[30.] See diagram of mechanical Telautograph, and of bow drill. In the latter, in ordinary use, the stick and string; rotate the spool. Rotating the spool will, in turn, move the stick and string, and this is its action in the pen-arms of the Telautograph.
Only one essential item of the movement remains. The shafts of both instruments must be rotated by some separate mechanical agency, capable of being automatically reversed. By an arrangement unnecessary to explain in detail, the pencil of the writer lifted from the paper resting on the metallic table which forms the desk; results in the automatic lifting of the pen from the paper at the receiving desk.
Prof. Elisha Gray was born in 1835, in Ohio. He was a blacksmith, and later, a carpenter. But he was given to chemical and mechanical experiments rather than to the industries. When twenty-one, he entered Oberlin College, remaining there five years, and earning all the money he spent. He devoted his time chiefly to studies of the physical sciences. As a young man he was an invalid. Later he was not remarkably successful in business, failing several times in his beginnings. His first invention was a telegraph self-adjusting relay. It was not practically successful. Afterwards he was employed with an electrical manufacturing company at Cleveland and Chicago. Most of his earlier inventions in the line of electrical utility are not distinctively known. He has never been idle, and they all possessed practical merit. For many years before he was known as the wizard of the telautograph, he was foremost in the ranks of physicists and electricians. He is not a discoverer of great principles, but is professionally skillful and accomplished, and eminently practical. His every effort is exerted to avoid intricacy and clumsiness in machinery. In 1878 he was awarded the grand prize at the Paris Exposition, and was given the degree of Chevalier and the decorations of the Legion of Honor by the French Government, and again in 1881, at the Electrical Exposition at Paris, he was honored with the gold medal for his inventions. He secured the degree of A.M. at Oberlin College, and was the recipient of the degree of Ph.D. from the Ripon (Wis.) College. For years he was connected with those institutions as non-resident Lecturer in Physics. Another University gave him the degree of LL.D. He is a member of the American Philosophical Society, the Society of Electrical Engineers of England, and the Society of Telegraph Engineers of London. He received an award and a certificate from the Centennial Exposition for his inventions in electricity.
The same lesson is to be gathered from his career, so far, that is given by the life of every noted American. It means that money, family, prestige, have no place as leverages of success in any field. The rule is toward the opposite. The qualities and capacities that win do so without these early advantages, and all the more surely because there is an inducement to use them. There is no "luck."
[CHAPTER III.]
THE ELECTRIC LIGHT.
It has been stated that modern theory recognizes two classes of electricity, the Static and the Dynamic. The difference is, however, solely noticeable in operation. Of the dynamic class there can be no more common and striking example than the now almost universal electric light. Yet, with a sufficient expenditure of chemicals and electrodes, and a sufficient number of cells, electric lighting, either arc or incandescent, can be as effectively accomplished as with the current evolved by a powerful dynamo. [[31]]
[31.] As an illustration of the day of beginnings, a few years ago the thalus, or lantern, the pride of the rural Congressman, on the dome of the Capitol at Washington was lighted by electricity, and an immense circular chamber beneath the dome was occupied by hundreds of cells of the ordinary form of battery. The lamps were of the incandescent variety, and what we now know as the filament was platinum wire. Vacuum bulb, filament, carbon, dynamo, were all unknown. But the current, and the heat of resistance, and every fact now in use in electric lighting, were there in operation.