Light from Noise

1895

The Remarkable Discovery That Is Claimed by an Expert Electrician.

Charles F. Kline, who is known as the penitentiary electrician, is recognized as an expert. Kline has developed a new and wonderful idea in electricity that is certain to attract attention. he says:

"If two dissimilar conductors of electricity, subject to slight atomic change under the influence of sound, are joined together after the manner of a pair of thermopile bars and the open ends are insulated by a suitable nonconductor of both sound and electricity, a current is generated when sounds are made in the vicinity of the exposed ends. If two or more such elements are connected together, we have an acoustic battery, and by increasing the number of elements it is possible to operate an ordinary. call bell by simply clapping the hands in front of the exposed ends of the battery. If a telephone receiver is placed in the circuit of this battery, articulate speech and other sounds are reproduced in the receiver without loss whatever of tone, pitch or quality, and we have at once a battery and a telephone transmitter combined.

By enlarging the surface of the exposed ends of the elements and by employing very loud sounds as an excitant a current might possibly be generated which would be of the required force and quantity to operate motors. Shops might be lighted to some extent by the noise of the machinery. A clock might be made self winding by the sound of its ticking, and then perpetual power would become as common as spring power. What the internal resistance of this battery would be when working under the influence of extraordinary loud sounds remains to be determined. But for most purposes the resistance would not amount to much, the materials from which the bars are made being made conductors.

"The noise made by walking on the floors or by shutting the doors might be made to charge small storage batteries, and electricity on tap would become as cheap as water. The materials from which the bars of this battery are made are not to be found in commerce." — Cleveland Plain Dealer.

Tape by the Mile

1895

At first blush it would not seem likely that electricians would have much use for tape, but as a matter of fact they employ it literally by the ton, especially of late years. The electrical circuits are of wire, and every time a joint is made it is served with tape, or should be, the tape being nearly an inch broad and well impregnated with insulating material to keep the current in and the moisture out.

Sometimes, if one looks up at wires in the street, stray ends of loose tape can be seen fluttering in the breeze, like rags from a sore finger. A great deal of electrical machinery is wound up with tape to prevent burn outs, and the street railway companies are wisely fond of liberally wrapping up their car motors in this way.

It would, in short, be difficult to find a modern department of electrical work in which tape is not an indispensable and ready means for helping to maintain the integrity and efficiency of the circuits. — Detroit Tribune.


Insurance

Insurance solicitors can get a point from one of their kind down in Greenwich, Conn., who has hit upon a novel method of scouring people to take out policies in his company. He mails a circular to those whom he thinks will insure, stating that, as their time is worth $50 a day, he incloses a check for 15 cents, which will pay for the time consumed in reading the accompanying insurance propositions. He caught one man for $10,000 who would probably never have read the circular but for the accompanying check. — Philadelphia Lodger.

King Electricity

1895

FARMER DUNN PREDICTS A REVOLUTION FOR EARTHLY FOLKS.

The Whole Atmosphere Soaked With Electricity — The Day Coming When It Will Supply Light, Heat and Motive Power. Coal a Curiosity.

Elias B. Dunn, the weather observer, has been studying atmospheric electricity. The sergeant, as they used to call him, the farmer, as they call him now, said that he will live to see the day when electricity, collected from the atmosphere and stored by some means which an Edison or a Tesla will have to devise will revolutionize the world.

The prophet expects that cities will be lighted and heated by atmospheric electricity; that railway trains and cars will be run, lighted and heated by it; that coal will become a curiosity; that steam heating will be granny talk to the children of the next generation; that the telegraph and telephone companies will lose their monopolies; that war will become a farce, because a touch of electricity will make the British grenadiers or the German Uhlans or the Scotch highlanders sit down on the cold ground powerless; that even the dreams of communication with the inhabitants of Mars will become realities, and that a man will be able to strike up electricity as he does a parlor match.

