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EDISON INVENTS A NEW STORAGE BATTERY

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Many an invention has been made as the result of some happy thought or inspiration, but most inventions are made by men working along certain lines, who set out to accomplish a desired result. It is rarely, however, that man starts out deliberately, as Edison did, to invent an entirely new type of such an intricate device as a storage battery, with only a vague starting point.

Previous to Edison’s work the only type of storage battery known was the one in which lead plates and sulphuric acid were employed. He had always realized the value of a storage battery as such, but never believed that the lead-acid type could fulfil all expectations because of its weight and incurable defects.

About the time that he closed the magnetic iron ore concentrating plant (in the beginning of the present century) Edison remarked to Mr. R. H. Beach, then of the General Electric Company: “Beach, I don’t think nature would be so unkind as to withhold the secret of a good storage battery if a real earnest hunt for it is made. I’m going to hunt.” And before starting he determined to avoid lead and sulphuric acid.

Edison is frequently asked what he considers to be the secret of achievement. He always replies, “Hard work, based on hard thinking.” He has consistently lived up to this prescription to the utmost.

Of all his inventions it is doubtful whether any one of them has called forth more original thought, work, perseverance, ingenuity, and monumental patience than the one we are now dealing with. One of his associates who has been through the many years of the storage-battery drudgery with him said: “If Edison’s experiments, investigations, and work on this storage battery were all that he had ever done, I should say that he was not only a notable inventor, but also a great man. It is almost impossible to appreciate the enormous difficulties that have been overcome.”

From a beginning which was made practically in the dark, it was not until he had completed more than ten thousand experiments that he obtained any positive results whatever. Month after month of constant work by day and night had not broken down Edison’s faith in success, and the failure of an experiment simply meant that he had found something else that would not do, thus bringing him nearer the possible goal.

After this immense amount of preliminary work he had obtained promising results in a series of reactions between nickel and iron, and was then all afire to push ahead. He therefore established a chemical plant at Silver Lake, New Jersey, and, gathering around him a corps of mechanics, chemists, machinists, and experimenters, settled down to one of his characteristic struggles for supremacy. To some extent it was a revival of the old Menlo Park days and nights.

The group that took part in these early years of Edison’s arduous labors included his old-time assistant, Fred Ott, together with his chemist, J. W. Aylsworth, as well as E. J. Ross, Jr.; W. E. Holland, and Ralph Arbogast, and a little later W. G. Bee, all of whom grew up with the battery and devoted their energies to its commercial development.

One of these workers, relating the strenuous experiences of these few years, says: “It was hard work and long hours, but still there were some things that made life pleasant. One of them was the supper-hour we enjoyed when we worked nights. Mr. Edison would have supper sent in about midnight, and we all sat down together, including himself. Work was forgotten for the time, and all hands were ready for fun. I have very pleasant recollections of Mr. Edison at these times. He would always relax and help to make a good time, and on some occasions I have seen him fairly overflow with animal spirits, just like a boy let out of school. He was very fond of telling and hearing stories, and always appreciated a joke. After the supper-hour was over, however, he again became the serious, energetic inventor, deeply immersed in the work in hand.”

Another interesting and amusing reminiscence of this period of activity has been told by another of the family of experimenters: “Sometimes when Mr. Edison had been working long hours he would want to have a short sleep. It was one of the funniest things I ever witnessed to see him crawl into an ordinary roll-top desk and curl up and take a nap. If there was a sight that was still more funny, it was to see him turn over on his other side, all the time remaining in the desk. He would use several volumes of Watts’ Dictionary of Chemistry for a pillow, and we fellows used to say that he absorbed the contents during his sleep, judging from the flow of new ideas he had on waking.”

Such incidents as these serve merely to illustrate the lighter moments that relieved the severe and arduous labors of the strenuous five years of the early storage-battery work of Edison and his associates. Difficulties there were a-plenty, but these are what Edison usually thrives on. As another coworker of this period says: “Edison seemed pleased when he used to run up against a serious difficulty. It would seem to stiffen his backbone and make him more prolific of new ideas. For a time I thought I was foolish to imagine such a thing, but I could never get away from the impression that he really appeared happy when he ran up against a serious snag.”

It would be out of the question in a book of this kind to follow Edison’s trail in detail through the innumerable twists and turns of his experimentation on the storage battery, for they would fill a big volume. The reader may imagine how extensive they were from the reply of one of his laboratory assistants, who, when asked how many experiments were made on the storage battery since the year 1900, replied: “Goodness only knows! We used to number our experiments consecutively from one to ten thousand, and when we got up to ten thousand we turned back to one and ran up to ten thousand again, and so on. We ran through several series—I don’t know how many, and have lost track of them now, but it was not far from fifty thousand.”

The mechanical problems in devising this battery were numerous and intricate, but the greatest difficulty that Edison had to overcome was the proper preparation of nickel hydrate for the positive and iron oxide for the negative plate. He found that comparatively little was known by manufacturing chemists about these compounds. Hence it became necessary for him to establish his own chemical works and put them in charge of men specially trained by himself.

