Читать книгу For the Blood Is the Life - Francis Marion Crawford - Страница 21

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Augustus Chard believed that science had reached a point at which it was necessary to try entirely new experiments and to try them on a vast scale. It seemed to him that the problem of greatest present importance was of a practical kind — the production of electricity in a serviceable form and at a cost which should at once make it the universal source of heat, light and motive power for the whole world. After a careful examination he had come to the conclusion that the most convenient form in which the fluid could be produced was the voltaic, which also was unfortunately the most expensive. He accordingly set to work to ascertain whether any method existed, and could be guessed at, whereby the earth herself could be made to produce under the existing circumstances of nature a current of voltaic electricity. He argued that if such a current could be produced, and if the quality should prove satisfactory, the quantity as compared with the needs of mankind must be unlimited.

Acting upon his usual plan of beginning from first principles, he reflected*that in the earliest experiments voltaic currents were produced by immersing two metals in a fluid. He naturally discarded all the chemical theories of electricity as worthless, basing his reasoning entirely upon fact and not fearing to give trial to any system which suggested itself, regardless of all existing prejudices about probability. Grotthuss's hypothesis had no charms for him. The problem was, not how to explain the chemical action of currents, but how to produce currents on an enormous scale at a trifling cost. It was necessary to consult nature and not books. If he succeeded in producing a vast quantity of electricity he would find leisure to discourse upon its chemical effects. The idea that the earth must be considered to be a gigantic reservoir of electricity presented itself to his mind under a practical aspect; and it immediately struck him that in the shape of land and water the earth contained the two elements of a stupendous battery; acted upon at all points by a uniform fluid agent, the atmosphere. The idea was simple and grand. It would be sufficient to immerse one conductor in the sea and to attach another to the land. If anything were to result from the attempt it must result immediately. No one had ever thought of it before and the credit of the discovery would belong wholly to him, Augustus Chard. If it failed there was no one but Lady Brenda to say "I told you so." Augustus accordingly set to work to convert the earth into a battery, beginning with a preliminary experiment, to the success of which he attached considerable importance and for which he had caused special instruments to be constructed. Even if this previous attempt should fail Augustus would not be discouraged. A great mathematician has said that " a law would be theoretically universal if it were true of all cases whatever'; and that is what we do not know of any law at all." All previous experiments on such a scale might fail and yet the final experiment, which nobody had ever tried, might be brilliantly successful.

Augustus therefore proceeded to construct an artificial world. This is a very simple operation, and it is unfortunate that the construction of the real article should be accompanied with such difficulty. It would be well worth while for the European Powers to construct two little supplementary worlds, one for Russians to live in and one for Turks. It has indeed been found theoretically possible to make much out of nothing at all, but hitherto all efforts to materialise the cosmic ether into human habitations and other practical conveniences have signally failed. Augustus made his world in a glass bowl with earth and pebbles and salt water, and tested its nature with a tangent compass of his own invention, very delicately constructed. His expectations were raised to the highest pitch and he hesitated to make the connection of the wire in the mercury cup. At that moment Lady Brenda entered the room, dressed in an exquisite spring costume, with a little straw hat upon her head and a wonderful parasol in her hand.

"Come and look at my ghost," said Augustus, smiling.

"It does not look at all like my idea of a ghost," answered Lady Brenda.

"Neither is your idea of a ghost at all like mine," returned her son-in-law. "Look here, I am going to consult a kind of Egyptian oracle which I have reconstructed from original manuscripts rescued by Dr. Mumienschinder from a tomb in Thebes. The peculiarity of this oracle is that it tells the truth sometimes. It is a sort of teraphim — "

"Oh, I know. They eat teraphims in America. Brenda dotes on them."

"I said teraphim — you mean terrapin," said Augustus, gravely.

"I see," said Lady Brenda, "of course. Go on."

"Now I am going to perform a magic rite. I will put this bit of copper wire into this little cup of mercury. Do you see that needle? If the needle moves I shall be a great man — if it does not — well then we will see."

"Put it in. I am sure it won't move," said Lady Brenda, confidently.

"Here goes. One, two, three! "

Augustus and his mother-in-law fixed their eyes on the little needle. It trembled and moved, very little indeed, but visibly.

"Hurrah! " cried Chard. " I shall be a great man! I told you so! "

"How can you be so silly, Augustus!" laughed Lady Brenda. " Of course it moved — you shook it with the wire. Don't tell me you really put any faith in that nonsense! "

"I put a good deal of faith in it," he answered, quietly, still gazing at the needle, which remained deflected until he severed the connection, when it at once returned to its normal position. " Now that it is settled that I am to be a great man, let us go for a walk."

"Much nicer than pottering over such rubbish," said the lady. " I have just had such a delightful letter. Guess from whom it is ?"