There will be no more trolley strikes, because there will be no more trolleys. Mankind will tap the atmosphere for almost every convenience or necessity, except food and clothing, and even the clothing will be woven and the food cooked by atmospheric electricity. Street cleaning will be as easy as the magician's "Presto, change!" and everybody will live comparatively happy ever after.

Mr. Dunn is sure that his ideas are practical and practicable. The atmosphere is his constant study, and having introduced general humidity to the public as the principal element in uncomfortable days he has determined that the most potent element for good in the air we breathe shall no longer be wasted.

"Why," he said, "The whole atmosphere is soaked with electricity. The earth, as is well known, is a storehouse of electricity. That it passes from the clouds to the earth we can see in every thunderstorm. Earth is a good conductor, especially damp earth, and water is the best conductor possible.

"Every person is possessed of body electricity. The vital force is all in the electrical power you contain in your body. When the day is damp, you become weakened through the loss of your bodily electricity, because the atmosphere is a greater conductor of the electrical fluid than your body, and consequently what is in your body will pass to this moist, damp air.

"That is the cause of that tired feeling. This passing of the electricity to the atmosphere enervates you to such a degree that a person in a naturally weak state will collapse or become much worse by the loss of this bodily electricity.

"The atmosphere being charged with electricity, and the earth being a storehouse for it, if there were some controllable method of storage devised by which you could draw off a moderate amount of electricity at will and keep that force on tap all the time, with an appliance by which power could be generated — and there is no reason why that can't be done — then atmospheric electricity would make all the wheels in the world go round.

"The coal barons would be done up," said Farmer Dunn savagely, thinking of the coal bill for his house in Brooklyn. "There would be no more need of coal. There ought to be enough electricity in the atmosphere to supply light and heat as well as to do all the work except the housework. I'm afraid it won't do away with the servant girl question, though it will modify it. I expect to live to see the day atmospheric electricity on tap. It will run everything on earth.

"It is well known that there is a greater number of deaths in the early morning, say from 1 a. m. to 4 a. m., than at any other time. Dickens was aware of that, but he didn't know the reason. You remember that poor old Peggotty, in 'David Copperfield,' went out with the tide. That's right. And it is in the early morning, that the daily ebb of the atmosphere occurs, when the daily atmospheric pressure is least. If at that time the atmosphere is in a state of saturation, very heavily charged with humidity, then the electric force leaves a person's body and flows to the atmosphere, greatly debilitating him when he is in a weakened condition. Now, should a person in that state be kept in extremely dry surroundings, so that he could be furnished with an adequate supply of artificial electricity and at the same time have the humidity reduced, there would be, in my opinion, a greater chance of prolonging life.

"If the doctors could provide means to supply in such circumstances artificial electricity instead of natural, it would probably be very beneficial. Just think of it! Here we are, spending millions of dollars to generate electricity, when it is all around us, and we are breathing it! Here's another thing: When a current of electricity is generated, where does it go? It can't die. It is somewhere. I should judge that it is simply adding to the amount of electricity in the atmosphere.

"It is natural to suppose that as long as the earth is given to us for useful purposes the atmosphere was not given for nothing. Of course it gives us health and breath, as the earth gives us what we eat, but since the atmosphere contains electricity, and we can use the earth as a power for carrying it, as is done by telegraph companies, why not use the electricity in the atmosphere?

"Once begin to use it, and there is no telling where it would end. War with atmospheric electricity as a factor would have to cease. The problem of signaling to Mars would be solved. With atmospheric electricity in control we could communicate with all the inhabited planets." — New York World.

Sanitary Lid for Teakettle

1916

Safety Device That Prevents Burns When Refilling.

Many a housewife has sustained a bad burn from lifting the hot lid of the kettle she was attempting to refill. A teakettle lid has been invented which will render this impossible. The lid has an automatic valve in the center which opens as the flow of water is turned upon it and closes when the water is shut off. This valve is at the bottom of a depression in the lid, and the concave thus formed is a convenient place to set a cup or other small vessel containing butter to be melted or other ingredients requiring gentle heat. The lid is of aluminum, thoroly sanitary and indorsed by the cooking experts who have seen it.