After an intense struggle with these problems, lasting over several years, the storage battery was at length completed and put on the market. The public was ready for it and there was a rapid sale.

Continuous tests of the battery were carried on at the laboratory, as well as practical and heavy tests in automobiles, which were kept running constantly over all kinds of roads under Edison’s directions. After these tests had been going on for some time the results showed that occasionally a cell here and there would fall short in capacity.

This did not suit Edison. He was determined to make his storage battery a complete success, and after careful thought decided to shut down until he had overcome the trouble. The customers were satisfied and wanted to buy more batteries, but he was not satisfied and would sell no more until he had made the battery perfect.

He therefore shut down the factory and went to experimenting once more. The old strenuous struggle set in and continued nearly three years before he was satisfied beyond doubt that the battery was right. In the early summer of 1909 Edison once more started to manufacture and sell the batteries, and has since that time continued to supply them as quickly as they are made. At the present writing the factory is running day and night in attempting to keep up with orders.

One of the principal troubles of the earlier cells was a lack of conductivity between the nickel hydrate and the metal tube in which it was contained. Edison had used graphite to obtain this conductivity, but this material proved to be uncertain in some cases. After a long course of study and experiment he solved this problem in a satisfactory manner by using flakes of pure nickel, which he obtained by a most fascinating and ingenious process.

A metallic cylinder is electroplated with alternate layers of copper and nickel, one hundred of each. The combined sheet, which is only as thick as a visiting-card, is stripped off the cylinder and cut into tiny squares of about one-sixteenth of an inch each. These squares are put into a bath which dissolves out the copper. This releases the layers of nickel, so that each of these squares becomes one hundred tiny sheets, or flakes, of pure metallic nickel, so thin and light that when they are dried they will float in the air. These flakes are automatically pressed into the positive tubes with the nickel hydrate in an ingenious machine which had to be specially invented for the purpose.

Not only was this machine specially invented, but it was necessary to invent and design practically all the other machinery that it was necessary to use in manufacturing the battery. Thus, we see that in this, as in many other of Edison’s inventions, it is not only the thing itself that has been invented, but also the special machinery and tools to make it.

The principal use that Edison has had in mind for his storage battery is the transportation of freight and passengers by truck, automobile, and street-car. Although at the time of writing this book the improved battery has been on the market a little over two years, great strides have been made in carrying his ideas into effect.

The number of trucks and automobiles using Edison’s storage battery already run into the thousands, with more orders than can be immediately filled.

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XXII

EDISON’S MISCELLANEOUS INVENTIONS

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Thus far the history of Edison’s career has fallen naturally into a series of chapters each aiming to describe a group of inventions in the development of some art. This plan has been helpful to the writer and probably useful to the reader.

It happens, however, that the process has left a vast mass of discovery and invention untouched, and it is now proposed to make brief mention of a few of the hundreds of things that have occupied Edison’s attention from time to time.

Beginning with telegraphy, we find that Edison did some work on wireless transmission. He says: “I perfected a system of train telegraphy between stations and trains in motion, whereby messages could be sent from the moving train to the central office; and this was the forerunner of wireless telegraphy. This system was used for a number of years on the Lehigh Valley Railroad on their construction trains. The electric wave passed from a piece of metal on top of the car across the air to the telegraph wires, and then proceeded to the despatcher’s office. In my first experiments with this system I tried it on the Staten Island Railroad and employed an operator named King to do the experimenting. He reported results every day, and received instructions by mail; but for some reason he could send messages all right when the train went in one direction, but could not make it go in the contrary direction. I made suggestions of every kind to get around this phenomenon. Finally I telegraphed King to find out if he had any suggestions himself, and I received a reply that the only way he could propose to get around the difficulty was to put the island on a pivot so it could be turned around. I found the trouble finally, and the practical introduction on the Lehigh Valley road was the result. The system was sold to a very wealthy man, and he would never sell any rights or answer letters. He became a spiritualist subsequently, which probably explains it.”

The earlier experiments with wireless telegraphy were made at Menlo Park during the first days of the electric light, and it was not until 1886 that Edison had time to spare to put the system into actual use. At that time Ezra T. Gilliland and Lucius J. Phelps, who had experimented on the same lines, became associated with him in the work.

Although the space between the train and the pole line was not more than fifty feet, Edison had succeeded at Menlo Park in transmitting messages through the air at a distance of five hundred and eighty feet. Speaking of this and of his other experiments with induction telegraphy by means of kites, he said, recently: “We only transmitted about two and one-half miles through the kites. What has always puzzled me since is that I did not think of using the results of my experiments on ‘etheric force’ that I made in 1875. I have never been able to understand how I came to overlook them. If I had made use of my own work I should have had long-distance wireless telegraphy.”

These experiments of 1875, as recorded in Edison’s famous note-books, show that in that year he detected and studied some then unknown and curious phenomena which made him think he was on the trail of a new force. His representative, Mr. Batchelor, showed these experiments with Edison’s apparatus, including the “dark box,” at the Paris Exposition in 1881. Without knowing it, for he was far in advance of the time, Edison had really entered upon the path of long-distance wireless telegraphy, as was proven later when the magnificent work of Hertz was published.

