the employment of electric
lighting would be greatly restricted. As it is, we have, thanks to the genius
of Mr. Edison, a means of utilising current in but small quantities to yield a
gentler light. The glow-lamp, as it is called, is so familiar to us that we
ought to know something of its antecedents.
In the arc-lamp the electric circuit is broken at the point where light is
required. In glow or incandescent lamps the current is only hindered by the
interposition of a bad conductor of electricity, which must also be
incombustible. Just as a current of water flows in less volume as the bore of
a pipe is reduced, and requires that greater pressure shall be exerted to force
a constant amount through the pipe, so is an electric current choked by its
conductor being reduced in size or altered in nature. Edison in 1878
employed as the current-choker a very fine platinum wire, which, having a
melting temperature of 3450 degrees Fahrenheit, allowed a very white heat
to be generated in it. The wire was enclosed in a glass bulb almost entirely
exhausted of air by a mercury-pump before being sealed. But it was found
that even platinum could not always withstand the heating effect of a strong
current; and accordingly Edison looked about for some less combustible
material. Mr. J. W. Swan of Newcastle-on-Tyne had already experimented
with carbon filaments made from cotton threads steeped in sulphuric acid.

Edison and Swan joined hands to produce the present well-known lamp,
“The Ediswan,” the filament of which is a bamboo fibre, carbonised during
the exhaustion of air in the bulb to one-millionth of an atmosphere pressure
by passing the electric current through it. These bamboo filaments are very
elastic and capable of standing almost any heat.
Glow-lamps are made in all sizes—from tiny globes small enough to top a
tie-pin to powerful lamps of 1000 candle-power. Their independence of
atmospheric air renders them most convenient in places where other forms
of illumination would be dangerous or impossible; e.g. in coal mines, and
under water during diving operations. By their aid great improvements have
been effected in the lighting of theatres, which require a quick switching on
and off of light. They have also been used in connection with minute
cameras to explore the recesses of the human body. In libraries they
illuminate without injuring the books. In living rooms they do not foul the
air or blacken the ceiling like oil or gas burners. The advantages of the
“Edison lamp” are, in short, multitudinous.
Cheapness of current to work them is, of course, a very important condition
of their economy. In some small country villages the cottages are lit by
electricity even in England, but these are generally within easy reach of
water power. Mountainous districts, such as Norway and Switzerland, with
their rushing streams and high water-falls, are peculiarly suited for electric
lighting: the cost of which is mainly represented by the expense of the
generating apparatus and the motive power.
One of the greatest engineering undertakings in the world is connected with
the manufacture of electric current. Niagara, the “Thunder of the Waters” as
the Indians called it, has been harnessed to produce electrical energy,
convertible at will into motion, heat, or light. The falls pass all the water
overflowing from nearly 100,000 square miles of lakes, which in turn drain
a far larger area of territory. Upwards of 10,000 cubic yards of water leap
over the falls every second, and are hurled downwards for more than 200
feet, with an energy of eight or nine million horse-power! In 1886 a
company determined to turn some of this huge force to account. They
bought up land on the American bank, and cut a tunnel 6700 yards long,
beginning a mile and a half above the falls, and terminating below them.
Water drawn from the river thunders into the tunnel through a number of

wheel pits, at the bottom of each of which is a water-turbine developing
5000 horse-power. The united force of the turbines is said to approximate
100,000 horse-power; and as if this were but a small thing, the same
Company has obtained concessions to erect plant on the Canadian bank to
double or treble the total power.
So cheaply is current thus produced that the Company is in a position to
supply it at rates which appear small compared with those that prevail in
this country. A farthing will there purchase what would here cost from
ninepence to a shilling. Under such conditions the electric lamp need fear
no competitor.
But in less favoured districts gas and petroleum are again holding up their
heads.
Both coal and oil-gas develop a great amount of heat in proportion to the
light they yield. The hydrogen they contain in large quantities burns, when
pure, with an almost invisible flame, but more hotly than any other known
gas. The particles of carbon also present in the flame are heated to
whiteness by the hydrogen, but they are not sufficient in number to convert
more than a fraction of the heat into light.
A German, Auer von Welsbach, conceived the idea of suspending round the
flame a circular “mantle” of woven cotton steeped in a solution of certain
rare earths (e.g. lanthanum, yttrium, zirconium), to arrest the heat and
compel it to produce bright incandescence in the arresting substance.
With the same gas consumption a Welsbach burner yields seven or more
times the light of an ordinary batswing burner. The light itself is also of a
more pleasant description, being well supplied with the blue rays of the
spectrum.
The mantle is used with other systems than the ordinary gas-jet. Recently
two methods of illumination have been introduced in which the source of
illumination is supplied under pressure.
The high-pressure incandescent gas installations of Mr. William Sugg
supply gas to burners at five or six times the ordinary pressure of the mains.
The effect is to pulverise the gas as it issues from the nozzle of the burners,
and, by rendering it more inflammable, to increase its heating power until

