Part 21

"Yes," said Erg, as he rolled over, "they will have the right voltage when they use 20 amperes, but what will happen if they simply turn on one lamp. The drop in voltage then will be (.5 amperes × 4 ohms =) 2 volts; 105 cells at 1.8 volts a cell will send out there 189 volts minus the drop of 2 volts, leaving 187 volts upon a lamp adapted to 110 volts, and it will immediately burn out. The same thing would happen to any single piece of apparatus if the current was turned upon it alone. The only thing they could do if they wanted to light a lamp, say in the middle of the night to take a dose of medicine, would be to start up all together, all their lamps, sewing machine, wringer, dishwasher, fireless cooker, vacuum cleaner, etc., etc., to keep down the voltage so that one lamp would not burn out."

"I have read," said Ernest, "that they use rectifiers, which convert the alternating into direct current, for storing batteries. These are much used over the country. Electric automobiles run by storage batteries, and in the great majority of communities there is no other electric current than the alternating. So they would be helpless without the rectifier. We should then get another battery of fifty-five cells for the cottage and keep it stored by using a rectifier with our alternating current.

"But all their equipment up there," said Ernest, "is adapted to the alternating current. Of what use would a direct current be to them?"

"Well," said Harold, "it is all the same whether you have alternating or direct current on lamps, cooking apparatus, etc., and I have understood that they have motors which run on both alternating and direct currents. If so, that would fix them up all right."

The boys now turned to me for the first time to inquire whether motors could be obtained which would run on both alternating and direct current, and I replied that small motors for running sewing machines, vacuum cleaners, etc., were made which would serve us, perhaps not economically, but as they were the only solution to our problem we could get along with them.

"Why don't they have alternating current batteries?" inquired Erg.

"Well, it is time that we learned about the nature of batteries," said I, "if you boys are going to have two storage batteries to care for."

XIV

DOING CHORES BY ELECTRICITY

Chores were my salvation in youth, and those chores were not trifles. I was made to feel that the whole family depended on my milking the cows, bringing in the eggs, keeping the wood box full of wood, the water pail full of water brought from the old well, churning the butter, feeding and watering the animals, and performing a multitude of regular daily and weekly tasks. As I grew older my responsibilities were allowed to increase proportionally so that I might feel some measure of the dignity of being a mainstay and a support of the family. Long before I reached manhood occasional opportunities were presented for me to play the full part of a man. These sometimes came during a temporary absence or sickness of my father, but more often, as I learned afterward, by his skilfully eliminating himself from the situation so that I might try my powers.

We attempt in the present generation to furnish a substitute for the old time chores by our daily programme in school or in summer camp, but I often wonder whether this round of trifles can make men. Can one grow great without having a chance to feel occasionally that the world depends upon what he does?

The great advantage of Millville to us all lies in the fact that my wife is a good organizer. She immediately saw that the introduction of electricity into the cottage enabled her to assign chores to us all. These chores were assigned so that the establishment ran like clock-work. On Monday morning in a large room, called the wash room, she arranged the soiled clothes in five piles. Pile No. 1 contained sheets and pillow cases; No. 2, white shirts, shirtwaists, and other starched clothes; No. 3, underclothes; No. 4, towels, etc., and No. 5, coloured clothes. Here stood a washing machine run by electric motor and a wringer run by the same motor (Fig. 143). By the side of it sat a tub for rinsing water and next to that a tub for bluing water. Two boys placed a wash boiler over a two-burner oil stove, put five pails of water into it, and cut up one cake of laundry soap which they also put in. When this was boiling hot, about half of it was poured into the washing machine. The other half was to take its place later in the washing machine. The first pile of clothes was put in and the motor run for five minutes. This batch was then run through the wringer into the rinsing water, and then again through the wringer into the bluing water, and then through the wringer a third time into the clothes basket, and hung upon the line out doors in the clear sunshine, which did more than all else to make them sweet and clean. A basket of such clothes from the line makes you want to plunge your face right into it and take a good whiff. There is nothing like it except a mow full of new hay. The piles of soiled clothes follow one another through this series of tubs on about a fifteen to twenty minutes headway, so that the whole family washing is done wholly by two boys inside of two hours. Each pile after the first is given ten minutes in the washing machine.