When Roentgen made the discovery of the X-ray in 1895 Edison took up experimentation with it on a large scale. He made the first fluoroscope, using tungstate of calcium for the screen. In order to find other fluorescent substances he set four men to work and thus collected upward of eight thousand different crystals of various chemical combinations, of which about eighteen hundred would fluoresce to the X-ray. He also invented a new lamp for giving light by means of these fluorescent crystals fused to the inside of the glass. Some of these lamps were made and used for a time, but he gave up the idea when the dangerous nature of the X-ray became known.

It would be possible to go on and describe in brief detail many more of the hundreds of Edison’s miscellaneous inventions, but the limits of our space will not permit more than the mere mention of a few, simply to illustrate the wide range of his ideas and work. For instance:

• A dry process of separating placer gold; the rapid disposal of heavy snows in cities.
• Experiments on flying machines with an engine operated by explosions of guncotton.
• The joint invention, with M. W. Scott Sims, of a dirigible submarine torpedo operated by electricity.
• Pyromagnetic generators for generating electricity directly from the combustion of coal.
• Pyromagnetic motors operated by alternate heating and cooling.
• A magnetic bridge for testing the magnetic qualities of iron.
• A “dead-beat” galvanometer without coils or magnetic needle.
• The odoroscope, for measuring odors; preserving fruit in vacuo; making plate glass; drawing wire.
• Metallurgical processes for treatment of nickel, gold, and copper ores.

From first to last Edison has filed in the United States Patent Office more than fourteen hundred applications for patents. Besides, he filed some one hundred and twenty caveats, embracing not less than fifteen hundred additional inventions. The caveat has now been abolished in patent-office practice, but such a document could formerly be filed by an inventor to obtain a partial protection for a year while completing his invention. As an example of Edison’s fertility and the endless variety of subjects engaging his attention the following list of matters covered by one of his caveats is given. All his caveats are not quite so full of “plums,” but this is certainly a wonder:

• Forty-one distinct inventions relating to the phonograph, covering various forms of recorders, arrangement of parts, making of records, shaving tool, adjustments, etc.
• Eight forms of electric lamps using infusible earthy oxides and brought to high incandescence in vacuo by high potential current of several thousand volts; same character as impingement of X-rays on object in bulb.
• A loud-speaking telephone with quartz cylinder and beam of ultra-violet light.
• Four forms of arc-light with special carbons.
• A thermostatic motor.
• A device for sealing together the inside part and bulb of an incandescent lamp mechanically.
• Regulators for dynamos and motors.
• Three devices for utilizing vibrations beyond the ultra-violet.
• A great variety of methods for coating incandescent lamp filaments with silicon, titanium, chromium, osmium, boron, etc.
• Several methods of making porous filaments.
• Several methods of making squirted filaments of a variety of materials, of which about thirty are specified.
• Seventeen different methods and devices for separating magnetic ores.
• A continuously operative primary battery.
• A musical instrument operating one of Helmholtz’s artificial larynxes.
• A siren worked by explosion of small quantities of oxygen and hydrogen mixed.
• Three other sirens made to give vocal sounds or articulate speech.
• A device for projecting sound-waves to a distance without spreading, and in a straight line, on the principle of smoke-rings.
• A device for continuously indicating on a galvanometer the depths of the ocean.
• A method of preventing in a great measure friction of water against the hull of a ship and incidentally preventing fouling by barnacles.
• A telephone receiver whereby the vibrations of the diaphragm are considerably amplified.
• Two methods of “space” telegraphy at sea.
• An improved and extended string telephone.
• Devices and method of talking through water for a considerable distance.
• An audiphone for deaf people.
• Sound-bridge for measuring resistance of tubes and other materials for conveying sound.
• A method of testing a magnet to ascertain the existence of flaws in the iron or steel composing the same.
• Method of distilling liquids by incandescent conductor immersed in the liquid.
• Method of obtaining electricity direct from coal.
• An engine operated by steam produced by the hydration and dehydration of metallic salts.
• Device and method of telegraphing photographically.
• Carbon crucible kept brilliantly incandescent by current in vacuo for obtaining reaction with refractory metals.
• Device for examining combinations of odors and their changes by rotation at different speeds.

It must be borne in mind that the above and hundreds of others are not merely ideas put in writing, but represent actual inventions upon which Edison worked and experimented. In many cases the experiments ran into the thousands, requiring months for their performance.

To describe Edison’s mere ideas and suggestions for future work would of itself fill a volume. These are written in his own handwriting in a number of large record-books which he has shown to the writer. Judging from a hasty inspection, there is enough material in these books to occupy the lifetime of several persons.

The immense range of Edison’s mind and activities cannot well be described in cold print, but can only be adequately comprehended by those who have been closely associated with him for a length of time, and who have had opportunity of studying his voluminous records.

The Boy’s Life of Edison