NEW YORK, MAY 26, 1888
Scientific American Supplement. Vol. XXV., No. 647.
Scientific American established 1845
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INFLUENCE MACHINES.[1]
By Mr. James Wimshurst.
I have the honor this evening of addressing a few remarks to you upon the subject of influence machines, and the manner in which I propose to treat the subject is to state as shortly as possible, first, the historical portion, and afterward to point out the prominent characteristics of the later and the more commonly known machines. The diagrams upon the screen will assist the eye to the general form of the typical machines, but I fear that want of time will prevent me from explaining each of them.
In 1762 Wilcke described a simple apparatus which produced electrical charges by influence, or induction, and following this the great Italian scientist Alexander Volta in 1775 gave the electrophorus the form which it retains to the present day. This apparatus may be viewed as containing the germ of the principle of all influence machines yet constructed.
Another step in the development was the invention of the doubler by Bennet in 1786. He constructed metal plates which were thickly varnished, and were supported by insulating handles, and which were manipulated so as to increase a small initial charge. It may be better for me to here explain the process of building up an increased charge by electrical influence, for the same principle holds in all of the many forms of influence machines.
This Volta electrophorus, and these three blackboards, will serve for the purpose. I first excite the electrophorus in the usual manner, and you see that it then influences a charge in its top plate; the charge in the resinous compound is known as negative, while the charge induced in its top plate is known as positive. I now show you by this electroscope that these charges are unlike in character. Both charges are, however, small, and Bennet used the following system to increase them.
Let these three boards represent Bennet's three plates. To plate No. 1 he imparted a positive charge, and with it he induced a negative charge in plate No. 2. Then with plate No. 2 he induced a positive charge in plate No. 3. He then placed the plates Nos. 1 and 3 together, by which combination he had two positive charges within practically the same space, and with these two charges he induced a double charge in plate No. 2. This process was continued until the desired degree of increase was obtained. I will not go through the process of actually building up a charge by such means, for it would take more time than I can spare.
In 1787 Carvallo discovered the very important fact that metal plates when insulated always acquire slight charges of electricity; following up those two important discoveries of Bennet and Carvallo, Nicholson in 1788 constructed an apparatus having two disks of metal insulated and fixed in the same plane. Then by means of a spindle and handle, a third disk, also insulated, was made to revolve near to the two fixed disks, metallic touches being fixed in suitable positions. With this apparatus he found that small residual charges might readily be increased. It is in this simple apparatus that we have the parent of influence machines (see Fig. 1), and as it is now a hundred years since Nicholson described this machine in the Phil. Trans., I think it well worth showing a large sized Nicholson machine at work to-night (see Fig. 11, above).
In 1823 Ronalds described a machine in which the moving disk was attached to and worked by the pendulum of a clock. It was a modification of Nicholson's doubler, and he used it to supply electricity for telegraph working. For some years after these machines were invented no important advance appears to have been made, and I think this may be attributed to the great discoveries in galvanic electricity which were made about the commencement of this century by Galvani and Volta, followed in 1831 to 1857 by the magnificent discoveries of Faraday in electro-magnetism, electro-chemistry, and electro-optics, and no real improvement was made in influence machines till 1860, in which year Varley patented a form of machine shown in Fig. 2. It also was designed for telegraph working.
In 1865 the subject was taken up with vigor in Germany by Toepler, Holtz, and other eminent men. The most prominent of the machines made by them are figured in the diagrams (Figs. 3 to 6), but time will not admit of my giving an explanation of the many points of interest in them; it being my wish to show you at work such of the machines as I may be able, and to make some observations upon them.
In 1866 Bertsch invented a machine, but not of the multiplying type; and in 1867 Sir William Thomson invented the form of machine shown in Fig. 7, which, for the purpose of maintaining a constant potential in a Leyden jar, is exceedingly useful.
The Carre machine was invented in 1868, and in 1880 the Voss machine was introduced, since which time the latter has found a place in many laboratories. It closely resembles the Varley machine in appearance, and the Toepler machine in construction.
In condensing this part of my subject, I have had to omit many prominent names and much interesting subject matter, but I must state that in placing what I have before you, many of my scientific friends have been ready to help and to contribute, and, as an instance of this, I may mention that Prof. Sylvanus P. Thompson at once placed all his literature and even his private notes of reference at my service.