the surrounding mantle glows with a very brilliant and white light of great
penetration. Gas is forced through the pipes connected with the lamps by
hydraulic rams working gas-pumps, which alternately suck in and expel the
gas under a pressure of twelve inches (i.e. a pressure sufficient to maintain a
column of water twelve inches high). The gas under this pressure passes
into a cylinder of a capacity considerably greater than the capacity of the
pumps. This cylinder neutralises the shock of the rams, when the stroke
changes from up-to downstroke, and vice versâ. On the top of the cylinder
is fixed a governor consisting of a strong leathern gas-holder, which has a
stroke of about three inches, and actuates a lever which opens and closes
the valve through which the supply of water to the rams flows, and reduces
the flow of the water when it exceeds ten or twelve inches pressure,
according to circumstances. The gas-holder of the governor is lifted by the
pressure of the gas in the cylinder, which passes through a small opening
from the cylinder to the governor so as not to cause any sudden rise or fall
of the gas-holder. By this means a nearly constant pressure is maintained;
and from the outlet of the cylinder the gas passes to another governor
sufficient to supply the number of lights the apparatus is designed for, and
to maintain the pressure without variation whether all or a few lamps are in
action. For very large installations steam is used.
Each burner develops 300 candle-power. A double-cylinder steam-engine
working a double pump supplies 300 of these burners, giving a total
lighting-power of 90,000 candles. As compared with the cost of low-
pressure incandescent lighting the high-pressure system is very economical,
being but half as expensive for the same amount of light.
It is largely used in factories and railway stations. It may be seen on the
Tower Bridge, Blackfriars Bridge, Euston Station, and in the terminus of the
Great Central Railway, St. John’s Wood.
Perhaps the most formidable rival to the electric arc-lamp for the lighting of
large spaces and buildings is the Kitson Oil Lamp, now so largely used in
America and this country.
The lamp is usually placed on the top of an iron post similar to an ordinary
gas-light standard. At the bottom of the post is a chamber containing a steel
reservoir capable of holding from five to forty gallons of petroleum. Above

the oil is an air-space into which air has been forced at a pressure of fifty
lbs. to the square inch, to act as an elastic cushion to press the oil into the
burners. The oil passes upwards through an extremely fine tube scarcely
thicker than electric incandescent wires to a pair of cross tubes above the
burners. The top one of these acts as a filter to arrest any foreign matter that
finds its way into the oil; the lower one, in diameter about the size of a lead-
pencil and eight inches long, is immediately above the mantles, the heat
from which vaporises the small quantity of oil in the tube. The oil-gas then
passes through a tiny hole no larger than a needle-point into an open
mixing-tube where sufficient air is drawn in for supporting combustion. The
mixture then travels down to the mantle, inside which it burns.
An ingenious device has lately been added to the system for facilitating the
lighting of the lamp. At the base of the lamp-post a small hermetically-
closed can containing petroleum ether is placed, and connected by very fine
copper-tubing with a burner under the vaporising tube. When the lamp is to
be lit a small rubber bulb is squeezed, forcing a quantity of the ether vapour
into the burner, where it is ignited by a platinum wire rendered incandescent
by a current passing from a small accumulator also placed in the lamp-post.
The burner rapidly heats the vaporising tube, and in a few moments oil-gas
is passing into the mantles, where it is ignited by the burner.
So economical is the system that a light of 1000 candle-power is produced
by the combustion of about half-a-pint of petroleum per hour! Comparisons
are proverbially odious, but in many cases very instructive. Professor V. B.
Lewes thus tabulates the results of experiments with various illuminants:—

Cost of 1000 candles per hour. s. d.
Electricity
Incandescent 1 2
Arc 0 3-3/4
Coal-gas
Flat flame 1 6
Incandescent 0 2-1/4
Incandescent high pressure 0 1-3/4
Oil