Chickens and Electricity

1916

By treating young chickens with high frequency, high voltage currents of electricity a London experimenter has made them grow more rapidly than those of the same age reared without the treatment.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Sept. 16, 1916, p. 9.

From Another Planet

1901

William A. Eddy Receives Mysterious Electric Signals

NEW YORK, Jan 14. — William A. Eddy of Bayonne, N. Y. says that since 1892 he has drawn from his kite wire hundreds of electric signals, both regular and irregular, which may have come from some planet and that the signals have been usually in groups of three, regularly timed like a Morse sounder. When the ends of the kite-sustained steel wires are separated by silk strands the sparks jump at 12-second intervals. Then there are mysterious disappearances of all electric action for several minutes. These electric sparks come from a high point in the air not near to the low tension electric currents and live trolley wire.

—Emmetsburg Democrat, Emmetsburg, IA, Jan. 16, 1901, p. 2.

Few Old Signs Left

1920

Many of the familiar trade signs used to advertise business enterprises have been discarded entirely in the onward sweep of advertising progress or displaced by more or less artistic displays of paint and electric lights.

One of the most common of the oldtimers that has vanished, says the New York Sun, was the wooden Indian, which kept its silent, stolid vigil beside the door of the tobacconist. The significant boot that once was suspended over the shop of the repairer of boots and shoes is also only a memory. So are the anvil hanging above the entrance to the blacksmith's shop and the horse's heads over livery-men's doorways.

The origin of the cigar store Indian dates back to Sir Walter Raleigh and his English settlers in our sunny South. These fortune seekers, visiting the unseen New World in the seventeenth century, and for the first time in the history of the white race learning the use of the tobacco weed from the North American Indian, symbolized this industry by the red man's imposing figure.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Jan. 3, 1920, p. 6.

Fire From the Sky

1920

Benjamin Franklin's kite-flying experiment has been spoken of as foolhardy. Undoubtedly it was risky. But he did not attempt it out of doors, as always represented in pictures. He stayed inside a room, through a window of which the kite string was passed. and to the end of the string he attached a length of narrow silk ribbon. Silk is a non-conductor. The ribbon was dry. Chance of a fatal accident thus was reduced to a minimum.

The Weather Bureau does much flying of kites for the purpose of studying atmospheric conditions far aloft. Box kites are used, and the "string" is piano wire unwound from a fixed reel. Every now and then lightning hits the wire, and the latter disappears in what looks like a streak of rusty smoke.

The kite flyers would run great risks were it not that they take adequate precautions, says the Kansas City Star. Instruments used in connection with the apparatus frequently indicate a high voltage, and a small spark gap would show an almost constant flow of current from kite and wire through the reel to the ground.

Crack of the Whip

1902

It is Rapidly Becoming a Sound of the Past

"That crabbed old German, Schopenhauer, who said the crack of the whip was like a drink from the bad place, would have found but little to complain of if he had postponed his passing for a while," said a thoughtful man, "for the whip is getting to be an awfully scarce article in this age. I suppose the whip will finally pass out of existence altogether unless it is put to a new use. Of course, the small riding whip, the kind which jockeys use in urging the horses they ride, will be used as long as horseflesh is used, either in the realm of sport or in the more serious affairs of life. But the kind of whip the old German had in mind was of a larger, longer and older type, the kind the ox-driver uses even now in some of the more remote sections of the world. Whips of this kind generally swing easily on the end of a long handle.