I will now endeavor to point out the more prominent features of the influence machines which I have present, and, in doing so, I must ask a moment's leave from the subject of my lecture to show you a small machine made by that eminent worker Faraday, which, apart from its value as his handiwork, so closely brings us face to face with the imperfect apparatus with which he and others of his day made their valuable researches.
The next machine which I take is a Holtz. It has one plate revolving, the second plate being fixed. The fixed plate, as you see, is so much cut away that it is very liable to breakage. Paper inductors are fixed upon the back of it, while opposite the inductors, and in front of the revolving plate, are combs. To work the machine (1) a specially dry atmosphere is required; (2) an initial charge is necessary; (3) when at work the amount of electricity passing through the terminals is great; (4) the direction of the current is apt to reverse; (5) when the terminals are opened beyond the sparking distance, the excitement rapidly dies away; (6) it does not part with free electricity from either of the terminals singly.
It has no metal on the revolving plates, nor any metal contacts; the electricity is collected by combs which take the place of brushes, and it is the break in the connection of this circuit which supplies a current for external use. On this point I cannot do better than quote an extract from page 339 of Sir William Thomson's "Papers on Electrostatics and Magnetism," which runs: "Holtz's now celebrated electric machine, which is closely analogous in principle to Varley's of 1860, is, I believe, a descendant of Nicholson's. Its great power depends upon the abolition by Holtz of metallic carriers and metallic make-and-break-contacts. It differs from Varley's and mine by leaving the inductors to themselves, and using the current in the connecting arc."
In respect to the second form of Holtz machine (Fig. 4) I have very little information, for since it was brought to my notice nearly six years ago I have not been able to find either one of the machines or any person who had seen one. As will be seen by the diagram, it has two disks revolving in opposite directions, it has no metal sectors and no metal contacts. The "connecting arc circuit" is used for the terminal circuit. Altogether I can very well understand and fully appreciate the statement made by Professor Holtz in Uppenborn's Journal of May, 1881, wherein he writes that "for the purpose of demonstration I would rather be without such machines."
The first type of Holtz machine has now in many instances been made up in multiple form, within suitably constructed glass cases, but when so made up, great difficulty has been found in keeping each of the many plates to a like excitement. When differently excited, the one set of plates furnished positive electricity to the comb, while the next set of plates gave negative electricity; as a consequence, no electricity passed the terminal.
To overcome this objection, to dispense with the dangerously cut plates, and also to better neutralize the revolving plate, throughout its whole diameter, I made a large machine having twelve disks 2 ft. 7 in. in diameter, and in it I inserted plain rectangular slips of glass between the disks, which might readily be removed; these slips carried the paper inductors. To keep all the paper inductors on one side of the machine to a like excitement, I connected them together by a metal wire. The machine so made worked splendidly, and your late president, Mr. Spottiswoode, sent on two occasions to take note of my successful modifications. The machine is now ten years old, but still works perfectly. I will show you a smaller sized one at work.
The next machine for observations is the Carre (Fig. 8). It consists essentially or a disk of glass which is free to revolve without touch or friction. At one end of a diameter it moves near to the excited plate of a frictional machine, while at the opposite end of the diameter is a strip of insulting material, opposite which, and also opposite the excited amalgam plate, are combs for conducting the induced charges, and to which the terminals are metallically connected; the machine works well in ordinary atmosphere, and certainly is in many ways to be preferred to the simple frictional machine. In my experiments with it I found that the quantity of electricity might be more than doubled by adding a segment of glass between the amalgam cushions and the revolving plate. The current in this type of machine is constant.
The Voss machine has one fixed plate and one revolving plate. Upon the fixed plate are two inductors, while on the revolving plate are six circular carriers. Two brushes receive the first portions of the induced charges from the carriers, which portions are conveyed to the inductors. The combs collect the remaining portion of the induced charge for use as an outer circuit, while the metal rod with its two brushes neutralizes the plate surface in a line of its diagonal diameter. When at work it supplies a considerable amount of electricity. It is self-exciting in ordinary dry atmosphere. It freely parts with its electricity from either terminal, but when so used the current frequently changes its direction, hence there is no certainty that a full charge has been obtained, nor whether the charge is of positive or negative electricity.