Augustus guessed, and so they went down towards the sea. He was not given to talking of his intentions until they were fulfilled, and there was yet much work to be done before the colossal battery could produce the phenomena he expected from it. But he had a large body of workmen in readiness, together with vast quantities of material, which seemed to consist chiefly of great sheets of zinc-coated wire netting, of endless coils of the same wire and of great heaps of cork floats, each as big as a man's head, like those used for setting tunny-nets in the Mediterranean. In a number of large deal cases which were yet unopened there were apparatus of all kinds for electric lighting, there were electric motors, electric heating stoves and ranges for cooking by electricity; not to mention telegraphic instruments for measuring currents, for varying the tension of the electricity produced and for ascertaining the tension of the charge in long cables.

The workmen began their labours under Chard's direction and in a week the sea was covered for a considerable distance with a net-work of cables and floats disposed in the shape of a huge fan, adapted to the shape of the lonely little bay below the Castello del Gaudio. All along the shore and half way up the height every level bit of ground was covered with wire netting, and pieces of the latter were thrust into the deep crevices of the rocks and adapted over the rocks themselves wherever these were smooth enough; and the netting, again, was covered with layers of mud and sand and pebbles to protect it from the action of the sun. All these nettings were carefully joined to a system of thick, insulated copper wires which ultimately converged into "one cable and led to a stone hut at some distance from the castle. From the cables floating on the sea, endless spirals of zinc-coated wire hung down to the depths, but did not reach to the bottom. These spirals also were connected and the connections all ended in a second insulated cable which led up by high posts to the little hut. The interior of the latter was now transformed into a rough laboratory and some of the instruments were unpacked from the cases, cleaned from dust and dampness and fixed upon heavy deal tables. Thick glass pillars surmounted by massive brass knobs and binding screws stood upon blocks of wood, for Augustus had taken his precautions, not knowing how far the mysterious element might confine itself to the voltaic form, and fearing some of those startling manifestations of statical electricity which have puzzled and even terrified experimenters ever since Franklin drew sparks from his kite and since Armstrong's workman was knocked down by an electric shock from his steam-engine.

Augustus shut himself up in his laboratory and cautiously began his operations. It was first necessary to ascertain whether the current would produce a spark, and if so, whether the spark were of such magnitude as to be dangerous. Carefully he connected the extremities of his cables with a large universal discharger and adjusting the points at a distance of four inches apart, he retired to the corner of the hut when the commutator was placed upon a separate stand. With intense anxiety he turned the lever that was to produce the connection, keeping his eyes fixed upon the universal discharger. Instantly a lambent flame shot across the space between the points and shed a strange blue light upon the objects near it, even in the broad daylight. Augustus breathed hard. He feared that he had produced a current of strong tension and small quantity. He broke the circuit and increased the distance of the points to eight inches. Again the same lambent flame leapt across as he turned the lever of the commutator. The tension must be enormous, equal to that of a Ruhmkorff inductorium of a hundred thousand metres secondary coil, at the very least. Confused by an appearance so familiar to him, Augustus then attempted to charge a Leyden battery by attaching separate wires to the pillars of the discharger and allowing the sparks to pass as before. No result followed, and Augustus laughed at himself as he realised his mistake. But at ten inches and a half the spark ceased to pass between the points: even at that distance the tension in a constant current was almost incredible. Chard wondered whether the galvanometer would indicate any great quantity of the fluid. With such a tension a tangent compass was of little use and he introduced a common galvanometer into the circuit and watched it as he turned the key of the commutator. He expected to see the needle deflected to an angle of forty-five degrees, indicating a comparatively very small quantity of electricity, such as is frequently found in currents' of very high tension. To his surprise and delight the needle moved quickly round through an angle of 180 degrees and presently remained stationary with its north pole pointing to the south. The quantity was therefore enormous, far beyond even what Augustus had expected, and the tension was, after all, small in comparison. The real world seemed likely to carry out the promises of the artificial one. The gigantic force developed was docile as a child. There were no stunning and unexpected shocks from the fittings of the apparatus, no sparks flying off with a report like a pistol shot such as Augustus had seen in the handling of large dynamo-electric machines and other imperfectly controllable generators. Half an hour convinced him that the current could be stored in common accumulators without trouble or danger and that the tension could be diminished by diminishing the quantity. These admirable properties Augustus attributed to the perfect balance between internal and external resistance which was maintained in his vast natural battery. The incandescent arc light worked admirably and the accumulators when connected with electromotors left nothing to be desired. A few experiments with the latter and a few rough calculations convinced Augustus that the force of his constant current was sufficient to run a train of two hundred tons at the rate of a hundred miles an hour. The idea was fascinating and he grew pale with excitement. If a few hundred yards of collectors could produce such effects, what might be expected from an apparatus covering a mile of sea-coast ? Augustus resolved to illuminate the mountains that very night, in honour of the discovery, and he lost no time in setting his men to work. Lamps were hung upon the jutting rocks, upon the walls and terraces of the castle, upon posts set upright upon the narrow shore below, and high upon the tower a truck bearing half a dozen lamps together was hoisted and connected with the rest.