"Frequently the handle is eight or ten feet long and is made of hickory or some wood that is supple enough to bend in the green state. The whip itself, which is generally a four and six-plat rawhide, is from ten to fifteen feet in length, with a seagrass cracker on the end, tightly twisted and knotted at spaces an inch apart. It is this article that makes the noise of which the old German pessimist complained, and a whip of this kind in the hand of an expert can be popped until it sounds like the crack of doom. In a quiet forest where timbermen carry on their work this noise is even fiercer than it is in the cities. Teamsters in cities still use the old whip to some extent, but it is gradually going out, and the sharp crack of the seagrass is rarely heard. Speaking of whips, I am reminded of the marvelous accuracy some men acquire in the use of whips. I suppose the Esquimau has reached a higher standard of proficiency in this respect than any other class of men. I have seen boys of this race pop a silver half-dime at a distance of twenty feet every time they swung a whip. They can simply hit anything they want to hit as long as it is within the reach of the whip. But here in the South I have witnessed some rather notable performances in this respect. Up in Arkansas I have seen ox-cart drivers crack off a snake's head at a distance of twenty feet, and they could do it whenever it pleased them to do it. But these old whips are going out, and I suppose when electricity comes into more general use the crack of the whip will be an unknown sound." — New Orleans Times-Democrat.

Small Alarm Clock — Ouch!

1903

A novelty in the way of an alarm clock has been perfected by an American jeweler. It is about the size of a hazel nut. It is made to wear on the finger. The alarm is not a bell, but a sharp pin, which pricks the finger at the time the wearer wishes to rise.


Electricity Saves Windmill

In Germany electricity, among other curious results, has rehabilitated the discarded windmill. At Neresheim a windmill applies power for thirty-six incandescent lamps that light a large paint factory. Another in Schleswig-Holstein keeps a steady current of thirty volts. At Dusseldorf a windmill winds up a heavy weight of which the descent works a powerful dynamo.

Indians' Christmas Festival

1910

Miss Clara True, superintendent and special disbursing agent for the mission Indians in San Bernardino and Riverside counties, came to Los Angeles to purchase Christmas gifts for some of the Indians under her supervision.

The Indians near Banning are planning for their regular festivities on Christmas eve. They feast upon barbecued beef and play Indian games.

Miss True said the morals of the Indians of the reservations had improved fully fifty per cent, and that there was a noticeable improvement in their education and general condition.

"During the last century the Indians in this state have decreased at the rate of 50 per day," said Miss True. "About the time of the American occupation of the state there were about 210,000 Indians. Now we have 17,000. This amazing decrease has been caused by starvation, constant eviction from their hunting grounds, whisky and disease." — Los Angeles Examiner.


The Electric Light Dimmer

The "dimmer" system in use at the New Theater, in New York, is something new; the lights are controlled by automatic devices, whereby they may all be set at one time to any degree of candle-power, from 0 to 16, and then by the throwing in of a single switch they are all in operation at once.

Governor Gets Shock With Each Handshake

1915

Iowa Executive Puzzled Over the Repetition of Sensations — Discovery Is Made

DES MOINES, Iowa, Dec. 16. — Governor Clarke's dynamic personality was much more so than usual the other day, so much more so that the Governor shocked himself and kept on shocking without knowing what was the matter.

As visitors came and went during the afternoon, every time one received the gubernatorial handshake, the executive winced a bit and drew back his arm. Finally he decided it was time to see what was wrong.

"Say, Gus, what's going on here?" he demanded of A. C. Gustafson, his secretary. "Every time I shake hands with somebody I get a shock."

A brand new thick velvet carpet had just been placed on the floor in the Governor's office.

"Ah," exclaimed the secretary. "I'll bet that's it."

Gustafson dragged his feet over the heavy carpet as children used to do in the evening in the parlor before the gas was lighted. From the ends of the secretary's fingers the sparks of static electricity shot out.

"That's it," the secretary announced. "This new carpet is dried thoroly now with the radiator heat and all you have to do is walk across it to stir up the current."

Visitors in the office experimented and succeeded in making vivid electric flashes come from their fingers on contact with some other individual or with something leading to the ground. In the course of an argument arising from the Governor's experience, one man in a downstairs office succeeded in lighting a gas jet with a spark which came from his fingers after dragging his feet over a heavy carpet.