On Tuesday the ironing is done with electric irons (Fig. 144). On Friday the house is cleaned by the vacuum cleaner, run by electricity (Fig. 145).

On Saturday a lot of baking is done in a series of fireless cookers (Fig. 146).

The sewing machine runs more than ever before. I hear "It is such fun to sew with an electric motor." And the electric fan which Harold installed for his mother over the sewing machine "makes that the coolest spot in the house."

Chores do not take all of the time, nor most of the time. They are simply the important things which must be done right on time. Meanwhile there is plenty of time for other things and a vast lot of experimenting goes on down at the mill. It is my chief entertainment to stroll down there every day and look on. One day I found this project on trial: On the floor (Fig. 148, f) of the room over the wash room at the mill a large dripping pan A, was set on blocks of wood so that one corner was lower than the rest. A rubber pipe, B, brought water to this pan from the mill pond, an inverted faucet, c, regulating the flow. The overflow from the pan fell into a funnel, d, the stem of which went through a hole in the floor. A short piece of rubber pipe connected this with the nozzle, e, of a gardener's sprinkling can, which hung from the ceiling in the compartment for the shower bath. Electric lamps attached to a board, g, were inverted over the pan of water, so that the bulbs of the lamps were immersed in the water. The electric current for these lamps was controlled by a switch, h, placed by the side of the water faucet. When one wanted a shower he could have it as cold or as hot as he chose by adjusting properly the switch and the faucet. Moreover, it was not necessary for him to wait, for warm water flowed immediately.

In discussing this the boys said that a 32-candle-power lamp used 110 watts, and that since 96 per cent. of the energy supplied to the lamps went into heat each lamp transformed 105 watts of electrical energy into heat. But 100 watts sufficed to raise one pint (one pound) of water five degrees in one minute. They used seven lamps or about one horse-power, and adjusted the flow so that the shower delivered one quart of lake water per minute warmed for a tepid bath.

The next time I sauntered down to the mill the boys were working on what they called an electric shower bath. They had fastened upon the wall of the bath room an electric bell (Fig. 149), and placed on a shelf near by a battery of two dry cells, P. The switch which closed this primary circuit was on the wall by the side of the faucet and electric heating switch (Fig. 148). One of the wires, S, for the secondary circuit was carried up and connected to the pan A (Fig. 148). The other wire was fastened to a sheet of zinc about a foot square, which lay upon the floor of the shower bath. The idea was that when one was taking a shower bath, if he chose to vary his sensations he might step upon the sheet of zinc, close the switch in the primary circuit and let the secondary current pass through his body by way of the shower. They said that it was particularly prescribed for slow people.

Speaking of chores, of course the most insistent chore was to keep the storage batteries stored. This process gave rise to many questions, through which the information contained in the next chapter was brought out.

ELECTRIC CURRENTS FROM CHEMICAL ACTION AND CHEMICAL ACTION FROM ELECTRIC CURRENTS

Luigi Galvani (1737-1798) of Bologna, Italy, in 1786 unwittingly produced an electric current from chemical action. Because he was eagerly seeking other results he misinterpreted this. Several words in the dictionary are becoming either obsolete or misnomers. For example, galvanism is an old-fashioned word for an electric current. The expression galvanic electricity is a relic of the abandoned idea that there are several kinds of electricity, of which Galvani discovered one. Galvanized iron is wholly a misnomer. It is a name used for iron which has been coated with zinc, and it suggests the idea that somehow the zinc is coated upon the iron by means of an electric current, whereas in fact it is done by dipping the iron into melted zinc.