I next come to the type of machine with which I am more closely associated, and I may preface my remarks by adding that the invention sprang solely from my experience gained by constantly using and experimenting with the many electrical machines which I possessed. It was from these I formed a working hypothesis which led me to make my first small machine. It excited itself when new with the first revolution. It so fully satisfied me with its performance that I had four others made, the first of which I presented to this Institution. Its construction is of a simple character. The two disks of glass revolve near to each other and in opposite directions. Each disk carries metallic sectors; each disk has its two brushes supported by metal rods, the rods to the two plates forming an angle of 90 deg. with each other. The external circuit is independent of the brushes, and is formed by the combs and terminals.
The machine is self-exciting under all conditions of atmosphere, owing probably to each plate being influenced by and influencing in turn its neighbor, hence there is the minimum surface for leakage. When excited, the direction of the current never changes; this circumstance is due, probably, to the circuit of the metallic sectors and the make and break contacts always being closed, while the combs and the external circuit are supplemental, and for external use only. The quantity of electricity is very large and the potential high. When suitably arranged, the length of spark produced is equal to nearly the radius of the disk. I have made them from 2 in. to 7 ft. in diameter, with equally satisfactory results. The diagram, Fig. 9, shows the distribution of the electricity upon the plate surfaces when the machine is fully excited. The inner circle of signs corresponds with the electricity upon the front surface of the disk. The two circles of signs between the two black rings refer to the electricity between the disks, while the outer circle of signs corresponds with the electricity upon the outer surface of the back disk. The diagram is the result of experiments which I cannot very well repeat here this evening, but in support of the distribution shown on the diagram, I will show you two disks at work made of a flexible material, which when driven in one direction close together at the top and the bottom, while in the horizontal diameter they are repelled. When driven in the reverse direction, the opposite action takes place.
I have also experimented with the cylindrical form of the machine (see Fig. 10). The first of these I made in 1882, and it is before you. The cylinder gives inferior results to the simple disks, and is more complicated to adjust. You notice I neither use nor recommend vulcanite, and it is perhaps well to caution my hearers against the use of that material for the purpose, for it warps with age, and when left in the daylight it changes and becomes useless.
I have now only to speak of the larger machines. They are in all respects made up with the same plates, sectors, and brushes as were used by me in the first experimental machines, but for convenience sake they are fitted in numbers within a glass case. One machine has eight plates of 2 ft. 4 in. diameter; it has been in the possession of the Institution for about three years. A second, which has been made for this lecture, has twelve disks, each 2 ft. 6 in. in diameter. The length of spark from it is 135/8 in. (see Fig. 12). During the construction of the machine every care was taken to avoid electrical excitement in any of its parts, and after its completion several friends were present to witness the fitting of the brushes and the first start. When all was ready the terminals were connected to an electroscope, and the handle was moved so slowly that it occupied thirty seconds in moving one-half revolution, and at that point violent excitement appeared.
The machine has now been standing with its handle secured for about eight hours. No excitement is apparent, but still it may not be absolutely inert. Of this each one present must judge, but I will connect it with this electroscope (Figs. 13 and 14), and then move the handle slowly, so that you may see when the excitement commences and judge of its absolutely reliable behavior as an instrument for public demonstration. I may say that I have never, under any condition, found this type of machine to fail in its performance.
I now propose to show you the beautiful appearances of the discharge, and then, in order that you may judge of the relative capabilities of each of these three machines, we will work them all at the same time.
The large frictional machine which is in use for this comparison is so well known by you that a better standard could not be desired.
In conclusion, I may be permitted to say that it is fortunate I had not read the opinions of Sir William Thomson and Professor Holtz, as quoted in the earlier part of my lecture, previous to my own practical experiments. For had I read such opinions from such authorities, I should probably have accepted them without putting them to practical test. As the matter stands, I have done those things which they said I ought not to have done, and I have left undone those which they said I ought to have done, and by so doing I think you must freely admit that I have produced an electric generating machine of great power, and have placed in the hands of the physicist, for the purposes of public demonstration or original research, an instrument more reliable than anything hitherto produced.
Lecture delivered at the Royal Institution, April 27, 1888. For the above and for our illustrations we are indebted to Engineering.
Violet Copying Ink.—Dissolve 40 parts of extract of logwood, 5 of oxalic acid and 30 parts of sulphate of aluminium, without heat, in 800 parts of distilled water and 10 parts of glycerine; let stand twenty-four hours, then add a solution of 5 parts of bichromate of potassium in 100 parts of distilled water, and again set aside for twenty-four hours. Now raise the mixture once to boiling in a bright copper boiler, mix with it, while hot, 50 parts of wood vinegar, and when cold put into bottles. After a fortnight decant it from the sediment. In thin layers this ink is reddish violet; it writes dark violet and furnishes bluish violet copies.