Porch Lamp is New Novelty

1915

Lights Interior as Well as Exterior of House

A novel porch lamp just announced illuminates both the hall or the front room and the porch. The lamp is mounted inside the house, adjacent to the porch. Part of the light is diffused thru the room, while a part of the horizontal rays is transmitted thru a one and a quarter inch tube to a globe outside the wall.


To Make Electric Controller

Evansville to Get Factory for Local Man's Patent

A $10,000 plant will be built in Evansville, Ind., next spring by a New York electrical concern which paid $40,000 for the patent on an electric controller invented by Michael Burns, of Evansville, according to a statement of James O'Toole, agent for the eastern concern. The plant will be used for assembling the controllers.


Non-Fly-Back Crank Arrives

CRYSTAL FALLS, Mich., Dec. 16. — Archie Liberty has invented a ratchet crank for automobiles which cannot fly back and break the arm of the operator. It consists of an ordinary crank with a flange attachment, with notches in its edge, forming a ratchet. On the outer casing, surrounding this ratchet, are six dogs that drop into the teeth of the ratchet and keep the crank from reversing.

Substitutes Mustard for Electricity

1900

A street faker in Kenton, Kansas, had a thriving business selling electric belts until someone examined one of them. Then it was found that beneath a strip of gauze was a layer of dry mustard. When the wearer perspired a little the mustard was moistened and set up a burning sensation and the deluded victim believed a current of electricity was passing through him. Before all this was discovered, however, the faker had smelled danger and was on his way to another gullible neighborhood.


Debts Make Life Bitter

Ex-King Milan finds it more difficult every day to borrow money. His debts and his difficulties make his life very bitter. He has arrived at that stage of his continental career when he is looked on with suspicion and is placed on the ominous black list of Carlsbad's business people, who warn all their friends against "a certain Milan, formerly king of Servia," and announce that no goods should be sold to him except on a cash basis. — James Gordon, in Chicago Record.

Man's Mental Power House

1914

On Proper and Wise Use of Brain Depends Individual's Value to the World

The brain is our mental power house; its electric product is thought, and our sanity is determined by the mental voltage we carry.

So long as we are live wires, so long as we transmit power, radiate love, give out sympathetic warmth, think individually and act collectively, we establish our right to live.

The lazy man, as has been frequently observed, us not only as useless as a dead man (and takes up more room), but he is a clogging drag upon the wheels of progress.

The man or woman blessed with imagination or anticipation possesses a sort of prophetic vision, a kind of instinct, so that they look upon life with prescience, strength of character and courage. This possession is not a gift of chance, but a cultivation that comes with useful activities.

Inspiration is the indicator of well-being in our mental power house — it is a by-product of labor, for without labor it merely becomes a mental dribble, a wasting (without renewing) of mental vitality. Inspiration is therefore the result of laboring, and when properly applied it is followed by achievements of great worth. Allied to labor, it expands its force. Unallied, it is soon exhausted.

Electricity in the Home

1901

Many devices are now available for use in the home. They include small hand lamps which light at the touch of a spring; a pocket lamp and battery made flat like a folding camera; ornamental candles with miniature lights at their tip; a tiny lamp attached to the front of a clock, and small lamps for decorative purposes.

A current is introduced in a house to supply power for flat irons, curling irons, coffee mills, ice cream freezers and sewing machines, and heat for chafing dishes and tea kettles. Telephones are replacing speaking tubes in most of the new mansions and also to connect with stables and other outbuildings.

If power from a waterfall or windmill is available the owner of a house can install an electric plant of his own at small cost. In many large country houses the dynamo is run by a gasoline engine. — St. Louis Globe-Democrat.

Nature's Secrets — Possibilities of Solar Power

1920

Man gets to feeling pretty smart at times, but nature still has a great deal to teach him if she only would, says the Ohio State Journal. A scientist in the employ of the National Electric Lamp Association at its great plant in Cleveland devoted the entire season last year to studying the lightning bug in the effort to find out how that interesting creature makes light without heat. He failed to discover the secret, as had many another scientist before him.