Alessandro Volta (1745-1827) of Como, Italy, took up the discovery of Galvani, interpreted it correctly, and perfected the method of producing electricity by chemical action. What these two men really discovered was that it is possible to produce continuous currents of electricity. Before that electricity was known only by the instantaneous discharge or spark. From the name of Volta is derived the word volt, which designates the unit of electro-motive force. The adjective voltaic is synonymous with galvanic, as voltaic or galvanic cell, voltaic or galvanic current. For a long time it was thought that such an adjective was needed to designate electric currents generated by chemical action as a peculiar kind of electricity. We no longer think of electricity which is generated by chemical action as different from that generated by a dynamo or from any other source.

For about seventy-five years after the discovery of Galvani chemical action was our only method of generating currents of electricity, and it is largely owing to the inadequacy of this method of production that so few uses for electricity were discovered previous to the perfection of the dynamo about a third of a century ago. Two things have conspired to bring about this age of electricity. (1) The dynamo reduced the cost of production from five dollars to ten cents per kilowatt hour. (2) Mankind grew extravagant, greatly increased the number of things which it considered necessary, and at length became both able and willing to spend more for the things which it demanded.

The so-called voltaic cell is of scarcely more than academic interest now. The school which, as a rule, follows half a century behind practical life, has taught and still teaches the philosophy of the galvanic cell with great particularity. It is now being urged to undertake the teaching of the dynamo. Meanwhile the dynamo has almost driven out of existence all electric battery cells except the storage cell and the so-called "dry cell," and each year the dynamo is encroaching more and more upon the territory of the dry cell. In the present day, when a passenger upon a street car pushes a button to stop the car, he uses, not a voltaic cell, but a 500-volt dynamo current to ring a small buzzer, and it costs the company not one-hundredth part as much as it would to furnish him a battery equipment to do the same thing. Small dynamos and magnetos are displacing dry battery cells in the sparking equipment of motor boats and automobiles.

We lifted a dry battery cell out of its pasteboard case and found that it was contained in a metal cup of sheet zinc. The top of this was sealed over airtight with pitch, the purpose of which is to prevent this "dry" cell from drying up. We dug away the hardened pitch and found a black powder which was distinctly moist. In case the pitch becomes cracked or a hole appears in the zinc cup, the moisture passes out and the cell ceases to act as a generator of electric current.

The zinc cup had a lining of pasteboard on the sides and the bottom, similar to the pasteboard which enveloped the outside, only the lining was quite moist. A corrugated rod of carbon about an inch in diameter occupied the middle of the cup, and the space around it was packed full of a mixture of ammonium chloride, manganese dioxide, and other substances like plaster, etc., which differ with different cells. A dry cell which has been long in use is quite apt to show stains upon its pasteboard case. These are caused by holes which appear in the zinc. The production of electric current by the cell is dependent wholly upon a chemical action between the zinc and the ammonium chloride which results in the destruction of both. This chemical action cannot go on without moisture.

The zinc cup of the particular cell which we were examining appeared to be intact, and we proceeded to dig out the black powder. Its black colour is due to the manganese dioxide. Ammonium chloride is white. We lifted out the carbon rod and scraped the zinc cup clean. The binding posts attached to both the zinc cup and the carbon rod were left intact. Into the zinc cup we now poured a tumblerful of water and added about a quarter of its volume of hydrochloric acid, setting the whole into a large bowl to guard against disaster. Bubbles of gas were formed rapidly, causing the liquid to effervesce as a tumbler of soda water would do. We inverted an empty tumbler over the cup so as to collect this gas. In about two minutes we lifted the tumbler, still holding its mouth downward, and brought a lighted match to it. There was a flash and the contents burned with a pale-blue flame. Some of the zinc had united with some of the hydrochloric acid and set free hydrogen gas, which is one of the constituents of the acid. This is typical of chemical actions. Something similar takes place between the ammonium chloride and the zinc. Three interesting things occur in this experiment:

1. Chemical action, just described, is produced.