rning sticks or pieces of wood. In his search for more light, man learned how to make the tallow candle. Lights made in one form or other from t

a Frenchman named Lebon illuminated his house and garden in Paris with gas produced from wood. Street lighting by gas was introduced in 1807 by an Englishman named F. A. Winzer or Windsor, in Pall Mall, one of the fine streets of London. The fi

nto that city for purposes of illumination. Some of the newspapers of the time called gas a "folly and a nuisance"; and one of the professors in the University of Pennsylvania declared that even if gas were the

ompleting a circuit through which an electric current flows, and if the carbon points are separated by a short distance, the points will become intensely hot and emit a brilliant lig

the arc electric light, however, are due to Charles Francis Brush, an electrical inventor of Cleveland, Ohio, who in 1876 simplified the arc light so as to bring it into general use for lighting streets, large rooms, halls, and outdoor spaces. Brush was also the in

inventor. He was born at Milan, Ohio, February 11, 1847. His father was of Dutch descent and his mother was Scotch. The mother, who had been a teacher, gave him all the

s A.

. His spare hours in Detroit, between the arrival and departure of his train, he spent reading in the Free Library. Before long he had bought a small hand printing press, some old type, and plates for "patent insides" from the proprietor of a Detroit newspaper, and using the baggage car for an office, he s

ng a private telegraph wire from the depot to the town. Over this wire he forwarded messages, charging ten cents for each message. Next he went to Stratford, Canada, as night operator for the Grand Trunk railway. One night he received an order to hold a train. He stopped to reply before signaling th

rst experiments with a telegraph repeater, he left Indianapolis for Cincinnati, where he earned sixty dollars per month, besides something extra for night work. He Worked next in Louisville and Memphi

esumed his old position. After he had worked in the Louisville office for two years, his experimenting again got him into trouble. He upset some sulphuric acid, part of which trickled through the floor and spoiled the carpet in the manager's room below. For this he was discharged. He next went t

New York. Instead of throwing up his hands in defeat, as his companions expected, he received the messages easily, with a good margin to spare, and asked the operator sending at the other end of the line to "please send with the other foot." He was at once placed regularly on the

ted from a central office near Wall street. One day this central office was filled with six hundred messenger boys, each bringing the complaint that the machinery had broken. No one knew how to repair it. A stranger walked up, looked at the apparatus, and said to the manager, "Mr. Law, I think I c

ted his system of duplex telegraphy. Two years later he brought out the wonderful quadruplex system, by which four messages may be se

oratory at Menlo Park, New Jersey, twenty-five miles from New York City. When this laboratory was outgrown, he founded a new one at Orange, New Jersey, the largest laboratory ever established by one man for scientific research and invention. It comprises one building 250 feet long and thr

rseshoe thread or filament used to give off the light, a material that should glow with sufficient intensity and yet not be consumed by the great heat necessary to produce the light. In his search for this material he tried all kinds of rags and textiles steeped in various chem

ndescen

waste time in going over fruitless ground. He also keeps copious note books of his own operations, so that there may be no loss of time and energy. His invention of the phonograph, however, was accidental. While he was working to improve the tele

to the intelligent direction of effort, to tireless perseverance, and to long hours of work. In 1897 he devoted his attention exclusively to the invention of a new storage battery, upon which he had been working for five years. For more than a year he worked harder than a day laborer. He was in his laboratory by half past seven in the morning; his luncheon was sent to him there; he went home to d

er coming from this most ingenious of American inventors. He has taken out more than four hundred patents on original inventions and improvements. M

as made in the use of electricity for motive power, because the cost of producing the electric current was so great. In 1887 Lieut. Sprague, overcoming most of the difficulties then existing, installed at Richmond, Virginia, the first successful electric railway in the world. Managers of street railways in other cities visited Richmond, and after an inspection of what Sprague had done there, decided to substitute electricity for animal power. No other

ays, discovered by Wilhelm Konrad von Roentgen, a German physicist, in 1895. They were named X-rays by their discoverer, because the ultimate nature of their radiation was unknown, the letter X being commonly used in algebra to represent an unknown quantity. The X-rays

electricity applied to the soil will quicken and help the growth of certain vegetables.

the body of the condemned person, a current of electricity strong enough to produce death. Execution in this way makes death quicker and apparently less painfu

ord meaning "itself." The meaning of telautograph, therefore, is "to write afar by itself." By means of the telautograph, which is operated with electric currents, if a person writes with an ordinary le

his is a device for preventing railroad collisions. The signals are operated with electrici

m rows of type, called an electrotype, which is used in printing; in the navigation of small boats and the propulsion of automobiles; in playing organs and pianos; in driving electric fans; in drawing elevators i