The potential power which falls on the decks of a battleship in the sunshine of an August day, if it could be harnessed and utilized, would drive the ship vastly faster and farther in a day's journey than its great engines can drive it. The problem of harnessing presents, thus far, the insurmountable difficulty. When that is solved, as probably it will be someday, people will heat their houses with stored sunshine and gas shortages and coal strikes will be matters of perfect indifference.

Nature is jealous of her secrets, but she has grudgingly given up some and she will give up more as time goes on for she cannot resist forever the blandishments of the endless race of wooers whose hearts and intellects are concentrated upon finding out what else she knows.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, March 20, 1920, p. 6.

Hazers Use Electricity, Victims Serious

1906

Four Students of Winona Technical School Given Treatment

Indianapolis, Ind., Feb. 23. — Electricity is the latest in hazing. Murray Robinson, Edward Jones, Charles Fisher and William Marsh, students at the Winona Technical institute, are the first victims. The work was done by upper classmen at noon yesterday. The four young men were subjected to an electrical circuit until they dropped exhausted. All are in a serious condition, but refuse to divulge the names of their tormentors.

When members of the faculty of the school were approached great surprise was expressed. An investigation followed with the finding of Robinson, Marsh, Jones and Fisher in bed. All efforts to get stories from them as to the affair proved fruitless. From other sources, however, the information was gained that the men were seized as they were leaving the building for their rooms, taken to the mechanical department, gagged and bandaged.

A powerful machine then was put in action and wires attached to all parts of the bodies. They were then held until one by one the victims fell to the floor unconscious. When released and revived each was charged not to breathe a word of the hazing under penalty of a more severe dose.

Director Smith says the matter will be investigated and the hazers punished.

"We have a complete electrical equipment," he said, "but I cannot think what apparatus they could have used. All our current is so heavy that it scarcely could be used in such a manner without killing a man or placing him in great jeopardy."

—The Fort Wayne Sentinel, Fort Wayne, Indiana, Feb. 23, 1906, p. 5.

A New Test of Death – Electrical Stimulation of Muscles

1878

A New Test of Death.

In the course of his researches on the electrical stimulation of dead muscles, Kappeler subjected twenty corpses to the action of various electric currents, noting the time of disappearance of contractility. In persons emaciated by chronic maladies it disappeared much more rapidly than in well-nourished individuals, or those who had had acute disease. It disappeared seven minutes after death at the quickest, and at six and a half hours at the slowest. In cases where a rise of temperature is observed after death, electric contractility persists longest. So long as there remains the least flicker of life the contractions continue intact. In the most prolonged faints, in the deepest lethargies, in poisoning by carbonic oxide, chloroform, etc., there is contraction so long as life lasts. But if the muscles make no response to the electrical stimulation, Kappeler pronounces life extinct.

Airship That Startled Farmers

1906

Farmers and other residents of New Fairfield, Conn., a town five miles north of Danbury, were startled the other day by the appearance of a strange object in the air, which many thought was an airship, says the New York World. There did not appear to be any persons aboard, and no one observed anything like a basket or car suspended from it. The object first attracted attention, as reported by members of the family of Mrs. O. D. Taylor, by a noise like an automobile. It went through the air very swiftly, and in shape it resembled a big naval torpedo. It was near enough to be seen quite plainly.


Electric Bulbs New Fish Bait

Fishermen at Coney Island are using electric lights at the water's edge to attract the fish, says the New York Journal. Many of them carried their own electric plugs, globes and wires and fitted the plug to the sockets of lamps on Dreamland pier.

Now That We Have Caught Your Eye

Advertisement, 1913

NOW
that we have caught your eye

We want to tell you about that new
Electric Iron

Just the thing for hot weather,
no red hot stove on a red hot
day — no walking, no lifting,
easy to regulate. Try one.

ADA ELECTRIC AND GAS COMPANY
Phone No. 78 — 209 W. Main

—The Evening News, Ada, Oklahoma, July 17, 1913, p. 3.