SIBLEY COLLEGE LECTURES.—1887-88.
BY THE CORNELL UNIVERSITY NON-RESIDENT LECTURERS IN MECHANICAL ENGINEERING.
The Evolution of the Modern Mill.[1]
By C. J. H. Woodbury, Boston, Mass.
The great factories of the textile industries in this country are fashioned after methods peculiarly adapted to the purposes for which they are designed, particularly as regards the most convenient placing of machinery, the distribution of power, the relation of the several processes to each other in the natural sequence of manufacture, and the arrangement of windows securing the most favorable lighting. The floors and roofs embody the most economical distribution of material, and the walls furnish examples of well known forms of masonry originating with this class of buildings.
These features of construction have not been produced by a stroke of genius on the part of any one man. There has been no Michael Angelo, no Sir Christopher Wren, whose epitaph bids the reader to look around for a monument; but the whole has been a matter of slow, steady growth, advancing by hair's breadth; and, as the result of continual efforts to adapt means to ends, an inorganic evolution has been effected, resulting in the survival of the fittest, and literally pushing the weaker to the wall.
This advance in methods has, like all inventions, resulted in the impairment of invested capital. There are hundreds of mill buildings, the wonder of their day, now used for storage because they cannot be employed to sufficient advantage in manufacturing purposes to compete with the facilities furnished by mills of later design. Thus their owners have been compelled to erect new buildings, and, as far as the original purpose of manufacturing is concerned, to abandon their old mills.
In the case of a certain cotton mill built about thirty years ago, and used for the manufacture of colored goods of fancy weave, the owners added to the plant by constructing a one story mill, which proved to be peculiarly adapted to this kind of manufacture, by reason of added stability, better light, and increased facilities for transferring the stock in process of manufacture; and they soon learned not only that the old mill could not compete with the new one, but that they could not afford to run it at any price; the annual saving in the cost of gas, as measured by the identical meter used to measure the supply to the old mill, being six per cent. on the cost of the new mill.
In another instance, one of two cordage mills burned, and a new mill of one story construction was erected in its place. The advantage of manufacture therein was so great that the owners of the property changed the remaining old mill into a storehouse; and now, as they wish to increase their business, it is to be torn down as a cumberer of the ground, to make room for a building of similar construction to the new mill.
It is true that such instances pertain more particularly to industries and lines of manufacture where competition is close and conditions are exacting. Still they apply in a greater or less degree to nearly every industrial process in which a considerable portion of the expense of manufacture consists in the application of organized labor to machines of a high degree of perfection.
These changes have been solely due to the differences in the conditions imposed by improvement in the methods of manufacture. The early mills of this country were driven by water power, and situated where that could be developed in the easiest manner. They were therefore placed in the narrow valleys of rapid watercourses. The method of applying water power in that day being strictly limited to placing the overshot or breast wheel in the race leading from the canal to the river, the mill was necessarily placed on a narrow strip of land between these two bodies of water, with the race-way running under the mill.
To meet these conditions of location, which was limited to this strip of land, the mill must be narrow and short, and the requisite floor area must be obtained by adding to the number of stories. It was essential that the roof of such a mill should be strong and well braced in order to sustain the excessive stress brought to bear upon it. The old factory roof was a curious structure, with eaves springing out of the edge of hollow cornices, the roof rising sharply until about six feet above the attic floor, with an upright course of about three feet, filled with sashes reaching to a second roof, which, at a more moderate pitch than the first slope, trended to the ridge.
The attic was reduced to an approximately square room, by placing sheathing between the columns underneath the sashes, and ceiling underneath the collar beams above; thus forming a cock-loft above and concealed spaces at the sides which diminished the practically available floor space in the attic. This cock-loft and these concealed spaces became receptacles for rubbish and harbors for vermin, both of which were frequent causes of fire.
The floors of such a mill were similar in their arrangement to those of a dwelling. Joists connecting the beams supported the floor; and the under side was covered over by sheathing or lath and plaster, thus forming, as in the case of the roof, hollow spaces which were a source of danger. This method caused at the same time an extravagant distribution of material, by the prodigal use of lumber and the unnecessary thickness of such floors, and entailed an excessive amount of masonry in the walls.