Lamp (oil at 8d. per gall.) 0 7-1/4
Incandescent lamp 0 2-1/4
Kitson lamp 0 1

Petroleum, therefore, at present comes in a very good first in England.
The system that we have noticed at some length has been adapted for
lighthouse use, as it gives a light peculiarly fog-piercing. It is said to
approximate most closely to ordinary sunlight, and on that account has been
found very useful for the taking of photographs at night-time. The
portability of the apparatus makes it popular with contractors; and the fact
that its installation requires no tearing up of the streets is a great
recommendation with the long-suffering public of some of our large towns.
Another very powerful light is produced by burning the gas given off by
carbide of calcium when immersed in water. Acetylene gas, as it is called, is
now widely used in cycle and motor lamps, which emit a shaft of light
sometimes painfully dazzling to those who have to face it. In Germany the
gas is largely employed in village streets; and in this country it is gaining
ground as an illuminant of country houses, being easy to manufacture—in
small gasometers of a few cubic yards capacity—and economical to burn.
Well supplied as we are with lights, we find, nevertheless, that savants are
constantly in pursuit of an ideal illuminant.
From the sun are borne to us through the ether light waves, heat waves,
magnetic waves, and other waves of which we have as yet but a dim
perception. The waves are commingled, and we are unable to separate them
absolutely. And as soon as we try to copy the sun’s effects as a source of
heat or light we find the same difficulty. The fire that cooks our food gives
off a quantity of useless light-waves; the oil-lamp that brightens one’s
rooms gives off a quantity of useless, often obnoxious, heat.
The ideal illuminant and the ideal heating agent must be one in which the
required waves are in a great majority. Unfortunately, even with our most
perfected methods, the production of light is accompanied by the exertion
of a disproportionate amount of wasted energy. In the ordinary incandescent
lamp, to take an instance, only 5 or 6 per cent. of the energy put into it as
electricity results in light. The rest is dispelled in overcoming the resistance

of the filament and agitating the few air-molecules in the bulb. To this we
must add the fact that the current itself represents but a fraction of the
power exerted to produce it. The following words of Professor Lodge are to
the point on this subject:—
“Look at the furnaces and boilers of a steam-engine driving a group of
dynamos, and estimate the energy expended; and then look at the
incandescent filaments of the lamps excited by them, and estimate how
much of their radiated energy is of real service to the eye. It will be as the
energy of a pitch-pipe to an entire orchestra.
“It is not too much to say that a boy turning a handle could, if his energy
were properly directed, produce quite as much real light as is produced by
all this mass of mechanism and consumption of material.”[6]
[6] Professor Oliver Lodge, in a lecture to the Ashmolean Society, 3rd June
1889.

The most perfect light in nature is probably that of the glow-worm and
firefly—a phosphorescent or “cold” light, illuminating without combustion
owing to the absence of all waves but those of the requisite frequency. The
task before mankind is to imitate the glow-worm in the production of
isolated light-waves.
The nearest approach to its achievement has occurred in the laboratories of
Mr. Nikola Tesla, the famous electrician. By means of a special oscillator,
invented by himself, he has succeeded in throwing the ether particles into
such an intense state of vibration that they become luminous. In other
words, he has created vibrations of the enormous rapidity of light, and this
without the creation of heat waves to any appreciable extent.
An incandescent lamp, mounted on a powerful coil, is lit without contact by
ether waves transmitted from a cable running round the laboratory, or bulbs
and tubes containing highly rarefied gases are placed between two large
plate-terminals arranged on the end walls. As soon as the bulbs are held in
the path of the currents passing through the ether from plate to plate they
become incandescent, shining with a light which, though weak, is
sufficiently strong to take photographs by with a long exposure. Tesla has
also invented what he calls a “sanitary” light, as he claims for it the germ-
killing properties of sunshine. The lamps are glass tubes several feet long,

bent into spirals or other convolutions, and filled before sealing with a
certain gas. The ends of the glass tube are coated with metal and provided
with hooks to connect the lamp with an electric current. The gas becomes
luminous under the influence of current, but not strictly incandescent, as
there is very little heat engendered. This means economy in use. The lamps
are said to be cheaply manufactured, but as yet they are not “on the
market.” We shall hear more of them in the near future, which will probably
witness no more interesting development than that of lighting.
Before closing this chapter a few words may be said about new heating
methods. Gas stoves are becoming increasingly popular by reason of the
ease with which they can be put in action and made to maintain an even
temperature. But the most up-to-date heating apparatus is undoubtedly
electrical. Utensils of all sorts are fitted with very thin heating strips
(formed by the deposition of precious metals, such as gold, platinum, &c.,
on exceedingly thin mica sheets), through which are passed powerful
currents from the mains. The resistance of the strip converts the
electromotive energy of the current into heat, which is either radiated into
the air or into water for cookery, &c.
In all parts of the house the electric current may be made to do work besides
that of lighting. It warms the passages by means of special radiators—
replacing the clumsy coal and “stuffy” gas stove; in the kitchen it boils,
stews, and fries, heats the flat-irons and ovens; in the breakfast room boils
the kettle, keeps the dishes, teapots, and coffee-pots warm; in the bathroom
heats the water; in the smoking-room replaces matches; in the bedroom
electrifies footwarmers, and—last wonder of all—even makes possible an
artificially warm bed-quilt to heat the chilled limbs of invalids!
The great advantage of electric heating is the freedom from all smell and
smoke that accompanies it. But until current can be provided at cheaper
rates than prevail at present, its employment will be chiefly restricted to the
houses of the wealthy or to large establishments, such as hotels, where it
can be used on a sufficient scale to be comparatively economical.

THE END

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