PREFACE.
As of late the employment of alternating current transformers has largely increased and become of great importance, indeed as they are called upon to play a striking part in electric lighting from central stations, the author has thought a short notice of the development of this invention would possess some interest. This task appeared to be so much the more pressing, as many distorted versions of the invention and its priority have found place in the technical journals.
The author has not let the reading of the large number of patents discourage him, and hopes that the following plain and concise statement of these researches will contribute towards the forming of a correct judgment as to the services rendered by the several inventors.
THE AUTHOR.
HISTORY OF THE TRANSFORMER.
As we wish to write of those discoveries which led up to the invention of the transformer, we must go back to a time, old as compared with the modern development of electrotechnics. For the starting-point of our observations we shall take Faraday, who, like Newton in mechanics, led the way in the domain of electricity, and whose name stands in the most intimate relations with all inventions for the mechanical production of the electric current, and therefore with the later development of electrotechnics.
Faraday,
1831.