Mills built after this manner were frequently in odd dimensions; and the machinery was necessarily placed in diversified arrangement, calling forth a similar degree of wasted skill as that used in making a Chinese puzzle conform to its given boundaries. Their area depended upon the topography of the site, and their height upon the owner's pocket book. There was in Massachusetts a mill with ten floors, built on land worth at that time ten cents or less per square foot, which has been torn down and a new mill rebuilt in its place, because, since the advent of modern mills, it has failed every owner by reason of the excessive expenditure necessary for the distribution of power, for supervision, and for the transfer of stock in process, in comparison with the mills of their competitors, built with greater ground area and less number of stories.
With the advent of the steam engine as prime mover in mills, and the introduction of the turbine wheel with its trunk, affording greater facilities in the application of water power, the character of these buildings changed very materially, though still retaining many of their old features. One of the first of these changes may be noticed in the consideration which millwrights gave to the problem of fixing upon the dimensions of a mill so as to arrange the machinery in the most convenient manner. Although the floors were still hollow, there was a better distribution of material, the joists being deeper, of longer span, and resting upon the beams, thus avoiding the pernicious method of wasting lumber, and guarding against fracture by tenoning joists into the upper side of beams.
But this secondary type of mills was not honest in the matter of design. The influence of architects who attempted effects not accordant with or subservient to the practical use of the property is apparent in such mills. The most frequent of these wooden efforts at classic architecture was the common practice of representing a diminutive Grecian temple surrounding a factory bell perched in mid air. There were also windows with Romanesque arches copied from churches, and Mansard roofs, exiled from their true function of decorating the home, covering a factory without an answering line anywhere on its flat walls.
I do not mean to criticise any of these elements of design in their proper place and environment; but utility is the fundamental element in design, and should be especially noticeable in a building constructed for industrial purposes, and used solely as a source of commercial profit in such applications. Its lines therefore fulfill their true function in design in such measure as they suggest stability and convenience; and this can be obtained in such structures without the adoption of bad proportions offensive to the taste. In fact, certain decorative effects have been made with good results; but these have been wholly subordinate to the fundamental idea of utility.
The endurance with which brick will withstand frost and fires, and the disintegrating forces of nature, in addition to its resistance to crushing and the facility of construction, constitute very important reasons for its value for building purposes. But the use of this has been too often limited to plain brick in plain walls, whose monotony portrayed no artistic effect beyond that furnished by a few geometrical designs of the most primitive form of ornament, and falling far short of what the practice of recent years has shown to be possible with this material.
Additions of cast iron serve as ornaments only in the phraseology of trade catalogues; and the mixture of stone with brick shows results in flaring contrasts, producing harsh dissonance in the effect. The facades of such buildings show that this is brick, this is stone, or this is cast iron; but they always fail to impress the beholder with the idea of harmonious design. The use of finer varieties of clay in terra cotta figures laid among the brickwork furnishes a field of architectural design hardly appreciated. The heavy mass of brick, divided by regular lines of demarkation, serves as the groundwork of such ornamentation, while the suitable introduction in the proper places of the same material in terra cotta imparts the most appropriate elements of beauty in design; for clay in both forms shows alike its capacity for utility and decoration. The absorption of light by both forms of this material abates reflection, and renders its proportions more clearly visible than any other substance used in building construction.
The modern mill has been evolved out of the various exacting conditions developed in the effort to reduce the cost of production to the lowest terms. These conditions comprise in a great measure questions of stability, repairs, insurance, distribution of power, and arrangement of machinery.
In presenting to your attention some of the salient features of modern mill construction, I do not assume to offer a general treatise upon the subject; but propose to confine myself to a consideration of some topics which may not have been brought to your notice, as they are still largely matters of personal experience which have not yet found their way into the books on the subject. Much of this, especially the drawings thrown on the screen, is obtained from the experience of the manufacturers' mutual insurance companies, with which I am connected. By way of explanation, I will say that these companies confine their work to writing upon industrial property; and there is not a mechanical process, or method of building, or use of raw material, which does not have its relation to the question of hazard by fire, by reason of the elements of relative danger which it embodies.
It is indeed fortunate that it has been found by experience that those methods of building which are most desirable for the underwriter are also equally advantageous for the manufacturer. There is no pretense made at demands to compass the erection of fireproof buildings. In fact, as I have once remarked, a fireproof mill is commercially impossible, whatever effort may be made to overcome the constructive difficulties in the way of erecting and operating a mill which shall be all that the name implies. The present practice is to build a mill of slow burning construction.